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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Pre-Order Billions Season 3 Now – Aug 3, 2018
Insider Tip
by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | August 3, 2018
You can now pre-order Billions season 3 and all season 3 episodes will be available for streaming on iTunes 8/13/18.
Synopsis: The war between hedge fund king Bobby ‘Axe’ Axelrod and ruthless U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhoades has gone nuclear and the fallout could be devastating. They’ve crossed too many lines, broken too many laws and ruined too many lives. Now, for both men – and everyone around them – self-preservation is the name of the game. With everything on the line, they’ll do anything to save themselves. But when loyalty is bought and sold, who can you trust?
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on PODCAST & TRANSCRIPT: Billions Co-Creator Brian Koppelman Says Everyone Knows How to Tell a Great Story But Few Get the Chance – July 19, 2018
Koppelman Calls the Hit Showtime Series His “Dream Show” and an “Absurd Privilege”
by Eric Johnson | Recode | July 19, 2018
Source: Showtime
On the latest episode of Recode Media with Peter Kafka, filmmaker and writer Brian Koppelman talks with Kafka about co-creating the hit Showtime series “Billions.” He talks about his writing process, the show’s intense commitment to detail — including its frequent visits to real-life New York restaurants — and whether he thinks the viewers of “Billions” are watching for the characters or for “wealth porn.”
Below, we’ve posted a lightly edited full transcript of the conversation.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on When Will Billions Get the Emmy It Deserves? – July 12, 2018
The Showtime series is one of the best dramas on television. So where the fuck is its Emmy?
by Eve Peyser | Vice | July 12, 2018
On Thursday morning, the nominees for the 2018 Emmy Awards were announced, and sadly for anyone who cares about honoring the art of television, Billions was once again snubbed. The Showtime drama, which just wrapped up its third season, stars the legendary Paul Giamatti as Chuck Rhoades, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who is hellbent on bringing down Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis), a billionaire hedge fund manager who unapologetically plays dirty. The twist? Rhoades’s wife, Wendy, works for Axelrod as a performance coach, a therapist who works at his firm whose job is to help the employees earn as much as they can through psychoanalysis.
Billions is the story of two ruthless geniuses and their intricate scheming as they bend the law in order to settle personal feuds. Full of poetic and scholarly dialogue, the show ascends above the average TV drama because the writing is as smart as the characters. Giamatti’s performance is ferocious, and his character often speaks in grandiose allegories. His dialogue is iconic, overwrought in the way only the best, highest-shelf prestige TV dialogue is overwrought: “A good matador doesn’t try to kill a fresh bull. You wait until he’s been stuck a few times,” Rhoades explains in the pilot. “Calculation is not something to be scoffed at. It’s a tool. A tactic. And I use it proudly and often,” he says in season three.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Emmys 2018: 10 Biggest Snubs – July 12, 2018
From Billions to an ‘Atlanta’ MVP – The Most WTF Snubs in this Year’s Emmys Nominations
by Brian Tallerico | Rolling Stone | July 12, 2018
The annual Emmy square dance is here – per usual, it’s a routine of three steps forward, two steps back.
This year even allowed more room than usual for the unexpected as several major players from last year – Veep, Master of None, Better Call Saul, House of Cards – took this awards season off.
And to be sure, the Television Academy has undeniably improved in their taste as a voting body over the years. Still, they still had us scratching our heads a few times. Where the hell is Will and Grace? And Bojack Horseman? And Brendan Fraser in Trust? And … and…
So with all 122 (!!) categories announced, let’s pick out the most notable snubs of the year. From Billions to Alison Brie, these were the M.I.A. nominees that shoulda been contenders.
Billions
Showtime had a rough morning. Sure, Shameless star William H. Macy got in again, but regular nominees like Homeland‘s Claire Danes and Ray Donovan‘s Liev Schreiber will have to save their sound bites. (See also: our Twin Peaks entry) But the real crime was completely ignoring the chance to finally invite Billions to the party. With shows like Better Call Saulmissing from the ballot, why not turn to a show that’s only gotten better each year, turning in its best season to date earlier in 2018? Even just a single nod or two for great performers like Damian Lewis and Asia Kate Dillon could have opened a few doors for more nominations in the future. Get this one right, next year, Emmys. It’s starting to get embarrassing.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Five Shows More People Should Be Watching – June 15, 2018
Billions: A Show With Great Scripts and a Fine Cast
by Megan McArdle | Washington Post | June 15, 2018
The temptation of writing about culture is always to find something to pan. Critical reviews flow easily from the fingertips, while applause involves the hard labor of finding 16 synonyms for “good.” But I ate my Wheaties this morning, and I’m looking for a challenge. So let’s talk about good shows — great shows, even. Shows that more people should be watching. People like you.
