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The ‘Billions’ Stock Watch: A New Season Starts With Psychedelics And Subterfuge

Post author By GoneTrending
Post date May 4, 2020

The ‘Billions’ Stock Watch is a weekly accounting of the action on the Showtime drama. Decisions will be made based on speculation and occasional misinformation and mysterious whims that are never fully explained to the general public. Kind of like the real stock market.

STOCK DOWN — Double crosses

Welcome back, you beautiful, duplicitous television program. Only one episode into the season and we’ve already moved from double-crosses to triple crosses. And Chuck Rhoades is marching into a dimly lit bar, flopping into a booth, and just straight-up saying “It’s a triple cross” before he even says hello. I’m so happy I might explode.

Let’s backtrack a little, though, just so we’re all on the same page. At the end of last season, Chuck and Axe worked together to trap Taylor in a murky situation that resulted in Taylor’s personal fund folding into Axe’s. But, unbeknownst to Axe, Taylor agreed to work with Chuck to ruin Axe from the inside, largely because Chuck was deeply jealous of and angry at Axe for being Wendy’s savior in her fight to save her medical license, and also because that’s just what Chuck does. And unbeknownst to both Chuck and Axe, Taylor had a plan to play matador and let the two bulls charge wildly gore each other in the ring. It was a lot. Billions rules.

And now it’s even more, somehow. Taylor gave Chuck info about a Bitcoin farm Axe is helping to bankroll, Chuck busted the farm and pressed Taylor for even more info, Taylor spilled the beans to Axe, Axe attempted to play nice with Chuck by returning the first-edition Churchill works that Chuck sold last season, Chuck immediately saw through this and diagnosed the aforementioned triple cross, and here we are.

On another show, a lesser one, this could be enough plot for most of a season. On Billions, it took up about 25 minutes, total, leaving plenty of time for hallucinogenic hijinks and cameos by WWE superstars and a full-on wedding. Billions moves very fast, always, heaving people and debris out of its way as it speeds by, kind of like a runaway locomotive barreling through Mardi Gras. To be clear, this is the highest compliment I know how to give.

Also, to continue being clear, just once in my entire stupid life I’d like to storm into a dimly lit bar, belly up to a table where my co-conspirator is waiting, and announce “It’s a triple cross.” The rush you must feel as the words leave your lips… my God. More powerful than any drug you can buy.

STOCK UP — Bizarro Axe

Well, hello there, Mike Prince, as portrayed by television’s Corey Stoll. Pleasure to meet you. I feel like I’m going to like you. I’m almost sure of it. Yes, there’s the thing where you’re like the flipside of the Axelrod coin, a conscientious investor who claims to be attempting to do good as he’s doing well, a money man who is human first, someone who cares about the means and the ends. All of that.

But mostly I think I’m going to like you because you seem like a worthy adversary who gets under Axe’s skin. We haven’t seen many of those lately, at least on the money side of the show. It’s not that you’re even a threat, really, except to Axe’s pride, as we saw when you snaked him at the Vanity Fair cover shoot for the new crew of Decas (people with a net worth of over $10 billion) (and seriously, read the room here, fictional Vanity Fair), which Axe claimed not to care about and then promptly began plotting to ruin you over. Also, I think you’re probably full of hooey and I can’t wait for that reveal in a few weeks.

STOCK DOWN — Ayahuasca, generally

If there are two things in this world that are very much not for me, they would be, one, the great outdoors, and two, vomiting my brains out, so ayahuasca is not something that has ever really intrigued me, alleged universal clarity be damned. But good for Axe and Wags, though. Kind of. It is a little funny that the whole office is tearing itself apart in the wake of a hastily constructed revenge merger and Axe and Wags just decided to hop on motorcycles to screw off and do psychedelics to celebrate Axe’s net worth hitting 10 figures, but whatever. Again, I am not intrigued by the allure of puke-inducing braindrugs and I have barely half as many figures to my name as Axe, so maybe I just don’t get it.

Axe did not appear to be having fun, though. Wags was all Mother Earth and hooting owls and Axe was going on maniacal rants about kings and power, and I’m pretty sure he was stalking around the fire on all fours like a prowling jungle cat, if anyone needed another “Bobby Axelrod is an apex predator” metaphor. Axe does not seem like a dude who is wired at all for a mind-enhancing superdrug. I think he’d benefit more from, like, a weed brownie and some herbal tea. Man needs to wind down, is what I’m saying.

STOCK UP — Beards, though

All that said, big fan of the self-discovery beard. And the wild mane of hair. Axe looks like a straight-up Game of Thrones character here, like Damian Lewis is still annoyed that he’s the one working British actor in the world who wasn’t brought in for an audition on that show, like he’s cosplaying as Biker Tormund to exorcise those demons. I love it. Or rather, I loved it, past tense. I was devastated to see him clean-shaven and tightened-up at that Vanity Fair shoot. I was hoping he’d come back to the office holding a sword and the detached head of one of his many mortal enemies. Set the tone. Show everyone who’s boss. Make Brian happy.

