S05.E07: The Limitless Sh*t

[PrincessPurrsALot]

Axe makes big plays with an unconventional source of inspiration. Chuck goes to desperate lengths for family. Tensions rise in Wendy’s relationships. Chuck and Sacker manipulate a past collaborator. Taylor steps up and takes charge.

Original air date 2020.06.14

[scrb]

So the whole episode, Axe and his minions are hopped up on some glorified Adderall and come up with some scheme to mine asteroids out of Chile.  They spend the whole day working up plans to execute this idea only for Taylor to talk sense into Axe in the space of like 30 seconds.

Then Axe becomes pissed when he finds out Taylor and Wendy are joining Mike Prince on some solar investment but they will take a loss for about a year to avoid Congolese tin.  How is that guy video chatting from some room next to a mine in the Congo as warlords are bearing down on him?

Doesn't matter that Taylor saved him a $3 billion loss, Axe must destroy Prince!

Chuck tries to get Yale Law brains to try to destroy Krakow but then he and Sacker just gaslights Krakow, who loses his cabinet post as Treasury Secretary, which torpedos Axe's bank dreams.

Well Axe has got another mission, to really go after Prince.  Do hedge fund billionaires really do that, try to carry out vendettas against other hedge fund billionaires?  Or is this the writers recycling a bad old Dallas plot?

Chuck still working on saving Sr., doesn't buy a kidney on the black market, just decides to pay the donor anyways.  But if anyone in his office was a match -- he set up a blood drive to secretly test everyone in the office -- what was he going to do, strong-arm them into giving up a kidney to his father?

Chuck forces a viewing party and hooks up fake Jackson Pollock, who actually discussed Pollock's works this episode, with a rich MILF, to lure Tanner away from Wendy.  Yeah that's his other mission these days.

 

 

 

[l star]

Well, that was disappointing. When is Axe going to get rid of Victor? He screws up over and over again. This time his stupid shit almost cost Axe three billion. It didn't surprise me that Axe popped the pill so easily, but it did surprise me that he did it at work like that. I hope word of his stupid plan leaks out. He deserves to be embarrassed.

I liked that it was Taylor that got through to him. That was a win for them that their relationship with Axe needed. It should have been Wendy however, and I find it curious that Axe didn't blame her at all. If she'd been in the office, there's no way she'd have gone for any of that. Instead he excused her absence to Wags. I realize that she was doing her job at Prince's office, but it still amazes me that Axe hasn't thrown a hissy fit yet about her not giving her full time and energy to Axe Cap anymore. Speaking of potential fits, Wags seems to have caught on that something isn't right between Axe and Wendy. I wonder if he's put together what it is yet.

Not exactly a relaxing evening dinner party there. Wendy was absolutely trying to fuck with Axe and rile him up. I'll give him some credit for not rising entirely to the bait. I love that he invited reinforcements too with Wags. I wish Wendy had done more than push his buttons though. I realize that she can't prove he was watching her and natural instinct without more evidence would be to assume coincidence, but that deserved more than attitude.

I can't believe that Wags is being open with this girl about his plan to knock her up. Why in the hell is she not running for the hills?!

I wonder if Wendy would have been so willing to engage Prince if she and Axe were on better terms. I think she would have been. While she recognizes the threat of his wrath, I also think she is the only one legitimately, sincerely not afraid of him. She sees his wrath as something to be respected and managed, not unilaterally avoided at all costs.

I cracked up at Axe talking to Wendy high. His reaction when she hung up on him was like, what happened? Like his computer randomly restarted.

So a viewing party. Axe gets points for the society lady. That was very effective in knocking some of the shine off Tanner for Wendy. I don't think he expected her to be jealous too, so win-win. Tanner is such an obvious rebound relationship, but I think Wendy is still blind to that. It's hard to see it when you're in it. At least he's hot. I think that relationship has just about run its course though. When it crashes, she's going to fall hard. She hasn't been shown dealing with her divorce at all yet; she just jumped into the rebound.

