I withheld much of my
retrospective on the final season of Billions mainly because I needed to
see how the final season would play out.
As I’ve mentioned in many of my articles over the years, in my career I
have frequently misjudged many TV series as overrated until the final episodes
which I often consider have made me reexamine my original opinion. Indeed, I spent much of this past year more or
less eating crow about everything I’d spent three years saying about Succession
because of the final season.
As the final year of Billions unfolded,
I knew that I was going to have to watch it carefully to see if the flaws I had
planned to write about in this series might end up being resolved by the writers.
And as the show entered its final episodes, it looked very much like that they
were heading down that path, not just in terms of the overarching story but in
how many of the major characters had evolved.
Indeed in the last piece I wrote
for this series, after laying out what I saw were the critical flaws of Chuck
and Wendy Rhodes during the length of the show, I said that it would be more rewarding
if they acknowledged them then if anyone actually went to prison. And the writers indeed spent almost all of
Season Seven doing exactly that.
Paul Giamatti had been
extraordinary throughout the entire run of the series but it could be
frustrating watching him burn bridge after bridge to attain his goals. Now as Season Seven progressed, we saw a
different, almost more mellow Chuck. He spent much of the first half of the
season mending fences with people cared about, including his brother-in-law Ira,
who he’d persuaded to come work with him at the Southern District and working
things through with Charles Senior, who he has always had a stormy relationship
with. When Axe reached out to him asking for a favor halfway through the
season, he admitted to Ira that he had wanted to say no but after his years of fighting
with Bobby he’d come to realize who he was.
The two had a civil conversation at the end of the episode which would
have been inconceivable for the two men who spent the first five years engaged
in a battle of mutually assured destruction. They acknowledged how much they’d
lost in the struggle and it was – something I haven’t seen on Peak TV in a very
long time, if at all.
Then as the battle against Mike
Prince became harder to win, Chuck realized that he needed allies. He turned to
Wendy, with whom he’d been mending fences with over the last season, partly for
their children’s sake, partly because of their mutual fear of Mike Prince. Wendy was impressed with Chuck’s growth but
she said after everything he’d done, there was just no way she could ask the
people she’d gathered to trust him.
So Chuck gave a full accounting
of every sin he’d done in the course of the series to destroy his opponents –
and some we no doubt hadn’t heard. When
Wags learned of the alliance Chuck proposed, he walked into Chuck’s office and
delivered a strongly worded threat. Chuck dismantled it by agreeing with him
that he wasn’t trustworthy - and then
showed him a file with everything he had done that could get him disbarred and
thrown in jailed. He then admitted that he could give it to Wendy but because
she cared for the father of her children, she’d never be willing to use it. So he
asked her honestly if Wags could be trusted with it if he kept his end of the
bargain. Wendy assured him he could and he handed it over.
Wendy also showed immense growth throughout
the season, starting in the most unexpected place. She learned that many of the
people at Prince Capital had been seeing another therapist. She marched into her office and
was instantly disarmed when this doctor actually called her on some of the BS
that I’ve raised in my last article. (High praise to the showrunners for
casting the always brilliant Holland Taylor in this role.) Wendy was so
disarmed that she began to realize the kind of person she’d become over the
years and that she needed a therapist to figure out her next step against
Prince.
As the season progressed she
spent as much time with her new therapist dealing with all of the psychological
problems she was going to face going forward, along with her own issues about
her next path. As it seemed more and more likely that nothing could stop
Prince, she began to consider an exit strategy and her own future away from the
business she helped build. In affect she
had decided that her best option going forward was to get out of the pattern
she’d spent much of her life doing and try to find her own growth. That led to
her spending much of the season engaged in winning over allies, some of whom
she’d isolated over the years – including Taylor who’d been trying their
hardest to figure out a path forward.
As the season progressed, it
seemed like Mike Prince (Corey Stoll) was playing chess at a level none of them
could match on their own. It was obvious the only way through this pickle was
acting together, but even then, it seemed like they were being outmaneuvered by
betrayals from within and without. That said I’d watched the show long enough
to know the tricks the writers had been playing with the audience over the
years – and I knew that there was going to be a card or two revealed by the
end.
