“Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November. All the rest have thirty-one, excepting February alone, And that has twenty-eight days clear, and twenty-nine in each leap year.” That little limerick ought to be known by any calendar maker, but at least one didn’t get the memo in “February 31st,” the 6th episode of Hulu’s eight-part series Welcome to Chippendales. Without further ado, let’s dim the lights, start the music, and get this recap rolling!
(Erin Simkin/Hulu)
Lance (Spencer Boldman) is at the center of a new routine at the New York City Chippendale’s club, a locker room number complete with showers on stage. Nick De Noia (Murray Bartlett) busies himself by checking on his VIP guests – Brooke Shields (Brighton Sharbino) and Calvin Klein (Jason Bernardo) – who are enchanted by the show. “Well done,” Steve Banerjee (Kumail Nanjiani) inserts himself into the conversation, directed at Nick. “Keep it up and I might have to give you a pay raise.” Nick’s conversation with Brooke and Calvin becomes awkward as Steve introduces himself as “the owner and creator of Chippendales”
The next morning, Nick walks with Bradford Barton (Andrew Rannells) to the office, stopping for breakfast at a hot dog cart. A group of women recognize Nick from his TV appearances and call out “Hey, Mr. Chippendales.” In the office, Nick brainstorms with Bradford and Denise (Juliette Lewis), sharing his frustrations with Steve randomly flying to New York to assert his dominance. With Nick now a recognizable brand, he wants to revisit the idea of leaving Chippendales to launch U.S. Male. “Otis was right, 3,000 miles wasn’t nearly enough,” Nick laments. Bradford tells Nick about a friend who was in a touring production of Evita, which gave him the idea for a touring version of Chippendales. “A different city every night,” Bradford says. “Not a Banerjee in sight,” Denise rhymes.
(Erin Simkin/Hulu)
Steve arrives back at the original Chippendales club in L.A. to find Irene (Annaleigh Ashford) with their lawyer Cheryl Levine (Jen Cohn), both upset with Steve for missing his deposition. The racial discrimination lawsuit has expanded to include 13 victims, now considered a class action lawsuit. Irene is worried that the lawsuit will destroy them if they lose, but Steve says he has reviewed the books and things will be fine. Their meeting is interrupted by a call from Darrell (Jamie Daniels) at Banerjee Print Works, who needs Steve to come in and sign off on proofs for the new calendar. He’s annoyed by the request.
The next morning, Steve stops by Banerjee Print Works to sign off on the proofs. Darrell tries to get Steve to look them over. He merely glances at them, flipping the pages fast like a flipbook. As Steve signs off on the proofs, he increases the order from 300,000 to 500,000.
Steve is surprised to find Nick waiting for him when he gets to the club, who asks Steve to lunch. Over a meal, Nick proposes a touring production of Chippendales that he will personally finance. Steve won’t have to do anything but sit back and collect 50% of the profits. “It instantly expands the brand nationally,” Nick says, before adding “Internationally; Think of what it will do for the calendar.” Nick suggests a tour stop in India. “Talk about a homecoming,” he seals the deal, with Steve’s face lighting up. “Let’s do it,” Steve declares. Nick asks for a lawyer to draw up the contracts, but Steve, thinking about how much Cheryl’s fees are costing him, says he can draw up the paperwork himself. Nick begins to write on a napkin, passing it to Steve, who reads it over. “Do you understand all that?”, Nick asks. “Perfectly,” Steve confirms. They both sign.
(Erin Simkin/Hulu)
“Reenie?”, Steve calls when he arrives home at his gorgeous mansion. He finds Irene and their infant out by the pool. Steve bought Irene a gift, a very expensive-looking necklace. She tells him they can’t afford it, but Steve tells her he made some moves and they can. He shares the news about the tour. “We don’t do a thing, and we get 50% of the profits. We’ll be in the black by the end of the year.” Irene is upset that she wasn’t asked to run the numbers on the tour or the increased calendar order, with Steve declaring “I fixed it, I fixed everything.” Irene tells Steve to return the necklace, but he refuses. “Irene, you deserve the life you have created,” he explains. “You made this. This is all yours. This house. This is your life, my Hollywood accountant.” He apologizes for all of the bad things he’s done.
Irene takes the necklace back to the jewelry store Steve bought it from, working with an employee named Bridget (Donna Pescow), who remembers selling this piece. “Is it not to your liking?”, Bridget asks Irene. “Actually I love it,” Irene shares. “It’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve seen, let alone owned. It’s just not very me.” Bridget takes the necklace out of the box, moving behind Irene, and draping it across Irene’s collar so she can see it on her neck in the mirror. “The man who bought this for you believes you are this woman,” Bridget declares. “Why not be her?”