That’s what I’m really getting at here. My enjoyment. Grow the beard back. Come on.

STOCK DOWN — Chuck Rhoades, personally if not professionally

In addition to being on the receiving end of this absolutely crushing exchange, one that made me physically wince and realize how much I never want to get into a heated argument with a trained psychologist, this was Chuck’s week:

Had to give a speech at his father’s wedding to a woman half his age, possibly less
Got roasted by his friends
Had such a bad night at the wedding, generally and also in his specific conversation with his soon-to-be ex-wife, that he ran off for an emergency midnight session with his dominatrix, which required him to turn off his phone, which resulted in him missing many texts and calls from Wendy about their son having a medical emergency resulting from chugging whiskey at the wedding like Wild West outlaw, which is what led to the painful exchange above
Read about his divorce in the New York gossip rags, in a statement Wendy crafted with Lauren, Taylor’s PR whiz, and zero input from him
And Wendy is living in the spare, masterpiece-covered penthouse apartment owned by the hated adversary he has been hellbent on ruining for something like half of his adult life

But at least he has those books, I guess.

STOCK UP — Bonnie, God bless her

This is where I should probably discuss the cameo by WWE superstar Becky Lynch, who is apparently friends with Wendy, in what is possibly the wildest cameo this show has seen since Axe greased the wheels of a deal by having Kevin Durant record a Bar Mitzvah greeting on a cell phone. I’m not going to do that, though. Instead, I’m going to highlight the fact that Bonnie responded to a very reasonable HR-related complaint by lifting both of her palms to her face and ripping off an extended fake fart that someone in the captions department had to — got to? — transcribe. I’m so happy for everyone involved here.

STOCK DOWN — Kate Sacker

Kate Sacker is the best. She’s the most competent and confident person in the room in most of the rooms she’s in, she gets stuff done and takes zero of Chuck’s crap, and she has everything lined up for a nice springboard into Congress. From there, presumably the Senate and/or the Oval Office. She’s an impressive lady who I would never cross in a million years and when she stares at people it looks like she is trying to turn them into dust right there on the floor. One day she’ll probably succeed.

But this is not good. We’re a single episode into this season and she’s already at least two strikes into Billions Characters Headed For Personal And/Or Professional Ruin situation. The first was articulating her plans for the future, the thing about Congress. No one on Billions ever gets to see their dreams through. Every dreamer gets crushed and swept up and tossed into a trash can. Remember Rebecca Cantu and her short-lived plan to run a department store? Remember Lara Axelrod’s hangover recovery business? Remember Ice Juice? Saying your dreams out loud on Billions is like having two weeks until retirement in a buddy cop movie. Things are about to go sideways for you. Quickly.

Which brings us to strike two: Working with Chuck to go after Axe. If there’s one thing we’ve learned for certain about Billions over its four-plus seasons, it’s that Axe and Chuck are two cockroaches who will still be left standing after the apocalypse — which they probably caused — while everyone else around them gets vaporized. Sacker is about to get Connerty’d. I feel it coming and I hate it.

STOCK UP — Calling in the brain trust

I loved everything about the scene where Axe’s diabolical henchmen — Wags, Dollar Bill, and Victor — gave him an update on the Bitcoin prosecution. I love that all three of them came to deliver a brief message any one of them could have easily delivered solo. I love that they came in strutting in a wide line like a teenage street gang from West Side Story. I love that Axe, who presumably knew they were coming, was waiting for them while sitting in a chair facing the opposite direction and staring out his penthouse window at the city skyline around him like a total supervillain.

I missed you so much, Billions. Never leave me again.

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The ‘Killing Eve’ Stakeout: A Terrible Birthday Celebration And A Dreadful Case Of The Hiccups

Post author By GoneTrending
Post date May 4, 2020

BBC America’s ‘Killing Eve’ first framed itself as procedural: a show about assassins and the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service that attempts to take them down. More than that, though, the show tangoed through an elaborate cat-and-mouse game between Jodie Comer’s assassin and Sandra Oh’s MI6 agent. This season, that game evolves for the better, and our weekly coverage will keep an eye on how this show’s transforming, and it (along with those kills) is only growing bolder with the passage of time.

Killing Eve follows up on last week’s smell of power with an episode called “Still Got It,” which takes its name from a note that’s on the pitchfork used by Dasha (disguised as “Magda”) to stab Niko. Fatally? We don’t know yet, but it’s not looking good for the long-suffering husband of Eve. This scene culminated in what was possibly the worst birthday imaginable for Eve, who’d already received an ominous “present” from Villanelle (who, meanwhile, is being wooed by two warring handlers). And Eve threw that cake off the roof — reminding everyone what happened to Kenny not too long ago. So, a lot of balls are up in the air this season, but let’s try and unravel whatever it is that Dasha meant to do by attacking Niko. This guy just can’t get a break.