I don't care about Senior! Let him die, show. I also found it completely unbelievable that Chuck would object to the doctor's plan. He uses and exploits people all the time. At least this girl was (sort of) willing and going to get paid. Given his usual level of awfulness, I just don't understand why this was across the line for him.

Sacher continues to be great. Krakow continues to be an easily manipulated joke. At least taking him out takes out Axe's bank once again. On the flip side, that means that story gets to keep going which isn't good for anyone.

[dmc]

I actually liked this episode.

It was bittersweet though because this season got off to a slow start and was cut in half.  
 

Not sure the game Wendy and Axe are playing.  But I guess he won, he goal seemed to be to show her the pedestal she put the artist on was foolish.  He is just susceptible to success and fame as anyone else.  I guess the question I have is why Wendy who has largely the definition of a career sellout cares if she’s with another sellout.  
 

Also she clearly wanted to rile Axe up at that dinner. 
 

Chuck testing his whole office is a WTF.  What a needle in haystack the chance he could find a match.  The way this show is going Axe will likely be the match 

 

 

[Joimiaroxeu]

Lol, Chuck is going "How to Get Away with Murder" with his little law student gang?

The red pill. Oh please. 😑

A lot of beheading and scalping imagery in this episode.

The German bobsled team at Lake Placid. Random.

Not the Limitless shit, the Scarface shit. How was that not obvious? It's likely some of those traders were on ADHD meds as children or they took it under the table without an Rx so they should 've been clued in. Good thing Taylor showed up when they did or Axe was about to take a multi-billion dollar fall into the Looking Glass World.

Meh, I'm not sure Prince worked Taylor and Wendy. I think Taylor worked him and Wendy to make it look like he did so Axe would overreact. We just saw what happens when Axe gets too focused on one problematic thing: he becomes vulnerable.

So apparently the showrunners knew this would be the last episode for an indefinite period and that's why they slipped the coronavirus reference in?

[LibertarianSlut]

Wendy speaking for Tanner as an artist at a dinner party gave me the creeps.  Who is she to relay to the rest of the party what an artist “gives a fuck about”?  Does Tanner not have his own voice?  If a man spoke for a woman like that, people would say “misogyny.”  I understand that it was a vehicle for Wendy to communicate to Axe on multiple levels, but it was very clunky and I got nothing out of it.  

I don’t understand the capacity in which Taylor and Lauren are working.  I don’t know if they’re semi-independent of Axe Capital.  I don’t know what Wendy’s position in all of this is.  I don’t know much about finance, but I don’t think they can just “go to Prince” the way it was illustrated.  What about self-dealing and fiduciary duties?  (I’m just asking hypothetically; I know none of this is feasible, but since none of it is making for a compelling story, I don’t even care).  How would Wendy and Taylor even buy Prince out?  With money that is even partially Axe’s?  People go to jail for that.  

Axe and his team taking some FDA approval pending version of Adderall so they can concentrate on their work.  Novel!  What was up with them lining up to talk to him?  Why couldn’t they just discuss their ideas around a table at a meeting?  This is bad theatre.  

I think this show has run out of financial ideas.  Maybe they should just shift over to legal.  There is never a shortage of legal stories.  I have a feeling there is no more Ice Juice coming down the pike, so why not give up the ghost?  Speaking in financial gibberish over increasingly dramatic sounding music until the music reaches a crescendo and some financial decision has been made that I can make neither heads or tales of is boring.  

Chuck’s storyline about procuring a kidney and the ethical implications is actually a very interesting way to go, but this show has such ADD—they are either going a mile a minute with dialogue that is almost impossible to understand at normal volumes or the plot stalls out—that I have no confidence anything will come out of it.  There’s no happy medium of drawing out a storyline over the course of the season to make the audience excited and wanting more, so even good material is boring to me.  

