S05.E04: Opportunity Zone

[PrincessPurrsALot]

Axe's latest move takes him back to his roots but puts him in Mike Prince's line of fire. Chuck steps into a new role and meets an intriguing colleague. Taylor tries to salvage a missed opportunity. Wendy takes an interesting new client.

Original air date 2020.05.24

[scrb]

This episode doesn't make Bobby look any better than the other episodes this season.  In the previouslies, they show Bobby bragging "I'm a fucking carnivore" about how he made his money.

So it's another competition with Prince, this time for an Opportunity Zone redevelopment in Yonkers, where Axe grew up.  He's telling the black kid now living in his old home that he was just like him.  Even offers to bring his personal chef to have dinner with him and his mother.

Wendy swears up a storm, first to Bobby and Taylor, then to fake Jackson Pollock, who's got "painter's block" since signing up to paint for Bobby on commission and then to some "fossil fuel CEO" that Taylor is trying to sell on going green.

As Tanner, the painter notes, the coaching Wendy does for "aggro" traders sounds like bullshit to him.  Wendy suggested he had imposter's syndrome.  Gee, a highly-paid psychiatrist and all she comes up is some pop psychology out of magazines?

She tells him he's afraid of success, just have to visualize and what do you know, Tanner comes up with some splotches on the canvas, which is upright rather than being on the floor.  So how did he get his boots covered with paint?

Chuck is all gassed up for his visiting lecture gig at Yale Law, ready to go all John Houseman out of Paper Chase on the students, who won't have any of it until professor "Cat" played by Julianna Marguiles channels Wendy and tells the kids to toughen the fuck up.

Wouldn't you know it, Cat is thirsty for schlub Chuck, especially because he confessed his BDSM kink.

Axe partners up with Katie Sacker's father Franklin to get a minority partner for the Yonkers bid.  Chuck tells Prince how to beat Axe on the bid but he won't go there, says he won't let himself be corrupted.

Either Prince will become corrupted by Chuck and Axe or he may stand out as the "good" deca-billionaire.  If the latter happens, it would be surprising for them to make Axe so unsympathetic, unless they want to start setting up an endgame for the series.  Axe was always skirting the law but he wasn't blatantly the asshole as when he decides to bail on the dinner with the good folks in Yonkers, saying he couldn't wait to get out of this "dipshit town" that he romanticized for the purpose of winning the bid.

Most eye-rolling scene was Taylor and Wendy closing the deal with the "fossil fuel CEO" to make him go green.  All it took was Wendy swearing up a storm about how much money he would make.  OK, that's probably all it would take, a couple of meetings to make fossil fuel CEO abandon oil.

Foul-mouth Wendy act is getting old.  It was quaint at the beginning, to have a supposedly well-educated, well put together,  professional woman like Wendy channel Bobby Knight here and there.  But show us a new trick.

Bobby and Wendy have dinner together, again prepared by chef Ryan, in his apartment, the one she's staying in temporarily.  Bobby talks about Chuck not being around to interfere.  Get over with it already.

Wags finds out his son isn't what he expected so now he's going young wife shopping to have do over on children.  OK, they can drop this story line, cuz it's dumb, cartoon like -- well uninteresting compared to the other cartoonish plots in the show.

[dwmarch]

I have never really noticed sexual tension between Wendy and Axe before. To me their bond has always been something deeper, something that physical intimacy would cheapen. But they sure dialed the tension up to 11 in this episode.

Then again, maybe Wendy just has that kind of expression. Frank Grillo was sure getting confused. It's interesting to see that Wendy hasn't abandoned the BDSM lifestyle altogether. She basically used domination and a bit of humiliation to get Frank's juices flowing again and she did it in stylish little ankle boots!

Wags got baptized? If they wanted it to be even marginally effective I hope it was Mormon-style full immersion. I appreciated the reference to the mothers of his children as I have tended to picture Wags as an alley cat.

In the look who's making friends again category we have Wendy and Taylor wanting to partner up (which will get increasingly awkward should Wendy and Axe decide to resolve that sexual tension) and Maffee being friends with Dollar Bill. And I know they hung a lampshade on it twice in this episode but indeed, doesn't Maffee have a desk and a job and responsibilities of his own? Although for that matter why are all the heavy hitters at Axe Cap sitting around watching Maffee try to kill himself with marshmallows?

I knew Axe was going to turn around and leave as soon as Prince called him to say he was giving up on Yonkers. For all the references these characters can drop they've forgotten some classic wisdom of Spock: "You may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but is often true." It's how the human brain is wired. You get squirts of dopamine for chasing a reward. You do not get any for achieving said reward.

Sacker's reaction to Chuck Sr's absurd pitch was priceless.

Prince himself acknowledges his dark past but says he doesn't want to be that guy again. And he gets a win by choosing the high road but is that going to be enough? Probably not, it'll be a boring season if these characters don't habitually give in to the worst parts of their natures.

[l star]

The passive aggressive game was strong this ep. I appreciated Sacher's dig about the left and right socks but Prince was masterful at the end. I wonder if Axe can even see it for the fuckery it was or if he's still too busy reacting. I don't have much interest in Prince's secret dark side, but that scene was a joy to watch.

I liked the scenes with Wendy and the painter. Sometimes you just need to hear your bullshit laid out. Once Wendy got him out of his head a little, he was off again. The scene of him showing her the painting was really cute.

'One to the pole and one to Jesus.' I can't even take Wags' plot seriously. I think if we were supposed to, Axe would have done more than basically roll his eyes at the crazy.

I am here for the Taylor/Wendy story. Though seriously- give up all the bigger than Axe talk, Taylor. They need some independent goals back. They really do work well together though. Wendy's skill seems to be reading people more than anything else. She knows how to talk to people and how to get them where she wants them. Combine that with Bobby or Taylor's genius and you get magic. I don't understand why she seemed to think that Bobby would be okay with this scheme though. Unless she's seeing it as expanding Mason Cap so therefore expanding Axe Cap? Taylor seemed to be suggesting more of an independent partnership though.

It was nice to see more of the traders this ep. There's a certain energy that they bring that I was missing. Mafee came off like the village idiot however.

It was interesting seeing Bobby on the ground, working these plans. He earned the Yonkers win which made Prince in his head at the end even more devastating. Still, I think of putting on the tennis whites to go woo Sacher as more Wags' territory for some reason. Like somehow Bobby is supposed to be above that or maybe passed it.

I love Julianna Margulies but I barely paid attention to her here. I can barely muster up enough interest to follow Chuck's storylines anymore, much less care. Sacher was the redeeming note this ep. I loved her reaction to Senior's crap. He's like the definition of old blowhard.

On 5/24/2020 at 1:51 AM, dwmarch said:

I have never really noticed sexual tension between Wendy and Axe before. To me their bond has always been something deeper, something that physical intimacy would cheapen. But they sure dialed the tension up to 11 in this episode.