Poor Niko, man. He had apparently made some progress following his PTSD — he suffered a heavy dose after being terrorized by Villanelle and seeing what happened to Gemma in that storage unit. He hightailed it out of his treatment facility and headed not to Eve but to Poland, where he seemed awfully happy to enjoy some freedom. Yet Eve, full of delusion, has still somehow kept hope alive that he’d want to reconcile, despite her cheating on him and generally making him feel like hot garbage in their marriage. Niko seemed to be open to talking but nothing else, and then Dasha-Magda swiped Niko’s phone and gave Eve the go-ahead to come on down to Poland. So, what was Dasha’s motive, and what does the “still got it” note mean?

Obviously, Dasha’s panicking over her visit from a higher up in The Twelve. She wants to return to Russia in glory, but she can’t do that with Villanelle behaving so erratically (and being “skittish”) while she’s obsessed with Eve. It sure seems that she lied to Villanelle about the promotion business going well, and she’s probably trying to frame Villanelle for this pitchfork stuff while believing that Eve (and everyone else) will suspect Villanelle of being the attacker. The “still got it” note is a nice touch, and a message from Dasha (to Villanelle) that she’s still the superior assassin (while maybe making it look like Villanelle’s saying that she and Eve have “still got it”). One certainty: Dasha’s also capable of doing laps in an Olympic-sized pool while pausing for cigarette breaks.

What a nutso character. However, we can’t yet predict the ultimate effect of this attack on Eve. Will she finally crumble under the weight of mounting trauma, or will she be spurred to further action against The Twelve? Dasha clearly wanted Eve to witness this brutality while aiming to drive a wedge in between Eve and Villanelle, though it’s unclear whether that will work in Dasha’s favor. Clearly, Eve’s still just as drawn to Villanelle as she’s always been, even while fruitlessly refusing to give up on Niko. So, Dasha doesn’t really understand the Villanelle-Eve dynamic. In fact, Dasha doesn’t really get relationships at all — she’s only feeling desperate about her own legacy. She definitely would have taken out Eve if a higher-ranking The Twelve member hasn’t told her that’d be too messy. And Eve should eventually realize that Villanelle isn’t Niko’s attacker.

In the meantime, whatever Dasha’s doing to keep Villanelle working is being screwed up by Konstantin, who pays Villanelle back (for scaring him in bed) in his own way.

That wasn’t what gave Villanelle a bizarrely persistent case of the hiccups, though. That affliction began high up in the sky when Konstantin revealed that he had knowledge of her birth family, but yeah, he needed a little favor first. And that favor involved dispensing with the wife of Charles Kruger (The Twelve’s accountant), who knew far too much about that Geneva bank account. The garden scene was pure madness and really makes one wonder who’s the biggest loose cannon here.

Also, what do those hiccups mean? They could be a callback to a second season scene, in which Villanelle slaps a resistant Eve and smirks, “You needed a surprise… like hiccups.” They also suggest/signify a dent in Villanelle’s generally impenetrable armor after she learns about Niko leaving London and the possibility of learning more about her family. In the end, Villanelle presumably receives the knowledge that she desired from Konstantin, and she disembarks after a train reaches her “Home” with the strong suggestion that we’ll learn more next week (probably in Russia).

Some loose ends:

– Is Paul going to be alright by season’s end? He’s not only a super-cool boss but seems like a decent guy, even though he pees in the shower (don’t judge, I’m sure this is a lot more common than some would like to admit) and claims to self-loathe to a greater degree than Eve. Watching the two of them try to one-up each other with their misdeeds was more delightful than it should have been, given Paul’s bleak past. And the writers have endeared Paul toward the audience so much that I fear for his safety.

– The Konstantin stuff is pretty sticky, but we got more of a followup regarding his daughter, at least, far beyond him calling her “a little sh*t taking a sh*t on a big sh*t and three sh*ts combined into one enormous sh*t.” I enjoyed hearing Konstantin’s daughter calling him out, for sure. She knows that he’s in some dangerous business, and she’s not gonna let this keep happening without a fight.

– Speaking of fed-up daughters, will Geraldine get a better story soon? I’m down to see Gemma Whelan kick some ass like she did on Game of Thrones, but it doesn’t seem like that’s in the cards here. It’d be nice to see her move beyond falling into Konstantin’s jester trap and being upset with Carolyn. Perhaps we’ll hear more about the roots of their conflict soon. That’d be a swell compromise!

– Really though, is Niko alive or dead? I can’t even begin to guess, but we’ll likely find out soon enough.

BBC America’s ‘Killing Eve’ airs on Sundays at 9:00 PM EST with simulcasting on AMC.