I do not know what it is, but Damien Lewis always stays a season
or four too long on a Showtime show. Maybe
he is just a great hang. But he spent
three seasons on Homeland even though had he blown himself up on the season finale
of the first season, it may have made that one of greatest season in the
history of television. But he stuck around;
the second season was fine but had some diminishing returns, though season
three was one of the worst seasons in the history of television.
Shortly after being written of off Homeland, Lewis then
showed up on Billions and once again, the show would have been much better in
the long time had it written him off after a season or two. The cat and mouse routine between his hedge
fund manager Bobby Axelrod and Paul Giamatti’s District Attorney was fine for
the first two season but, once again, diminishing returns for subsequent seasons. The show would have been much better off had
Chuck had a new antagonist each season (or even better, had it been a limited
season where they both ended up in prison cells next to each other at the end
of it).
Though this time it feels like it was not a creative reason as
to why Lewis was written off the show because nothing really has changed for
the new season except for the person sitting in Bobby’s chair and the name on
the side of the building. Dollar Bill and
McPhee took off at the end of last season, but everyone else returns whether
they like it or not.
Sure, the show wants you to think there are big changes, the
season starts with Chuck on a tractor, Wendy looks like she is working as an
ice cream maker, Sacker is doing combat training, Taylor is watching The Bachelor
(or maybe random engagement videos), Wags is actually exercising, and Bobby’s
replacement Mike Prince is, well, that is hard to explain.
Okay, there is a slight difference between Bobby and Mike Prince;
Bobby would cut every corner to win. Mike
Prince on the other hand is a Boy Scout (or wants you to think that) who wants
to do things with honor and want you to know just how on the straight and narrow
he is. Basically the worst kind of foe
for Chuck, a guy who is not going to slip up because he cannot be tempted in doing
something illegal. Or so we are led to
believe, he did double cross Chuck to get Bobby out of the way.
While the show wants you to think there are big changes by the opening montage, it is still the very
same Billions at its course and even pull off their way overused “One week earlier”
trope and even doubles down on that trope by dropping a “Two weeks ago” title card
while we were already a week in the past.
And really, nothing says Billions more than starting the episode with a
classic rock song and then ending it with a rap song that samples the exact same
classic rock song that opened the season.
Billions airs Sundays at 9:00 on Showtime.
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