Then again, maybe Wendy just has that kind of expression. Frank Grillo was sure getting confused. It's interesting to see that Wendy hasn't abandoned the BDSM lifestyle altogether. She basically used domination and a bit of humiliation to get Frank's juices flowing again and she did it in stylish little ankle boots!

I've noticed it for a while but I also binged the series. I agree they dialed it up though. I feel like Bobby is just waiting for Wendy to say go. He doesn't seem to know exactly what to say or do as soon as the mood shifts even slightly so he brings up Chuck which promptly ruins the mood. It would be endearing in another character. He was right about one thing though- as close as they were before, their relationship couldn't include intimate dinners at home with Lara and Chuck in the picture. There are in each other's space in a new way now.

I missed that! You're right. I said above that she's good at reading people and I think that is a further example. There's a lot of psychology in BDSM. The same skills that she shows in her work probably helped her a lot as a dom too, and vice versa.

[dmc]

so clearly Wendy is going to start boning the painter.

 

I am not sure what this show is doing with Wendy and Axe...that dinner was awkward

[LibertarianSlut]

So Chuck is teaching a full semester’s course in New Haven while he is also acting NY AG?  Yeah, not gonna happen.  Ever.  The New York taxpayers would never go for that, nor should they, nor could they.  Also, some judges require you to stand when you address them, some don’t, and standing before those latter judges would be met with a weird stare from the judge (this has happened to me).  If someone with a law background proofread this script, they would have omitted that line from Chuck that a law student stands for his professor the way he’d stand before a judge.  

What, is Juliana Margulies the new Wendy, standing up and telling Chuck’s class to get balls?  Vomit.  And suddenly every single person in the class had briefed the case that Chuck wanted to discuss?  Was her lecture somehow retroactive?  Ugh.

 The truth is that the better the law school, the easier time the students have it.  Visiting professors are even easier on the students.  There is no fucking way in hell that Chuck would say that anyone who hadn’t briefed two cases—when there are sometimes upwards of a dozen cases assigned per class—would fail, that was a nonstarter of an idea.  I’m confident that no one who has actually been to law school approved any of this.  Maybe a bunch of people who’ve watched The Paper Chase too many times.  

I hate when this show has people from Shark Tank on.  Wasn’t Mark Cuban on once before?  I don’t get it; what’s the point?  Why don’t they just tell a story, rather than have us chuckle with recognition?  That seems like a cheap way to entertain.  

Did Axe actually refer to Yonkers as a “town” to Daymond John?  It’s a city, but I’ve never heard anyone from New York refer to it as either.  People refer to it by neighborhood.  I noticed Sacker’s dad did finally say “neighborhood.”  When Axe was leaving his office to go to Yonkers, he’s said he was “going out there.”  Anyone from New York would say “I’m going up there.”  

I didn’t understand how Yonkers would suddenly seem like this lucrative opportunity for both Axe and Prince.  The place has been in economic decline for decades; why now?  Because the writers wanted to show Axe going home again?  It seems random.

What happened to that waterfront property that Chuck and his dad were fighting to the death to develop last season, on which the government put a freeze, and then it became unfrozen?  Are we just not talking about that anymore?  

I don’t understand this stuff about fossil fuel for the second episode in a row now.  There is talking fast on TV, in the name of not dumbing things down for the audience, and there is rapid-fire inside baseball dialogue that is just not amusing to hear and doesn’t seem to make much sense no matter how closely I listen.  It’s so unrealistic that Wendy would say, “you’re going to make so much money” and the executive says, “well, I like the way that that sounds,” Wendy throws out a bunch of vague terms about “green” and a “motherfucking” and suddenly they’re in business?  Yeah, because that’s how it works.  

Wags doesn’t even make an attempt with his daughter because she’s a stripper, and he abandons his son because he’s Christian?  Doesn’t that seem a bit immature and unrealistic, even for Wags?  

Axe, you are such an alternative, novel billionaire that you dress like you’re going to the basketball court at a city counsel meeting!  You would be so conventional and boring if you stooped to put on a collared shirt and a tie, we get it.  Oh, and since he has a rough accent (that is gettin more cartoonish each week) and he knows some of the stores in Yonkers, he must be the right horse for the citizens to back!  

This is like Taylor giving the pitch to the firefighter’s pension board last season—all heart, no facts.  I am the first one to say that voters are dumb, but they’re not that dumb.  They would need numbers.  And not one person knew enough about Sandicott to know that was Axe’s, not Chuck Sr’s, doing?  There is not one fact checker in the media or as a citizen?  They just want to back the guy who could get odds on the Giants in the old neighborhood?  Yawn.  

How would Prince be turned into a monster by trying to get the Yonkers opportunity?  Was he more afraid that Axe was going to play the race card, which was laughable?  This makes Axe a bully, not Prince a monster.  

I didn’t get this episode.  Last week’s episode was bad, but it wasn’t a failure, because it told stories.  This week just felt like the writer’s room saying, “ok, we’re a third of the way through the season and we have done nothing so far, so let’s use this episode to set up for the rest of the season.”  Better writing and they could do that without essentially depriving us of an episode with an internal story for a week.  It was boring and I’m tired of every single one of the characters.  Right now I’m rooting for Prince.  

[RealReality]

4 minutes ago, LibertarianSlut said:

So Chuck is teaching a full semester’s course in New Haven while he is also acting NY AG?  Yeah, not gonna happen.  Ever.  The New York taxpayers would never go for that, nor should they, nor could they.  Also, some judges require you to stand when you address them, some don’t, and standing before those latter judges would be met with a weird stare from the judge (this has happened to me).  If someone with a law background proofread this script, they would have omitted that line from Chuck that a law student stands for his professor the way he’d stand before a judge.  

What, is Juliana Margulies the new Wendy, standing up and telling Chuck’s class to get balls?  Vomit.  And suddenly every single person in the class had briefed the case that Chuck wanted to discuss?  Was her lecture somehow retroactive?  Ugh.

 The truth is that the better the law school, the easier time the students have it.  Visiting professors are even easier on the students.  There is no fucking way in hell that Chuck would say that anyone who hadn’t briefed two cases—when there are sometimes upwards of a dozen cases assigned per class—would fail, that was a nonstarter of an idea.  I’m confident that no one who has actually been to law school approved any of this.  Maybe a bunch of people who’ve watched The Paper Chase too many times.  

I hate when this show has people from Shark Tank on.  Wasn’t Mark Cuban on once before?  I don’t get it; what’s the point?  Why don’t they just tell a story, rather than have us chuckle with recognition?  That seems like a cheap way to entertain.  

