Those of you who have read my column over the years know that there
are few series I’ve had a more – complicated – relationship with than Billions.
I’ve thought it was one of the most underrated shows on TV. I thought it was
an overcomplicated mess. I thought it was far superior to Succession. I
thought both series were incredibly overrated. I thought it featured some of
the most intriguing characters in TV history. I thought it featured some of the
most unnecessary and convoluted plots in the last decade.
Well, if you’ve read my column this past year you know that I finally
came around to what the rest of the world saw in Succession. The last season more or less answered all
of my problems with it and I will probably end up watching the entire series to
see if I was wrong from the start. In
the lead-up to the final season of Billions which had its premiere last
night, I’ve begun to reconsider the position I took at the end of Season Six in
which I thought that the writers had completely lost the narrative thread and whether
they had, indeed, ever had one.
I will admit even at the worst parts of Season Six, I never found it
anything less than captivating. The cast remains one of the most gifted ever
assembled and most of the characters are always intriguing to watch. Now that
Damian Lewis’ Bobby Axelrod is going to play a key role in the final season, it
may truly seem like there has been method to the madness all along, though just
as with the final season of Succession, I will need to know how it ends
to see if the resolution is satisfying.
What I do know is that, even after my original opinion of Succession
has changed over the past year, the comparison I made between the two
series still seems to hold up. Succession may well be the more fascinating
series to watch, but Billions was always more entertaining. I realize this might be my opinion alone, and
that there are viewers who are fully capable of enjoying both series. (It’s worth
noting that this position was never held by Brian Cox, who thought before the
final season of Succession aired that Billions had stayed on too
long. I can’t blame him for thinking that, however, given that at the time he
said it, I would have been inclined to think the same thing.)
I intend to write a series of articles about Billions as a
series in the weeks leading up to the finale, what worked about it and what
fundamentally didn’t. However, since the world is still reeling over everything
that happened in the final season of Succession and since the Emmys had
already decided which series they preferred (Billions was never
nominated for any Emmys; Succession has taken best Drama twice already),
I thought I would start this series as
to the reasons that, even after the saga with Waystar Royco ended, I still
believe Billions was the more enjoyable and fun show to watch at its peak.
I grant you this is strictly my opinion, but I think it’s worth hearing out.
I’ll admit part of my bias towards Billions over Succession may
purely be because Billions did debut two seasons before Succession did
and, even though no one ever liked any one in the Roy clan or their inner
circle, the world seemed to make the decision early on that this was the better
and far more fascinating show to watch.
Now I’m not going to tell you that the main characters on Billions are
any less amoral or more likable than those at Axe Capital; they’re not. These characters are, in a very real way,
more destructive than anyone at Waystar Royco, they certainly feel just as much
above the law as the Roy clan does and they seem only to have a passing concern
about the destruction they create in order to make their fortunes. And this certainly does not apply to Chuck
Rhodes, brilliantly played by Paul Giamatti for seven seasons.
In a sense, Rhodes is as much a
destructive and narcissistic personality as Jimmy McNulty on The Wire, someone
who delights in showing everybody how smart he is, loves pissing on authority
and will climb over the bodies of friends and allies to achieve his goals. He's
actually more frightening than McNulty partly because he has power to use the
sword of justice on those he feels accountable and partially because he never
seems to have any real caring for ambition beyond using that power. He has
repeatedly declined running for higher office throughout the series and seems
to actively scorn the idea of running for Congress in Season 1. He takes on the
mouth of being a man of the people when in a sense he’s just a glorified member
of the morality police. In the pilot Chuck said that: “I work for the public
good,” and Wendy shot him down by saying. “You work for the good of Chuck
Rhodes. Maybe sometimes they intersect.” In a later article I will argue that
Wendy has her own arrogance and flaws, but that statement is just as true seven
seasons later as it was then.
However, the reason that I think Billions was always the more
interesting series than Succession was is because, where all the
characters on Succession were unequivocally monstrous with no redeeming
qualities, all of the characters on Billions do have a moral compass
even if they choose to occasionally ignore it. There have been online threads
over the years as to which characters on the show are the most ethical to most
immoral. No one would ever write a list
like that for anyone on Succession, certainly none of the regulars and
probably almost no one we met in the four years of the series existence.
Now it is possible that the reason for that is that no one on Billions
had anywhere near the wealth that the Roy clan did and that while everyone
was wealthy, all of them had worked to earn their money. Indeed, Bobby would
have been the kind of character than everyone at Waystar would have looked down
on; not only did he earn every cent he made, he went to Hofstra and was still
very close to his working class roots. Everyone on Succession could not
comprehend a working class person, much less had pizza with them.
There’s also the very clear fact that, while no one we met on Succession
was particularly smart or qualified to have the jobs they did (not even
Tom, to be sure) everyone on Billions, both at Axe Capital and the New
York DAs office had worked to get there. Logan might have looked down at Axe, but he
would have felt a certain admiration for him; he couldn’t have said about him,
as he did about his own children, that he was not a serious person.
