The recap is back! Welcome back to the Billions Recap Reality Index, where we tally a list of events from each episode and rank on a scale of too real to fail or as fake as a toxic asset’s triple A rating, scored on our wholly subjective point system.
This week we provide you with due diligence on the first episode of Season 3, “Tie Goes To The Runner.”
When we last saw Axe and Chuck, they were both crawling from the rubble of Chuck’s pyrrhic victory of vaporizing his father’s portfolio and his own trust to lure Bobby into shorting the Ice Juice IPO. With his fund under federal investigation, his marriage in shambles, and future completely uncertain, we begin season three with Axe at his lowest point, and Chuck working to make sure this time there’s no escape for Axelrod.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Billions Syllabus, Complete with Podcasts – March 27, 2018
Sit back, relax, and take a big slurp of Ice Juice — we’ve got everything you need for a new season of Billions
by Staff | The Ringer | March 26, 2018
Showtime’s financial drama Billions returns this week, and The Ringer has (forgive us) billions of different ways to prepare. From deep dives on past seasons to interviews with showrunner Brian Koppelman, this is your guide to making the most of the new season. Check in every week for a new Recappables podcast, which will break down the latest episode, and weekly recaps crowning the “The Best, Most, and Worst” of Billions Season 3.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Billions Season 3 Premiere Recap: The Teaser & The Stud – March 26, 2018
Just How ‘Woke’ Billions Wants Us to Believe Axe Capital Is
by Molly Stout | Refinery 29 | March 26, 2018
After two full seasons of Billions, we are still no closer to choosing sides. In this extravagant chess match between Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) and Bobby “Axe” Axelrod (Damian Lewis), we’re somehow still rooting for both of them to knock over the other’s king-sized ego. Or, as Axe suggested in the thrilling season 2 finale, for both of them to end up in check. Since the show’s beginning, we’ve found qualities to admire in each man: Bobby’s scrappy Yonkers childhood and ability to turn a stadium’s lights off with the God-like snap of his fingers, and Chuck’s gastrophile trivia and love of Winston Churchill first-editions. And neither man is evil enough for us to pledge allegiance to the other.
Even the characters we used to unabashedly cheer for are giving us pause. Lara Axelrod (Malin Akerman) has always made it clear, to Axe and to viewers, that she isn’t a trophy wife. She enjoys the money and the power Axe’s career has given her and the boys, but she’s still just a working-class girl at heart who loved Bobby long before he made his first million. But last season, Lara told Bobby that she wouldn’t run from the government with him. She even tried to buy off Orrin Bach (Glenn Fleshler) to counsel her on what she would get in a divorce. Then there’s Taylor Mason (Asia Kate Dillon). It’s hard not to like the efficient, confident Taylor, but they ultimately chose the dark side of private planes, $26,000-a-month penthouses, and climbing the dirty corporate ladder, eventually telling Bryan Connerty (Toby Leonard Moore) that they don’t believe in souls. Even Wendy Rhoades (Maggie Siff), our favorite overpriced therapist, gave two distinctly different hugs to the men in her life last season. The one with Axe felt real, yet she returned home to Chuck.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Beyond the Scenes with Billions – March 25, 2018
Sheraton Hotels & Resorts and Showtime Launch New Digital Content Series ‘Beyond the Scenes’
by Guru Focus | PR Newswire | November 6, 2017
Sheraton Hotels & Resorts, part of Marriott International, Inc., announced the launch of a new content series called Sheraton Hotels PresentsBeyond the Scenes with Showtime, which gives viewers an exclusive and unique look behind the scenes of the Showtime original series Shameless, Billions and Homeland. The content includes actors and actresses from the three hit shows. The nine-episode series launched November 6, 2017 on Sheraton’s YouTube Channel with Shameless first, then Homeland and now Billions!
Read the rest of the original article at Guru Focus
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Billions on Showtime, Season 3 Episode 1: Tie Goes to the Runner – March 25, 2018
He May be the Liege, the Nagusi, the Sahabi, but Bobby Axelrod is Lonely
by Damianista | Fan Fun with Damian Lewis | March 25, 2018
Season 3 picks up a few weeks after the man with nothing to lose put the cuffs on the man with unlimited resources.
Axe is indicted, the government has frozen his assets, and he and Lara are separated. While Chuck has gained his marriage back, he is not doing great, either. He has thrown his dad and his best friend under the bus to get Axe, lost his entire trust fund along the way and is now trying to figure out the the new administration in DC.
“Tie goes to the runner.”
