Category: Billions

Billions on Showtime, Episode 9: Where the **** is Donnie?

source: Showtime
source: Showtime

I know why Episode 9, directed by Susanna White, who also directs Damian Lewis in the coming soon Our Kind of Traitor, does not open but just closes with Townes Van Zandt’s Waiting Around to Die.

“Sometimes I don’t know where
This dirty road is taking me
Sometimes I can’t even see the reason why
I guess I keep a-gamblin’
Lots of booze and lots of ramblin’
It’s easier than just waitin’ around to die.”

Because you feel it.

It was certainly an aha moment to see Donnie frantically hiding his pills during the FBI raid in his house in Episode 8. I have been uneasy since Axe rewarded him for his loyalty: tripling his stack and giving him 200K shares of Rubinex despite the fact that the guy was not able to deliver! But the pills last week and Wendy noticing his weight loss this week and… I knew… Donnie is seriously sick. And this makes a few other things make sense for me. Continue reading “Billions on Showtime, Episode 9: Where the **** is Donnie?”

Billions ep 9 : Where the **** is Donnie?

Familia Axelrod is taking a stroll through downtown quizzing each other on Yankees trivia. Axe quickly diverts the kids into an ice cream shop, while Lara reasonably asks “On a school night?” She follows his eyes to the graffiti sprayed on their car. “It’s getting bad,” she says. Axe says, “it’s just started.”

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Back at home, Axe is shooting flawless pool and Lara suggests they skip town for a while. She’s scared. “There’s hatred, I can feel it.” Axe will have none of that.

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Billions ep. 8 : Boasts and Rails

His eyes see the dark truth within us all, a truth that wasn’t even dark until he looked at it – Bobby Axelrod described by an employee he’s surveilled

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While Axe feigns a hunt for a mole by going all Captain Queeg  on his subordinates, the DA’s subordinate Kate Sacker has found the real juice. The elusive Chapter 10, which Lara had forced into redaction a couple episodes ago, is now seeing the light of day.

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Axe’s big secret? Minutes after the first plane hit on 9/11, he was on a phone shorting aviation, hotels and shipping. Pretty darn awful, if you ask me.

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Billions on Showtime, Episode 8: Boasts and Rails

source: Showtime
source: Showtime

If Bookworm had not given me the heads up, I would have been totally clueless: The title of this episode refers to two fundamental shots in Squash, a fast-paced racket sport that is also known as turbo-charged chess: the more skilled a player is, the more strategic the game becomes.

A boast shot is any shot that hits a sidewall or back wall before hitting the front wall. There are two types: The best time to use the attacking boast is when you are in front of your opponent. A good attacking boast forces your opponent to run the full diagonal to be able to return it. The best time to use the defensive boast is when you are behind your opponent. A good defensive boast gives you time to recover and sometimes can win you the point, too.

A rail shot is when you hit the ball, parallel to the side wall, to the front wall and back into the corner. It is useful when your opponent plays you into a corner.

So… Who is boasting? Who is railing? You decide! Continue reading “Billions on Showtime, Episode 8: Boasts and Rails”

Billions ep 7 : The Punch

Bobby has the Replacements plugged into his ears as he swims. He comes up for air not a happy camper. Seems neither meditation nor exercise are quieting the demons these days.imageedit_49_4024834524
Meanwhile the Axelrod kids are spending $100 bills of their chaperone’s money on squirt guns at an alcohol-serving arcade. The chaperone, as somewhat less wealthy than the Axelrods, seems to make much of the inequity, drowns his sorrows in beer after beer, then proceeds to screechingly and veeringly drive his charges home.
His slurry “I got your precious fucking babies home” totally deserves the quite credibly delivered “I will kill you, you mother fu..” and the tight middle-weight cross to the nose delivered by Axe. And there we have the title of the episode: The Punch. A totally morally justified punch as one book end to this roller coaster-y, yet still somehow thought-provoking, episode. Morally justified punch, but not quite legal. As is the premise of this entire series.imageedit_46_8339140284
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