Billions (Season 7), Episode 4: Some of the best episodes of Billions concern moments of unconnected actions, even moments like acts of God, and how billionaires like Michael Prince Jr. and even Bobby Axelrod, for that matter, would try to pivot this incident for their financial gains. It’s a fascinating look at how capitalism has wrapped its tendrils so effectively around every facet of American life, and at the best of times, Billions relishes its fictionalised retelling to burst these coverups wide open. While the final season is nowhere near the best of what Billions has to offer, it’s still one entertaining and jam-packed hour, with a lot of things occurring and colliding.
Billions (Season 7), Episode 4 Recap:
Episode 4 – Hurricane Rosie
So, apparently, Karl goes around Alcoholics Anonymous or all these meetings to search for the one true lucky break case, or as Chuck calls it, “You have a problem, just say it”. So now all this trawling around self-help meetings finally leads to gold when Karl and Chuck learnt of Kai Huang Liu, an NFT scammer whose father and Mike Prince have made billions together, to the extent that they share jets. A new form of love language, it could be assumed, or business partnerships. Either way, it lands Prince in hot water because Chuck, true to his word, has let go of the Super PAC for the time being, but realises that this is a surefire win and chooses to indict the kid on crypto-fraud and Prince for aiding a fugitive.
For Mike Prince, his day starts with a bewildering statement from Bradford Luke: Most Americans are stupid, and the fact that Prince is a connoisseur of classical music would make him non-relatable to voters, and thus he shouldn’t allow Scooter to conduct the Philharmonic Orchestra. Mike, of course, refuses, with a little help from Wendy urging him on, reminding Luke that “he is the buck”, and that Prince might have a legitimate shot at changing the perception of what culture should actually befit the “leader of the free world”, so to speak. This leads to very entertaining, as well as flirting (?) banter from Wendy and Luke, with both of them discussing the merits and demerits of how to rein Prince in, or whether reining Prince in would ever actually work.
While down on the trading floor, the traders are having a great time tracking a hurricane entering the United States. With bets being given on the hurricane’s name and what category it would be classified as, Victor finally wins the bet, and the hurricane is named after Hurricane Rosie. However, both Philip and Taylor come to drop cold water on their celebrations, reminding them that if this becomes a category 5 hurricane, Prince’s Statutory Claims would all go through the roof, so they better pray that it isn’t. Fortunately, everyone’s bonds are safe because the hurricane is a Category 4.
Except both Taylor and Philip realise, because in all fairness, Wags isn’t trying to hide it, that Wags had managed to learn how a hurricane categorization occurs and had managed to bribe the scientist responsible with the promise of a sizeable research grant. However, Wags couldn’t celebrate for long because Prince calls him to his office.
By this point, Prince had already been informed of the arrest warrant issued for Liu. To be fair to Prince, he had no idea that his plane would be chartered by Liu, nor did he know that the son would be the one chartering the plane, the same surname confusing the manifest as Liu Jr.’s trump card. Thus, Prince chooses to keep the plane in the air while sending Kate Sacker to talk with Chuck on his behalf. Meanwhile, the hurricane incident now makes Michael Prince look like a Wall Street scammer because several houses had blown away due to the hurricane but Mike Prince had managed to walk away from this climate disaster with his finances intact. In the words of Luke, which are too colourful to be recapped here, this is an international incident as well as a national and cultural incident all rolled into one, and thus the optics surrounding this are abominable. Wags would have been fired, but Wendy, in a moment of clarity, chooses to persuade Wags to take the blame for his actions, and even Prince acquiesces that perhaps Wags couldn’t help himself; that’s who he is.
Finally, the personal subplots are twofold. On the one hand, Wendy’s therapy sessions with Dr. Meyer at the beginning of the episode end prematurely when Wendy finally opens up about her true intentions to bring down Mike Prince from the inside, and that would entail a tonne of collateral damage, several of them being Meyer’s clients. This forces her to choose to end their therapy sessions because conducting therapy with her would voluntarily cause her to lose out on her clients. However, Wendy is later texted by Dr. Meyer, where she learns that Meyer had referred all of her clients to Michael Prince Capital so that she could help Wendy win this “war”. It all sounds way too simple, though her comparing this to therapizing an army chaplain doesn’t exactly carry the same amount of gravitas. But hey, what do I know?
On the Scooter side of things, Scooter being given another chance to fulfil his dreams of conducting for the orchestra after the events of last year meant a lot to him, apparently, and even Philip knows it. Lest we forget, Philip is Scooter’s nephew. Philip, in a rare moment of emotional vulnerability, admits that he is proud of him and that he has called the whole family down to celebrate this occasion and watch Scooter conduct himself and fulfil an ambition.
Billions (Season 7), Episode 4 Ending Explained:
Prince finally meets with Chuck, and Chuck explains that all he wants Prince to do is stop running for president and get back to single-minded profiteering. Since Prince won’t do that because he is Michael Prince and hasn’t grown up listening to anyone but his gut instincts, he chooses to ignore that warning but takes heed of Chuck’s other warning: he wants Liu Jr. if Prince wants that indictment charge off his back. Prince does so, first by promising Liu Sr. outrageous claims of ensuring smooth trade with Taipei two years down the line when he is finally in the Presidency and that his son would never have to see the inside of a jail cell again. Secondly, when the plane finally lands, Prince, in full view of the press, walks up to the plane and escorts Liu to Chuck, running the narrative of his plane being chartered unbeknownst to him and thanking the United States District Attorney Chuck Rhoades for bringing this to his attention. As Chuck points out to Ira when the board between them finally goes back to square one again, “Is it hard to march for the Presidency while constantly looking over your shoulder”.
And that’s how Prince will have to move now as well. He pays for the Indiana National Guard to offer relief to the people hit the hardest by Hurricane Rosie, but as Luke points out, he will have to become quicker, almost predicting when the hurricane hits so that he is ready for it with blankets and towels.
For the Scooter subplot, the “Americans are stupid” narrative finally wins, as he asks Scooter to again give up his dreams. It is disheartening to see Scooter being a martyr again, his only solace being the Bernstein conducting baton, which he again gives away to Prince for safekeeping until his presidential campaign is on hold. It is a sad end, and one can sincerely hope that Scooter stops diving into the proverbial sword for his master again and again.
Finally, Wendy meets with Wags, where she correctly discerns that Wags intentionally caused this hurricane mess to make Prince’s optics go down the drain. While it only serves to make him more cautious, Wendy asks Wags to rein in his impulsivity because, at this stage of the war, they need to be analytical and deadly, and Wendy is all in.
