Billions (Season 7), Episode 1: Billions as a show has been about the American dream—to reach the pinnacle of the administration or to reach the peak by subverting the administration. Both ends have been depicted by Chuck Rhoades Jr. (Paul Giamatti) and Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis). For five full seasons, the show portrayed the tussle between Rhoades and Axelrod and their efforts to advance in their careers by twisting the shackles of the system while simultaneously trying to bring each other down, until Season 6, when the do-gooder billionaire and recurring character Michael Thomas Prince (Corey Stoll) is elevated to the main cast while Axelrod exits the show at the end of Season 5.
Season 6 becomes a different battlefield as Prince and Rhoades, allies against Axelrod, find each other on opposite sides. Prince was also a different sort of antagonist in the show. He became a shady do-gooder with lots of issues and problems for Rhoades, the city, and employees of Axelrod’s hedge fund, now owned by Prince. He started a universal basic income programme, which had been funded by untaxed cryptocurrency. He tried to bring the Olympics to New York City under the pretence of providing more opportunities and exposure to the working class, but it was an administrative nightmare and a tax-incentivizing debacle. But the big underlying problem that kicks off Season 7? Michael Thomas Aquinas Prince is running for President.
Billions (Season 7), Episode 1 Recap:
Episode 1 – Tower of London
The cold opening finds an angry Michael Prince walking through Axe Capital’s office, picking up a chair, and throwing it through the glass window to Wendy Rhoades’s office. As Wendy recovers in shock, Prince enters and asks why he is not eligible to run for the presidency. The screen then cuts to black before writing spells out ”5 months earlier”.
The opening of Billions finds Wendy Rhoades (Maggie Siff) in the spotlight as she confidently strides up to Axe Capital, only to find it empty except for Prince waiting for her. As she wonders about a possible intervention, Prince reveals that he wants Wendy’s expertise to prepare him for something greater than what she has been able to do to sharpen Axelrod’s focus. As she wonders why the sudden acceleration has occurred, she realises that the timeline has shifted. Mike Prince now wants to run for president in 2024, not 2028, and, if possible, win it. And that is terrifying bcause, as Wendy and the audience can see, Mike Prince has drunk his own Kool-Aid. He truly believes that he bears the knowledge of rescuing this dying nation and dragging it back to the light, even if it means letting the citizenry kick and scream.
That is terrifying enough for her to signal to Wags (David Costabile) to meet at their traditional Kung-pao place, where she requests Wags deliver a message to “him”. Even after hearing Wendy’s pleas and trying to discern whether it is truly just egomania or delusion driving Prince, Wags takes in enough information and still chooses to feign ignorance. A similar countenance is presented to Wendy via Axe’s scrupulous lawyer, Orrin Bach (Glenn Flescher), who chooses to take two slices of Joe’s pizza, hear Wendy’s pleas out, and feign ignorance.
On the other hand, the two fronts of the war are developing quickly. Michael Prince has decided to step back from the day-to-day operations of Prince Capital. To that end, he sends his two major assistants, Wags and Scooter (Daniel Breaker), to inform his successors, Taylor Mason (Asia Kate Dillon) and Philip Charyn (Tony Goines), to take over for him, with his unflappable lawyer Kate Sacker (Dola Rashad), ex-protege of Chuck Rhoades, as the go-between between Prince and the two successors.
The problem for the two successors is that none of them signed up to take over Prince Capital. They had been pursuing and developing Taylor Mason Carbon, the independent in-house subsidiary that would be utilized to invest in ESG prospects, which had once been the bedrock of Prince’s agenda.
For Prince, though, it would be much more favorable if his two shining diamonds were seen as leading his operation under his guiding “invisible” hand. If the separate entity exists, it might cast aspersions on the larger hedge fund as a whole and on Prince himself, which he couldn’t allow himself to undergo. Not when he is already inviting Mark Cuban into the office and vetting him for a future vice presidency position, to which Cuban says ”No’.
It’s always hilarious and yet fun to see Billions unapologetically lean deep into the references, be it 70s or 80s films, rock bands and albums, or, in the case of Mark Cuban, hardcore wrestling as an analogy of his working style. It exhibits a sense of the daredevil nature of the writers; the audience can either keep up with the references or just accept that the characters are cool enough to throw these references around and others will understand them.
The second front opening up is, of course, Chuck Rhoades, who, at the end of Season 6, has surreptitiously planned to be disavowed and exiled from the legal community under the advice of his confidant, Attorney General Dave Mahar (Sakina Jeffrey), such that she could take Prince down without Rhoades’s sins dragging her down with him. As a result, now Rhoades can’t be seen having family dinner without having his face hidden in a restaurant, or his kids trying hard to reassure him that they aren’t embarrassed by him (to which he replies, “Oh god, you are embarrassed by me”).
Giamatti plays this character so well. However, his luck changes when obnoxious reporter Lucien Porter chooses to run an angle in his story by showcasing Chuck Rhoades as a crusader fighting for the values of the system within the system itself, due to which he has been removed from office twice. Porter’s story and magnanimity shock both Rhoades and Mahar, until it is revealed that the story being run becomes a PR campaign calling out for the case to be dropped, and Rhoades is suddenly supported by the likes of Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasia-Cortez.
Kudos to the writers of Billions for keeping up with the changing times of the current political and media landscape, where the court of public opinion, fortunately or unfortunately, can become a powerful enough tool. It runs the risk of making Dave Maher an enemy of Rhoades, as is shown by the US Marshal surrounding him in the middle of the street while Maher and Rhoades have a confrontation. Then again, according to Rhoades’s logic, he had been waiting for Maher to come up with a plan such that they could take down Prince together as well as exonerate Rhoades, but she hadn’t divulged her details. It’s all fair game now.
Billions (Season 7), Episode 1 Ending, Explained:
Unfair game in trading, on the other hand, is what finally captures the attention of a weed-addled Mafee, who informs Taylor, who informs Wendy, and who finally discerns and contacts Wags. The unique brand of signature trading is Axelrod signalling that he wants to meet, which means that both Wags and Orrin took Wendy’s warnings seriously enough to call in the biggest of the biggest guns.
And the biggest gun finally reveals itself at the foot of the Tower of London to Wendy Rhoades. Robert Axelrod is back; he had involved himself in trading within the Ukraine-Russia conflict while legally mandated to stay out of the country. But now he is finally requested by Wendy, Wags, and Taylor to return from exile and join the war. It is perhaps fitting that all the chess pieces are beginning to fall into place. Taylor and Philip had even managed to bring back “Dollar Bill” to the company to show Prince the workings of Prince Capital are in order and money is flowing in, while in reality, forces are working against him from the inside and now are being led by the devil you don’t know.
Unbeknownst to all of them, Chuck Rhoades is also unleashed from his shackles, and while he is unaware of Axelrod’s re-emergence, his target might be Prince at the moment, to the extent that he can rejoin hands with Axelrod if necessary (it has happened before on Season 5). But it seems that the war will be fought against the billionaire on two different fronts, and perhaps because it is the final season, the urgency feels palpable.