Throughout the series, Sorkin and
Koppleman have spent episodes and indeed whole seasons playing shell games with
the audience. This isn’t trickery in the traditional sense: given the minds and
reach of so many of the targets involved, we know that in order to outmaneuver Chuck
and Axe’s targets, there had to be layers upon layers. I knew that there were
cons being played that we didn’t see. And I was pretty sure who was playing the
long game.
It did not shock me that Sacker
(Condola Rashad) was one of the ones who ended up in the final episode. Sacker has always been a political animal and
has always done what she needed to do for her own self-interest. And she has a
pattern of betrayal: she double crossed Chuck at the climax of Season Three for
her own ambition and did the same to Connerty halfway through Season Four. I was shocked to learn that she’d been in on
the scam longer than I thought but then Wendy has always been persuasive.
I’d expected Philip’s double cross;
indeed, I wasn’t surprised to know he’d been the one to slip the knife in. His
reaction to what happened when Prince betrayed him and an old colleague was
real when we saw it in Wendy’s office, even knowing that it was a
performance. Philip was counting that Scooter
(Daniel Breaker) his uncle would decide that family trumped his decision to seem
to betray Prince. I never thought his subsequent fealty to Prince to genuine
the previous two episodes and I was proven correct.
Sorkin and Koppleman went out of
their way to argue after the series finale aired against the idea that this was
really a happy ending. They made some decent arguments. They said Axe was exactly
where he started at the beginning of the series, in a sweatshirt shouting
orders to ‘make some f---ing money!” They argued Chuck is going right back to
investigating white collar crimes, making the assumption he and Bobby will
clash again. And they reminded us that while Prince’s hopes for the Presidency
have been dashed for a very long time, he did not go to prison and he seems intent on
rebuilding. His last scene on the show could have been considered that he
learned nothing and will return pent on destroying everyone.
That’s true as far as it goes.
But it’s hard not to watch the final episode – indeed the entire final season
of Billions – and argue that none of these characters haven’t learned
something from the entire series.
Charles Senior himself told Chuck that what he had done was incredible:
that he had ‘made peace with a man he’d tangled with for over a decade to take
on a bigger threat and won.” That’s not the sign of a man who is just going to return
to his office the next day and work on bringing Axe down again. Their final
conversation had a hint of that, but it was more a friendly warning than a
threat.
And to be clear Chuck showed
absolutely no sign of going back to his old ways throughout the final episode.
Quite the contrary, he spent as much time rebuilding so many of the bridges he’d
torn down. He reached out to Sackler, said she deserved elected office and said
he had every intention to help her get there. Connerty, who had been released
from prison and wanted to get his license back, showed up in the office before
everything went down and was presented with his license by both Chuck and Kate
in a truly moving moment. (It’s pretty
much implied that one or both of them paid the fee that Connerty couldn’t to
get his license restored.) Connerty had
done the work and will now be where he should have been all along; defending
the downtrodden. Who knows? Maybe after
this all ends, he and Kate will end up together after all.
Chuck was warm to Bobby in their
final conversation, in a tone of reminiscence and fondness. And when Wendy walked
out of her old job for the last time, Chuck invited her to dinner with her
family. Is it possible the two of them
can heal their marriage? Given everything we’ve seen the last season and the
final shot of the episode, that actually seems possible.
Axe too seems to have grown and
changed, despite his appearance at the end. Bear in mind one of final parts of
this whole con was to make sure all of the people who worked for him over the
years did not go completely broke. He made his friends not just whole, but
rich. He gave his longtime attorney a
permanent job at his new firm. Hell, there was even a backhanded generosity in
his final swipe at Prince, if you look at it. And lest we forget, before Chuck
left, he handed him the thumb drive with his multitude of sins that he took
from Wags. Axe wouldn’t have done that even a season ago. There has been signs throughout
the season that Axe has begun to mellow with age and the losses that he’s taken.
Of course, other members of his
family have shown that they need to move on. Both Taylor and Wendy realized
during the final episode just how poisoning the money had been to them in the
last several years, when it came to their moral compasses. Both had been
offered jobs with Axe when all of this ended, and both of them showed the wisdom
to turn it down. Taylor will now work at doing the good they always knew they
were capable of and Wendy will now devote her life to mental health. And even
though they are both no longer working for Axe, the ending made it very
clear that neither will be out of Axe’s lives. Both of these complicated
characters have realized the corrupting power of wealth and know that for them
to be better people, they have to get out of Axe’s aura in their jobs, if not
their personal lives. Sorkin acknowledges that both of these characters
definitely ‘won’.
