Billions (Season Two)

The single biggest issue with Season One of Billions was that all of the characters except Bobby Axelrod were either underdeveloped, thoroughly hateable, or both. That problem dropped the stakes of what was an oft-exciting plot. For Season Two to be a success, that problem absolutely had to be fixed. Did they succeed?

Um, kinda.

[SPOILERS BELOW]

Chuck Rhoades was probably the character that needed the most work due to his prominence and he actually got fleshed out quite a bit more. His couples therapy sessions with Wendy brought out some deep insecurities within him (I particularly enjoyed the scene where he explained why he always wears his suit to social occasions) and it did quite a bit to humanize him. The rare scenes involving Chuck and Wendy's children gave Chuck the chance to stick up for his wife when she wasn't around. In all, he came across as slightly more likable in spite of some horrible stuff he does. We'll get to that.

The results were mixed for the rest of the ensemble. Connerty, for one, got a little more attention as his relationship to Rhoades was tested and we got to follow his personal life for a little bit. I don't know that I'll go so far as to call him compelling, but at the very least he's a little more noticeable than he was in Season One. They did a little better job with the general employees at Axe Capital, particularly Dollar Bill and Mafee, but it's still a largely blah group of people.

I think where Billions lets us down are the female characters, who are essentially still either a go-between and point of conflict for the male leads (Wendy), crazy (Lara, more on that later), or nondescript (Sacker). I think the writers failed most with Wendy. Like Sacker, it seems like they were too hesitant to write Wendy with significant flaws or side distractions (in contrast to someone like Axe, who's more interesting because he's far from perfect and has plenty of interests outside of his job and a pseudo-love-triangle) and she therefore becomes difficult to relate to. This is another Suits comparison, but I liken her to a less entertaining version of Donna Paulsen. Wendy's portrayed as an indispensable asset to Axe Capital, which rings hallow given the additional legal attention she brings to Axe and just how implausible it seems that no one else could do that job (Wags' goon notwithstanding).

Despite those failures, Billions came through big time with the introduction of Taylor, a gender non-binary intern whose acumen is quickly picked up on by Axe. The show handles Taylor's backstory well and executes what felt like a mostly realistic portrayal of the spectrum of reactions to their presence. You have the people who are immediately accepting (Axe, Mafee) and others who are well-intentioned but sometimes slip while trying their best to get used to the unfamiliar (Connerty). Then, you have the bigots (Dollar Bill, Krakow) who are prone to saying hurtful things. People like Dollar Bill are plentiful in this world, no doubt about it, but Billions disappointed me with one hilariously bad telling-not-showing line he dropped to Axe when the latter passed him over for Taylor to participate in a poker tournament: "Everything I measure myself by has been called into question." It was a pretty unnatural thing to say out loud and would have been easy to express via a couple subtle facial expressions or gestures over the remaining of the episode. You know, "acting".

Back to Taylor. Probably my favorite subplot of the entire season was Taylor being asked to choose someone to fire in the season's penultimate episode. The rapid increase in authoritative responsibility would have been difficult for anyone to handle and it even rattles the typically composed Taylor a little bit. Further still, it had to be difficult for the remainder of the employees to watch someone -- even a person as deserving and qualified as Taylor -- rise from an intern to their direct superior in a very small amount of time. The interview scenes actually got me to feel for some otherwise uninteresting characters (Ben Kim tearing up at Taylor's questioning without a word was a particularly powerful moment). Taylor's handling of the emotional experiences and developing ability to look beyond the numbers made for a great moment for the character.

I want to jump back to that poker tournament I mentioned above, which was a personal highlight of mine for the season. I used to play poker a great deal during the post-Moneymaker boom. One thing that's always bothered me is its portrayal in TV shows and movies. Poker subplots typically pander to the crowd that is only casually familiar with the game. As a result, there's problems such as nonsensical dialogue, dumb bet amounts (e.g. "raise to $200" / "re-raise, all-in for $10,000"), and uncommon monster hand vs. monster hand situations that are portrayed as either misplays or products of skill, when anyone who's played a million poker hands could tell you that they're actually just inevitable situations that aren't all that interesting (The final hand in Casino Royale being a prime example).

By contrast, in Billions, they spoke the language of serious players and the writing seemed to grasp the history of online play, modern terminology, and proper game flow. In particular, the final hand between Taylor and Krakow was a showdown between ten-nine and four-five in which neither player hit anything on the board, but both players still found themselves all-in. The hand was pretty well-constructed* and entertaining to watch and think about. Phil Hellmuth made a guest appearance in the episode, and I imagine his hands were probably all over the design of that scene.

*For those who have seen it, I feel like trips make up a decent portion of Krakow's range there, unless we're to take his agonizing over what to do on the river as genuine. Given Taylor's ability to read people throughout the season, maybe that's how we rule out Krakow coming from a position of strength.

From a plot standpoint, Billions reaches beyond the Axelrod/Rhoades conflict for awhile and doesn't really circle back to it until close to the end of the season. That gives them time to focus on the relationship between Chuck and Wendy, Taylor's ascent, the ambitions of Chuck's underlings, and finally, the relationship between Bobby and Lara. Wendy returns to Axe Capital with the condition that she and Bobby won't have any sessions together. Bobby lets Lara believe that it's his condition, not Wendy's. When Lara finds out that Wendy set the boundary -- even though Bobby has respected it -- she up and runs out on him for a long period of time and takes the kids without so much as discussing the problem first. Did that strike anyone else as batshit insane? I get that Wendy is a major sticking point for Lara, but damn, that reaction was too extreme for even a TV relationship.

That conflict leads right up to the climax of the season, which involved one of the most thrilling plot lines that I've ever seen. Bobby's rigged tanking of the Ice Juice stock was a power play against the Rhoades family that, in one of the best twists I've ever seen on TV, turned out to be completely orchestrated by Chuck. I was absolutely stunned watching the season's penultimate episode. Where I became disappointed was the finale, which really made the viewer understand what Chuck had done. He ruined his father, best friend, and his eight-figure trust fund just to trap Bobby and see him in a jail cell. When I thought about it in that light, it just seemed so far-fetched. Why does Chuck hate Bobby so much that he's willing to go to THAT length to see him brought down? Aside from possible jealousy over how close his wife has been with him throughout the years (which doesn't even seem like a major problem anymore), what has Bobby done to Chuck to make him this angry? Giamatti's "Worth it" line at the conclusion of their face-to-face conflict rings false just because to a rational person, it's very obviously not. In the absence of a well-developed explanation from the show's events, there's no other conclusion to draw here besides "Chuck's a psychopath", which isn't all that interesting.

I imagine we'll be watching Season Three when it comes out, because Season Two had a boost in quality and the writers are flat out good at putting out engrossing plot lines. The issue, however, with a show that's over-dependent on big reveals and dramatic story events is that they tend to jump the shark at some point as they reach to keep things interesting. Billions is always going to be at risk of becoming cartoonish without an ensemble of deep, believable characters. I'll continue to have fun watching it, but I'll never confuse it with a great television show.

Season Grade: B