Categories Billions Print Media Review

Billions Recap: ‘The Wrong Maria Gonzalez’ – April 2, 2018

“Welcome back, Billions”

by Kyle Fowle | Entertainment Weekly | April 1, 2018

Source: Showtime

When, near the end of last week’s season premiere of Billions, Axe agreed to give up his ability to trade in order to move the case along and maybe save Axe Capital in the process, everybody watching at home, and everybody in the office of Axe Capital, knew that it wasn’t going to be easy for him to step away. He’s made Axe Capital what it is. He’s sacrificed everything along the way, including, most recently, his marriage. It remains to be seen whether Axe Capital needs Bobby Axelrod, but there’s no doubt that Bobby Axelrod needs Axe Capital.

As “The Wrong Maria Gonzalez” kicks off, Axe stares out at the city at night. He’s lost, unsure of what to do. He calls Wendy, his lighthouse in the storm and also the wife of his enemy. Super awkward. He tells her that he can’t walk away, that he made an impulsive decision and he wants to walk it back. She tells him he needs to accept a loss for once, and that he’ll come out stronger for it in the end. He hangs up, and it isn’t long before we get to see whether he heeds Wendy’s advice or not.

Surprise, he doesn’t! He decides to take a meeting with a number of outside investors that aren’t involved with Axe Capital, looking for a way to maybe take $2 billion from his company that he’s kept away from Taylor — more on that in a second — and make some secret moves with it. Of course, such a move is extremely dangerous. If he’s caught, Axe Capital would certainly be done for, and Axe would end up in prison. But those are the lengths this man will go to in order to hold on to the only identity he’s ever known.

Meanwhile, Oliver Dake and Bryan Connerty get a bad draw on their case. Apparently, whoever will hear their case is still decided by a tumbler full of names, like Jimmy McGill pulling numbers at seniors’ bingo, and they get stuck with Judge Fundt, a man whose libertarian credentials suggest he’s not going to be too keen to prosecute someone using the “free” market to his advantage. Chuck advises Dake to start making moves to get Fundt off the case, but Darkest Timeline Sheldon Cooper just loves to play by the rules and says he’ll be playing with the cards they were dealt.

Chuck doesn’t accept this, and just like Axe, he goes to Wendy in a panic. He fills her in on everything and says that he has no idea what to do. When Wendy reminds him that Fundt owes him a favor, Chuck waves it off, saying he tried to subtly cash it in years earlier but that the judge ignored it. “Impose your will on him,” says Wendy. Her handling of Axe and Chuck isn’t all that different, talking them through various crises and giving them the confidence to do something without hesitation.

Alright, back to the $2 billion. When Taylor learns that Axe will be cordoning off that money from Axe Capital’s total count, they’re livid. They could do a lot with that extra money, and on top of that, they see it as a vote of no confidence. That news is bad enough as it is, but things get worse. Taylor learns that Brazil has been hit hard by a tsunami, a freak occurrence there, and it’s threatening a lot of their investments. Axe Capital is going to end the day with a massive loss, something Taylor doesn’t want. “How heavy are we in Brazil?” asks one of the workers. “Jim Morrison near the end,” quips Wags.

All of that means that Taylor needs a big play to secure Axe’s confidence and make sure Axe Capital doesn’t have a disastrous day. Wendy tries to tell them that days like this happen, but they won’t accept that. Taylor tells Wendy that they can’t lose their mystique, because it’s all they have. If Taylor loses that mystique, they’re nothing but a figurehead with no experience. In other words: The next few hours are crucial.

Of course, Axe doesn’t help matters by showing up at the office. Ari hurriedly films him the entire time to try and keep a record of his whereabouts for the case. Axe looms over everybody, listening in on their conversations, itching to make his own plays. Taylor confronts him, telling him that he has to walk away no matter how hard it is, that they have to be able to do their job in his place. He responds by confirming he’s taking the $2 billion, a move that feels more spiteful than rational, which tells you that Axe is really struggling with his new situation.

While Axe and Taylor panic, Dake and Bryan’s case against Axe Capital gets thrown for a loop, and the way it happens is classic Billions. Bryan and Dake believe they have their key witness all ready to testify when they confront Maria Gonzalez, one of the women who was paid to taint her own Ice Juice. When Maria, who’s also Victor Mateo’s maid, shows up late for her job, he gets suspicious and immediately tells Axe about it.

Axe turns right around and begins making moves, and that leads to Maria getting detained by ICE. When Bryan and Dake head to the holding center to get her, they have the wrong Maria Gonzalez. Their star witness is on a plane back to Guatemala, and their last hope of keeping her in the U.S., the attorney general, is in no way sympathetic to their cause, or immigrants in general. Now, they’ve lost the person they desperately needed, and they’re still stuck with a judge who won’t be very sympathetic to their case either.

Read the rest of the original article at Entertainment Weekly