The Book of Rannells: Welcome to the Wayne: Season 1, Episode 20 – “So This is Glamsterdam” (2019)

 

What does the season finale have?  Well, what doesn’t it have?  A secret city hidden in the Wayne, the culmination of a prophecy, mechanical pigeons, zig-zag swords, an MMORPG, and everything else I’ve come to expect from Welcome to the Wayne.  Also, you’ve gotta love a show that includes the line, “I just tesseracted from Poughkeepsie!”  As I predicted, the finale closes one chapter while leaving room for another.

The spy’s season-long plan finally seems to be in reach, and Andrei is the last piece she needs of the puzzle.  It’s up to Team Timbers, along with their newest members, to save both their friend and the Wayne, but not in the way they’re expecting.

This episode ties together nearly every mystery from the season and puts them all into one big culminating finale.  We’ve got Andrei and the mystery surrounding him.  We’ve got WPs and the rainbow gas.  We’ve got a more recent mystery the expanded team of kids has been investigating (mostly in the Andrei-less episodes) related to the Lewis Carroll poem “Jabberwocky” – it’s not really a party until you throw in references to a poem written at least 100 years ago.  We’ve got the return to a particular small mystery from one of the first episodes of the show that even makes Ollie comment, “Bet you didn’t expect this to come back!”  Basically, it all comes to a head, but like I said, there are still some new threads to pull at, new questions that have yet to be answered – good thing they got that season renewal after all!

Andrei is back after being absent for another few episodes.  Technically, he does show up briefly in episode 19, but it’s a wordless cliffhanger leading into the finale, meaning Andrei the character appears in animation but not Andrew Rannells the actor.  Here, though, we get both.  Not as much of him as I would’ve liked – while he’s very much the focus of the episode, with multiple groups fighting over him, most of the action happens around him without him taking much of an active role in it.  He’s maybe a few steps above damsel status.

Still, we’re not left without a bit of good stuff.  For whatever reason, it kills me that, when Saraline tells Andrei (suffering under the effects of rainbow gas) to go home and eat something, he replies, “All I have are three gallons of Uncle Tahir’s Artisanal Ice Cream” – it’s so delightfully random and specific.  Also, the denouement of the episode features a different side of Andrei, and I’m impressed with how completely different Rannells sounds.  I mean, it’s still recognizably his voice, but with just a little modulation, Andrei’s bearing totally changes and you get a sense of just how big an impact his amnesia has had on him.  It’s a small moment, but it’s a neat one.

By now, season 2 has aired, and Andrei isn’t in it, which makes sure. While there’s certainly room left open here for a potential return, his plot is sufficiently resolved in the finale. And so, farewell, Welcome to the Wayne!

Recommend?

In General – Yeah.  It’s weird and inventive with a terrific sense of adventure and mystery.  When I picked up these initially-unaired episodes, I watched the entire season, not just Rannells’s episodes, and the whole show is great.

Andrew Rannells – I would.  Andrei is a fun, intriguing character, and I like what Rannells does with him.  Plus, he fits in so well with the overall sensibility of the series.

Warnings

Violence, scary moments, some gross-out humor, and thematic elements.

The Book of Rannells: Welcome to the Wayne: Season 1, Episode 16 – “What’s for Linner?” (2019)

 

Sure, as soon as I call Andrei the most prominent character outside the main trio, he disappears for two episodes.  I stand by it, though – his absence is purposeful, and the episodes where he’s gone still mention him.  Here, with his return, we see a ramp up in the big story arc and his undeniable involvement in it.

The kids receive a message from Katherine Alice, a young friend of theirs in the Wayne (one of the episodes I didn’t review featured them “collecting” other kids in the building who know about WPs.)  Katherine Alice has no voice and communicates through origami figures that she enlivens with rainbow gas, and she sends signs for Ansi, Olly, and Saraline to follow, so they can help her out of a dicey situation.  She’s seen something important, and she and the trio need to get to it before the spy does.

