Black Rabbit<\/a><\/p>\nSweaty\u2019s Not a Good Look for You<\/p>\n
\n Season 1<\/p>\n
Episode 2\n <\/p>\n
\n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n
3 stars<\/p>\n
***\n <\/p>\n
\n It\u2019s fun to watch Vince run around town trying to collect enough money to pay his debts \u2026 until it isn\u2019t.
\n Photo: Netflix\n <\/p>\n
The Black Rabbit was never Jake Friedken\u2019s dream, but it ended up seducing him anyway. An older brother\u2019s demands will do that. Black Rabbit\u2019s second episode trades the introductory flash-forward for a classic flashback, set in motion by a slightly less unkempt Vince, now sporting a mullet and handlebar mustache in place of his twitchy Manson look from the present timeline. \u201cRestaurants are the nightclubs for adults,\u201d he tells a befuddled Jake. Funny, I thought nightclubs were the nightclubs for adults, but I get the vision here. So does Jake, though he isn\u2019t exactly jumping at the chance to leave his job as Wes\u2019s manager for a precarious new venture. But Vince starts talking open concepts and VIP rooms and \u201chaving something that\u2019s our own again, ours together, you and me,\u201d and that\u2019s when you can see Jake submitting to the terrible whirlwind into which this whole thing will inevitably spin down the line.<\/p>\n
The first two episodes of Black Rabbit feel very much like a two-part premiere, and in that time Bateman and Law succeed in overcoming their surface-level \u201cmiscasting\u201d as brothers by delivering strong performances that fill out their shared, corrupted interiority.<\/p>\n
Cut back to the present, where Jake has brought his absent older brother\u2019s dream to fruition. The gang is toasting to their glowing New York Times review, coining the Black Rabbit as the hottest night spot in town, recalling \u201cthe decadent court of Mick Jagger and his jesters.\u201d Sort of a boomerish reference for like a 2011 sneaker-ad-lookin\u2019-ass joint owned by a failed 50-year-old Gen-X musician. Then again, it\u2019s exactly the kind of missive Vince would have dreamed of when he first hatched the scheme for this place.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, ready for our second album?\u201d Jake poses to Roxy and Estelle as if the new Pool Room venture is theirs for the making when it\u2019s really his. I\u2019m sure there are plenty of CEOs out there who love to think of themselves as \u201cjust part of the team\u201d until this is actual work to be done or sacrifices to be made \u2014 whether the chips are down or up, these types of guys enter and exit the game as solo players. All Jake has ever shared is the mess his brother left in his wake, and the Pool Room is his second album alone.<\/p>\n
Jake is 50 years old, and as he tells Estelle while showing off the Four Seasons Pool Room, he doesn\u2019t want to close a bar every day until he dies. Look, we\u2019re all surprised that Jude Law is 50, but I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m buying how attractive and endearing Estelle seems to find that comment. But Jake also appeals very quickly to Estelle\u2019s sense of purpose, insisting he needs her to do the redesign, catching her as she\u2019s reconsidering her relationship with Wes. These days, Wes is riding his own high wave of success, with little interest in Estelle\u2019s life beyond being his girlfriend. It\u2019s a slightly underbaked rift to get a love triangle going between these three buddies, but it does present another inevitable consequence of a world where money and success leave little room for meaningful connections.<\/p>\n
But we have schemes to get to, and the brothers Friedken find their separate plans foiled when they find out their mom\u2019s house isn\u2019t going to turn the $300,000 profit they were expecting. Vince lets it slip that he\u2019s \u201cdead\u201d without that chunk of change coming in, then bolts to make a quick buck the old-fashioned way: at a high-roller\u2019s private game tucked away in the corner of some big office tower after hours. Meanwhile, Jake sees a new, rather unfriendly social media post from Anna about the Times review, and comes up against a complete wall when he asks Val for a loan at their kid\u2019s back-to-school night. One of the richest deadbeat dad-ass moves I\u2019ve ever seen, man. No surprise, given how much Jake sounds like Vince when he says getting the Pool Room would \u201cdouble his income overnight.\u201d\u00a0\u201cThis is a real shot for me not to be the last guy standing at the party every night,\u201d he tries to reason with Val. Are promises empty if the person making the empty promise believes their own bullshit?<\/p>\n