Did Axe actually refer to Yonkers as a “town” to Daymond John?  It’s a city, but I’ve never heard anyone from New York refer to it as either.  People refer to it by neighborhood.  I noticed Sacker’s dad did finally say “neighborhood.”  When Axe was leaving his office to go to Yonkers, he’s said he was “going out there.”  Anyone from New York would say “I’m going up there.”  

I didn’t understand how Yonkers would suddenly seem like this lucrative opportunity for both Axe and Prince.  The place has been in economic decline for decades; why now?  Because the writers wanted to show Axe going home again?  It seems random.

What happened to that waterfront property that Chuck and his dad were fighting to the death to develop last season, on which the government put a freeze, and then it became unfrozen?  Are we just not talking about that anymore?  

I don’t understand this stuff about fossil fuel for the second episode in a row now.  There is talking fast on TV, in the name of not dumbing things down for the audience, and there is rapid-fire inside baseball dialogue that is just not amusing to hear and doesn’t seem to make much sense no matter how closely I listen.  It’s so unrealistic that Wendy would say, “you’re going to make so much money” and the executive says, “well, I like the way that that sounds,” Wendy throws out a bunch of vague terms about “green” and a “motherfucking” and suddenly they’re in business?  Yeah, because that’s how it works.  

Wags doesn’t even make an attempt with his daughter because she’s a stripper, and he abandons his son because he’s Christian?  Doesn’t that seem a bit immature and unrealistic, even for Wags?  

Axe, you are such an alternative, novel billionaire that you dress like you’re going to the basketball court at a city counsel meeting!  You would be so conventional and boring if you stooped to put on a collared shirt and a tie, we get it.  Oh, and since he has a rough accent (that is gettin more cartoonish each week) and he knows some of the stores in Yonkers, he must be the right horse for the citizens to back!  

This is like Taylor giving the pitch to the firefighter’s pension board last season—all heart, no facts.  I am the first one to say that voters are dumb, but they’re not that dumb.  They would need numbers.  And not one person knew enough about Sandicott to know that was Axe’s, not Chuck Sr’s, doing?  There is not one fact checker in the media or as a citizen?  They just want to back the guy who could get odds on the Giants in the old neighborhood?  Yawn.  

How would Prince be turned into a monster by trying to get the Yonkers opportunity?  Was he more afraid that Axe was going to play the race card, which was laughable?  This makes Axe a bully, not Prince a monster.  

I didn’t get this episode.  Last week’s episode was bad, but it wasn’t a failure, because it told stories.  This week just felt like the writer’s room saying, “ok, we’re a third of the way through the season and we have done nothing so far, so let’s use this episode to set up for the rest of the season.”  Better writing and they could do that without essentially depriving us of an episode with an internal story for a week.  It was boring and I’m tired of every single one of the characters.  Right now I’m rooting for Prince.  

Oh, this law school scene sounds fun.  

LOL, there was a scene on HTGAWM that was just that unrealistic and I couldn't watch the show after that.  

Standing for a visiting professor and being confrontational the first class?  Interesting. 

I've only ever had a professor get mildly annoyed like halfway through the semester, when it was clear that like at least half the class hadn't done any of the reading. 

But as my Constitutional law professor once told me, he'd prefer people did the reading, but he was getting paid either way, and there were students who had done the reading he could focus on, so 🤷‍♀️.   

Wendy seems as useless as tits on bull to quote the old saying.  I don't get why everyone is so gobsmacked by her. 

Looks like I'll be hate watching since succession is on hold 😞 

[Lemons]

3 hours ago, RealReality said:

Oh, this law school scene sounds fun.  

LOL, there was a scene on HTGAWM that was just that unrealistic and I couldn't watch the show after that.  

Standing for a visiting professor and being confrontational the first class?  Interesting. 

I've only ever had a professor get mildly annoyed like halfway through the semester, when it was clear that like at least half the class hadn't done any of the reading. 

But as my Constitutional law professor once told me, he'd prefer people did the reading, but he was getting paid either way, and there were students who had done the reading he could focus on, so 🤷‍♀️.   

Wendy seems as useless as tits on bull to quote the old saying.  I don't get why everyone is so gobsmacked by her. 

Looks like I'll be hate watching since succession is on hold 😞 

I agree with not getting the Wendy intrigue. She has become as full of herself as Axe.  The two of them deserve each other. 
 

As for the law school class, I get that they were trying to compare the old generations to the “everyone gets a trophy” newer generations.  You have to go back a lot farther than Chuck’s generation to find classrooms where there were only male students, they wore suit and ties and were terrified of their professors.  

[janeta]

🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ The continuity editor needs to be fired.

[RealReality]

1 hour ago, Lemons said:

I agree with not getting the Wendy intrigue. She has become as full of herself as Axe.  The two of them deserve each other. 
 

As for the law school class, I get that they were trying to compare the old generations to the “everyone gets a trophy” newer generations.  You have to go back a lot farther than Chuck’s generation to find classrooms where there were only male students, they wore suit and ties and were terrified of their professors.  

I'm watching the law school scene and it's pretty ridiculous.  I didn't go to yale, so maybe they do it different.  

First, you cannot or should not assume that every attorney will argue in front of a judge.  Even in the 70s or the 50s or whenever Chuck went to law school there were attorneys who did transactional work and never appeared before a judge and even at firms there are litigators and trial attorneys and there are people who primarily write.  

Second, Crim law is like a first year class and it's a bar exam topic.  It seems like a piss poor idea to have someone who isn't an experienced professor teach a subject that the students are likely to see on the bar exam.  The practice of criminal law is probably a lot messier than learning the elements of certain offenses.  

Third, I've never heard of standing for roll.  But maybe that's a Yale thing?  It's bizarre for that to be the hill to die on.  I guess he is really trying to get into that random professors pants.  And what a weird way to stuff Juliana M. into the storyline.  

And just LOL at one professor dressing down other students.  I guess she has tenure, but isn't she in another department and field of study?  How is she the expert on any of this.  

Chuck thinks he is being cute, but in real life, i think this would backfire on him. Yale should have had him teach a smaller class for people who specifically want to practice crim law. 

 

Edited May 25, 2020 by RealReality

[edhopper]

As a working artist, there was nothing remotely realistic about how Grillo acted. It al rang incredibly false. And BTW, when artist get together they talk about art.

And who was that guy who looked like Axe at the end. Some rival makes an obvious and petulant insult and Axe is suddenly insecure about who he is and where he came from. Utter BS. Axe doesnt back down or feel inferior to anyone.

Really poor episode.

[RealReality]

Finished, and at the very least I'm happy to see Wendy admit that she barely has a shred of credibility.  Someone had to say it, may as well have been her.  

Having said that, I still can't take her seriously.  This week, she point blank and decidely told axe he was wrong about something he knows far more about than she does.  

Last week, she hemmed and hawed and couldn't give axe a straight answer about how bailing Gordie out would stunt his development.  

