[7.7/10] Man, there’s a lot going on in this one, so let’s try to take it character by character. At the end of the day, this episode is interesting because it’s as much about what the characters want and their conflicted motivations as it is about any particular plot thing. Well, except for Yassir and Wayne waking up to find a dead body. That’s pretty much just about this show’s insane comic propensities, and is also the weakest part of the episode. But there’s still some decent laughs from Wayne getting a milkshake in between disposal shopping sprees or Mo revealing that the whole thing is a big gotcha for pulling the LaGuardia play with his Yakuza money. It’s more zany comic texture than anything, but it works. I think my favorite bit in this episode was Keith’s story. For one thing, the comic insanity of his scheme to get out of his family road trip blends the character’s intriguing mix of being ingenious, terrible, and also somehow kind of sympathetic. The whole deal about him valuing being a part of his boyfriend’s life, and trying to be his authentic self at a time and in a business where that would leave him ostracized adds some pathos to a character who is objectively awful. And the fact that his self-acceptance is met with love and appreciation from his boyfriend, only to be used against him by the SEC investigators is a great encapsulation of this show’s empathetic but dark heart about just about everything. The same goes for what goes on in the Mo/Dawn/Spencer part of the show. You feel for Dawn because on the one hand she’s unsatisfied in her marriage, and she’s mistreated by Mo, and the only person who seems to genuinely care for and appreciate her is a guy who’s grappling with whether or not he’s gay. But on the other hand she’s also lying to her husband about trying to get pregnant and about her history with Mo. And that leads to what I think my biggest problem with this episode (and maybe the show?) is -- that they turn Spencer into such a Baxter, i.e. an obvious third wheel to the show’s main couple getting together. The love pentagon the show has brewing here is more interesting and complicated if Spencer is a square, but decent man who just isn’t on the same wavelength as Dawn. Instead, he becomes someone who’s scheming to get her pregnant and not working who’s angrily jealous and manhandles her on the way out of the party. That makes the scenario a lot flatter and more generic and straightforward. And I’m not asking for Spencer to be a saint, but the change in his characterization here makes Dawn’s situation far too easy. But then again we get a bit of unexpected development for Tiff here, who despite her social-climbing cutthroat ways, seems to harbor some genuine appreciation for Blair and some genuine hurt that he may not actually like her. It’s interesting mixed with Blair’s one-man gay panic, and Tiff’s been such a cartoon character up to this point that it’s hard to know how to take. But I at least appreciate the show giving her the lightest hint of depth at the same time Spencer is being flattened. And Mo is also interesting here, where after seemingly getting to the brink of an epiphany, he loses part of his company and is thus back to being all business and in DGAF mode. Watching him try to schmooze Tiff’s family (who have a great exchange with his “date”), and feign not caring about anything while trying to pull the Georgina Play off is an interesting shift with him given how far he’s made it to this point. Last but not least, I think that at the end of the day, I’m rooting for Dawn and Blair, because they seem like the two most decent people on this show, who aren’t perfect (with Blair in particular sullying himself a bit here), who spend a lot of this episode struggling with what they want, but who ultimate seem to find solace and understanding and respect with one another. It’s not a pairing I would have expected, but it’s one that I suddenly find myself hoping is the endgame here. Overall, this was a great episode that spins a number of threads, but manages to tie them altogether in a largely satisfying way.

This show keeps getting better