I thought it was a little funny that Chuck was basically forcing his employees to give blood and taking too much for his dad.  It was so bizarre that it worked for me on some level.  He should also hit up his Yale students, since he teaches there.  I think I heard the Secretary of State is getting a job at Dairy Queen.  

It was also a little funny, also in a cartoonish way, that Axe’s experiment with coke/Adderall/ecstasy/whatever went too far and people thought they were fluent in Spanish.  It’s just not funny the way this show has been funny in the past, it’s like “oh my God, I can’t believe they’re sinking this low” funny.  

Ooh, wow, famous people at the viewing party!  How interesting.  I’ve changed my mind completely and now I like this show.  False.  

I did enjoy Tanner becoming a whore for the right price at his art party.  I’m here for anyone becoming cynical at any time.  

Why is Axe mad at Prince?  I’d be mad at Taylor for being stupid.  

Ooh, Axe is going to the mattresses with Prince as heavy metal plays in the background.  Why, again?  Because he outmaneuvered Taylor?  Why isn’t that an Axe-Taylor problem?  Color me not even remotely excited (though I am rooting for Prince), though if this show is actually taking a break, I’m not sure I’ll be back.  There’s no there there anymore.  

[edhopper]

Who is this new character this season named Axe. I liked the character they had the first four seasons. This new one is as different as Micheal Corleone and Tony Montana (see what I did there?)

And anyone in the art world or who knows a professional artist sees how false all the stuff with Tanner is in every way.

[Broderbits]

I'm really tired of this sick game Axe & Wendy enjoy playing with each other. Anyone with a smidgen of self-respect would've handed him a letter of resignation after being spoken to the way he did at the "private show". Wendy is so sure of her ability to handle him that she isn't even considering any collateral damage.

Who couldn't see how the drug thing was going to end; it was the equivalent of a "brilliant" treatise written on speed that turns out to be utter gibberish.

[RealReality]

This episode was fine, but I'm so distracted by the ridiculous nonsense that is Chuck's "internship". Like WTF, didn't we just meet these kids yesterday at this first class of first year Crim law? 

Now they are in an internship doing shady shit, none of which apparently involved any application of the law?  And blowhard chuck tells some pretentious story and tells them to GTFO if they have ethical concerns?  Like what the hell is going on at Yale Law?  

It wasn't even necessary to the story to have the law students there.  They found nothing, it was apparently just necessary to have them around to allow chuck a chance to be an asshole?

 

 

[DoubleUTeeEff]

On 6/14/2020 at 4:30 AM, l star said:

I don't care about Senior! Let him die, show. I also found it completely unbelievable that Chuck would object to the doctor's plan. He uses and exploits people all the time. At least this girl was (sort of) willing and going to get paid. Given his usual level of awfulness, I just don't understand why this was across the line for him.

I don't care about Senior, either. I assume he'll be like Frank Underwood and jump ahead in the line so whoever was supposed to be next in line will die.

I DO understand why Chuck drew the line there--she was a child! Even if you are cool with people selling their organs, you can't take one from someone who can't consent to it, like a child.

$38,000 is such an odd number, you can't bump that up to $40,000?

I sort of enjoyed the scales falling from Wendy's eyes as Tanner flirted with that woman at the showing but I mainly am annoyed that they aren't setting up a real rival for Axe. I mean, if they are going to go in the direction of Axe competing with someone for Wendy's affection/attention/whatever, I'd prefer they set her up with someone with more substance.

The whole Vitameatavegamin Vigilantrix subplot was fairly ridiculous. It seemed to be mainly a drug that completely deluded you. That's not something many people need, unfortunately.

As far as Taylor and Prince go, I think Axe is just looking for reasons to fight with Prince. He wants to compete with Prince, so he's looking for reasons to justify it. It probably helps him to see others as the enemy in order to take them down.

