Drama in New York

Gramercy Park

Oh Chuck, say it ain't so. My Captain, My Captain lay wounded on the Senate floor.

In a stirring turn of events, the New York Attorney General, Charles (Chuck) Rhoades Jr. has been accused by the New York Governor of abuse of power. He faces a trial by the members of the New York Senate.

We finally get to see Chuck and governor Bob Sweeny in Albany, the capitol of New York, and where as elected officials of New York State they have never been seen to spend any time in. But the state capitol is now featured in all its architectural glory as the drama surrounding the removal of Chuck from power unfolds.

The road to this turning point has been building, as the feud between Chuck and Mike Prince and other people of extreme wealth has erupted like Vesuvius. Prince secured the Summer Olympics for NYC for 2028. Chuck is pissed. Chuck manages to torpedo the approval by letting it be known that Mike handed an under-the-table gratuity to Colin Drache, the lip-licking polished foreigner who helped Mike secure the bid. Dirty as hell.

Mike is shattered. Chuck gloats. He visits Mike in the now useless Olympic office space complete with a scale mock-up of Manhattan to offer condolences and a chance to sell the real estate to the NYS building fund.

Mike is in no mood to have Chuck gloat and plots revenge. Sacker outlines a plan to get Chuck out of office. Get 2/3s of the New York Senate to vote to move him for abuse of power. Chuck is on a crusade to stick it to rich people, and the latest one is to secure public access to a private park, camouflaged as Van something, but it's really Gramercy Park, a gated private park in Manhattan between 20th and 22nd Streets, between Third Avenue and Park Avenue South.

Many people have tried to break through to gain public access to that park, but it's withstood all attempts. The residents in the buildings that surround the park are entitled to a key, for an annual fee, that allows them access. They even need a separate key to unlock the gates to leave. In the center of the park is a statue of Edwin Booth, the Shakespearean actor and the older brother of John Wiles Booth, who assassinated President Lincoln.

The Players Club is a prominent building across the street from the park. Many of the town houses have been owned over the years by prominent New Yorkers, one being a mayor back in the late 1800s.

It's a pretty park, and I think was even featured at the end of Soylent Green, that dystopian movie about final days on Earth as being the sole place where there were trees. I remember an unfortunate scene in the movie where an aged Edward G. Robinson seems to be on an exercise bike. Jeez. Is this the end of Rico?

The family flower shop was near the park. I was never in it. Not that ago I worked for a company  located in the area where the managing director thought he had enough influence to allow the employees to gain access to the park to eat lunch.

I knew way more about the park than he did. I told him basically he's pissing up a rope. They're never going to allow a bunch of programmers access to the park, leaving wrappers from Subway sandwiches at lunch time. It never happened.

Chuck is relentless. He witnesses a young Spanish nanny pushing a baby carriage trying to get into the park behind a member who has just opened the gate. No go. She's refused admission.

Chuck strong arms his way to getting a list of the members who have keys. He files a lawsuit. The association that owns the park files a counter suit. The judge is pissed at Chuck for a frivolous suit and waylays Chuck's attempt to get the case in front of a jury. Chuck is making enemies, and tilting at windmills. He's going to have to settle for something that can take up to 7 years to comply with. Chuck loses.

Mike Prince in addition to being a billionaire and running the Michael Prince Fund (MPF) is also now trying to unseat Chuck. Kate Sacker is reluctant to tell Mike how, but later accedes when Mike promises to keep her efforts in the background.

Kate outlines how to get the 2/3s majority of the 63 Senate seats. Mike will need 42 senators to vote to unseat Chuck, then mission will be accomplished. 

Battle plans and a map are needed. Wags and Scooter are on it. There remains one upstate senator, Clay Tharpe, a Strom Thurmond of the New York Senate, who is an old friend who in no uncertain terms tells Mike that he'll not be part of anything to dislodge Chuck.

We finally get some Albany locales in this show. There's the requisite watering hole/restaurant where the powerful meet, Jack's, Oyster House, an authentic place near the Capitol on State Street that's been in business since 1913, run by the same family, now grandson Brad Rosenstein. 

There's a view of the capitol building, a magnificent pile of architectural design that is shown. I've often heard the inside of it is something to behold, and the producers Messrs. Levian, Koppleman and Ross Sorkin have outdone themselves by either recreating the Senate chamber, or gaining access to it to film in there. It's a stirring scene.

