In no particular order we'll address Axe's meanness. It's okay for people not to like Axe if he doesn't like them. But if he expects you to like him and you don't, then your world is in for an earthquake.
Axe invested seed money in the fund started by the son of Axe's mentor, the lad's father under whom Axe learned what he knows today. And then some. The fellow's father died early in his life and Axe saw himself as a father figure.
But money was the only fatherly thing Axe provided. So when the young man comes to Axe to cash him out of his fund, Axe is taken back by the unsolicited redemption of $120 million. Turns out the son has grown not to appreciate Axe's cutthroat reputation on the Street, and wants to divest himself of having anything to do with him. Thus, the buyout.
Axe is stunned, and hurt. But a session with Wendy shows him that he never really did become a surrogate father, take the fellow to ball games, fishing, etc. Money for B-school is one thing, a hug is another.
So, a one day fishing trip is arranged, just the son and Axe, doing things a father would do with a son. But fatherly things are not on Axe's mind. He sets out to destroy the kid and his firm by keeping him out of range with his business for a day—their cell phones are locked in the car's trunk back at the parking lot.
Meanwhile, back at Axe Capital, the gang is being led by Wags in financial warfare on the kid's clients. Phone calls are made, deals are offered to the clients to cash out of the firm. Rumors are spread.
While all this is going on, Axe fakes nautical distress by unplugging some wires and trying to call for help, help that will never come because the towing boats are allegedly all jammed up with other business. Axe creates a stall while the merry traders back at he office execute the sabotage.
By the time they get back to the dock and the kid checks in on his phone, he finds out he's been wiped out. His firm has been gutted like Santiago's marlin in 'The Old Man and the Sea.' Axe's accomplices back at the ranch are exulting in their effort. Spyros is excitedly recreating his response on the radio to Axe that there are no tow boats available. It's been a Sting operation.
As always, with alternating story lines, we have Wendy who is trying to put her face back out there in public after Chuck Jr. revealed to the entire state that she and he practice Sado Masochism sex.
Wendy's Google links are linked to kink. People are asking what kind of whips does she use. The temptation might be to sponsor a brand—Wendy's Whip/Wackers—but that seems far too tacky and would only reinforce the image. She's got to work this one out for herself.
Meanwhile Chuck's dad has somehow acquired the rights to a vast acreage of New York City that has nothing built on it. It's impossible to tell where this tract of space exists. We generally see it at night. Have they gotten all the auto parts junk places out of Willets Point, hard by CitiField? No matter. Chuck Sr. is going to build once he gets the NYC Department of Sanitation to issue permits.
And that's where dad is going to get into do-do. The inside man at Sanitation flips on him under pressure from Brian Connerty and the Federal Southern District of New York. The permits are issued, but the Feds are watching. People are wired, and activities are being taped. Stay tuned. Elysian Fields might go the way of Freedomland.
But the pièce de résistance of the entire episode is how Chuck empties a Catholic church of the assembled State Assemblymen and Senators there for funeral services for Black Jack Foley. David Strathairn is definitely out of the script.
It seems that Chuck, on ascending to the perch of New York State Attorney General, has been rendered toothless because of a deal between the U.S. Attorney General, 'Jock' Jeffcoat and the newly elected New York governor. They have basically entered into a conspiracy to keep Chuck from prosecuting headline cases. He's an elected eunuch.
But not for long. Chuck has set his investigators out into the field and dug up plenty of dirt on numerous State Assemblyman and Senators. The kind of dirt you can prosecute on. The speed they have done this is astounding, but hey, this is television.
Wiley Chuck convinces the governor, who just happens to to be in the wings of the church waiting to deliver his eulogy for Black Jack, that it is in his interest to prosecute the miscreants. Weeks of positive publicity will accrue, and the Guv will be the talk of the state, if not the nation. Albany will be cleaned up. That will be astounding.
Chuck of course has the executive order right there to be signed—and the pen. The signature is the stroke of Doomsday for many in the pews. Chuck has taken a position at the church's rostrum, skipping ahead of the governor who thought he was next to give the eulogy. Chuck refers to Black Jack as Caesar. And what happened at Caesar's funeral? Why a man came to the rostrum and called out criminals and conspirators..."and I come today to do the same." Uh-oh.
That's basically the high sign, for bursting through the church's doors are a squadron of vinyl-clad F.B.I. agents and state troopers who approach several of the congregants and haul them out of their seats. They're under arrest. (We'll assume they've been indicted somewhere, sometime off camera. Without due process, they are sure to get off.) Transportation awaits outside.
It's not bad enough the Catholic Church suffers huge PR problems from sexual abuse of minors by priests, it has to now suffer through the attention of it having that many congregants hauled off to jail during a funeral service. The scene is as preposterous as it is funny. Will Pope Francis get involved? Talk about the Midnight Massacre. This one is Ecclesiastical.
Of course, there are those who might wonder if Black Jack Foley were Black Jack Feinstein and the sendoff were at Temple Emanu-El, would the services have been so interrupted? Probably, because the point would be to get Chuck to quote dialogue from history, be it from Winston Churchill or from the time of Caesar and the Holy Roman Empire.
Chuck hopes the sendoff for Black Jack has been a good one, and walks triumphantly down the aisle and out the church's doors. Dad is smiling.
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