After last week, it's hard to see Wendy as anything other than a joke.  I struggle to see how she can be taken seriously after her failure last week.  If she was this Svengali she pretends to be, she should have foreseen axe's overreaction to a perceived enemy and should have cautioned him against going overboard and making that speech.  

She should have known that if axe takes someone on as an enemy, nothing short of annihilation will do.  And to that end he will end up screwing himself over.  

I'd love it if the video of axe's Gordon gecko speech becomes public and derails his efforts at the opportunity zone and the bank.  

If they just threw in that speech for no good reason, it'll be stupid.  

As for the wags storyline, I guess it could be interesting.  But how sad for his other two kids that they are now mistakes to be put in a corner and never played with again because of shiny new baby. 

I think it could have been interesting to use the religious son to explore how wags treats axe like a god and how be needs a godlike figure in his life to function. 

[scrb]

That's true, in this day and age, that speech to the kids would have gone viral.

[edhopper]

I see in the previews Axe gets bad press for blowing off the Yonkers family. Another move the old Axe would have seen coming.

My wife thinks they are just trying to make a parable to our current leaders.

Edited May 25, 2020 by edhopper

[whatwasIthinking]

Bobby grew up in Queens (season  1). His mother was played by Patti D'Arbanville, who is maybe 4 minutes older than Damian Lewis IRL. Getting fed up with this  show. Lather, rinse.  

[SoCal Mema]

16 hours ago, LibertarianSlut said:

So Chuck is teaching a full semester’s course in New Haven while he is also acting NY AG?  Yeah, not gonna happen.  Ever.  The New York taxpayers would never go for that, nor should they, nor could they.  Also, some judges require you to stand when you address them, some don’t, and standing before those latter judges would be met with a weird stare from the judge (this has happened to me).  If someone with a law background proofread this script, they would have omitted that line from Chuck that a law student stands for his professor the way he’d stand before a judge.  

What, is Juliana Margulies the new Wendy, standing up and telling Chuck’s class to get balls?  Vomit.  And suddenly every single person in the class had briefed the case that Chuck wanted to discuss?  Was her lecture somehow retroactive?  Ugh.

 The truth is that the better the law school, the easier time the students have it.  Visiting professors are even easier on the students.  There is no fucking way in hell that Chuck would say that anyone who hadn’t briefed two cases—when there are sometimes upwards of a dozen cases assigned per class—would fail, that was a nonstarter of an idea.  I’m confident that no one who has actually been to law school approved any of this.  Maybe a bunch of people who’ve watched The Paper Chase too many times.  

I hate when this show has people from Shark Tank on.  Wasn’t Mark Cuban on once before?  I don’t get it; what’s the point?  Why don’t they just tell a story, rather than have us chuckle with recognition?  That seems like a cheap way to entertain.  

Did Axe actually refer to Yonkers as a “town” to Daymond John?  It’s a city, but I’ve never heard anyone from New York refer to it as either.  People refer to it by neighborhood.  I noticed Sacker’s dad did finally say “neighborhood.”  When Axe was leaving his office to go to Yonkers, he’s said he was “going out there.”  Anyone from New York would say “I’m going up there.”  

I didn’t understand how Yonkers would suddenly seem like this lucrative opportunity for both Axe and Prince.  The place has been in economic decline for decades; why now?  Because the writers wanted to show Axe going home again?  It seems random.

What happened to that waterfront property that Chuck and his dad were fighting to the death to develop last season, on which the government put a freeze, and then it became unfrozen?  Are we just not talking about that anymore?  

I don’t understand this stuff about fossil fuel for the second episode in a row now.  There is talking fast on TV, in the name of not dumbing things down for the audience, and there is rapid-fire inside baseball dialogue that is just not amusing to hear and doesn’t seem to make much sense no matter how closely I listen.  It’s so unrealistic that Wendy would say, “you’re going to make so much money” and the executive says, “well, I like the way that that sounds,” Wendy throws out a bunch of vague terms about “green” and a “motherfucking” and suddenly they’re in business?  Yeah, because that’s how it works.  

Wags doesn’t even make an attempt with his daughter because she’s a stripper, and he abandons his son because he’s Christian?  Doesn’t that seem a bit immature and unrealistic, even for Wags?  

Axe, you are such an alternative, novel billionaire that you dress like you’re going to the basketball court at a city counsel meeting!  You would be so conventional and boring if you stooped to put on a collared shirt and a tie, we get it.  Oh, and since he has a rough accent (that is gettin more cartoonish each week) and he knows some of the stores in Yonkers, he must be the right horse for the citizens to back!  

This is like Taylor giving the pitch to the firefighter’s pension board last season—all heart, no facts.  I am the first one to say that voters are dumb, but they’re not that dumb.  They would need numbers.  And not one person knew enough about Sandicott to know that was Axe’s, not Chuck Sr’s, doing?  There is not one fact checker in the media or as a citizen?  They just want to back the guy who could get odds on the Giants in the old neighborhood?  Yawn.  

How would Prince be turned into a monster by trying to get the Yonkers opportunity?  Was he more afraid that Axe was going to play the race card, which was laughable?  This makes Axe a bully, not Prince a monster.  

I didn’t get this episode.  Last week’s episode was bad, but it wasn’t a failure, because it told stories.  This week just felt like the writer’s room saying, “ok, we’re a third of the way through the season and we have done nothing so far, so let’s use this episode to set up for the rest of the season.”  Better writing and they could do that without essentially depriving us of an episode with an internal story for a week.  It was boring and I’m tired of every single one of the characters.  Right now I’m rooting for Prince.  

I just listened to “Behind the Billions”, the weekly recap podcast by the co-creators, Brian Koppelman and David Levine.  They clearly don’t read these boards because they’re such a contrast with how this season is being perceived.  Also, seems like they want more Shark Tank people on the show and had been courting Damon for some time as a guest.  They also did an interview with Maggie Siff (Wendy), and they were all foaming at the mouth saying this is the first episode whereby her character had really evolved.  I appreciate all the realism in the comments on this board.  This season has not been that great to me.

[RealReality]

26 minutes ago, SoCal Mema said:

I just listened to “Behind the Billions”, the weekly recap podcast by the co-creators, Brian Koppelman and David Levine.  They clearly don’t read these boards because they’re such a contrast with how this season is being perceived.  Also, seems like they want more Shark Tank people on the show and had been courting Damon for some time as a guest.  They also did an interview with Maggie Siff (Wendy), and they were all foaming at the mouth saying this is the first episode whereby her character had really evolved.  I appreciate all the realism in the comments on this board.  This season has not been that great to me.

I really don't like any of these "guest appearances". 

They all ridiculously overact and it's distracting.  Mark Cuban is getting better, but the bar is so low.  The guy yesterday was AWFUL.  