Anyone who has been watching Billions knows the writing is crisp and can be counted on having the characters utter "fuck" and "motherfucker" a minimum of times.  There are quick references that you have to be almost on the inside of the story to know what they're talking about.

One scene between Scooter, Wags and Kate makes reference to the Sky Masterson lesson from Guys and Dolls that you should never bet against a man who says he can squirt cider into your ear, because believe me, that man will find a way to squirt cider into your ear. Scooter knew the expression, but Kate had to explain it to Wags, of all people, who didn't know the patois of Guys and Dolls. Please don't tell me he doesn't know about, "I've got the horse right here."

Sometimes the dialogue is too sharp, and makes references to people and things that even stump me. I didn't know what Kate might be referring to when she said something about Mattie Ross, who it turns out is a character in the novel and movie Rooster Cogburn, that was made into True Grit starring John Wayne in 1969, sequeled in 1975, also starring John Wayne, and finally Jeff Bridges in a remake in 2010 titled Rooster Cogburn. Mattie loses an arm. Kate is making a metaphor for something.

New York State Senate Chamber

The 9th episode in Season 6 is titled Hindenburg, and refers to the speech Chuck makes to save his ass from being ousted. His lawyer Ira offers to get up and say the right things, but Chuck is Churchillian in eloquence when he compares their proposed actions to going down with the Hindenburg. We know Chuck admires history, Churchill in particular, since he had a signed set of Churchill's books that he briefly lost possession of, but regained in an episode a few seasons ago.

Of course, Mike Prince is incongruently sitting to the right side of Governor Sweeney as the Senate proceedings unfold. Only in Hollywood does the hedge fund guy get to sit with the governor.

Chuck is on fire. It's the kind of speech they'll use in classrooms for years to come. The senators applaud. Ira tells Chuck that never happens. The vote ticks its way down to Ayes and Nays. Clay Tharpe seems to be the one who will or won't tip the scales.

As much as he was adamant about not siding with Mike Prince, that was before they put the screws to him and waylaid downtown relief money for a rundown city in his district, to a Mike Prince project. Rock and a hard place as his name is called.

In true Howard Cosell fashion, "Down goes Chuck, Down goes Chuck. Wow! 

The governor appoints Chuck's second Daevisa Mahar (Dave) to be Acting Attorney General for the remainder of Chuck's term. (Dave is the nickname, but Daevisa is a woman.) Don Quixote's Sancho Panza gets the part.

Are the producers telling us something in having an Attorney General removed from office?  Are they giving us the playbook? Is this a metaphor for the removal of Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, who is quite unpopular in many quarters since on taking office he pretty much said be wasn't going to pay attention to a lot of crime, even felonies. Oh-oh.

In Bragg's case there would need to be a recall election, as has happened on the West Coast with trying to oust certain Progressive office holders. So far, none have been removed from office.

Senator Clay Tharpe weighed the choices, and "under normal circumstances" he would have helped keep Chuck in office. But not this time. "Aye" for the removal.

Exult O Shores, and ring the bells! 
      But I with mournful tread,
      Walk the deck my Captain lies,
      Fallen Cold and dead.

What will become of Chuck? We know they're not writing Paul Giamatti out of the show. One of the quick coming attraction scenes shows Dave pissed at Sacker, since she surely suspects she helped orchestra Chuck's removal.

Chuck's survived admitting to using a dominatrix's service and held office when he was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern New York District.. But he couldn't keep the ramparts from being scaled when he helped 86 the 2028 Olympics from NYC, and lobbied to get programmers into Gramercy Park on their lunch hour, leaving behind Subway sandwich wrappers. There's only so much the billionaire populace will stand for.

What does come to light in a quick flashback is that Chuck was out-Chucked. Wags is seen paying off the persona that staged the scenes that fueled Chuck's outrage that certain parts of the New York City world are cloistered from John Q. public, like sitting in the lobby of the Bates Club without a member (the NYAC was once like that), or a Spanish nanny trying to use Gramercy Park with her charge in a carriage.

It was all a ruse to get under Chuck's thin skin and get him to start flinging his weight around to invoke  personal vendettas. He was duped. He didn't see it coming.

Billions is must see TV if you're a New Yorker of any stripe.

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