No major machinations. Axe has called everyone in on New Year's Day. He's a self-motivated driver, and he expects everyone else to be like him, even if he has to make them.
The episode is appropriately named, 'New Year's Day' and is somewhat prosaic compared to other twists and turns of other episodes. There is absolute comic relief when Wags cuts his vacation in South Beach short and returns for the gathering.
It seems Wags has encountered a young thing that he thought was just right for him. At least while on vacation. They enjoyed each other enough for the young lady to lift Wags's Patek Philippe heirloom watch that his father left him (You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation.) and disappear. This has devastated Wags way more than he will outwardly show.
Wendy has the answer and a youthful, cheerleader-looking female appears at the offices and takes Wags into a conference room. Bobby remarks that the floors are a little hard in there, but sex is not what is going to console Wags. Cuddling is.
Wendy has arranged for a professional cuddler to hug Wags and let him cry his eyes out. Which he does. The water works have opened. Wags will be better in no time.
The gang at Axe Capital is staging a simulated hearing for Wendy's medical license review. Even in simulation, it's not going well for Wendy. She's emotional and potty-mouthed: the word fuck escapes her lips, and once is too much. She's got to cool off. Maybe get Taylor to drop the complaint.
Meanwhile, over at Taylor Mason's they too are running a simulation of the hearing. They're trying to make sure Taylor presents himself as a patient, rather than a client for Wendy's services. A patient should be accorded doctor-patient confidentiality, and the breach of Taylor's records would violate that. Very bad for Wendy.
Spoiler alert. The upshot of the Medical Board proceedings will become a moot point because Wendy has supplicated herself before Taylor and convinced him enough of her contriteness. Taylor relents, says he will withdraw the complaint, but tells Wendy she owes him one.
Meanwhile, Chuck and his dad are bribing the Secretary of the Treasury, Krakow, to lift sanctions on a bank that is willing to give dear old dad a sweetheart loan to move the stalled development along.
Unbeknownst the the Rhoades family, Briian Connerty in his role as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District has convinced a Federal judge to approve bugs to be installed in the Rhoades household. The walls have ears, and Bryan and Kate are listening.
The approval of the bugs comes with provisos that certain things cannot he listened to. Kate assures the judge that there will be a "taint team" in place to rule on what can and cannot be listened to, particularly anything where the Rhoadeses lawyer is present and their conversations are protected by attorney-client privilege.
Connerty agrees, at least until he realizes from the tapped conversations that there is a paper, signed contract between the Secretary of the Treasury and Rhoades Sr. as to the arrangement and reimbursement for the action of the Secretary lifting sanctions on the bank that is granting the sweetheart loan to Chuck Sr.
The signed contract is the evidence Connerty needs to prove the conspiracy. But it is locked away in a wall safe in Chuck Sr.'s apartment. No joy. No rapture. Connerty has hit a legal roadblock.
The final scene in the episode takes place is an Irish bar of the kind you might still find tucked away in the Bronx, Upper Manhattan, or in small sections of Brooklyn or Queens. The place is full of bruiser guys and gals who pretty much pretend they were born in Ireland and are veterans of The Troubles directly.
(Note: Hitting the pause button at the right time tells you the bar, The Assembly, is at 73rd Street and Cooper Avenue, which happens to be in Glendale Queens. You're going to have to know Queens to be able to get there.)
Bryan easily finds his brother Jackie, who is about to be overtaken in a bar fight until Bryan raises a bottle in the air and orders the pugilists to rethink their actions—which they do.
Bryan's brother is still thrown out by management. He and Bryan are well-known to the owners and they leave willingly.
Bryan might be a Fordham Law School graduate, but the brother is more likely a graduate of Sing Sing, especially when it becomes known to the viewer that Bryan's brother is a safe cracker and Bryan is about to give him an assignment.
All series now have soundtracks, and Billions is no exception. The Irish bar setting is brought to us with a lively rendition of 'The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn' performed by the Pogues.
Bryan is certainly going to find out what troubles he can get himself into.
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