‘Black Monday’ Season 2 Episode 9: Blair's cool despite Congressman Harris' suicide leaves fans shocked
Spoilers for ‘Black Monday’ Season 2 Episode 9 ‘At That Time’.
‘At That Time’ was a ride of an episode. While the episode makes sense of a lot of things, and even sets a course for what might happen in the season finale, it was nonetheless a wild episode. And that was mostly thanks to Blair (Andrew Rannells).
In the aftermath of Congressman Harris’ -- his secret lover -- suicide, Blair appears only too cool as a cucumber. We see Blair request his wife Tiff (Casey Wilson) to put him on the air in Pastor Newell’s (the Congressman’s homophobic father-in-law played by Michael Hitchcock) evangelical TV channel, where she had a guest show. She reluctantly agrees. But what happened next was a shocker. Blair goes on stage and confesses to his homosexuality (as a sin) in front of the audience. But then he blames everything on Harris, reading a fake suicide note from the now-dead Congressman. In the letter, Harris confessed to turning Blair gay with the Devil's help. And now that he was dead, Blair would be straight again. Rannell’s ice-cold performance in the episode gives you the chills.
And fans of the show could not help agree with that. “WOW!!!!!!! Blair doing the suicide note off of a whim, amazing!! Another great episode!” wrote a fan on Reddit. Another noted, “It was awful seeing Blair like that. How and why is he not mourning Harris???”
At the same time, fans could not help wonder if Blair actually went through conversion therapy. After all, on the stage, he gives Newell his gay-conversion therapy and the conversion therapist Dr. Gabe Egon (a hilarious pun for “gay be gone”) due credits for him becoming straight again, before announcing that he and Tiff were about to become parents.
“I really miss when Black Monday was a huge comfort show for me and not the source of an anxiety attack which left me trembling and crying for hours #BlackMonday,” wrote another fan, sharing a grab of the aforementioned scene. But Blair has his plans straight. He subtly threatens Newell, asking him to use his connections with the governor to bail him out.
One of the more strange yet hilarious bits of the episode was about Keith (Paul Scheer) and Larry Lehman (Ken Marino). In episode 8, Keith accidentally discovered that Lenny Lehman (also played by Marino) was still alive, and Lenny told him that Larry was using him and would throw him in jail again. In this episode, we see Larry, after learning what Lenny did, go and apologize to Keith. They spend the day together, becoming friends again.
They even wear matching costumes and prank people, something fans seemed to enjoy a lot. “Awww, Larry and Keith are so creepy/cute together,” noted a fan on Reddit. Many others on Twitter agreed that it was one of the more funny bits not just in the episode but also in the season. One fan wrote, “He's found a new twin in Keith, I guess.”
But the whole story was brought together by Mo (Don Cheadle). He hatched a plan that would require Blair to have the Pastor in his pocket, Keith to have Larry in his, and Dawn (Regina Hall) to have Marcus (Dule Hill) in hers. This was their only way to save themselves from the FBI. But what was the plan?
Fans couldn’t wait for the season finale. “Just give us the finale already,” wrote a fan, adding, “AND give us a season 3 as well!”
New episodes of ‘Black Monday’ arrive every Sunday at 8 pm EST/PST only on Showtime.