“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.)
Continue reading How Billions Became One of TV’s Sharpest Critiques of Power – June 11, 2018
