Analyzing the New Billions Season 3 Poster Art and Logo

On Wednesday, January 24, Showtime released new promotional material for Billions season three. Are there spoilers, clues and hints hidden in the poster art and logo? I immediately began scrutinizing the photos for suggestion and significance. I mean, after all, it is instinctive to analyze everything since I have a degree in that field and do it for a living. It’s second nature. When dissecting the details of the promo material, you’ll never guess what I found. So come with me on a deep dive and see if we can come up with an indication of what’s to come.

Let’s start with the logo.

Source: Twitter @SHO_Billions 

Ominous, is it not? Dark slate grey background of metal with exposed rivets. Reminds me of a war ship and we know the Billions‘ writers like to reference historical battles and cannon fodder. Is that grey metal iron? In some biblical meanings, natural iron is a symbol of natural, rational truth. Will the truth come out that Wendy violated her contract to warn Chuck about Ice Juice and will Dake discover that she shorted the Ice Juice stock? This scenario is definitely a favorite of mine and my fellow blogger/partner in crime, Damianista, and she talks about it here.  Oh, and I’ll come back to biblical references in a few paragraphs below, even though it seems like it’s out of left field at the moment. Stick with me kid, it will make sense in a bit. Continue reading “Analyzing the New Billions Season 3 Poster Art and Logo”

Billions Season 2 Music

We know how important music is the world of Billions. Showrunner Brian Koppelman recently said on his podcast The Moment that he writes to music. He shared that he wrote the penultimate episode of Season 2, “Golden Frog Time” with Tom Petty’s “Even the Losers” as inspiration and that song played during the writing of the show as well as within the show itself. When the question arose to whether they’d get the rights to use the song in the episode, Koppelman insisted that without the song there’d be no episode, literally and metaphorically. Thankfully they did get that song and many more memorable cuts for Season 2.

In a wee bite of a taste of what to expect in Season 3, we learned that “Born in San Antone” by Garrett T. Capps will open the first episode. Here’s some of his Lou Reed-ish styling here:

Just occurred to me and I had to go and listen and check to make sure they indeed haven’t used this song in either S1 or S2: LCD Soundsystem’s “North American Scum” totally brings up the ethos of the Billions world. Again, not one from the show as we know it, but certainly one metaphorically connected, at least in this viewer’s head.

In the spirit of getting geared up for another season of rich musical accompaniment to this show, let’s revisit Season 2’s playlist. Enjoy!

Continue reading “Billions Season 2 Music”

Billions Homeland Crossover Fanfic: Somebody That I Used to Know

Summer seems to be the time when showrunners are heads-down working on writing next season’s episodes. Seems it may also be the time when those of us awaiting those stories can make up some of our own. I made up the following story last year when we were waiting for Billions Season 2. Enjoy!

Standard disclaimer: I own nothing, neither of these characters, nor their history, real or imagined, not the coffee they share, nor New York City, their current home.

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Continue reading “Billions Homeland Crossover Fanfic: Somebody That I Used to Know”

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?

Continue reading “Music of Billions Season 2 – Repost”

Music of Billions Season 2

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?

Continue reading “Music of Billions Season 2”