Recap – Page 2 – Damian Lewis

Billions Season 7, Episode 5 Recap: Prince Starts to Lose Control

On September 11, 2023September 18, 2023 By Gingersnap Comments Off

Chuck Deals With PR Crisis; Prince Losing Control of Company

by Kyle Fowle | Entertainment Weekly | September 11, 2023

At the top of this week’s episode, Ira (Ben Shenkman) is in a panic. He’s in Chuck’s (Paul Giamatti) office talking about how he was mugged the night before, that someone ran off with his phone. He tells Chuck that he needs to get the phone back not only because there are work-related files on it, but because there’s also some NSFW videos involving him and his wife that he’d rather not see leaked. He describes the videos as “pretty vanilla,” but still, this is clearly a crisis.

So, Chuck leaps into action to help his friend out, and honestly the storyline is a nice change of pace from the usual Prince-focused stuff. Here, we get a rather self-contained, episodic story that only somewhat ties into Prince (Corey Stoll) and instead allows Giamatti to shine in a few scenes. Chuck first goes to the incoming NYPD Commissioner and asks him for a favor; he wants access to CCTV footage in order to track down the man who stole Ira’s phone. In order to convince the Commissioner to work with him, he lies about there being “issues of national security” on the phone.

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Billions on Showtime, Season 7 Episode 5: The Gulag Archipelago

On September 9, 2023September 9, 2023 By Gingersnap Comments Off

Revisiting Past Mistakes

by Damianista | Fan Fun With Damian Lewis | September 9, 2023

The Gulag Archipelago, mentioned by Victor and that titles the episode, is a book written by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. I never read it but I am familiar with the author thanks to my Russian literature loving parents’ home library. Solzhenitsyn wrote to help raise global awareness about the political repression in the USSR. This particular book tells the story of a zek (a Gulag inmate) from his arrest to the show trial to being sent to a Gulag (labor camp in Siberia) to reflect on and learn from “his mistakes” based on interviews, reports, legal documents and Solzhenitsyn’s own experience as a zek. And as Solzhenitsyn revisits the ways things could have gone in his book, our characters deal with their past mistakes in their unique ways in the episode.

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Billions Season 7, Episode 5 Recap: A Plan Starts to Form

On September 8, 2023 By Gingersnap Comments Off

Half the Traders at Prince Cap Became Involved in a Plot Against Their Boss. They Just Didn’t Know It.

by Sean T. Collins | New York Times | September 8, 2023

Season 7, Episode 5: ‘The Gulag Archipelago’

Let’s do a little narrative reverse engineering, shall we?

Imagine, if you will, that you are a both a trader and a traitor — a high-powered executive at a major investment fund, looking to fatally undermine your own boss in order to stop him from becoming the president of the United States.

Your Plan A, recruiting your even more dangerous old boss to stop him, has failed. You’re tired of waiting around for your performance-coach colleague, the ringleader of your band of mutineers, to generate a Plan B. It becomes clear that coming up with Plan C is up to you.

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Billions Season 7, Episode 5 Recap: I’ll Wait

On September 8, 2023 By Gingersnap Comments Off

A Mouthful of Helium

by Sarene Leeds | Vulture | September 8, 2023

If you’re feeling restless after five episodes, I assure you you’re not alone.

Unfortunately, “The Gulag Archipelago,” like most of the episodes in this final season of Billions, offered very little payoff. The only significant developments came in the form of Taylor officially joining Wendy and Wags in their fledgling Rebel Alliance/Fifth Column, Wags obtaining investment sign-off privileges — and Dave Mahar wresting the Mike Prince investigation from Chuck’s firm grip.

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From The Trader’s Desk: A Whole Lotta Rosie!

On September 8, 2023September 28, 2023 By Gingersnap Comments Off

Billions Season 7 Episode 4 ‘Hurricane Rosie’

by Lady Trader | Fan Fun with Damian Lewis | September 8, 2023

Ooh, a storm is threatening
My very life today
If I don’t get some shelter
Ooh yeah I’m gonna fade away
Gimme Shelter – The Rolling Stones

We’ve made it to Friday so that means this is your weekly dose of “From the Trader’s Desk”.

This was a stormy (see what I did there?) episode, so to change it up I used lyrics from The Rolling Stones, since while the storm Rosie was threatening the lives in it’s path, it seems the storm named Wendy (with some help from Dr. Mayer) will be threatening the life of Prince’s White House ambitions. And extra points if you can name the band that sang the song I used as today’s post title!

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Billions Season 7, Episode 4 Recap: Storms and Scams

On September 3, 2023September 22, 2023 By Gingersnap Comments Off

Chuck and Prince Square Off While a Fugitive Situation Unfolds

by Kyle Fowle | Entertainment Weekly | September 3, 2023

There was no way Billions was going to go off the air without doing it. Considering the show’s penchant for displaying the various scams and distortions of the financial elite, it was only a matter of time before it introduced a storyline involving NFTs.

This week’s episode begins with Karl (Allan Havey) at a Gamblers Anonymous meeting. He’s not there because of any addiction, but rather to gather information. He listens in as one attendee details how they didn’t realize their investment in NFTs was essentially gambling, and that they lost a ton of money to some billionaire’s son named Kai Huang Liu. Like so many rich kids, Liu managed to avoid the consequences of his actions, hiding behind the political and financial pull of his father.

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Billions on Showtime, Season 7 Episode 4: Hurricane Rosie

On September 2, 2023September 2, 2023 By Gingersnap Comments Off

Hurricanes: Literally and Figuratively

by Damianista | Fan Fun With Damian Lewis | September 2, 2023

Hurricane Rosie is a great episode demonstrating all kinds of hurricanes, literal and figurative, that a billionaire businessman can face when he decides to run a presidential campaign! And the experiences he goes through in the episode makes Mike Prince realize that he cannot make casual decisions as he pleases anymore. Every single thing he does, in fact every single thing any of his employees does on behalf of the company, now matters in a way that it did not before. Prince comes out of the episode, having averted three major crises, as the apparent winner, yet he is clueless about a Cat 5 hurricane coming his way. Its name is Wendy.

