Notes on - Billions: Naming Rights

 

Naming Rights notes

Axe in his underwear.  Nice opening shot

Axe:  Always put that lunatic through.  One out of every 200 ideasw he has is fucking brilliant.

Wags is dressing Bobby, making him his valet, quite literally

Wags has his beard!

Axe: No man is a hero to his valet

Wags:  That goes double for his COO.  So you are fucked with me either way.

So the mansion purchase is getting him some bad press.  Still doesn’t seem like a big deal

Ah, so Aze threw them Jerry O’Connell to get them to forget about the house

*** Who’s more low key than me?

Bryan and Chuck eating in the office again

Bryan knows the distinction in Asian cuisine

Kate is still calling Chuck sir

Is that true about General Tso?

Pete Decker – That’s Jerry O’Connell, right?

Lara is vaping

Ellis Eads hall.  Bobby is obsessing over it.  He’s claiming it’s principal, and we don’t quite believe him

Wags takes a hit of whatever Axe and Lara were vaping

No, Birch is Jerr O’Connell

And suddenly lesbian sex.  Who are these women?  Hey there cocaine

Kornbluth?  He’s a press guy leaking the Birch info that Bobby gave the reporter

Ah, the woman she’s with was taping to set Tara up

Tara Mohr

Steven Birch – He’s getting hung out on insider trading by Axe

Kate is very competent

Orrin Bach.  The respectable lawyer that Bryan had for a professor once.

The Orrin Bach thing establishes that the truth doesn’t matter, only the appearance of truth. ‘Yeah, that delivery will work’

He’s warning Axe about Chuck wanting to prosecute

Penn and Teller cameo 😊

A stick means a million in dollars

Axe and Birch both gave a stick

He made Wags give half a million by forcing him to stand up

Holy crap, they weren’t bluffing, they really did post the article nailing Birch

Wendy giving a pump up sesh to the female trader.  Now she’s setting her loose.  PM?

Wendy is really good at her job

Lara is micro managing the gardeners.  What was the point of that scene?

The traders at Axe capital are holding a brainstorming session

Wags is sitting at Axe’s left hand.  Probably deliberate

Our first glimpse of Muphee

MOW – You see an opportunity like that again, you grab it like it’s a horse cock and you’re Catherine the Great

There’s a real culture of intimidation at Axe Cap

Donnie

Wags has no middle gear

Axe:  Let’s bring some meat back to camp

Wags: Or some nuts.

Axe:  Hunt or gather

They’re being raided by guys in windbreakers, just like Axe said he was afraid of.  Is Axe screwed this early in the series run?

‘Event Driven’ is their go to phrase

Muphee:  That was a prom night promise.

FBI Agent: And that means?

Muphee:  Just the tip.

Dollar Bill is a lot of fun.  Lawyer

Wendy:  My files are confidential.  You’re not seeing them.  You can call the attorney General if you want, and tell her I say ‘Hi’ if you do. We had dinner last month.  Otherwise, fuck off.

You go Wendy, refusing to be bullied

Ah, it was all just a drill.  They weren’t really being raided

Wags:  We have to be more pure than the Virgin Mary before her first period.

Axe: Fuck. Wags.

Victor was flagged in particular

Firing Victor in front of everybody is a mistake

Axe is doing is as a performative sacrifice to scare everyone else and so the investors hear about it

Wendy sees the danger

This is Wendy’s value to the company.  She gets the psychology and the potential threats.

Why is Wendy responsible for Axe’s fuckup

Good on Wendy for forcing Axe to be honest about leaving her out of the loop

Sean Ayles.  Who is he?

Ah, College donations guy.  This is about the building Bobby didn’t like the name of

Axe called Ayles out on his pompous speech

Ayles:  I’m in a difficult spot.

Axe: No, yeah, I know.  Also, ‘performative’ does not mean ‘performance’

That’s the question.  Why is that specific building so important to Axe?

