The third season of Black Monday began airing on Showtime on Sunday, May 23, but even non-subscribers have been given the chance to experience the episode for themselves online, as reported by Deadline. The same day the episode aired, Showtime uploaded it to their official YouTube channel in its entirety.
Allowing Internet users to access the first episode of Black Monday season three at no extra cost is part of Showtime’s recent campaign to expand its subscriber base by increasing the availability of its content library. The premium pay network partnered with fellow ViacomCBS subsidiary Pluto TV to launch the free linear online television channel Showtime Selects in December 2020, as reported by Variety. Black Monday‘s season three premiere actually aired on Showtime Selects at 12:36 A.M. Eastern on Monday, May 24, less than three hours after the episode aired on Showtime proper. The Showtime YouTube channel additionally features complete pilots for new comedy series Ziwe and Flatbush Misdemeanors.
The season three premiere of Black Monday was written by brothers Daniel and Matthew Libman (Champaign ILL, Kenan) and directed by Tiffany Johnson (Solos, BET’s Boomerang). You can watch the complete episode below:
Black Monday season three is set in the early 1990’s, and the characters have never been further from their roots as scrappy Wall Street would-be power players: “Mo (Don Cheadle, Space Jam: A New Legacy) dips into the music business with the launch of KokoMo Co Records… Meanwhile, Dawn (Regina Hall, Nine Perfect Strangers) is serving her sentence and herself by exploiting her business savvy behind bars… Keith (Paul Scheer, Star Trek: Lower Decks) is morphing, literally and figuratively, into [Larry] Leighman’s (Ken Marino, Wet Hot American Summer) brother… But all their happy days are numbered when it’s revealed that killer is lurking among them,” via Deadline. Ten episodes have been set for release.
Season three of the half-hour comedy welcomes new actors into Black Monday‘s outrageous world of deception and corruption. Sam Asghari (Hacks) plays male model Giancarlo and Thomas Barbusca (Chad) portrays Werner, newly minted congressman Blair’s (Andrew Rannells, Girls5Eva) assistant on Capitol Hill, Deadline reports. Furthermore, newcomer Adrienne Wells has role this season as Nomi, a confident singer who joins Mo’s record label, according to Deadline.
Comedian Yassir Lester (Duncanville), who both writes on and stars in Black Monday, told Complex about how the COVID-19 pandemic forced the producers to think outside the box when executing multiple scenes of public gatherings in season three. “I wrote sole episode… There’s a party scene and it’s like, ‘How do we do this and make it feel like a party and enjoy this occasion?’ But you can’t have fifty extras like you used to. It’s not possible, so there’s a workaround for that… Hopefully, they come across as interesting and creative choices,” said Lester, via Complex.
Black Monday season three airs on Showtime Sundays at 10 P.M. EST.