Previewing Black Monday

Just last week I was talking about how Seth Rogan was the king of high concept and low brow comedy. But here I am reviewing another show he is a producer of (and also directed the Pilot episode with his producing partner Evan Goldberg) and Black Monday is actually a simple concept about the stock market crash of 1987. Okay, since the show focuses on predominately male stock brokers, there still is plenty low brow humor. Or as our present day grooming companies would call toxic masculinity masquerading as humor.

Being Black Monday, naturally the show starts with someone throwing themselves out a window crashing down on a Lamborghini limousine. Which is apparently a real thing. But this a story is about what caused the crash so we then flash back a year. Oh and we get to see the tie pin that was on the dead body on one of our main characters. Though that person is no longer in possession of that tie pin at the end of the second episode so we will get to debate all season (or more)just who jumped out the window. And le me go ahead and ask now, wait, did he jump or maybe was he pushed? After meeting the characters, I would not rule out murder.

Despite the setting and time period, this is not Wall Street or The Wolf of Wall Street or even Billions set in the eighties (though it may be a not white washed version of Working Girl). There is a meeting in the second episode that looks like a Benetton ad. There is a black man, a Hispanic, a Jew, a woman, an Arab, and a Polynesian, and even one of them is a closeted homosexual. The lone WASP at the Wall Street firm is actually a new guy and actually the mark for the group.

Don Cheadle (House of Lies) is head of this rag tag firm who wants to be a big player by any means necessary. Regina Hall (Support the Girls) is his right hand man and best mind on the team. Andrew Rannells (The New Normal) is the bright eyed newbie who has brought his new algorithm to Wall Street. Oh and Ken Marino shows up as both Leighman Brothers (someone is trying not to be sued) which makes it twice as fun.

Black Monday is reminiscent of Cheadle’s last Showtime show with him yet again playing the leader of a firm in a ruthless industry, though a little less successful this time around. And of course, a lot more eighties reference. Though closing out the first episode with a montage of New York Stock Exchange workers set to Don Henley’s New York Minute is a little on the nose. Still, thanks to all the eighties gags, the new show is a bit more funnier… and twice the Ken Marinos.

Black Monday airs Sundays at 10:00 on Showtime.