“Billions” (Showtime)
Another show with great scripts and a fine cast. (You may be sensing a theme here). This is high-finance as revenge-drama. The first three seasons portray a long-running cat-and-mouse game between hedge-fund titan Bobby Axelrod, played by Damian Lewis, and U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhoades, played by Paul Giamatti. But the showrunners haven’t given into the temptation to make Axelrod the bad guy and Rhoades the hero. Instead, we have twin protagonists — both badly flawed, but also deeply appealing.
The cast is terrific, the writing reminiscent of a less-manic Aaron Sorkin, and thanks to a different Sorkin (Andrew Ross, longtime finance reporter for the New York Times, and no relation to the creator of “The West Wing”), “Billions” is even a reasonably realistic portrayal of both finance and securities law. I suspect it isn’t getting the audience it deserves because people think finance is dull, but trust me, in the hands of this team, it never is.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on From The Trader’s Desk: Recapping S3E12 ‘Elmsley Count’ – June 15, 2018
Where Does Your Loyalty Lie?
by Lady Trader | Fan Fun with Damian Lewis
Source: Showtime
Is this it? Can this really be the last “From the Trader’s Desk” for this season? Sadly, the answer is yes. I have enjoyed writing about Billions from the “Wall Street” side of the things, and hope you’ve enjoyed my posts as well. I also hope I helped with the “fin-speak” and in understanding the world of finance. On a personal note: I didn’t know if I would be able to contribute to FanFun when Billions started in March, after being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma last summer. But, not only did I contribute almost every week, I feel I have done some of my best writing. Thank you Damianista, and everyone who reads our blog for helping me get back to normal!
Instead of a basic recap, I’ll look at the two relationships that were the backbone (from the financial side anyway) of this episode: Axe-Taylor and Taylor-Wendy. I know there was a flurry of “fin-speak” at the Spartan-Ives Capital Introduction Event at CitiField (my second home on many Saturdays!), but I won’t go into details about it. I don’t think they were relevant to the overall episode (as opposed to other times when it was the meat of the story). I have updated the Billions:Glossary with all the definitions, and as always, if there is something you’d like me to explain or give examples of, please let me know.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on What the Rest of TV Can Learn from Billions – July 14, 2018
The Showtime Drama is Built for Speed – and All the Better For It
by Alan Speinwall | RollingStone | June 14, 2018
Source: Showtime
The midpoint of Billions Season 3 featured a huge moment for the series to date: the Showtime drama’s arch-rivals, U.S. attorney Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) and hedge fund mogul Bobby “Axe” Axelrod (Damian Lewis), facing each other across a dining room table and, with the help of Chuck’s wife/Axe’s therapist Wendy (Maggie Siff), acknowledging that they needed to join forces against a common enemy.
In today’s ultra-serialized drama landscape, it’s the kind of scene that almost any other show would have saved for the very end of its season finale, or the penultimate episode at the latest. Billions actually repeated this dynamic in its own finale, which we’ll get back to, but that it happened as early as Episode 6 was striking. Too many other shows that consider each season “a 13-hour movie” would have built the whole thing around that meeting, throwing complication after complication at Chuck, Wendy and Axe so that it would happen as close to the end of the year as possible, and that sense of wheel-spinning would have been palpable.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Billions on Showtime 3.12: Elmsley Count – June 14, 2018
“Young lungs, so yeah.”
by JaniaJania | Fan Fun with Damian Lewis | June 14, 2018
Source: Showtime
It’s cap raise time for Axe Cap and everyone gets more than they bargained for in Billons Season 3, Episode 12, “Elmsley Count”. The season finale promises to be a doozy with so many threads to tie up.
Taylor is arriving late to the event. Before the uber gets there, they have a sit-down with Andolov, who in all his gross creepy generosity concedes that he would, then asks them to prognosticate on what newly minted Taylor Mason Cap can do for him.