Of course he knows all about the Eads family’s financial woes and positioned himself to bail them out if they give up the naming rights.

What’s the one condition he need Ayles to sign off on

Finding Hall in your apartment would be very upsetting.

And now they’re all set to blackmail Tara Mohr aver the cocaine

Hall:  What gets me off would disturb you at such a deep level, honey, that you’d be best served to never think about it again.

Birch has a war room set up.  No surprise.

Chuck is figuring out that somebody set up Birch to send a message.  But it succeded in getting Chuck to set Axe and Decker aside for the time being

Randy Kornbluth and Mike Dimonda

Mike Dimonda is kind of a weasel

Chuck identified that Mike wrote Randy’s article by the prose style and source quoted

Man, he really did a lot of research very quickly to figure out that Mike wrote the birch story.  And is figuring out why

I kind of respect that Mike won’t let Chuck intimidate him and is willing to blackmail him for future information.  That backfired, Chuck

Why is Chuck giving twenty bucks to the random guy at the food truck

He’s convincing the kids to lie about getting doughnuts so Wendy doesn’t get pissed

Mr. Kroll.  Chuck sent him away to prison.  His wife is dead. Which is why he committed mail fraud to make money.  Yeah, that’s morally complicated.  But he did still do it.

Butch.  Crossco.  First mention of Yumtime

Who’s Garth Sykes?

Victor is acting just like Wendy predicted

I like watching Wendy explain people to themselves.  That’s kind of her thing

Wendy’s right.  Axe would keep him from ever getting a job again

Of course Wendy has a story illustrating how Axe would react if Victor moves ahead

This is also establishing how petty Axe can be

Victor:  You were the one who always told me to stand up for myself.

Wendy: When you could win, yes.

Of course the kids already told Wendy about the doughnuts

I like Chuck’s reasoning for why it’s good that the kids were honest with Wendy

They do seem to have a really good marriage

This is hitting a nerve with Wendy feeling bad about having to work Victor

Chuck:  Every once in a while I wish that I could be more human.

Wags and a client getting massages with happy endings.  Yikes

Ah, this is buying the house coming back to bite Axe.  Still don’t buy it.

The feds have dirt on Birch and Tara Mohr is desperately eavesdropping.

He did insider training with Canada

FBI Terri:  Rookies.  Always want to bring up Quantico.

I have no idea what that attempted joke was about

And Chuck is absorbing what’s really happening.  Birch’s board up front and Axe’s to the side.

He’s putting a pin in the arrest and is going to settle.

The riderless horse.  That’s exactly what Axe is doing

Chuck:  But this was no ordinary posse.  This was a super posse.  THE Super posse.Mixed group of superheroes.  A Sherriff, A Marshall, an Indian…

Bryan:  Native American.

Chuck:  Sure.

Little background that Bryan had an absentee dad.

Chuck’s right.  They’re not rooting for Butch and Sundance anymore

Axe interrupting Garth as he entertains a different hedge fund for his retirees

Axe is a Highlander fan.  I appreciate that.

Ken is with Vista Verde – a different and more cautious investment group

OK, Garth is worried about the optics about Axe since he bought the big house.  Still feels like a stretch

Chuck is playing hardbal

Birch is folding right out of the gate

Tara heard that they settled and is altering Axe, via Hall.  Does she know she’s spying for Axe?

Wendy doesn’t feel good about manipulating Victor into giving up by using her psych knowledge of him

I respect Wendy standing up to Axe.  They’re setting up the dynamic that she’s willing to walk if he pushes her too far.

Axe’s Metallica t-shirt is such a power move at this meeting

Chad Eads.

Now we find out why Bobby was really so obsessed with changing the naming

Lara is SO into watching Axe take these guys down

So Axe got fired because Chad laughed at his grandfather

Axe certainly knows how to hold onto a grudge.  Although that was totally justified.

We’re entirely on Axe’s side on this one.