Black monday
Welcome to the weekend frenzy. Each week, we’ll bring you a compelling title designed to keep you from going too crazy. Check back throughout the weekend for even more gloriously queer entertainment.
The forgotten: black monday
A coworker drew us to this show, and we have to ask ourselves: why oh why isn’t this show more popular?
Black Monday, the Showtime series that just wrapped up its third season earlier this month, doesn’t get enough credit as a scathing indictment for excess and a gripping antihero story. The show stars Don Cheadle, one of the great actors of our time, as Maurice, a flamboyant stockbroker who thrived on Wall Street in 1987. In the pilot episode, Maurice joins forces with the nerdy Blair (Andrew Rannells), another aspiring broker hoping to stack paper in the bank and live the glamorous 80s yuppiedom life. The two plot and trade alongside Dawn (the always underrated Regina Hall), a broker. ambitious woman who happens to be the only woman among her colleagues, and Keith (Paul Scheer) an overly aggressive nerd and closet affair.
This is the configuration. The first season of Black Monday deals with Maurice and his company as they get closer to the famous stock market crash of October 1987, while the following seasons trace the group back to the release of the fallout. The show borrows from other classic Wall Street evil stories such as The Bonfire of the Vanities, Wall Street and The Wolf of Wall Street to confuse the greedy mindsets that drive financial culture, often at the foot of a cliff. . Created by Jordan Cahan and David Caspe, the show never quite reaches that level of insight or satire … maybe because she actually loves her characters and doesn’t want to see them as horrible people. To their credit, Caspe & Cahan provide a lot of homosexuality when it comes to the characters, and don’t shy away from examining the state of the queer community in the 1980s (Spoiler alert: it was really bad being LGBTQ at the time).
Black Monday is not a perfect series, but then, how many series are there really? We recommend him for his glimpse into LGBTQ life in 1980s New York City and for a stellar cast. In addition to Cheadle, Hall, Rannells, and Scheer, screen gems Tuc Watkins (Rannells’ actual boyfriend), Bruce Dern and Julie Haggerty all have recurring roles. With a fourth season already in the works, we think it’s time to get into the business.
Aired on Showtime.