You even saw the slightest bit of
growth when it came to Wags who has spent the last seven years stomping down
even the possibility of it. When Scooter walked out of the firm for the last
time, Wags showed accommodation for an enemy for possibly the first time in his
life. He did not rub in his victory and was kind when he explained why Scooter
lost. He admits that Scooter was a better man than him, but that he was a
better ‘second in command.” The two men who had been at each other throats the
last two seasons parted nearly as accommodatingly as Chuck and Axe did.
Scooter has had the most
difficult role of any character the last two seasons. There has never been a
sign at any point that he is anything
but a decent man, a loyal friend to Prince and a good family man. He has
been willing to sublimate all of his ambitions for the greater good of a man he
genuinely believed could be a great President. Scooter never showed any doubt throughout
the series – and it’s clear that made him blind to Mike’s flaws.
In their final scene together,
Scooter admits Prince’s flaws and takes them on as his own. “A slight deviation
in ones compass in a long enough journey leads to one being completely lost,”
he said sadly. In a way, he absolves
Prince of his mistakes but by decided that they have to end their relationship
he makes it clear he can’t do it any longer.
The end of their partnership was truly moving. These two men were
brothers in all but name and they truly were ride or die in the way that Axe
and Wags were. Scooter’s last words to Prince are that he will find a way
forward.
But we also see that Scooter
still comes out of this intact. At the end of the episode Philip reveals that
he did not wipe out Scooter’s fortune with Prince’s. “I have gone from a rich man to a pauper to a
rich man in a single day,” Scooter said. “And it has put me in a reflective
place.” Scooter makes it clear he has decided to find his own path and his
final words with both Philip and Wags show that he too can grow.
That of course leaves Mike
Prince. The great thing about the final act of Billions was not how
every element of the con came together, but how all of them showed that they
were manipulating Prince arrogance and certainty. Because he refused to take anyone’s advice
that didn’t gel with his own at any point, he had brought about his own
end. There was something extraordinary
about Prince icy calm finally breaking when he threw a chair through Wendy’s
office and demanded: “What problem do you have with me being f---ing President?”
Wendy told him exactly what it was. And even then, there was no sign he was
willing to accept responsibility even as things spiraled in the next few
minutes. He shouted and screamed at every one and blamed everyone but himself.
Despite what Scooter said, I have major doubts Prince will be inclined to doubt
any part of what he did as anything but betrayal from people he trusted. (We’ve
seen how that works in real life.)
Was the final act of Billions sentimental?
Sure, and perhaps that might have been out of touch with what we have loved of
the show for the last seven years. But I’d actually argue that’s one of the
things that actually makes the show worth it. No matter how great the series over the last
twenty years, from The Sopranos to Breaking Bad, from The Americans
to Homeland, almost every great series come to an end with whatever
realization characters made about themselves and a huge body count and misery.
There was never going to be a body count on Billions (hell, this is the
first series I watched in a long time where none of the regulars left because
their characters died) so the question was always going to be: would
they be happy at their final realization about themselves or miserable in the
aftermath of them?
This does, of course, serve as a
major contrast to the finale of Succession we got last May where the difference
is at the end the main characters were rich and miserable and with Billions they’re
rich and happy. I’m going to write a
longer column later this year contrasting both shows and evaluating their
respective legacies. That said, the audiences of each show probably wanted
different things for the Roy family than they did for the people at the new Axe
Global. (And if nothing else, that country has a much brighter political future
than the one that the world in Succession likely has.)
Personally I was satisfied with Billions
ending. Not only did it resolve most of my doubts I had going into the
final season, I realized the writers did have a long term plan after Damian
Lewis left the show in Season Five, that they did find a way to make it pay out
and delivered a conclusion that fans can appreciate. With this ending, Billions
can now effectively be considered one of the great series of all time and
rank along with The Americans and Better Call Saul - and yes, Succession – at that same level. It never got the same recognition
from the Emmys or any major awards show as the other three did (though there is
next year, hope springs eternal) but it deserves to be considered in that pantheon.
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