What a great segue. We go from the final episode of Homecoming, to the opening salvo of Billions. Thank you Showtime! You are providing the shut-in world with adult programming.
The season opener wastes no time in starting the meter on how many times the word "fuck" can be uttered. By both genders. I can't remember if the non-binary gets to utter it as well.
The screenwriters LOVE this word, and can waste no time in getting it into the dialogue. And anything Yiddish will do just as well. As when the nearly stag table is seated at Chuck's father's wedding (more on that later) and the horny males are starting to size up the female crowd, we hear Ira utter some sage advice that the statute of limitations on desiring ex's is when your schwantz rusts and falls off. Thank God for the New Yorkers in the writers' room.
The very beginning is somewhat a Native American theme. Chuck Sr. is making an honest woman of Roxanne, the Native American he's had a love child with while pursuing of the upstate casino business. Dad's there with a turquoise bolo tie and grinning from ear-to-ear. He's obviously decided to give the papoose a father figure to look up to, at least as long as he has years left and money to stuff into a trust fund.
Quick jump to the Alaska Coast Highway where Bobby and Wags are in a wigwam of sorts, ingesting hallucinogenic mushrooms and being guided to spiritual awareness by some sort of shaman. Wags missed Woodstock, Powder Ridge, and hanging out with Ken Kesey and Hunter Thompson, but nevertheless always seems to manage to give you the appearance of someone who's spent his prior evening using recreational pharmaceutical drugs in the company of escorts. On his return he tells Wendy he's met the Creator. Wendy's eyes roll.
Obviously, Axe has felt the need to see things on a different level. Just making money now bores him. He's joine the Deca club, someone who has over ten billions dollars of net worth. He desperately needs meaning. So he and Wags leave the Indian seminar on their Harleys (or their Indians) and contemplate the trip home.
Again, as in Homeland, cell phone reception is without peer. Wags checks his phone at a stop in Alaska with only a lake in view and asks Bobby if he's interested in a Vanity Fair cover story. He, Axe being the cover story. Bobby waffles, but very quickly they must have chucked the Harleys and bought plane tickets, or gotten a private jet, and are back in good old New York. Where the action is.
Chuck Jr. is still the Attorney General for New York, despite never being seen anywhere near the Empire State Plaza or the Al Smith office building in Albany, The producers obviously have enough locales to choose from downstate.
Chuck has Kate Sacker on his AG staff, and together they get the goods on a take-down of electric power hogs running bitcoin servers, consuming so much electricity in an upstate hamlet that the chart he and Sacker show the two "clickers"—as Bobby Axe calls them—of their outlier energy use, shows the extra power that had to be purchased by the town to prevent blackouts, therefore raising property taxes, and committing utility theft. They and the Town Supervisor are going down.
There are several things I don't understand about Bitcoin and other virtual currencies. Why do the amounts have to be preserved on servers to run 24/7? And what the hell is blockchain? As much as I read about it, there is little I truly understand, but hey, I'll go with the plot.
The bitcoin farm is of course tied to Bobby Axelrod—but not directly. He and Chuck come to an agreement that the charges won't go away, but they'll descend from the criminal level to a civil level, and cost Axe some moolah in fines, of which he has plenty.
The the spirit if this transparent friendship,, which is really only adhering to the axiom of keeping your enemies close, Bobby has returned the Winston Churchill WW II first editions he scooped up when Chuck put them on the market when he needed money. Do not be fooled. These rutting antagonists are still going after each other.
The theme of the season seems to be how hard Axe and Chuck are going to transform their personalities and become different men. Good luck with that.
Chuck and Wendy are headed for Splitsville. Reconciliation is not in the picture. Wendy's holed up in Axe's spare apartment in NYC, a palatial suite filled with artwork from the Masters. Look close and you'll spot Gustave Caillebotte's Floor Scrappers. Coming attractions seem to indicate that art will play a part in future episodes. Did Axe acquire Nazi stolen art? We know we can't put it past him.
Wendy is definitely going to be written into more episodes. Her role is clearly expanding. The #MeToo movement is going to propel more females in this show, just like last year.
And Maggie Siff, as Wendy, is coiffed and gowned in the latest when she's seated at Chuck's father's wedding with Chuck Sr's. ex, the woman thrown overboard for Pocahontas, and it's not Elizabeth Warren. Roxanne is the full-blooded real deal.
A merger is always tough to handle. The lawyers, accountants and HR people get it done on paper, but the humans cling to their respective sides tenaciously. Axe Capital and Mascap is a federation of separate entities, and the players are not going along with ir. It's the Quants vs. the Analysts.
There's a team building meeting with Wendy, looking positively svelte in her all black outfit. The warring clans, Axe and Mason employees are grouped on opposite sides. It's the musical West Side Story's Jets vs. the Sharks all over again.
How the producers missed the chance to play that soundtrack is true negligence. "When you're a Jet you're a Jet all the way, from your first cigarette to your last dying day."
Never mind the omission. Wendy has concocted how to make the place fun again. So in comes The Man, the red-haired Irish wrestler Becky Lynch who storms the reception desk and comes gunning for Wendy.
I'm not up on wrestling, but The Man has appeal. She and Wendy go at it, pulling punches and kicks, but not pulling the throw down Wendy gives Becky that sends her crashing into office furniture. That had to hurt, no?
No. Becky bounces up from being flattened and hugs Wendy as they explain the philosophy of life— wrestling style. You look good, if you make your opponent look good. It's entertainment and an object lesson for the group to start to meld together better.
Becky is the real deal. She is considered a WWE champion female wrestler who apparently has been in the game since 2002. She's 33, from Limerick, and steals the show with her Irish accent and flaming red hair. Keep your eye out for her.
The Vanity Fair photo shoot introduces us to Michael Prince, a Jeff Bezos lookalike to me, who will be Bobby's financial antagonist. Two Alpha males loose on Wall Street.
The image of Mike Prince being Bezos will be greatly enhanced if they introduce a female alongside him who is an Argentine firecracker, just like the one Jeff has apparently thrown his wife overboard for. If they cast the Colombian bombshell Sophia Vergara from the now concluded series Modern Family, the image will be complete.
Wendy is a woman scorned. Taylor Mason is hoping that Chuck and Axe kill each other in a financial duel, and he emerges the with the spoils.
Will Chuck ever visit Albany? Will we meet the Governor? Will coronavirus crawl into later episodes? Will Chuck and Axe become redeemed men?
Fuck yeah! We will of course keep watching.
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