Billions Season 2 Dining Guide

My husband and I are crazy foodies. He loves to cook (we are talking about a man who bakes bread, brews beer and makes pancetta here!) and we both love to eat. Thus, NYC dining scene, from its “special occasion” restaurants to yummy hole-in-the-walls to city institutions to cozy neighborhood joints, making memorable appearances in Billions makes us smile big!

source: Showtime

Today I turn that big smile into Billions Season 2 dining guide with a huge THANK YOU to the show creators for loving and honoring the dining capital of the world: Some of these places are my personal favorites and I believe, being the forensic fan that I am, I have been able to figure out almost all of them using hints from the scene as well as Google and, hey, Google earth, too! 🙂 And big thanks go to Brian Koppelman for kindly answering a few of our restaurant related questions on Twitter.  Continue reading “Billions Season 2 Dining Guide”

Billions Season 2 Locations in New York City and Beyond

source: Showtime

I am an immigrant. I moved to the US for graduate study in late 1990s. My husband and I, having finished our PhDs, moved to New York in 2001, only weeks before September 11, for our first jobs. The city has since given me so much in so many different dimensions and defined me as an individual: a foodie, a film buff, a theatre lover, a feminist, a wine snob, a runner and more… Even though we moved to the South five years later for new jobs, we could not give up on New York. We still have a tiny apartment on the Upper West Side and we are proud part-time New Yorkers 😀

And, as I mentioned a billion times before, Billions is a dream show for me not only because my favorite actor is in it, but also New York, from its landmarks to city parks to its distinct neighborhoods, appears as a cast member! As someone who feels the only home she has in the world is the city that never sleeps, I particularly love it that Billions is taking over New York, the BIG film studio that it is, and shooting all over the place, from Manhattan to Queens to Brooklyn to The Bronx to Long Island and to northern suburbs. So this Billions Season 2 Location Guide is a loving tribute to my most favorite place on earth and a heartfelt thank you to the Billions show creators for giving us a love letter to the city.

ENJOY!

ps. If you think I am missing a location, please let me know and I will be very happy to add it to the list. Continue reading “Billions Season 2 Locations in New York City and Beyond”

Best of Billions Season 2

source: Showtime

Decisions, decision, decisions. We aren’t quite ready to let go of Season 2 just yet and we encourage you to share your ‘Best of’ in the comments below.

Billions is no longer the new show on the Rhoade. Nope, Season 2 has left us all desperate for Season 3 which thankfully we know is confirmed.

Continue reading “Best of Billions Season 2”

Billions FanFic: Rubble

Always such touchy business posting fanfic. Folks more versed in the fanfic world always give such effusive disclaimers, it’s almost like an admission of guilt somehow. Guilty because somebody else’s work inspired them so much that they had to write their own? You’d think such a thing would be the highest form of praise. Anyway, all those standard disclaimers apply here as well. I love these characters a lot, but I own them not one bit. And, if it needs to be said, I earn absolutely nothing from this blog for anything I write. Nothing but readers, which to any writer really, are the real gold (albeit actual real gold is quite useful too, don’t get me wrong :)).

Here’s an expanded version of the Billions fanfic I wrote before Season 2 began. Setting remains a flashback to the time around 9/11, possibly a couple days, or maybe a week, after it happened. In this version, it’s more of an imagined bookend to the end of this year’s fantastic season. Also, I should add, I’ve written this only because, I think, it is decidedly NOT something that’s going to happen on the show. I wrote it because someone had to go there. I figured, why not me. Enjoy!

Continue reading “Billions FanFic: Rubble”

Billions on Showtime 2.12: Ball in Hand

We sit in the mud, my friend, and reach for the stars.

― Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons

Here we are, at the end of Season 2 of Billions, and what a ride it’s been. I know I’m not alone in wishing that these folks wrote and worked and filmed and screened all at the same time, so we wouldn’t have to suffer the excruciating dry months of waiting for the next season to start. In this season, the entire lot of them exceeded all expectations. The story was tight, the performances even tighter. It’s like they all came into their own skins this season and it was a treat to watch.

My review here won’t be a recap, because you’ve already read those. Instead I’ll focus on the father and son scenes central to Season 2, Episode 12, “Ball in Hand.” And I can’t leave the season without talking a bit about Bobby and Wendy. While most other connections between characters are clear, it seems there reigns a central mystery, still, between who Bobby and Wendy are to each other. This season, wonderfully, didn’t solve the mystery a bit, it only intensified it.

Continue reading “Billions on Showtime 2.12: Ball in Hand”