At the cap raise, Axe fluffs up the allocators, then has Taylor deliver the money shot. They promise to take care of the money transparently.
All the mysteries revealed.
Axe takes his people to see The Hold Steady at the Hammerstein Ballroom and delivers chaste kisses of celebration to Wags and Wendy.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on How Showtime’s Billions Went From Dull to Dazzling – June 12, 2018
Improbably, a series seemingly about rich white guys measuring their dicks is an essential show of our era. (Okay, maybe not that improbable)
by Todd VanDerWerff | Vox |June 12, 2018
If you’ve been following the world of TV Twitter this spring, you probably know that a certain subset of this nation’s great, professionally paid TV viewers has gonea littlegoofy for Showtime’s Billions. Observe!
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on How Billions Became One of TV’s Sharpest Critiques of Power – June 11, 2018
“As a Saga of Glittering Financial Warfare, Billions is Seemingly Lab-Engineered to Appeal to the Very People it Claims to be About”
by Helen Rosner | The New Yorker | June 11, 2018
Source: Showtime
For nearly three seasons, the Showtime drama “Billions” has been structured as a classic cat-and-mouse tale, a story of attack and defense between the impossibly powerful U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) and his nemesis, the impossibly powerful hedge-fund billionaire Bobby “Axe” Axelrod (Damian Lewis). Chuck pursues an exhaustive federal case against Axelrod and his fund, Axe Capital, driven less by any direct evidence of wrongdoing than by a dogged jealousy—Chuck’s wife, Wendy (played, with beautifully deadpan intelligence, by Maggie Siff), is an employee of Axe Capital and one of Axelrod’s most intimate confidantes. There is, of course, plenty of wrongdoing for Chuck to uncover (“Billions” takes as axiomatic Honoré de Balzac’s observation that behind every great fortune is a great crime), and Axelrod uses his considerable financial resources twisting the world in knots to avoid being grazed by the sword of the righteous. On Chuck’s side, the game involves shady evidence-gathering tactics, flagrant witness manipulation, and copious back-room dealmaking. On Axe’s side, bottomless pockets are used to reward friends, eliminate problems, and settle old scores. Flying private to hang out with Metallica? You got it. Planting a camera in a government employee’s bedroom in order to blackmail her with a sex tape so that she’ll hand over inside information on Chuck’s case? Consider it done. (Spoilers abound from here on in. If you haven’t started watching the show yet but plan to start: yes, the first scene of the first episode is off-puttingly corny. It gets a whole lot better from there.)
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Billions Superlatives: Best, Worst, Most from S3E12 Finale – June 11, 2018
Town Scooters, Spanx, and Face Slaps
by Miles Surrey | The Ringer | June 11, 2018
Source: Showtime
Here is the best, worst, and most from the final episode of Season 3
The penultimate Billions episode of this great third season ended with a meteoric mic drop: Taylor was setting up their own firm and leaving Axe Capital. That’s the kind of emphatic moment that could’ve ended the season then and there, but Billions had plenty more strings to pull in the Season 3 finale, “Elmsley Count.” The episode title refers to a sleight-of-hand trick that magicians can use with a stack of cards, so the show wasn’t exactly being subtle: You knew some deceptive shit was about to go down.
“Elmsley Count” lived up to its name—there were several moments when I made involuntary, somewhat inhuman squeals over truly shocking narrative twists, and also because Russian oligarch John Malkovich slapped a dude in the face. I love this show so much. Let’s celebrate it one more time this year and break down the finale superlatives.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Billions Wraps Season with High-Stakes Double Crosses – June 10, 2018
The Dog-Eat-Purebred-Dog World of Billions
by Brian Lowry | CNN | June 10, 2018
Source: Showtime
In the dog-eat-purebred-dog world of “Billions,” the fastest way to flip the script is to engineer a shift in existing alliances. The producers did precisely that in the niftily choreographed third-season finale, setting the stage for a pair of juicy plot lines in the season ahead.
Granted, the surprises couldn’t quite match the operatic highs of last season’s finishing twist, which saw U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) sell out various people around him — including his own father — in his headlong pursuit of bringing down hedge-fund wizard Bobby “Axe” Axelrod (Damian Lewis).