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Showtime’s new series Black Monday (airing tonight at 10 p.m.) tells the story of the worst stock market crash in the history of Wall Street. Viewers will travel back to October 19, 1987 to co-pilot one of the most outrageous financial blunders in history. The show’s official description reads: “To this day, no one knows who caused it…until now. It’s the story of how a group of outsiders took on the blue-blood, old-boys club of Wall Street and ended up crashing the world’s largest financial system, a Lamborghini limousine, and the glass ceiling.”
The 10-episode comedy series comes from Happy Endings creator David Caspe, writer Jordan Cahan (My Best Friend’s Girl), Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg (Preacher), and Sony Pictures TV Studios.
“Black Monday is a scathing comic commentary on the excess of the ’80s,” said Showtime president David Nevins.
Ahead of the show’s premiere (which can now be seen for free now over at Showtime), here are cast spoilers and everything you need to know about Showtime’s latest.
Who Stars in Black Monday?
Don Cheadle as Maurice Monroe
Black Monday marks Cheadle’s return to the network after the shockingly underrated consulting comedy House of Lies. This time, Cheadle plays Maurice “Mo” Monroe, a self-educated, self-made, self-destructive founder of the Jammer Group, a small Wall Street trading firm made up of all the underdogs that couldn’t get hired by the blue blood firms of the 1980s. Dubbed by their fellow Wallstreeters as “the L.A. Raiders of corporate raiders” due to their wild reputation, Mo is determined to lead his band of merry outlaws to the top or crash the market trying.
Cheadle won a Golden Globe for his work on Lies and four consecutive Emmy nominations. The actor also won a Grammy Award for his role as Miles Davis in Miles Ahead, a film he directed, co-wrote, and produced.
Andrew Rannells as Blair Pfaff
Blair is a fresh-out-of-Wharton trading prodigy with his choice of any top firm on the street until a fateful run-in leaves him with no choice but to work at what he disgustingly calls “Mo’s little chop shop.” Blair’s pure heart will struggle to survive The Jammer Group from both a metaphoric and a cocaine standpoint. Despite his corn-fed naiveté, Blair is the only one with the balls to stand up to Mo.
Rannells is a Tony-nominated stage actor for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical for his performance as Elder Price in The Book of Mormon. As a soloist on the musical’s original Broadway cast recording, he won the 2012 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. He received a second Tony nomination in 2017 for his performance as Whizzer in the 2016 Broadway revival of Falsettos. Other Broadway credits include Hairspray, Hamilton, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Jersey Boys, and The Boys in the Band.
Regina Hall as Dawn Towner
Dawn is Mo’s right hand (wo)man and the only female head trader on Wall Street, not to mention one of the few female traders at the time. Dawn is highly educated and highly determined to ride the second wave of feminism through this toxic sea of horny man-children, crashing the glass ceiling—and possibly the market and her marriage—in the process.
Hall is best known for her role as Brenda Meeks in the Scary Movie franchise. Her other credits include Love & Basketball, The Hate U Give, and Girls Trip.
Paul Scheer as Keith Shankar
Keith is “a goddamned mess,” (every show has to have one) but he’s a hell of a trader. No one enjoys the unbridled excesses of the ‘80s quite like Keith. He works hard and parties hard, usually at the same time. But beneath it all, he really just wants love. And drugs and money and sex. Who can blame the guy?
Scheer is known for his starring role in FX’s The League. He co-hosts a film discussion podcast called How Did This Get Made? alongside his wife June Diane Raphael and Jason Mantzoukas.
The series also stars Yassir Lester, Michael James Scott, and Eugene Cordero, in addition to guest stars Casey Wilson (Happy Endings), Ken Marino (Party Down), and Kurt Braunohler (Bob’s Burgers, Lady Dynamite).
In episode two airing next week, a Hollywood screenwriter shadows Mo at the office as Mo and Dawn fight over her desire to be made a partner. Keith plays a prank on Blair. Airing February 10, the third episode will see Mo attempt to create a father/son bond with Blair. Dawn and Spencer have a lively dinner with Dawn’s parents. Keith finds his secret increasingly difficult to hide.
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