Well, at least in the new AG Waylon “Jock” Jeffcoat’s world. We meet him and his Lucchese boots in the opening scene with “I was born in San Antone” playing in the background. Jeffcoat is from West Texas: He breeds horses, loves baseball, and believes “tie goes to the runner” when the big business is concerned. Jeffcoat gives Chuck the good news that he is keeping his job, at least for now, along with a list of high-profile cases his office should slow down on.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Billions Season Premiere Recap: The Boys Are Back in Town – March 25, 2018
“The best is Wags: everyone’s favorite deeply troubled sashimi gourmand and pill-snorting powerhouse”
by Nicole Cliffe | Vulture | March 25, 2018
Source: Showtime – Photo by Jeff Neumann
Welcome back to Billions! At the end of last season, following the BANANAS double-cross, back-whammy, Chicago-two-trot maneuver heretofore known as the Ice Juice IPO, Team Windbreakers seemed like they’d finally got Team Half-Zip Navy Pullovers against the wall. This was a real burden for those of us who find Chuck Rhoades unbelievably smug, moralizing, and megarich but also remarkably judgmental of the megarich — and the extended hug that Wendy and Axe shared as the cops surrounded him was only the mildest comfort to proponents of that rather unimaginative (yet appealing) ‘ship.
The question on my mind, and on the show’s, is a far more elevated one: How fares Axe Capital Chief Investment Officer Taylor Mason? If there is any doubt in your mind about how I feel about Taylor, let me allay it: Taylor rules. Taylor is the greatest. When Dollar Bill immediately supported their new title at the end of last season, I WEPT. In my experience, despite how racist and sexist and homophobic the finance world can be, if you are actually bringing in the big bucks for your team, people will find a way to like you. Billionsdoes a good job demonstrating that shift in how people see Taylor.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on The Moral Lines Dividing the Dueling Parties in Billions Have Grown Compellingly Murky – March 25, 2018
“A Wicked, Decadent Comedy About Our Impending Apocalypse”
by Chuck Brown | Slant Magazine | March 25, 2018
Source: Showtime
With Billions, co-creators and showrunners Brian Koppelman and David Levien utilize a narrative structure that recalls Michael Mann’s Heat. Opposing worlds are contrasted in both, showing how similarly obsessive methods can serve conflicting ends that ultimately complement and even bolster one another in terms of pure process and gradations of moral relativity. In Heat, the lines between hero and villain are more material: Robert De Niro’s thief is a killer and—no matter how principled and charismatic he might be—this puts him in a morally inferior position to Al Pacino’s detective, even if the latter has a penchant for cutting investigative corners. But in Billions, the moral lines dividing the dueling parties have grown compellingly murky.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on NEW Video: Behind the Scenes with Billions Cast Discussing Season 3 – March 7, 2017
Resuming of the Triangle
You may have thought you’ve seen all the videos Showtime’s Billions has released to date, but this one was a hidden gem in yesterday’s Forbes article. Be sure to watch and catch all the new juicy tidbits of what’s to come, as it takes you back to the beginning and what to expect now.
Go behind the scenes with the cast of Billions as they take a look at Season 3 and what’s in store for Bobby, Chuck, Taylor, and everyone else. Starring Damian Lewis and Paul Giamatti. Don’t miss the Season 3 premiere of Billions, Sunday March 25, 2018 at 10pm ET/PT.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Billions Season Three: Creators Take Showtime Series to a Whole New Level – March 6, 2018
“…Many will be damned by the end of the season.”
by Dana Feldman | Forbes | March 6, 2018
Showtime’s original hit drama series Billions returns for its highly-anticipated third season Sunday, March 25, and fans are eager to pick up where they left off at the end of season two. No show has better exemplified the quote made famous by Chinese philosopher Confucius: “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”
Billions is Showtime’s No. 2 drama series behind Homeland, averaging five million weekly viewers across platforms. The series grew throughout the second season on Sunday nights by more than 35% from premiere-to-finale.
Starring Oscar nominee and Emmy and Golden Globe winner Paul Giamatti and Emmy and Golden Globe winner Damian Lewis, the show centers around the battle between hard-charging U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhoades (Giamatti) and billionaire hedge fund king Bobby “Axe” Axelrod (Lewis) as the two continue to battle it out in an effort to destroy the other, even if the end result is self-destruction. This season the battle picks up in a world that has shifted on its axis. Though both are just as determined to destroy the other, each is simultaneously faced with battling for their own survival amid new forces at play and powerful enemies.
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Written By GingersnapComments Off on Video: New Billions ‘Character Perceptions’ BTS on Taylor Mason – March 5, 2018
Taylor Mason: Character Perceptions
Brilliant. Focused. Determined. A less emotional, less volatile version of Axe. This is Taylor. Go behind the scenes with the cast of Billions as they discuss the good and bad of Taylor Mason. Starring Damian Lewis and Paul Giamatti. Don’t miss the Season 3 premiere of Billions, Sunday March 25, 2018 at 10pm ET/PT.
