Categories Billions Print Media Review

Billions: Super Antiheros – April 24, 2018

The Superhero Show About Finance and the Tale of Two Warring Goliaths

by Rachel Syme | The New Republic | April 24, 2018

Billions reckons with the inflated egos and muddled ethics of Wall Street.

The first season of Billions premiered in January 2016— eight years after the collapse of the subprime mortgage market and eleven months before a self-proclaimed billionaire was elected president. This was the sweet spot, timing wise, for a bombastic prestige drama about the world of money. In 2011, the sharp and enraging documentary Inside Job, which charted the corruption that led to the financial crisis, won an Oscar. In the winter of 2016, The Big Short—a sermonizing, big-budget Hollywood comedy about reckless bankers—was nominated for Best Picture. The mea culpas had been issued, the bad actors identified, and although only one person officially went to jail, the coast looked clear for new stories of Wall Street and wealth.

Of course, in the wake of the crisis, a showrunner could not simply rehash the old Gordon Gekko formula for a modern audience. Slickness was no longer glamorous but gross; very few Americans had an appetite for captains of industry slurping down midday martinis at the Capital Grille. Instead, the three creators of Billions—the longtime writing team of Brian Koppelman and David Levien, along with The New York Times’ financial reporter, Andrew Ross Sorkin—took a populist genre and grafted it onto the honeyed, moneyed lives of the rich and infamous: They made a superhero show about finance.

Continue reading Billions: Super Antiheros – April 24, 2018

Categories Billions

Analyzing the New Billions Season 3 Poster Art and Logo – Jan 28, 2018

Are there spoilers, clues, and hints hidden in the new Billions season three promotional material?

by Gingersnap | Fan Fun with Damian Lewis | January 28, 2018

On Wednesday, January 24, Showtime released new promotional material for Billions season three. Are there spoilers, clues and hints hidden in the poster art and logo? I immediately began scrutinizing the photos for suggestion and significance. I mean, after all, it is instinctive to analyze everything since I have a degree in that field and do it for a living. It’s second nature. When dissecting the details of the promo material, you’ll never guess what I found. So come with me on a deep dive and see if we can come up with an indication of what’s to come.

Let’s start with the logo.

Source: Twitter @SHO_Billions 

Ominous, is it not? Dark slate grey background of metal with exposed rivets. Reminds me of a war ship and we know the Billions‘ writers like to reference historical battles and cannon fodder. Is that grey metal iron? In some biblical meanings, natural iron is a symbol of natural, rational truth. Will the truth come out that Wendy violated her contract to warn Chuck about Ice Juice and will Dake discover that she shorted the Ice Juice stock? This scenario is definitely a favorite of mine and my fellow blogger/partner in crime, Damianista, and she talks about it here.  Oh, and I’ll come back to biblical references in a few paragraphs below, even though it seems like it’s out of left field at the moment. Stick with me kid, it will make sense in a bit.

What’s even more prominent about the Billions season three logo is the golden text. Gold as a precious metal signifies wealth, grandeur and prosperity and billionaires are not adverse to gold bar collections, including Axe. But take a second look at the golden text. Is it me, or is Billions fading, almost bleeding or melting? Are the billions disappearing into perhaps, millions? Is Axe’s financial empire on the brink of ruin? Is Axe Capital soon to be erased like the letters? Quick, someone grab a gold Sharpie® and start coloring the font back in. Please help my Bobby.

Now for the meaty part of my post, the group photo.

Continue reading Analyzing the New Billions Season 3 Poster Art and Logo – Jan 28, 2018