If it's true that Axe's character has its origins in the real life hedge fund impresario Steven A. Cohen, (SAC) then the Mets are in trouble because SAC has bought the Mets and is about to see a lot of money go into a team that's not going to be in the playoffs. We witness a pissed off Bobby nearly every episode. Imagine the wrath that's headed the Mets' way.
We're two episodes into the second half of what would have been last year's season, and the plot lines have returned to trying to make life for the enemy unbearable, and certainly less profitable.
Mike Prince, and Bobby Axe head two warring head funds that are determined to invoke destruction on each other just as Sam Malone Cheers' crowd was out to get Gary's Olde Town Tavern when they squared off playing softball.
Of course when Prince and Axe go at it, whole industries and their sectors are subject to going out of business just because these two guys carry an enmity toward each other. Instead of bats and balls these two principals use the financial markets to inflict pain. The short play on Game Stop stock looks like playing Candyland to these two.
Chuck Jr. is now clean shaven, dispensing the devilish look the goatee and mustache gave him. He of course is no less devilish.
Bobby Axelrod has acquired the right to run a bank, a cherished financial plum that will only serve to extend his venal influence over the markets. Chuck has been blind sided by this and is determined to thwart Axe's bank charter.
Chuck and his No. 2, Kate Sacker, take a trip to Wilmington, Delaware to meet the Delaware AG to get him to waylay Bobby's plans, since the bank is from a Delaware Charter.
Apparently the Delaware AG also doesn't work from the state capitol either—which any child of the 50s will tell you is Dover—because Chuck as we know, the Attorney General for New York State, works out of New York City, never setting foot in boring Albany, which of course hardly has the New York skyline other than the Empire Plaza, Governor Rockefeller's edifice complex built in the 70s.
And the Acela train that he and Sacker obviously took stops at Wilmington, not Dover. Sacker complains how quiet Chuck has been in the taxi ride from Penn Station as they returned from their day trip back to the NYC office, the only office we ever see Chuck in.
The Delaware AG was not helpful—yet. Chuck's dad needs a kidney transplant and is not eligible fast enough to get one before he croaks. His days are truly numbered. Chuck wants his lawyer Ira to write the eulogy Chuck will have to give.
As they banter about his we learn that Ira has beaten Chuck soundly in what surely is squash, since Ira's "Philadelphias" upended Chuck.
It has to be squash because all male Ivy-leaguers play squash. And it turns out the Philadelphia is a winning shot perfected by members of the Philadelphia Squash Club. very Main Line.
Eventually the Delaware AG sees Chuck's wisdom in appointing a trustee to monitor Axe's bank dealings. And Chuck short lists his father's name (one name on the list) and achieves the sought after meddlesome oversight that he wants to inflict on Axe.
Chuck figures his father will be alive just long enough to disrupt Axe BIG time. something that might even keep him alive longer because he too hates Axe. Of course, the chess game is hardly over, because Axe achieves what Chuck has been unable to accomplish, set Chuck Sr. up with a kidney.
It's like Mickey Mantle's liver transplant all over again. The hard-charging Mick needs a liver, and one appears very quickly. Mick roars to the top of the list. The Mick doesn't survive too much longer, but he got one.
So the second episode of the new season ends with Chuck Sr. being wheeled in—as well as his donor that Axe has found—to get the kidney. The recovery will of course keep Sr. from acting as trustee, so of course Jr. is back to square one.
Teamwork. Chuck plots an alliance with Mike Prince to disrupt Axe's bank. And that's where we leave it, for now.
Along the way to this bold move by Axe, we have Prince gaining access to a freighter and its course in the North Atlantic that thwarts the expected delivery of frozen pizzas on their way from Italy that are going to arrive in the States and make Axe's buddies a fortune, because the pizzas, when defrosted and heated, are so good you can't tell they came from the grocer's freezer. The IPO is all set.
Rats. The pizza launch is in jeopardy. The timing will be thrown off and the window for success will close. But not with Wags on duty to guard Axe's flank. He gets the go-ahead to order a massive array of ovens to be set up in the states to produce the pies. Who needs a floundering freighter when you've got Wags?
The pies arrive in the supermarkets on time, and Wags just happens to be savoring a slice when Prince's No.2 goes shopping. Take that, you saboteur. Pies in the Whole Foods freezer. Courtesy of Axe.
Nico Tanner, the Jackson Pollock-like abstract painter who flings paint at the canvas rather than drips it from above, has been ganged up on by Wendy and Axe who believe his creative muse has sold out to uptown hot-to-trot very wealthy divorcees from the First Wives Club who will be his patron as long as they can seduce him. He's far too willing. He's gone commercial.
Tanner shows Axe and Wendy and destroys most of his work. Axe keeps one piece that he claims represents true emotion. We are not likely to see Tanner anymore as Wendy's love interest. The artistic temperament has spoken.
The title of the show almost makes it out of date. Trillions are new billions. A billion is a thousand millions, and a trillion is a thousand billions.
Just ask Congress. They might know.
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