Our introduction to Joe Mancuso is a prime example of Black Rabbit\u2019s split difference between Netflix slop and Sunday-night HBO fare. Forrest Webber is certainly delivering the goods as Junior, to the point of cutting a cartoonish, Sopranos-fanfic-like figure. But the low-rent Scorsesean descent into his father\u2019s office in the bowels of a bathhouse hits like the low-rent noir it is, and deaf actor Troy Kotsur\u2019s casting as big papa Joe is a mini-revelation for the show. Again, the conversation here is standard gangster stuff: Junior leaned on Vince even though Joe decreed the Friedken\u2019s off limits, and protests he did so to start \u201cbuilding his own book\u201d like a big grown-up mob boss, but Joe leaves no room for the tough-guy cosplay and cuts him down to size with a white-hot glance.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, $140,000 is a tab too high to leave unpaid. To maintain the integrity of the house, the dealer must extract payment, and loudly. Junior and Babbitt get an obscured (for now) tip on Vince\u2019s whereabouts, and track him down just as he\u2019s getting belligerent at the blackjack tables. Another great scene for Bateman to weave the self-imposed degeneracy of the character into his sarcastic, fast-talking, nervous persona. Again, Bateman also makes a fun little chase of this otherwise uninteresting location, ending in the elevator where Junior catches up to Jake, cuts his pinky off, and threatens to hurt his daughter Gen next.<\/p>\n
As is the Friedken way, Vince hides the whole truth until the moment he absolutely has to lay it on the table. Fresh out of quick-cash options, he confesses the whole deal to Jake: He owes $140,000 to Junior like, yesterday, and now Gen\u2019s life is on the line. But Jake\u2019s hands are tied to holding Vince\u2019s through another tough spot, so he goes to Mancuso to make a reasonable deal: $20,000 a week until the debt is paid. Junior is disappointed, having hoped to humiliate the Friedkens in a more dramatic fashion, but Joe is just fine with it. But the elder Mancuso adds a big old caveat: One missed payment and the Black Rabbit is his. Jake protests with a hint of arrogance that crosses a line with Joe, and he reacts by sliding a hot coffee mug into Jake\u2019s lap. Again, it\u2019s menacing scenes like this where Kotsur proves a recurring highlight of the series.<\/p>\n
With the first payment due in four days instead of a full week and a deficit of cash flow looming over them, the Friedken brothers find themselves even more in the red than they realize. At Jake\u2019s insistence, Roxy reaches out to Anna to talk through her firing and subsequent post. When she hears Anna\u2019s story of being drugged and waking up in the VIP bathroom hours later, Roxy vows to \u201chave Anna\u2019s back\u201d and \u201ctake these guys down,\u201d but they both know there was no having anyone else\u2019s back from the beginning. Turning a blind eye is a presetting \u2014 the ante you pay before the cards are even dealt.<\/p>\n
VULTURE NEWSLETTER<\/p>\n
Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows!<\/p>\n
Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms<\/a> and Privacy Notice<\/a> and to receive email correspondence from us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Black Rabbit Sweaty\u2019s Not a Good Look for You Season 1 Episode 2 Editor\u2019s Rating 3 stars ***…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[19674,146,85,46,400,8930,3169,411,8929],"class_list":{"0":"post-23949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-black-rabbit","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-netflix","13":"tag-overnights","14":"tag-recaps","15":"tag-tv","16":"tag-tv-recaps"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/409f33984bff4694d4a3d76b04d4dff4a6-blackgrabbit-ep2.rsquare.w400.jpg\")
<\/p>\n