(Elizabeth Morris/Hulu)
Irene enters Steve’s office in a fur coat, the necklace shimmering on her neck. She closes the blinds and tells Steve how turned on she was when he faked a church protest to get free publicity for the club. She opens the fur coat to reveal that she’s only wearing lingerie underneath. “Steve, I don’t mind that you do shady things, but I will not allow you to do them badly,” She says as she climbs into his lap. “No more secrets, no more lies, and if you hurt anybody else, I’m going to hurt you,” Irene declares.
Steve gets sworn in at court, lying under oath by saying he’s never seen a Chippendales VIP card before. Complainant Don Gibson (Patrick Cage) takes the stand, sharing his experience watching only Black men without VIP cards getting denied entrance into Chippendales. This is followed by a montage of other Black men, followed by doorman Karl (Adam Dunnells) confirming the stories of these men. Outside the courthouse, Cheryl recommends that Steve file for Chapter 11. “If we declare, will people know?”, Steve asks, being told that bankruptcy is a public record. Steve refuses, telling Irene that the calendar will be out in a few weeks and they will make enough to pay for the lawsuit settlement. That night, Steve opens mail in his office and received a check from Nick for $67,000, which he shares with Irene. “This still doesn’t solve our problems,” she says.
(Elizabeth Morris/Hulu)
Steve accepts a huge delivery of calendars at his mansion, storing them in his garage and bringing several boxes to the club. The dancers begin to flip through the pages, and Ray (Robin de Jesús) compliments Steve on how good they look. Everything seems fine until one of the dancers asks why every month has 31 days. Steve races home, cutting open boxes to discover that the error is on every single calendar. Irene notices Steve and comes out to she what’s wrong. Steve swears he checked the proofs, calling up the printer and asking them to stop the presses. But the presses are stopped. All 500,000 calendars were already printed. Steve has a flashback memory of his father (Ravi Kapoor) teaching him to always check the proofs while printing calendars in India. It didn’t sink in then, so Steve had to learn the hard way.
Cut to Steve in his office reading a newspaper article about Chippendales filing for bankruptcy. Ray comes in concerned, asking Steve if the club is shutting down. “Everything is fine,” Steve says, talking to Ray about how people misunderstand what bankruptcy means. In the mail, Steve gets another check from Nick, this one for $91,000. Irene is surprised by the size of the check. “Thank God for this tour, it’s the best thing we’ve got going right now,” she says.
(Erin Simkin/Hulu)
“I feel like Nick kind of played you,” Ray says to Steve from a payphone. Steve sent Rick to one of the Chippendales tour stops after getting suspicious about the size of the last check. Ray tells Steve that he counted at least 2,000 women in attendance at this show and that he believes Nick is not handing over half of the profits as promised. Steve shares his concerns with Irene, who says Nick wouldn’t do that. “The contract gives us access to the accounting,” she says, recognizing Steve’s expression and learning that the contract was drawn up on a napkin over lunch. “You didn’t have a lawyer handle it?”, she asks in shock. “I did not feel it was necessary,” Steve answers, saying that it’s not even a real contract. Cut to Cheryl looking over a photocopy of the napkin contract, confirming that it’s legally binding. Irene asks Cheryl when it expires and the lawyer can’t bring herself to say it aloud, handing the photocopy to Irene to read for herself. “In perpetuity?”, she asks in shock, looking up at Steve. She realizes that he doesn’t understand what that means.
Ray pretends not to know what “In perpetuity” means when Steve confides in his lackey about what happened, suggesting that Nick used it to trick him. As Steve glares at photos Ray took of the tour and a flier for the show with tour dates listed, he gets a phone call. It’s his mother (Mona Sishodia) from India. A friend of hers was recently in the U.S. and brought back a newspaper article that features a photo of her son and information about Chippendales' bankruptcy. Up until now, she thought Steve’s successful business was a backgammon club. She now knows everything, that it’s a male strip club. She’s at a loss for words, so Steve fills in the blanks for her. He’s brought shame to his family’s name. The only saving grace is that his father didn’t live to see this. “I can’t believe you’re my son,” his mother says, now able to speak. “You were a failure here, and now you’re a failure there.” Steve hangs up on his mother in anger. “I’m not the failure, you’re the failure,” he yells at the phone, beginning to sob at his desk. He hides his tears when Ray comes back in the office to complain about one of the dancers breaking the shower again. He asks to go home early. When he exits, Steve resumes his crying, banging his fist on the desk in anger.
What happens next? We’ll have to wait for the penultimate episode, streaming on Tuesday, December 27th. Here is a short description from Hulu about the next episode, titled “Paper Is Paper.”
Nick’s success on the road infuriates Steve, who turns to Ray to spy on him. As Steve reaches his breaking point with Nick, Irene reaches hers with her husband.