If you’re too young to remember the actual Black Monday, the title refers to the worst stock market crash in Wall Street history on October 19, 1987. Creators David Caspe and Jordan Cahan open on that nightmare of a day when stock brokers literally leapt from their Wall Street windows, flashing back with a promise to detail how and why the still-mysterious crash happened. From scene one, the show plays fast and loose with ‘80s fashion and style, amping up the hairdos, tightening the blue jeans, and sprinkling cocaine over almost everything. At times, it plays almost like a parody of the ’80s, like Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street” (which is actually rather humorously a part of the plot of episode two) mixed through the lens of VH1’s “I Love the ‘80s.”
The great Don Cheadle stars as Maurice Monroe, the head of a Wall Street firm called The Jammer Group. Mo is a loudmouth scam artist, the kind of guy who drives a Lamborghini Limousine, and barely flinches when someone points out how ridiculous that is because it doesn’t give the speed of the former or the comfort of the latter. Cocaine, strippers, a robot butler—Mo is almost a variation on Jordan Belfort from “The Wolf of Wall Street.” Except this is a TV show, so Mo can’t quite be that cutthroat or that interesting, coming off more as a caricature than someone genuine. Cheadle tries his best to ground Mo—and there’s every reason to believe he’ll find the nuance missing from this character over the first three episodes, but I can only judge what I’ve seen and I found Mo far more annoying than I did engaging. Like really, really annoying.
Making out much better and pretty much stealing the show is the great Regina Hall as Mo’s longtime partner (and possible love interest) Dawn. Hall can ground a ridiculous moment or sell an overwritten scene like nobody else, and she walks away with “Black Monday” almost every time she’s on screen. Sadly, the typically excellent Andrew Rannells (“Girls”) isn’t so lucky yet, floundering as the new kid at the company who’s in way over his head. The supporting cast is filled out with people I typically love including Casey Wilson, Paul Scheer, Ken Marino, and Horatio Sanz.
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