Books are a Trigger for Billions – Repost

Perhaps not as sexy as the food or the music, nor as readily noticeable, is the backdrop of books used in a show. Shows that care about such things, like Billions, speak volumes with those carefully chosen volumes. It’s about setting the stage, providing props for the characters and the action. Most interestingly, the placement of books is about saying a thing or two about the character who owns them, in a language both visual and textual (if you look closely enough :)) Alternatively, barring such esoteric “meaning”, at the very least, books laying about can be fun Easter eggs that may say a thing or two about the folks who put the show together.

So, join me as we browse through the bookshelves of Billions.

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“Damian’s not mortal, that’s not true”: Tiffany’s Story

Hello all! Damianista welcomes you to a NEW Fan Story Tuesday!

Today’s story comes from a woman with a BIG heart and a LOVELY smile whom I am proud to call a friend. Tiffany does A LOT to help all in need both in her professional life as a therapist and in her private life as an extremely caring and giving person. We are thrilled she has taken the time to share her wonderful fan story with us. Cheers!

Why Damian? Why is Damian special? Damian is exceptional at his craft, his depth of character is conveyed in each role he portrays. There’s a distinct level of realism that Damian achieves in each character that I’ve seen no other performer reach. As a therapist I am fascinated by his performance in Keane. So real to life that it was initially hard to watch. He captured the delicate balance of suffering, creativity and compassion that many with mental illness struggle to cope with in every day life. There are so many real Keanes and Damian gave each one of them a very real voice capturing flawlessly their humanity. Continue reading ““Damian’s not mortal, that’s not true”: Tiffany’s Story”

Billions at Split Screens TV Festival

It is a pleasure to see, in this golden age of television, new TV-focused festivals are popping up around us every year. IFC Center in New York recently launched its Split Screens Festival celebrating the art of television  with a program curated by Matt Zoller Seitz, the editor-in-chief at rogerebert.com as well as critic for New York Magazine and vulture.com. The long-week festival had appearances by stars, producers, directors and show runners of several popular TV shows, including Billions!

Lewisto and I attended Close-Up: Asia Kate Dillon in Billions panel to see the brilliant Asia Kate Dillon, who brings Taylor Mason to life in our favorite show, and show creators and show runners Brian Koppelman and David Levien discuss the first gender non-binary character on TV and much more.

The evening started with the most pleasant surprise for us: we ran into wonderful Kelly AuCoin aka Dollar Bill who was in the audience. Well, Kelly and I had “met” online and we have been Facebook friends for over a year, and he also very graciously gave us an interview, but I did not meet him until that evening. And, yes, he is a great actor but he is also a sweet, sweet guy! Continue reading “Billions at Split Screens TV Festival”

Music of Billions Season 2 – Repost

Compared to Season 1, this season of Billions, for whatever reason, used a bit less music, fewer seminal tracks to accompany its richly crafted scenes. Music was still important this season, but somewhat less so than last. In my review of last year’s music, you’ll count 36 tracks. Here, the major songs in all episodes amounted to 20. Interesting revelation from this exercise is that they seem to follow a certain pattern in genres from one season to the next. That is to say, the aural landscape of this season seemed to contain the same proportion of arena metal, 70’s funk, contemporary alternative, live ballad, perennial classics, and lovely alt-country. All the tracks they chose, regardless of number, hit all the marks.

Let’s follow along with Season 2’s playlist, shall we?

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Brody in Homeland Season 6

When Brody died on Homeland, I was one of those fans who searched high and low, scrambling to find somewhere to talk about him and about the show. At one point I ended up on the Facebook page for Homeland and tried fruitlessly to sift thru all the flat “No Brody No Homeland” pointlessness to find someone who saw what I saw in the character and in the show. Brody will never die, I thought. So why rage into the void, begging for him to come back from the dead? Shows do listen to such things, I suppose. But, even if they did listen to all the pleas from fans, what would Brody come back for? To be a dad to his new daughter? To live happily ever after with Carrie? Really, fans?

No. Brody was dead. In fact, he was dead from the minute he got off the plane and saw Jess for the first time. I spoke at length of this aspect of the character before, here and here and here. The remarkable thing about the character was this very thing, that he was a dead man walking. A cipher, a mystery, an empty vessel filled with nothing except what various people put in his head. The fact that Damian played that emptiness so FULLY is the remarkable thing, the memorable thing, the thing that compels us to never let go of the character. Characters written so completely and played so fully never die, do they? The truth and the reality of Brody lives on and will never die.

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