Tag: Peace Sells

Billions Season 2 Music

We know how important music is the world of Billions. Showrunner Brian Koppelman recently said on his podcast The MomentĀ 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!

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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 songsĀ 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 containĀ the same proportion of arena metal, 70’s funk, contemporary alternative, live ballad, perennial classics, and lovely alt-country.Ā All theĀ tracks they chose, regardless of number, hit all the marks.

Let’s follow along with Season 2’s playlist, shall we?

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Billions on Showtime 2.04: The Oath

Boy, Billions is giving its stellar coterie of actors a lot more to do this season! While the plot has always remained tight and unpredictable, this show has always been character-driven, never more so than right at this moment.

You don’t have to read the business papers to hear the real world buzz around Preet Bharara’s recent firing as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of NY. In the fictional world of Billions, this is the very position occupied by Chuck. In Tuesday’s NYT, Andrew Ross Sorkin’s regular article Dealbook , quoted the so-called “sheriff of Wall Street” Bharara saying in another interview:

I have never said that insider trading is the crime of the century. It has not been my personal focus. It’s the focus of the press because there are a lot of wealthy people that like the reporting of it.

Indeed, in the world of Wall Street, and Billions, there is ethics and then there is the appearance of ethics. Prosecution is not always (or ever?) about beating the bad guy and scoring a victory for justice. A lot of the time it’s about beating a case that’s beatable and tantalizing to the press and the public. Sure, the practice of law is about setting precedent on good and bad, right and wrong, but a lot of the time (most of the time?) it’s about managing public perception of these lofty ideals. And it’s in the managing of perception where all the play happens. This theme runs throughout Billions, and is in particular focus in Episode 4 “The Oath.”

Something else notable for this episode: the virtual encyclopedia of pop culture references! A cynical person could snark it’s a good thing all the people of this world seem to have read the same books, seen the same movies, and listened to the same music. Writing about it was one rabbit hole after another and I can only imagine the fun from the actual writing of it.

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