[Dminches]

10 minutes ago, RealReality said:

I really don't like any of these "guest appearances". 

They all ridiculously overact and it's distracting.  Mark Cuban is getting better, but the bar is so low.  The guy yesterday was AWFUL.  

I liked seeing Dominique Wilkins but he really had nothing to say.

 

[DoubleUTeeEff]

The alliances in this show shift so quickly and almost without reason. The characters are so shallow. No one has any loyalty to anyone. Now we've got Wendy/Taylor vs. Axe? And they think they are going to be bigger than Axe Capital? While working for Axe Capital? That seems..unrealistic.

I'm down for Wendy and the painter hooking up. Much more so than Chuck and Julianna Margulies. I loved Wendy's line, "Do I have to stare at you some more?"

[ahpny]

On 5/24/2020 at 2:16 AM, scrb said:

Foul-mouth Wendy act is getting old.

She used to be the most interesting character, but her depth has been collapsed down to 2 dimensions, profanity and blank staring. Because neither of those features is impressive or convincing, the other characters' reactions to her are no longer credible. She's no longer objectively compelling, so reactions to her suggesting otherwise fall flat.

19 hours ago, dmc said:

so clearly Wendy is going to start boning the painter.

I thought that might begin right in the studio, but he seems like (formerly) struggling artist cliche. If Chuck ends up with Juliana Margolis, it can certainly be said he seems so have a "type." The artist, however, shares about as little in common with Chuck as appears possible.

2 hours ago, whatwasIthinking said:

Bobby grew up in Queens (season  1). His mother was played by Patti D'Arbanville, who is maybe 4 minutes older than Damian Lewis IRL.

Yonkers came out of left field, but I thought he grew up, or at least went to college, on Long Island? Maybe I'm conflating him with Lara, who was supposed to have been from Howard Beach or some other coastal Queens town? While Yonkers and at least parts of Queens may share some demographic and economic commonality, they're hardly fungible.

[scrb]

3 hours ago, SoCal Mema said:

I just listened to “Behind the Billions”, the weekly recap podcast by the co-creators, Brian Koppelman and David Levine.  They clearly don’t read these boards because they’re such a contrast with how this season is being perceived.  Also, seems like they want more Shark Tank people on the show and had been courting Damon for some time as a guest.  They also did an interview with Maggie Siff (Wendy), and they were all foaming at the mouth saying this is the first episode whereby her character had really evolved.  I appreciate all the realism in the comments on this board.  This season has not been that great to me.

I've heard Koppleman a few times.

He doesn't seem like the type who'd come down and depict his main character negatively like the way David Chase did with Tony Soprano.

So far though, they are making Axe look like an asshole this season.

 

[Meres]

I'm really appreciating everyone's insight into the direction this show has gone. I think it's gone from a drama to a melodrama. It's turned into a soap opera, less Sopranos and more Falcon Crest. When characters' personalities turn on a dime and alliances are dissolved and rebuilt with no reasonable context it just becomes absurd. The dialogue is a string of over-stylized snarky quips that never resembles how most people speak, let alone constantly.  And, why is everyone speaking in a hushed, harsh whisper that used to be reserved for serious confrontational moments?

[Lone Wolf]

Random thoughts:

Wags should have gone to The Asshole Whisperer with his patriarchal issues.  She's so effortlessly solving everyone else's problems.

Prince (whose name is becoming disturbingly descriptive) increasingly seems too good to be true.  

Axe's true colors came out in the last scene.  Nothing new there.

Taylor wearing a man's suit to the second meeting after Mr. Keto referred them as a lady.

Sacrilege though it may be, I think I like k.d. lang's version of After the Gold Rush better than Neil Young's.

That is all.

  

 

 

 

[RealReality]

3 hours ago, ahpny said:

She used to be the most interesting character, but her depth has been collapsed down to 2 dimensions, profanity and blank staring. Because neither of those features is impressive or convincing, the other characters' reactions to her are no longer credible. She's no longer objectively compelling, so reactions to her suggesting otherwise fall flat.

 

 

I agree that Wendy is no longer credible for a number of reasons.  Superficial cursing and blank staring as proxies for depth is certainly one of them.  

[edhopper]

Well, they only were able to get 7 episodes done before COVID hit. Maybe they can fix this crap before they come back.

How could I forget Axe is from Queens? The pizza joint is 2  miles from where I live.

[LibertarianSlut]

8 hours ago, SoCal Mema said:

I just listened to “Behind the Billions”, the weekly recap podcast by the co-creators, Brian Koppelman and David Levine.  They clearly don’t read these boards because they’re such a contrast with how this season is being perceived.  Also, seems like they want more Shark Tank people on the show and had been courting Damon for some time as a guest.  They also did an interview with Maggie Siff (Wendy), and they were all foaming at the mouth saying this is the first episode whereby her character had really evolved.  I appreciate all the realism in the comments on this board.  This season has not been that great to me.

Me too.  I really only try to watch the four corners of any show and then read comments by viewers.  Nothing the show runners have to say have any bearing on the show to me.  It should come across on the screen or not at all.  Show runners and writers are going to go down with their ship, they are going to champion their show to the end, and I feel like the show can get white-washed by the viewers if we put too much faith in what they say (not that I never listen to the show runners’ input; I have done it with Boardwalk Empire).  

But if I disagree with the show runner about how a scene was depicted, I am going to go with my own interpretation.  They don’t get the last word.  If they intended to convey something and they didn’t get the job done, I am completely disinterested in their spin and cover up in the aftermath.  

The only exception I can think is when Breaking Bad aired Fly, which was what I thought to be a really boring bottle episode, and Vince Gilligan came right out and said they did the episode that way because they were plum out of money.  The fact that he had humility and admitted this caused me shrug and say, “eh, it wasn’t that bad.”  Billions ain’t Breaking Bad though, lol.  

[txhorns79]

Quote

So Chuck is teaching a full semester’s course in New Haven while he is also acting NY AG?  Yeah, not gonna happen.  Ever.  The New York taxpayers would never go for that, nor should they, nor could they.

What exactly would the New York taxpayers do about it?  I don't believe they have the power to do a recall, and I can't imagine the Governor getting involved in something like this without a lot more.  I can agree that it doesn't seem particularly feasible for Chuck to be doing both, but it's not like Billions is a reality based show. 

And of course Axe walks away from the project the moment Prince gives up.  I'd expect nothing less from the guy after all this time.  Also, I know it's just an Axe thing, but he couldn't even be bothered to dress up for his presentation before the Yonkers board?  He just looks like such a schlubb in the jeans and hoodie. 

[Broderbits]

49 minutes ago, txhorns79 said:

Also, I know it's just an Axe thing, but he couldn't even be bothered to dress up for his presentation before the Yonkers board?  He just looks like such a schlubb in the jeans and hoodie. 

