Spoilers for "Bad Money" within.
“Bad Money” manages to dig Pied Piper’s hole even deeper as Richard accepts financial backing from a has-been egomaniacal billionaire named Russ Hanneman (Chris Diamantopoulos), a man famous – and rich – for “putting radio on the Internet” in the mid-90s. Meanwhile, Gavin Belson does his own grave digging as he makes an ill-advised comparison between the struggles of living as a successful billionaire and the plight of the Jews in Nazi Germany, a thread that doesn’t provide as many laughs as it could.
Hanneman is the real center of this episode, as nearly the entire cast is left to react to Diamantopoulos’ antics. The character isn’t all that original, but in the context of the show’s status quo he out-Erlichs Erlich in a pretty funny way; he’s an obnoxious but oddly charismatic salesman and showman. Bad Money” stretches the Hanneman gag a bit too far to the point of it being tiresome, but there are some funny bits in between -- most notably the auto-fill Google results when the gang searches his name, and the writers pitting him against Erlich at every possible turn. Plus, Diamantopoulos gets to deliver some funny one-off lines; “I’ve got three nannies suing me right now, one of the for no reason!” is a particular favorite.
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“Bad Money” manages to dig Pied Piper’s hole even deeper as Richard accepts financial backing from a has-been egomaniacal billionaire named Russ Hanneman (Chris Diamantopoulos), a man famous – and rich – for “putting radio on the Internet” in the mid-90s. Meanwhile, Gavin Belson does his own grave digging as he makes an ill-advised comparison between the struggles of living as a successful billionaire and the plight of the Jews in Nazi Germany, a thread that doesn’t provide as many laughs as it could.
Hanneman is the real center of this episode, as nearly the entire cast is left to react to Diamantopoulos’ antics. The character isn’t all that original, but in the context of the show’s status quo he out-Erlichs Erlich in a pretty funny way; he’s an obnoxious but oddly charismatic salesman and showman. Bad Money” stretches the Hanneman gag a bit too far to the point of it being tiresome, but there are some funny bits in between -- most notably the auto-fill Google results when the gang searches his name, and the writers pitting him against Erlich at every possible turn. Plus, Diamantopoulos gets to deliver some funny one-off lines; “I’ve got three nannies suing me right now, one of the for no reason!” is a particular favorite.
Continue reading…
Continue reading...