Author: Damianista

Academic, Traveler, Blogger, Runner, Theatre Lover, Wine Snob, Part-time New Yorker, and Walking Damian Lewis Encyclopedia :D Procrastinated about a fan's diary on Damian Lewis for a while and the rest is history!

Billions on Showtime, Season 7 Episode 7: DMV

A road test. An amazing technology. An evening at the casino. This fun episode aptly called DMV demonstrates once again that nothing is what it seems in Billions!

It is time for employee performance reviews at MPC but the employees  are not comfortable about it thanks to the recent employee survey and feedback drama at the firm. Even though the boss recuses himself from rewarding and punishing anyone on the team, the employees are feeling uneasy with the composition of the review panel; e.g.  Scooter, who is not in touch with them at all (they do not even invite him to the movie night because they know he would never show up!) is sitting on the  review committee. They ask the panel to skip the review for a year… Continue reading “Billions on Showtime, Season 7 Episode 7: DMV”

Billions on Showtime, Season 7 Episode 6: The Man in the Olive Drab T-Shirt

In one of the best opening scenes in Billions, Robert and Charles, as they call each other, meet at an airport in Vestmannaeyjar (Westman Islands) in Iceland and set the tone for the episode. This one is all about respecting your adversary. As Grigor Andolov rightly points out one should avadversary is the one that knows about your abilities the most. And the title of the episode is a clear tribute to President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine to whose resilience and determination Russian President Vadimir Putin has had zero respect whatsoever. Continue reading “Billions on Showtime, Season 7 Episode 6: The Man in the Olive Drab T-Shirt”

Billions Season 7 Dining Guide, Episodes 1-5

One of my favorite things about my favorite TV show is how it showcases the New York dining scene from hole-in-the-walls to neighborhood gems to Michelin-starred restaurants. And it has been my pleasure to share the information about restaurants appearing on the show first in my weekly recaps and then in a full dining guide by the end of the season for Season 1,  Season 2, Season 3.  Season 4. and Season 5.

Fan Fun Billions dining guides are some of the most popular posts  on the blog and even some leading media outlets have noticed. Look what Forbes Magazine says about us!

“There are posts on actor Damian Lewis’s official website, that diligently track, with screenshots, all the food locations featured in every season. These posts even manage to name-check the take-out Chinese in one scene as the beloved eatery Wo-Hop.”

I describe each restaurant/bar that makes an appearance or gets a mention in Billions Season 5 below with a picture of the scene as a refresher, a link to the establishment’s website, its location as well as its Yelp review where available. I really hope you have a chance to try one or several of these places! Continue reading “Billions Season 7 Dining Guide, Episodes 1-5”

Billions on Showtime, Season 7 Episode 5: The Gulag Archipelago

The Gulag Archipelago, mentioned by Victor and that titles the episode, is a book written by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. I never read it but I am familiar with the author thanks to my Russian literature loving parents’ home library. Solzhenitsyn wrote to help raise global awareness about the political repression in the USSR. This particular book tells the story of a zek (a Gulag inmate) from his arrest to the show trial to being sent to a Gulag (labor camp in Siberia) to reflect on and learn from “his mistakes” based on interviews, reports,  legal documents and  Solzhenitsyn’s own experience as a zek. And as Solzhenitsyn revisits the ways things could have gone in his book, our characters deal with their past mistakes in their unique ways in the episode. Continue reading “Billions on Showtime, Season 7 Episode 5: The Gulag Archipelago”

Billions on Showtime, Season 7 Episode 4: Hurricane Rosie

Hurricane Rosie is a great episode demonstrating all kinds of hurricanes, literal and figurative, a billionaire businessman can face when he decides to run a presidential campaign! And the experiences he goes through in the episode makes Mike Prince realize that he cannot make casual decisions as he pleases anymore. Every single thing he does, in fact every single thing any of his employees does on behalf of the company, now matters in a way that it did not before. Prince comes out of the episode, having averted three major crises, as the apparent winner, yet he is clueless about a Cat 5 hurricane coming his way. Its name is Wendy. Continue reading “Billions on Showtime, Season 7 Episode 4: Hurricane Rosie”