Oh but Axe is a true folk hero, man of the people, salt of the earth! An example to all the poor downtrodden how an exceptional ubermensch can, through sheer force of will, become a multi-billionaire master of the universe. Or whatever the hell he is.

[talktoomuch]

So for real... you guys aren't bored to death with this show at this point? It took me 2 full days to finish washing this 1 hr show. I keep waiting for something (anything!) interesting to happen. But every week is just hero worship of Axe and now Wendy, shluppiness of Chuck,  inconsistent character development of my only hope Taylor and all the supporting characters who don't get nearly enough development. 

At this point, I've only been watching to see Sacher and/or Taylor win without Chuck and/or Axe. And, of course, to see how luminous Lauren looks every week. Her skin, her hair and her wardrobe are....ahmazzzzing.

[LibertarianSlut]

1 hour ago, txhorns79 said:

What exactly would the New York taxpayers do about it? 

I don’t know “exactly” what the New York taxpayers would do about it, the same way I don’t know “exactly” what would happen if any specific set of hypothetical circumstances were put before me and someone asked me how the future would unfold.  Debates rage about these kind of things.  

I think this is a straw question.  The NY AG is an elected member of the executive branch, so she is accountable to the people.  While  I don’t know the exact procedure for recalling her power, I can say with confidence that it would be entirely undemocratic for her to be immune to impeachment.  She is elected and paid by the taxpayers of New York and if the fictional version was collecting a paycheck from Yale, a private university in a different state, it would be nixed.  Chuck has a lot of enemies.  This could/would be stopped immediately.  

Perhaps a person who went to law school in New York could advise “exactly” how it could happen; I went to law school in Florida so though I can’t speak intelligently about the executive functions of the provisions of the New York State Constitution, it is my position that this would never fly, not with New York, not with Yale, not with the media, not with the citizens, etc.  

The NY AG’s office has so many departments under it that it’s positively Byzantine.  The current NY AG, Letitia James, is working on the corona virus.  They’ve taken over everything.  All it would take would be for one whistleblower to be “wrongfully” ousted from their home in a foreclosure (the AG oversees banking activity) and people would be tweeting “where was the AG?”  And people would tweet back that he was teaching con law at Yale and his career (along with a bunch of other careers) would be over.  

1 hour ago, txhorns79 said:

it's not like Billions is a reality based show. 

Ah, I think this is where the real disagreement is located.  I think it’s supposed to be a show that is based in reality.  It is based on a hedge fund that grew out of a real crisis (9/11) which conducts real hedge fund activity that is supervised by real banking regs, the real SEC, a real US Attorney’s Office, and a real AG’s office.  Axe and Chuck are based on real people.  

To the extent that this show departs from reality, whether through laziness or lack of imagination, that is just a failure of the show, but I would certainly categorize it as a “reality based show” as opposed to a fantasy show, like Lost.  It is my opinion as a viewer that as long as a dinosaur may not wander onto the set, or a fairy, or a hobbit, then it is a fictional show that is set in the real world in the current era, and they show may not operate outside of those rules.  To the extent that it does, I am not going to hand-wave it anymore, because the show is not good anymore.  When it was good, I was willing to hand-wave a little this or that here or there.  Chuck as AG throwing the Russian out of the US only got an “eh” for me, because the rest of the show was compelling and plausible.  Hard to believe that was exactly one season ago.  How far it’s fallen.  

I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that this show’s plot and dialogue fell off at the same time that its relation to realism did.  

[txhorns79]

25 minutes ago, LibertarianSlut said:

I don’t know “exactly” what the New York taxpayers would do about it, the same way I don’t know “exactly” what would happen if any specific set of hypothetical circumstances were put before me and someone asked me how the future would unfold.  Debates rage about these kind of things.  

I was responding to your comment that Chuck's situation being AG and teaching at Yale would never happen and that the taxpayers could, would and should never allow it to occur, so my question is what exactly what consequence is currently in place where the taxpayers could stop Chuck?  If the answer is unknown, that's fine.  

 

On 5/24/2020 at 4:41 PM, LibertarianSlut said:

And suddenly every single person in the class had briefed the case that Chuck wanted to discuss?  Was her lecture somehow retroactive?  Ugh.

I just had watched the episode.  During the scene, not everyone raises their hand.  However, from my experience, it's pretty standard for law school classes to have been given cases to read for the first day of class, so the majority of the class having read the assignment would be pretty much in line with how a law school operates. 

[Marley]

I don’t even really understand what this show is supposed to be about anymore lol.

Doesn’t Chuck have something else to do but obsess over Axe? Like some other crime or something.

Wags and his plan to have another kid? Gross. His SL is such a waste of time.

[scrb]

I think the show is loosely based on Steve Cohen and Preet Bhara, who was the US attorney for SDNY.

Cohen wasn't allowed to trade for a period of years because of wrongdoing.

But obviously now in its 5th season, they had to come up with more stories beyond insider trading.

Axe doesn't put himself out in the media.  Doesn't go on CNBC a lot like some hedge fund billionaires dow.

So not sure why he'd dress like some schmo would be some thing.

I don't think they try to glorify him or make him out to be some kind of hero.  The writers and the show runners would really be clueless if they think the episode with the headmaster puts him in a good light or this last episode, where he uses the black kid for PR and to win his bid.

I guess they're showing that Axe won't be bothered by little things like laws or rules or being seen as good.

One way to take this show in an interesting direction would be to have him run for office, or at least do something that puts him in the public spotlight, like buying a sports franchise.

But now he's suppose to be taking over a bank, which was suppose to be impossible because of some of his previous shady deals.  I guess being tied to a bank, with FDIC backing meaning backing by the US govt. would put him out more in the public.

He bribes enough public officials, you'd think he'd have some big lobbying operations in Washington at some point, if he doesn't have it already.

[LibertarianSlut]

53 minutes ago, txhorns79 said:

I was responding to your comment that Chuck's situation being AG and teaching at Yale would never happen and that the taxpayers could, would and should never allow it to occur, so my question is what exactly what consequence is currently in place where the taxpayers could stop Chuck?  If the answer is unknown, that's fine.

I’m clear on the question.  Part of my response to the question was:

1 hour ago, LibertarianSlut said:

While  I don’t know the exact procedure

So I admitted that I didn’t know exactly how it would occur, though I theorized that it could be done the way that other executives are removed, and I also stated that it’s my belief that I don’t have to know the exact procedure in order to object to something.  

I don’t have to be an expert on something in order to opine on its reality.  I think it’s getting a bit nit picky to dictate to me that I can say “unknown,” but “...I don’t know...” isn’t a satisfactory response, so I’m not going to entertain any additional questions about something so trivial.  