Again, very arc-based.  Things are coming to a head in a big way, and I assume the season finale will lead to some sort of culmination, even as it likely introduces new questions.  But different elements are starting to come together, and the kids and the spy are both hot on the trail.  The spy is insistent that the kids don’t truly understand what they’re messing with, that’s she’s not the villain they’ve been painting her as, which is intriguing.  It reminds me of the later Series of Unfortunate Events books, when the Baudelaires start to worry that the lines between wicked and noble person are less distinct than they thought, and they’re less sure of where they stand on that divide.  The kids on this show aren’t buying too much into that idea yet, but the exchange does lead to this great bit from Ansi:  “You’re the bad guy – uh, girl.  You’re the bad girl.  You’re a very bad girl!  …This got weird.”

In other news, the animation really outdoes itself in this episode.  I’ve liked Katherine Alice and her origami figures since she was introduced, and this episode features a life-sized paper forest she created, which is just too cool and too lovely.  Not to mention, it’s an excuse for the awesome line, “Do you know how much paper had to die to make these trees?!”  Olly-Ansi and Saraline-Katherine Alice both have some nice friendship moments along different themes.

I’m glad to see Andrei back and intrigued by what’s going on with him.  I won’t get into it too much, to avoid spoilers, but he’s both physically affected by the strange qualities of the Wayne and personally invested in the spy’s plan, which she needs him to complete.  However, I’m a bit disappointed that we don’t see any interpersonal fallout from the conflicts that came up near the end of Andrei’s last episode.  It was the cited reason for his two-episode disappearance, that he was upset with the kids and had run off, but when the kids find him again, neither side deals with why he was mad to start with.  I suppose it’s possible that that’s still coming – the situation in this episode is urgent enough that maybe they just haven’t had time for it yet – but it’s hard to say.  I hope we get something to that effect, because I was hoping to see what Andrei’s dynamic with the kids is when he’s at odds with them.

The Book of Rannells: Welcome to the Wayne: Season 1, Episode 12 – “Wall-to-Wall Ping-Pong Ball” (2019)

Third unaired Welcome to the Wayne episode, third in a row to focus on Andrei, who’s quickly emerging as the most prominent character outside the central trio.  More hints about the underlying mystery surrounding Andrei, terrific animation, and a ton of great lines.

While trying to make a complete record of Andrei’s powers, the kids discover a book that may unlock some of the secrets of Andrei’s forgotten past.  They take a trip to the Stanza, the Wayne’s secret library staffed by flying squid-like creatures (just go with it,) but the answers they’re looking for are hard to get their hands on.  The librarian is nowhere to be found, the library itself seems out to get them, and there’s a ninja determined not to let Andrei leave.

This show is such a delight.  I love that it creates situations in which lines like, “We don’t negotiate with library ninjas!” are completely valid, and where else are you going to find a kick-line of menacing knights?  I’ve already gone back to check out the show’s non-Andrei episodes, but I may also need to see what else the creators have made, because this particular brand of imagination and sense of humor appeals to me all the way.

No surprise, Olly is a highlight.  Here, there’s a running gag that he hopes to go viral with the video he records of Andrei showing off his powers – I love the line, “If you don’t get a million views before you hit 11, what are you even doing with your life?” – and he and Ansi have a goofy back-and-forth re:  the menacing knights.  Meanwhile, Saraline gets to deliver the witheringly dry, “Not every book is about tattoos, Olly.”

And Andrei himself is great.  This is another heavily-serialized episode, and a lot of the stuff the kids get into, including the Stanza itself, are things Andrei hasn’t seen before, so his bewildered along-for-the-ride confusion is a lot of fun.  Like I said, we dig more into his unknown backstory – less about him specifically than about vampires in general, and some of what he learns worries him. 

Andrei also has some fantastic lines, made all the more entertaining by Andrew Rannells’s line readings, which are magic as usual.  My favorites are as follows:  “Whoa, this is a library?  I thought they were underfunded.”  “Just go, guys – I’ll be okay.  That’s what people say in movies, right?  Please don’t go!”  (I love scaredy-cat Andrei.)  And, of course, “You’re a ninja, I’m a vampire – let’s just celebrate how cool that is for a second!”