Tag: Black Jack Foley

Billions on Showtime, Season 4 Episode 4: Overton Window

First things first. Thank you Xfinity Watchaton Billions Watch Party for an amazing evening at Classic Car Club of Manhattan! Lady Trader and I felt like billionaires as we sipped Champagne on Axe’s plane, ate quail-masquerading-as-ortolan with napkins on our heads, played Black Jack like there is no tomorrow, enjoyed a Q&A with show creators and cast members followed by an early screening of the crazy good Episode 4, and, hey, we got to hang out with these two! Kelly and Toby, you guys rock!

Credible threats? Check. Ultimate sabotage? Check. Unparalleled favors? Check. Shocking twists and turns? Check. Taking care of business at all costs? Check. We are in a “World Gone Wrong” exactly like in Dylan’s song opening and closing the episode and Billions is on fire this week!

Primary Day / 5 hours until the opening bell

It is 4:30 am in the morning and the Burke brothers are “bright fucking yellow like you’re in Kill Bill” and busy at a school bus parking lot making sure the buses will be out of commission this morning. Huh? Continue reading “Billions on Showtime, Season 4 Episode 4: Overton Window”

Chuck Seniorisms by the Dozen, Part II

A Baker’s Dozen…And Then Some

You should know by now from my ‘Chuck Seniorisms by the Dozen’ Part I and watching the show Billions that Charles Rhoades Sr., often referred to simply as Senior, is played by the extraordinary actor Jeffrey DeMunn. Senior oozes a noble, high-born conviction with not so subtle hints of a slime ball undercurrent magnified by his Bob Barker mischievous smirk.

Senior is an Upper East Side grand master and epitome of the WASP elite who went to Yale and was a Whiffenpoof. He’s a member of the Yale Club of New York, stores his cigars at Nat Sherman Tobacco Lounge, although in season three he tells Wendy he’s cleaning out a walk-in closet of his prodigal son’s trivial prep school trophies to make room for a humidor, and hangs around with the likes of pals named Tate Tappan and Stuckey Brown, and rubs elbows with Kingmakers named Black Jack Foley.

Continue reading “Chuck Seniorisms by the Dozen, Part II”

Billions on Showtime, Season 3 Episode 8: All the Wilburys

Now that Axe and Chuck have dug themselves out of their own graves, both embrace their victories, and pick up the game where they left. We find them handling new situations they face in their own unique ways: sometimes with utmost care, and sometimes not so much. Continue reading “Billions on Showtime, Season 3 Episode 8: All the Wilburys”

Billions on Showtime, 3.06: The Third Ortolan

Like three delicately delicious birds, Wendy, Bobby, and Chuck are poised above the deep fryer in Billions Season 3, Episode 6, ‘The Third Ortolan.”

Continue reading “Billions on Showtime, 3.06: The Third Ortolan”

Billions on Showtime, Season 3 Episode 6: The Third Ortolan

Well, I said it time and again that it is only Wendy’s short that could force Axe and Chuck to take a break from their pissing contest and get themselves and the woman they both care about deeply out of the huge mess called Ice Juice. And the first half of the season has seamlessly built to this climactic episode which I believe is the BEST hour of television in a while, at least since we had Golden Frog Time!

Well, Dollar Bill is not alone in carrying bags full of money for business. We now find Chuck, the US attorney of the SDNY, paying $50K to a man who will plant the slide in Axe’s medicine cabinet while he is away at Art Basel in a few weeks. Axe and Chuck have so much in common they seriously could have been BFFs in another life. For one, they both know how to deal with vulnerable immigrants! Like Axe ended an American dream by having Maria Gonzalez deported to Guatemala in Episode 2: Wrong Maria Gonzalez,  Chuck is now creating an American Dream by promising Mr. Adubo $50K more as well as U.S. visas for his family in Congo once he completes the job. Continue reading “Billions on Showtime, Season 3 Episode 6: The Third Ortolan”