53 minutes ago, txhorns79 said:

I just had watched the episode.  During the scene, not everyone raises their hand.  However, from my experience, it's pretty standard for law school classes to have been given cases to read for the first day of class, so the majority of the class having read the assignment would be pretty much in line with how a law school operates. 

Chuck was asking about who briefed the cases, not who read them, two very different things.  A brief can be done well or it can be done poorly.  I have been in classes where students have had to come to the front of the class to read their brief, and some students who didn’t do a good job have been eviscerated.  I wouldn’t be quick to volunteer myself for a brief in that environment.  MMV.  

Edited May 26, 2020 by LibertarianSlut
Can’t have a typo

[PrincessPurrsALot]

Billionaires, 

Let's watch the back and forth between individual posters.  We are expressing opinions about a TV show.  No lives are harmed by these opinions.  If you disagree, do so politely.  No one owes anyone receipts for their opinion.  

Don't make me have to bring in Wendy in to stare at you and pretend she's effective. 

[BigDfromLA]

This has been a really weird season.

About a week before it started, I rewatched the last half of Season 4, which I think was really good. There is such a big difference between that and how this season has started. What happened? It seems like a different show. It reminded me of when Ray Donovan moved to New York and the show was never the same. It's kind of sad.

Bryan Connerty is missed.

I actually liked the START of the scene when Chuck went full Kingsfield/John Houseman on the class and then for the kiddies to start whining and bellyaching. It was then immediately ruined by what's her name in the back "fixing everything". Ughhhhh.

It's bad enough that geezer scumbag Rhoades Sr. has an infant child. Now Wags too? Time to vomit. I just never imagined Wags ever parenting a child, which makes this storyline horrendous. 

Why is the painter guy there? Waste of a character. It would be more interesting for Wendy to juggle affairs with Axe and Lauren. Imagine that.

Edited May 26, 2020 by BigDfromLA

[RealReality]

4 hours ago, talktoomuch said:

So for real... you guys aren't bored to death with this show at this point? It took me 2 full days to finish washing this 1 hr show. I keep waiting for something (anything!) interesting to happen. But every week is just hero worship of Axe and now Wendy, shluppiness of Chuck,  inconsistent character development of my only hope Taylor and all the supporting characters who don't get nearly enough development. 

At this point, I've only been watching to see Sacher and/or Taylor win without Chuck and/or Axe. And, of course, to see how luminous Lauren looks every week. Her skin, her hair and her wardrobe are....ahmazzzzing.

Lauren is gorgeous.  I'm a straight woman, but she is just so pretty and unique that it's hard not to look at her.  

I'm annoyed by the Wendy worship because it doesn't make any sense at this point.  But this is a poor man's succession and that show won't be back for a while I guess 😞

[RealReality]

3 hours ago, txhorns79 said:

I was responding to your comment that Chuck's situation being AG and teaching at Yale would never happen and that the taxpayers could, would and should never allow it to occur, so my question is what exactly what consequence is currently in place where the taxpayers could stop Chuck?  If the answer is unknown, that's fine.  

 

I just had watched the episode.  During the scene, not everyone raises their hand.  However, from my experience, it's pretty standard for law school classes to have been given cases to read for the first day of class, so the majority of the class having read the assignment would be pretty much in line with how a law school operates. 

So, I was a nerd and super anxious, so I would have had the pre-assigned reading done. 

But, in my experience the reading on the syllabi were by week.  So you'd have two classes a week and you'd discuss certain cases that week.  

The first class meeting was normally more of an information session. 

Particularly in the first year, roll was taken and often professors had everyone give a short intro (painful!). In a class that size, by the time you were done with the intros and got the information and housekeeping out of the way, it was kinda time to go.  So, I would have expected a professor to dig into the assigned reading the second class of the week.  

These are Yale students, so I guess they came into the first day of a first year class knowing how to brief cases succinctly? For at least a year, I called my briefs "lengthies" because I basically wrote everything down.  LOL.  

Anyways, Yale students are obviously super type A personalities so it makes sense that many of them did the reading in advance. 

But IMO, the scenario is super unlikely in the first meeting of a first year criminal law class.  

[txhorns79]

5 hours ago, RealReality said:

Particularly in the first year, roll was taken and often professors had everyone give a short intro (painful!). In a class that size, by the time you were done with the intros and got the information and housekeeping out of the way, it was kinda time to go.  So, I would have expected a professor to dig into the assigned reading the second class of the week.  

I remember very distinctly in all my 1L classes that there were assignments for the first day, and the professors reviewed those cases.  Otherwise, why assign the reading for the first day of class if you have no intention of reviewing it? 

[Cramps]

I am stunned that that the show is being written by the same writers. It’s gotten so bad this season. At first I thought maybe my patience had ended for asshole billionaires due to covid, but on reflection,  the writing really has gone downhill. They’ve run out of plots and are just going in circles, and the characters feel like cartoon versions of what they used to be. 

[RealReality]

16 minutes ago, txhorns79 said:

I remember very distinctly in all my 1L classes that there were assignments for the first day, and the professors reviewed those cases.  Otherwise, why assign the reading for the first day of class if you have no intention of reviewing it? 

Well, I'd imagine a department head or chair has to review and approve the syllabus to ensure that particular topics and cases are covered in a logical and timely manner. 

"Intros and housekeeping" aren't going to really make it onto a syllabus, even if that's what you're gonna be doing the first class. 

I'm also not sure if some states require that the syllabus for required bar classes are submitted for state school accreditation. In which case officially assigning reading the first class makes sense, just to show that you'll cover certain topics. 

The syllabus also gives the students an idea about the order of assignments, reading and associated topic.  

And the syllabus was the primary way first week reading was communicated to students.  With a first year class like criminal law, with many sections, emailing students ahead of time means that last minute adds won't get the email. 

The syllabus was almost never a document that was set in stone and was more an aspirational guide than anything else.  You took longer to review some cases and topics and were able to breeze through others.   

So, yeah, reviewing the cases in the first class was not something that happened, in my experince.  Particularly in a large, first year law class.   

I think "yeppers" probably talked to an upper classman and therefore, was likely right in saying that's not how things were normally done.  Versus Chuck who is teaching for the very first time. 

 

[rhygirl720]

I knew Wendy and the Painter were on a collision course the minute his character was introduced. Totally obvious! 

Chuck clearly has a type. 

Old geezers marrying much younger women and having children?..where'd they get that idea..ugh!'

I hope Taylor gets her groove back and unleashes!

Prince is playing a long game and Axe is his puppet. He knows how to get into Axe's head.

Axe has a limited toolbox.. everything is not a nail!

 

 

Quote

 

 

[txhorns79]

34 minutes ago, RealReality said:

Well, I'd imagine a department head or chair has to review and approve the syllabus to ensure that particular topics and cases are covered in a logical and timely manner. 