Which gets me to the next point. Nobody on Billions is an
idiot. Yes, there are certain characters who are comic relief for their level
of humiliation at times – one can only think of David Costabile’s incredible
Wags and Kelly AuCoin’s Dollar Bill – but all of them would be able to see any
of the half-assed power moves that Kendall or Shiv made through the Holland
Tunnel. I’ve seen a lot of witty banter on Billions but none of it ranks
with the stupidity that we see of Cousin Greg.
To be clear there is
gamesmanship every day at Axe Capital but almost all of it is directed between
the workers. That actually gets me to by far the biggest difference between Billions
and Succession. There is
clearly camaraderie there between almost everybody. Bobby might occasionally motivate
a spirit of competition, but it was never mean-spirited. And that inspired a
level of loyalty that I don’t think you could ever see on Succession.
Everybody looked up to Axe. In the first season of Billions the
DA went after Dollar Bill and did everything in their power to flip him against
Axe. He was defiant in taking the heat himself, even when they threatened to
send him to prison. When the case against him fell apart, he walked back into
the office with everybody chanting. Axe called him in with a sound of disapproval.
Instead, the first words out of his mouth: “We’re gonna pretend to fight!” In a
hysterical but moving scene, the two men pretended to fight but Axe actually
was shouting words of admiration and praise while Dollar Bill offered appreciation.
Before he stormed out, Bobby whispered: “I love you like a brother!” and he
meant it.
The people at Waystar were loyal to Logan, but
it was out of fear rather than love. It was also very clear that everyone in
the cast -certainly the Roy clan – was completely isolated. Part of it was how Logan had raised them to
be sure, but none of them had anything resembling a happy relationship during
the series, we saw no signs that any of them had close friends, and by the end
of the series, they had also torched any possible professional relationships they
had.
Chuck, it’s worth noting, is far more isolating than almost anyone else
on the series: his self-righteousness seems to keep from trying to have
anything more than professional relationships and he has no problem turning on
even his own father if he means getting the man he wants in prison. I’ll deal with that in a later article
because he is the driving force on Billions.
With Axe, the friendships you see him have are marrow deep. He can be
reckless at times, and he takes betrayals even harder than the Roys do. His
relationship with Taylor (the incredible Asia Kate Dillon) has been one of the
most memorable in television history: moving from mentor and student to rivals
to one trying to bring the other down. During Season 4 Bobby spent most of the
season trying to destroy Taylor “I want them to have nothing!” he told his allies
repeatedly.
It is telling watching Taylor
that they are as much a cipher as they were since we met them in Season 2; it’s
hard to know even now just what they want. Much of the season premiere was
spent with them trying to deal with their own independence and the realization
of the threat that new owner Mike Prince held; it’s telling that the season
premiere ended with them going with Wendy and Wags to meet him in London.
That actually gets the core of why I think Billions is the
better show than Succession in one regard. There is not a single
character on Billions who would look at any member of the Roy clan with
anything other than contempt. It’s not just that the children were born into
the kind of privilege that none of them deserved; it was that they lived in such
entitlement that they had no comprehension of anyone who wasn’t them. The Roy clan
spent their lives controlling the narrative but none of them had anything interesting
to say.
And it’s pretty clear even after everything that happened at the end
of the series that none of the characters on Billions would have felt
anything for them during their time on the show. Had Chuck been able to find a weakness to
destroy them, well, the only challenge would have been their wealth: Cousin
Greg would have implicated himself ten times over in two minutes.
No one at Axe Capital would have wanted to associate with them. Bobby
would not give Logan the time of day, and he wouldn’t have moved in the same
circles of any of the kids. Wags would have gone to one of Kendall’s parties
for five minutes, said “This guy’s just trying to hard’ and left with all of
the pretty girls. Taylor would known what a bigot Logan was (Logan wouldn’t be
able to comprehend what non-binary meant and no doubt his network has been spreading
homophobic propaganda for decades) and would have rather done business with
Russian oligarch. Wendy would have needed less than two minutes with any one of
the Roy clan to figure out the abuse in their background and only another five
to know that all of the children were helpless cases and not worthy of her
time. Even Chuck Senior would look down all of them. He might have some
admiration at what Logan accomplished but in private he could say fully
justified: “That guy really messed up his kids” and even his son wouldn’t call
him a hypocrite.
I don’t know if there is a fanfic market out there for either of these
series, but one could only imagine the possibility of a Succession-Billions crossover.
You get the feeling that if Chuck had decided to set his sights on Waystar, not
only would Bobby have applauded, he would have offered to help in any way he
could. “That family doesn’t have a half a brain between them,” he would say.
And Chuck, who would have said the sun was cold if Bobby said otherwise, would
have agreed wholeheartedly.
No comments:
Post a Comment