Billions (Season 7), Episode 2: For a show that is seven seasons old, it is pretty apparent that it will fall into a pattern. And eagle-eyed followers love the show despite the pattern. But seven seasons deep, Billions still manages to surprise me. This is despite the quality of the writing, which even by Billions’ standards has deteriorate and there are very few moments that legitimately surprise. It is also surprising that out of the three megalomaniacal characters in the show, the one with the literal castle or the one running for the presidency aren’t the scariest of the lot.
Billions (Season 7), Episode 2 Recap:
Episode 2 – Original Sin
Billions has been anything but a subtle show, so the team of Wendy, Wags, and Taylor constitute the Knights of the Round Table, who will meet at the castle of their king Arthur, Bobby Axelrod. And it is a castle, or as Axe calls it, “Axe Global”, a pretty modest operation in which Axe has already doubled the 2 billion dollars he started with and is now helped by his son Gordy leading the “blockchain” division (clearly that will end well). The trio is impressed with the conquests of their king, but they lay it on too thick, and Axe notices it immediately and wonders whether it’s a scheme for Mike Prince to lure Axe back for one last blow. When he sits down individually with the three of them, does Axe understand the magnitude of their request, realising that they do need his help?
Meanwhile, back in the States, Mike Prince is preparing for his presidency, but he seems to have met his match with the new campaign manager he is trying to woo, Bradford Luke, who advises him to take the “Eisenhower Path” for the presidency (not to win a world war, thank heavens), but to ensure that MCP is bringing in even higher numbers and making fantastic investments to such an extent that Prince taking the presidency would count as an inevitability. Inadvertently, though, that investment comes from Victor, Axe’s “cold and steely assassin” (and a basoonist at a band, really?)—a miracle device that could be checked by doctors from around the world for your BP, heart rate, glucose level, etc. However, Luke brings in news about a lawsuit about equipment malfunctions, which could become like “mud that a presidential candidate shouldn’t put his shoes on”. So, Victor, because he is Victor, the most dubious of Axe’s traders, manages to have the lawsuit dropped by blackmailing the doctor because of the doctor’s propensity to indulge in cocaine.
Of course, this was merely the first test by Luke to test Prince’s mettle for the presidency. The real test comes later in the episode concerning Prince’s relationship with his wife, Andy.
Let’s go to Chuck Rhoades, a man now possessed by newfound popularity and arrogance. He dismisses the charges against him pretty quickly, owing to his newfound popularity, and then the poor AG Dave Mahar is not only harshly reprimanded by the judge for her “usage of federal resources”, but also reprimanded by Chuck as her job, which, mind you, had been his just the previous season, is “bush league”.
Because Chuck Rhoades, as a conversation with Solicitor General Adam DeGuillo reveals, is looking towards something far greater—his old US Attorney job, which according to DeGuillo (who has his ear with the president) is downright impossible because no amount of good PR and exoneration could make the president change his mind. But there is almost a dangerous swagger to Giamatti as he, in typical Billions fashion, goes about getting a method to change the president’s mind.
Chuck Rhoades visits former Attorney General Jock Jeffcoat (Clancy Brown), who has been doing a hard time at a federal prison since the end of season 4 and was responsible for kicking Chuck out of the United States Attorney Office of the Southern District of New York. Chuck is willing to let the past lie in its grave if Jock would make a formal public announcement that he had been wrong to fire Chuck, and once Chuck is reinstated, he would have Jeffcoat freed, thus managing to clear both their “besmirched” names. And because the creators of Billions know the audience, they know that hell would freeze over before Jock Jeffcoat would ever agree to something like this. Thus, the full-minute belly laugh of Jeffcoat as Rhoades walks away in disgust is almost like the creators tipping their cap to the audience.
At Pete Luger’s, Chuck sits down to have a steak dinner with DeGuillo, where it is revealed by Karl Allard, Chuck’s faithful minion, who had been sitting at a corner table, that Jeffcoat had recorded a conversation admitting his mistake in firing Rhoades and effectively giving him his seal of approval. A flabbergasted DeGuillo wonders how Rhoades accomplished this, to which we learned that he had managed to change Jeffcoat’s mind by appealing to his inner cowboy by gifting him a new pair of gorgeous black cowboy boots. “Coincidentally,” Karl had been having dinner with a co-exec producer of 48 Hours, who might just be interested in running this “apology video” that would clean up the public image of Chuck Rhoades and might just make the President look like a fool if no action is taken.
To the other presidential candidate, who is currently figuring out how to conjure up an image of the perfect family life with his wife, Andy and Prince finally decide to have sex after ingesting a bit of molly, if only to ensure that their vibe the next day feels natural. But Luke still figures out the artifice the next day. It’s hilarious how Prince immediately removes his arm from Andy the moment the jig is up, but what elicits belly laughs is when they are asked a list of their sexual partners from the last 5 years, and Prince’s reaction, as well as Luke’s, at seeing Andy’s list be longer than his. The bottom line is that Luke had heard a whisper about the very open marriage of the Prince, and now it’s confirmed, and according to Luke, riding the monogamy train is the only option because the American public isn’t ready to accept “a presidential candidate with an arrangement” (this is the same office that always has a sex scandal following it, so that statement is patently ridiculous).
Finally, Axe, sits down with Taylor, Wags, and Wendy separately and tries to understand how the three of them are faring under Prince’s thumb and in their personal lives. As it turns out, it wasn’t the three of them trying to woo Axe, because Axe isn’t interested in getting back to America and becoming a target for Mike Prince or Chuck Rhoades again.
Billions (Season 7), Episode 2 Ending Explained:
Axe, however, invites them to join him here, at Axe Global, and have the most freedom they could ever have while working under Mike Prince Capital. It is telling that he doesn’t know how Dollar Bill, at that very moment, is manipulated and brought to the fold by Philip after playing a game of poker and allowing himself to cheat and deliberately revealing that he is cheating. Nevertheless, Axe’s proposal is rejected by the three of them, with Taylor and Wags’ arguments being especially compelling: All the money in the world is meaningless if the world has Mike Prince for a president, and foreign citizenship is worthless if the US government goes for a toss. Both compelling arguments, but as the trio go to leave, Axe has a parting shot, which feels like the beginning of a bigger play—the only way to ensure Prince doesn’t hamper their world is to elect him president and go with him all the way.
Wendy Rhoades’ quizzical reaction is in line with the audience’s as well, as they are already witness to a press conference announcing the Prince Presidential campaign with Prince and Andy joining hands and waving, while at the Rhoades house, the president calls at midnight, reinstating Chuck Rhoades to the SDNY office. There are pieces in play, and this is Bobby Axelrod. There is a bigger game afoot because Billions cannot end without Axe having a bigger role this season. His appearance in these last two episodes alone has been more energetic than the entirety of last season, and if this is the final season, there is a bigger game at play.