"Intros and housekeeping" aren't going to really make it onto a syllabus, even if that's what you're gonna be doing the first class. 

I'm also not sure if some states require that the syllabus for required bar classes are submitted for state school accreditation. In which case officially assigning reading the first class makes sense, just to show that you'll cover certain topics. 

I can't speak as to all schools in terms of their order of classes, but you take the bar after you graduate, which is generally one to two years after you take these mostly 1L classes.  These classes are less about preparing you to take the bar (since it is years away), and more about giving you a basic knowledge of the legal process.  When it comes time to take the bar, you typically engage in a bar review class during the month to two months between graduation and the July bar.       

Again, it's my experience that first days assignments are reviewed on the first day.  However, I would agree that it's possible that other schools may follow some other process. 

[khyber]

The show has become more & more cartoonish. I'm on the verge of giving up.

[RealReality]

16 minutes ago, txhorns79 said:

I can't speak as to all schools in terms of their order of classes, but you take the bar after you graduate, which is generally one to two years after you take these mostly 1L classes.  These classes are less about preparing you to take the bar (since it is years away), and more about giving you a basic knowledge of the legal process.  When it comes time to take the bar, you typically engage in a bar review class during the month to two months between graduation and the July bar.       

Again, it's my experience that first days assignments are reviewed on the first day.  However, I would agree that it's possible that other schools may follow some other process. 

Oh, I disagree with that wholeheartedly.  

I had a long time professor explain it to me like this.  When you take a first year bar class, you're putting the information you need into boxes and storing it away.  When you do bar review it's more like just finding those boxes in your mental storage, brushing them off and re-opening them.  

The problem is for students who never bothered to get that knowledge in the first place so bar review is useless because they have no boxes in storage to re-open and they are trying to learn a huge area of substantive law in a month.  

Bar review is a month to two months.  We graduated late may/early June and the bar was like end of July I think. 

To expect that you would learn all of criminal law or even most criminal law in a month or two seems like an awful plan for bar passage.  

I don't think any required class besides civil procedure, evidence, and Constitutional criminal procedure went over the legal process at all.  Constitutional law, criminal law, torts were all substantive law.  I cannot imagine how a law school could teach these as process based classes and not as substantive law classes.  

If that were the case I don't think there would be first year required classes because you could take any substantive class and get the same exposure to "process" and just learn the substantive law in a month and a half during bar review.  

I mean, a subject like community property, you can learn what you need to know in a month and a half of bar review.  But to learn all you need to know for constitutional law or criminal law?  Especially when you are learning and reviewing like 15 other topics seems.... ambitious at best. 

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by RealReality

[PrincessPurrsALot]

Putting aside the silliness of the setup to have Julianna Margulies defend Chuck and show herself as a tough, badass woman that Chuck can now get hard for, I have a hard time imagining that this would be the class he would teach.  I could see him running a third year seminar for a smaller group of students who would, quite frankly, be clamoring to get into his class.  First year core requirement, nope. But then again I am expecting some realism from a show that is falling far from it.

If Wendy is so great of an advisor/psychologist, why is Axe still so easily taunted?  He never learns from his mistakes. 

[Joimiaroxeu]

I hope Axe paid that kid and his mother for the privilege of using him in a patronizing campaign ad.

Chuck says he doesn't have tangerines, he has grapefruit. Okay. Relax, Chuck. Either way it's just citrus.

Wait, the good wife? And what's up with her hair color? Could it look more dyed? Meh, I'd rather see Diane Lockhart.

Poor Chuck, thought he was in the The Paper Chase but his likely helicopter-parented law students wanted to be in Welcome Back Kotter.
 
It's interesting to watch the directing choices they're making to to avoid highlighting Grillo's height-challenged state. If we get a scene of Nico Tanner running like a bat out of hell I will laugh so hard.

Two White guys having a sword fight over who gets to "own" a Black man in 2020 was problematic to me on a subtext level to say the least. It didn't help that the man was willing to be owned.

I'm glad Prince let Axe win that deal. But wow, the way he ceded defeat to Axe was ice-cold. He seems to have gotten inside Axe's head and Axe wasn't ready for it. Guess now Axe will be looking for another ball he can steal from Prince.

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by Joimiaroxeu

[RealReality]

2 hours ago, PrincessPurrsALot said:

Putting aside the silliness of the setup to have Julianna Margulies defend Chuck and show herself as a tough, badass woman that Chuck can now get hard for, I have a hard time imagining that this would be the class he would teach.  I could see him running a third year seminar for a smaller group of students who would, quite frankly, be clamoring to get into his class.  First year core requirement, nope. But then again I am expecting some realism from a show that is falling far from it.

If Wendy is so great of an advisor/psychologist, why is Axe still so easily taunted?  He never learns from his mistakes. 

Totally agree about Chuck.  He would have been a perfect fit for a smaller third year class or seminar on trial practice or trial strategies or something like that.  And agreed, students would be pushing to get into that class. 

It's just a lot of stress on the professor too.  For a class like criminal law, for first year students, you have to have dedicated office hours.  Logistically, it would be hard to do that given Chuck's position.  For a third year seminar or practicum (?) there would be much less stress about that and office hours could be whenever or you could just meet by phone, email, coffee shop, at the office.  

We would sometimes have judges or high level practioners teach classes, but they were generally light lifting and more a gesture of goodwill and a way for the person in question to make a little extra dough, add to their resume, scratch a professorial/mentorship itch and pave the path for students to network and get externships and internships.  

[teddysmom]

I cannot believe that kid in the class responded with "Yeppers".  

[dwmarch]

15 hours ago, scrb said:

I think the show is loosely based on Steve Cohen and Preet Bhara, who was the US attorney for SDNY.

One way to take this show in an interesting direction would be to have him run for office, or at least do something that puts him in the public spotlight, like buying a sports franchise.

I believe Chuck is also based in part on Elliot Spitzer whose personal life crossed paths with his professional life in a way that was detrimental to his career.

Axe buying a sports franchise sounds familiar but I can't remember if that has come up on the show already or not. It would be good fodder for a storyline, especially since it has happened in reality: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Balsillie#Rejections_by_NHL_owners'_club

Jim Balsille, like Axe, thought that if he just threw enough money at the NHL, they'd let him in. Every other offer for the Coyotes said that the City of Glendale would have to pay the team to say. Balsille was offering to pay the city to stay for a couple of years and then move to where there is an actual market for hockey. He was told to piss up a rope. I could not fathom why anyone would reject the bags of cash he was willing to airdrop on this broke-ass team but the story behind the story was that the NHL owner's club is one you get into by invitation only. I could see Axe getting the initial rejection, having that similar moment of "my money is no good to you?" and then having to scheme a way into making the officials and owners like him. It would certainly be more entertaining than "OMG greedy capitalist wants to buy a bank!"