Hurricane Rosie:

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Billions Season 7, Episode 4 Recap: Flight Risk

On September 1, 2023September 2, 2023 By Gingersnap Comments Off

Inside Moves and Camouflaged Ulterior Motives

by Sean T. Collins | New York Times | September 1, 2023

Season 7, Episode 4: ‘Hurricane Rosie’

A house divided against itself cannot stand. At least, that’s the hope of Wendy and Wags. Tied for second place as the people most responsible for the multi-billion-dollar success of Axe Cap — behind only Axe himself — they have been accepted into the brain trust of Axe’s usurper, Mike Prince. He relies on their very particular sets of skills, skills acquired over very long careers. What he doesn’t know is that they’re attempting to use those same skills to take him down.

It’s an admittedly subtle attempt at an inside move on both of their parts. For Wendy, it involves advising Mike and his right-hand man, Scooter, to go through with their plan to have Scooter conduct a classical orchestra — the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, procured by Mike through a charity auction. Prince even gives him Leonard Bernstein’s baton to do it.

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Billions Season 7, Episode 4 Recap: Bittersweet Symphony

On September 1, 2023 By Gingersnap Comments Off

NFT Scams, Hurricane Sabotage and Minion-Hood

by Sarene Leeds | Vulture | September 1, 2023

Billions stuck us with another formulaic episode this week — no Axe; finance bros skirting the law, etc. — but at least “Hurricane Rosie” and its two main story lines are moving toward some semblance of cohesion. Chuck and Mike Prince are finally back in each other’s orbit, as Chuck tries to indict Prince after he learns the billionaire is intertwined with a Taiwanese mogul whose son is an NFT scammer. (So the whole fake Super PAC investigation from last week is on hold now, or what?) Meanwhile, with no clear plan to destroy Prince from the inside, Wags goes rogue and sabotages a hurricane categorization, making Prince look like an insurance fraudster. The problem with this particular scheme is it has Wags’s fingerprints all over it, putting Wags in a precarious position at MPC. The last thing Wendy needs is to lose her top ally, so she gives him a necessary dressing-down before they regroup.

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From The Trader’s Desk: Crisis of Confidence?

On September 1, 2023September 28, 2023 By Gingersnap Comments Off

Billions Season 7 Episode 3 ‘Winston Dick Energy’

by Lady Trader | Fan Fun with Damian Lewis | September 1, 2023

When I was living this lie, fear was my game
People would worship and fall, drop to their knees
Powerslave – Iron Maiden

If it’s Friday, then it’s time for “From the Trader’s Desk”.

Before I get into the meat of my post, just some observations:

I was asked why MPC is claiming ownership of Winston’s software. If he developed it how does MPC have the rights to it? Well, the type of risk management software Winston is trying to sell would most certainly take months (if not years) to develop, code, back test, and debug. Which means there is no way he could have developed it overnight. If what Taylor says is correct, (that Winston used data to test his software using MPC trader transactions) then that also would make it property of MPC. By using data and equipment owned by MPC, legally Winston doesn’t own it. Could a court possibly rule that he co-owns it? Yes. Also, most funds would have a clause written in his contract that he would not be able to market any type of software for a stated period (usually 6-9 months). His best course of action would have been to offer it to MPC first to either buy him out or lease the program. If they passed, he then could have tried to get permission from MPC to market it to other firms. Just another example of unnecessary greed killing a golden goose.

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Billions on Showtime, Season 7 Episode 3: Winston Dick Energy

On August 26, 2023August 26, 2023 By Gingersnap Comments Off

Performance Anxiety

by Damianista | Fan Fun With Damian Lewis | August 26, 2023

The first Axe-less episode in the final season has three storylines that are light-hearted compared to those in the first two. A few lead characters doing soul-searching brings complexity that leave the viewers asking for more!

I do not know if Chuck’s first order of business as the U.S. Attorney of the SDNY has been to release Jock Jeffcoat from prison, but one of the first is to offer a job to Ira as the two are eating a lavish breakfast from Russ & Daughters in some office at the SDNY. When Ira asks if they are having their breakfast in a random office so Chuck would not have any food smell in his office later, Chuck says the office is Ira’s if he wants to.

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Billions Season 7, Episode 3 Recap: Hamster Wheel

On August 25, 2023August 25, 2023 By Gingersnap Comments Off

Classic Billions Sabotage

by Sarene Leeds | Vulture | August 25, 2023

It’s pretty hard to beat “Winston Dick Energy,” but if I had to give this episode a different title, it would be the overlong “How Wags, Wendy, and Chuck Got Their Groove Back.”

With no Axe in this week’s episode, Billions is forced to return to a business-as-usual model. The three major plots are entertaining enough, but none of them seem to be heading toward a strong season-long arc. Case in point, the best storyline of “Winston Dick Energy” is Wags’s orchestrated humiliation of Winston, his highly inappropriate brand name, and his risk-management software. Classic Billions sabotage and I loved every minute of it, but I don’t see how or if this plot device will affect Mike Prince’s presidential campaign. The narrative about Chuck losing his killer instinct is meh, relying mainly on an 11th-hour cameo by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and a delightfully cringe anecdote from Senior involving the Bedminster golf club. And I’ll always wonder if I’d even care about Wendy feeling threatened by a rival psychiatrist if said shrink wasn’t portrayed by the glorious Holland Taylor.

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