Categories Billions Print Media Recap

Billions Superlatives: Best, Worst, Most from S3E3 – April 9, 2018

Best Food Porn, Most Intimidating Interview Posture, Best Cardigan

by Miles Surrey | The Ringer | April 9, 2018

Source: Showtime

Every week, The Ringer will celebrate the passing of yet another Billions episode by honoring the installment’s best, worst, most, and least. These are your Billions Superlatives.

This week’s Billions, “A Generation Too Late,” is what I like to call a Side Quest Episode. Axe and Chuck aren’t making moves directly at one another—Axe is finalizing a way to trade under the table and work with Raul Gomez, the guy in charge of the police pension fund, and Chuck is still learning the lay of the land with the new, ultra-conservative attorney general. But that doesn’t take away from another entertaining and often bonkers week, featuring three separate references to the Oakland Athletics’ Billy Beane (really!), more sumptuous dining, and Connerty letting out his inner Bronx brawler. Let’s not waste another minute.

Best Food Porn

Like the season premiere, and, thankfully, most Billions weeks, this was a good episode for food. Axe’s personal cook, Chef Ryan, prepped burgers—twice! The first time, he paid homage to Ann’s Snack Bar, the home of famous, possibly Hall of Fame–worthy burgers in Atlanta. (Wags was a bit hard on Chef Ryan because the burgers weren’t quite as good as Miss Ann’s, but conceded it was a decent try.)

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Categories Billions Print Media Recap Review

Billions Season 3, Episode 3 Recap: Boss Moves – April 8, 2018

“Funny and fast-paced though it is, Billions likes it quite dark indeed.”

by Sean T. Collins | New York Times | April 8, 2018

Source: Showtime – photo by Jeff Neumann

A Generation Too Late

“Is that what being a boss does to you?” When the stand-up guy Bryan Connerty asks this of his superior, Oliver Dake, contempt drips from every word. Dake, previously a stand-up guy himself (albeit a bit of a stiff), has just shut down an interview with Ira Schirmer, a lead witness in their case against Bobby Axelrod … because Schirmer is now offering testimony against his former friend, and their colleague, Chuck Rhoades, instead.

Ira’s cooperation has been bought and paid for by Axe, who sensed the man’s financial and emotional desperation the way a shark smells blood. Dake is refusing to listen because of the back-room deal he made with Rhoades to get this job in the first place. Bryan has no way of knowing any of this. He sees the situation for what it is: His boss is putting a personal agenda over the pursuit of justice — perhaps even conflating that agenda with justice.

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Billions Season 3, Episode 3 Recap: White Truffles – April 8, 2018

“All of God’s creatures like getting money for nothing and their chicks for free.”

by Nicole Cliffe | Vulture | April 8, 2018

Source: Showtime – photo by Jeff Neumann

A Generation Too Late

If you had told me a month ago that I would say, “Finally, an episode with more Ira in it,” I would have laughed at you. Ira has always been on the wrong end of Billions, whether he was getting manipulated by Chuck or condescended to by Chuck’s dad or left by his wife or being merely tolerated by nubile young women who care only about his wallet. So, seeing him get a chance to step into the spotlight and belt his own version of “Rose’s Turn” is unexpectedly welcome AND delightful.

Reader, I laughed so hard I wept as the sweat ran off Ira’s panicked face while his girlfriend allowed the waiter to luxuriously grate white truffles ($14 a gram) onto her pasta, each fat flake costing Chuck’s poor broke idiot ex-bestie more money he no longer has. His humiliation not yet complete, she politely brushes aside his attempt to (sort of) propose to her, making it clear that Ira’s gonna need to crawl his way back up a few rungs and bring her a ring worthy of her high-quality body and blonde hair before she’ll be on board.

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Billions Season 3, Episode 3 Recap: Big Sharks and Little Minnows – April 8, 2018

“Great job of expanding the scope of the story of Billions, making this a show that’s not solely about Axe and Chuck’s feud.”

by Kyle Fowle | Entertainment Weekly | April 8, 2018

Source: Showtime – photo by Jeff Neumann

A Generation Too Late

There’s a very distinct difference between the big players in the world of Billions and those who are just feigning at being big players. There’s a ton of money and influence flowing through the halls of both the hedge funds and the government, and money can only breed corruption and arrogance. Capitalism is competition, and where there’s money, there’s ruthlessness. The system is designed that way; it promotes the violence.

The difference between the big sharks and the minnows is evident in the opening scene of “A Generation Too Late.” Ira sits down for a dinner at a fancy, expensive restaurant with the woman he’s hoping to make his fiancée. He’d planned a proposal for this night, but after the Ice Juice crash and burn, he has no money to spend. He can’t give his far too young and beautiful fiancée the “wedding she deserves,” and he suggests they wait. She agrees all too quickly, all while adding more than $200 worth of white truffles to her pasta entrée. Ira’s face says everything it needs to. He’s not a big shark. He’s a minnow.

Continue reading Billions Season 3, Episode 3 Recap: Big Sharks and Little Minnows – April 8, 2018