Just like several years ago when I commented that everyone with a computer probably has a printer, and for that printer everyone has a ream of printer paper laying around, I've now realized I'm missing out by not having a white board somewhere in the house with photos of subjects connected by multi-colored lines drawn from a Sharpie.
I should be drawing lines from people's faces from talking head utterances from the evening news. Anyone's evening news. Take your pick. We are awash in conspiracies and dirty dealing. In fact, a white board of decent size, complete with multi-colored markers could be marketed with pre-packaged photos to get you started. All all the members of the cabinet, and the president.
As any regular viewer of Homeland will remember in prior episodes Carrie kept a tremendous white board in her apartment as she was trying to track terrorists. It was a wall. There were colors galore. Lines, arrows, photos. Carrie sat on the floor with a pin wheel arrangement of papers surrounding her. She was analyzing, and analyzing, and eventual came through with the answer. She wound up in the hospital, but that was just a byproduct of her tenaciousness.
In Billions we are seeing the Ice Juice conspiracy play out. This is the one where Chuck, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, sometimes referred to as the Sovereign District because of all their high profile Wall Street cases, works with his wealthy father to torpedo a friend's IPO for a drink called Ice Juice and trap Bobby Axelrod into playing fast and loose with the trading and tank the stock. Thus, Chuck now has charges he can dump on Bobby.
Two titans who hate each other are squaring off. Meanwhile, Chuck's friend Ira goes from being a multi-millionaire in a day to a virtual pauper. This has an effect on Ira's main squeeze who he was going to marry. Eventually.
She demurs over $280 of white truffles ($14 a gram; 20 grams) that have just been grated onto her meal after Ira lays out the new financial landscape. She wants to wait. Spoiler alert, Ira flips sides and gets in bed with Bobby Axelrod and becomes a multi-millionaire again. He now presents his fianceé with a sizable diamond rock that Bobby has paid for: "it's on my tab." She accepts now that Ira's back in the chips. Watch out Ira. That's an expensive, high maintenance female you're getting in bed with. After marriage, a breakup is going to cost you plenty. Get a prenup.
When Ira flips sides and drops his pursuit of Bobby for damages that have now been mitigated by Axe, Bryan Connerty, a senior AUSA becomes very suspicious of Chuck and his father Charles. He smells prosecutorial misconduct. And Chuck wants to run for governor.
Bryan goes back to his apartment and talks to his girlfriend, who is studying to be a lawyer. What else. We don't have enough of them. Bryan picks up a picture of Chuck and Charles in a family photo and attaches it to his white board, center mass, surrounded by other photos and lines and arrows. Bryan has also decorated with a white board. It is what we all should have.
Will Bryan succumb to someone buying him off? Will he be one of the few left with integrity on the show. After all, he went to the Catholic university Fordham, located in the Bronx, where goodness goes to grow. Future episodes will tell.
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Trump spent two years at Fordham but the goodness didn't rub off on him. Alas.
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