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.
Continue reading When Will Billions Get the Emmy It Deserves? – July 12, 2018