 

[txhorns79]

12 hours ago, Broderbits said:

 

Who couldn't see how the drug thing was going to end; it was the equivalent of a "brilliant" treatise written on speed that turns out to be utter gibberish.

It was exactly what happened in Mad Men when they did the same plotline a few years ago.  In that episode, the "brilliant" Chevy campaign they came up with while high turned out to be a bunch of nonsensical musings. 

[Dminches]

1 hour ago, DoubleUTeeEff said:

The whole Vitameatavegamin

 

It's so tasty too!

 

[RealReality]

1 hour ago, DoubleUTeeEff said:

I don't care about Senior, either. I assume he'll be like Frank Underwood and jump ahead in the line so whoever was supposed to be next in line will die.

I DO understand why Chuck drew the line there--she was a child! Even if you are cool with people selling their organs, you can't take one from someone who can't consent to it, like a child.

$38,000 is such an odd number, you can't bump that up to $40,000?

I sort of enjoyed the scales falling from Wendy's eyes as Tanner flirted with that woman at the showing but I mainly am annoyed that they aren't setting up a real rival for Axe. I mean, if they are going to go in the direction of Axe competing with someone for Wendy's affection/attention/whatever, I'd prefer they set her up with someone with more substance.

The whole Vitameatavegamin Vigilantrix subplot was fairly ridiculous. It seemed to be mainly a drug that completely deluded you. That's not something many people need, unfortunately.

As far as Taylor and Prince go, I think Axe is just looking for reasons to fight with Prince. He wants to compete with Prince, so he's looking for reasons to justify it. It probably helps him to see others as the enemy in order to take them down.

 

I think prince will be Wendy's new love interest.  But I find the actor playing prince so attractive (since his days on law and order) that I don't blame her.  

Axe will lose his fucking mind. 

[RealReality]

54 minutes ago, txhorns79 said:

It was exactly what happened in Mad Men when they did the same plotline a few years ago.  In that episode, the "brilliant" Chevy campaign they came up with while high turned out to be a bunch of nonsensical musings. 

LOL, I was panicked and worried when I was studying for the bar and it made it hard for me to really focus.  

My doctor and I were super close and everyone throughout law school had talked about this Adderall. He agreed to prescribe me the lowest dosage so I could try it, and he was very strict about how much he would prescribe. 

So, I took the first one and I was like "meh, I don't feel any different, maybe it just takes a while to work" and I decided to wash my dishes.  After a while, I looked up and realized I had spent three hours cleaning a straw.  

Shit was powerful.  

[dwmarch]

3 hours ago, RealReality said:

LOL, I was panicked and worried when I was studying for the bar and it made it hard for me to really focus.  

My doctor and I were super close and everyone throughout law school had talked about this Adderall. He agreed to prescribe me the lowest dosage so I could try it, and he was very strict about how much he would prescribe. 

So, I took the first one and I was like "meh, I don't feel any different, maybe it just takes a while to work" and I decided to wash my dishes.  After a while, I looked up and realized I had spent three hours cleaning a straw.  

Shit was powerful.  

I take Dexedrine (basically Adderall) for ADD and I find this episode had a whimsical interpretation of how stimulants work but I will say I haven't tried them all.

The time it took to kick in is silly but we'll say there was some Hollywood time compression going on there. It would take at least half an hour before Axe would feel any effects.

Dexedrine does sharpen one's focus but it doesn't make one right all the time so I'm glad they noticed that. The scene with Taylor's lieutenant speaking Spanish was hilarious, as was Taylor's low-key reaction.

Maybe things are different in the US but if I went into my workplace and started handing out ADD meds to everyone I'd probably get arrested for doing so. But to call back to Wags' speech about wanting a Traci Lords of an idea, maybe it's not illegal yet because no one has looked at it closely enough.

[Auntie Anxiety]

I thought going to the mattresses was about old time gangsters putting up mattresses in windows to keep the bullets from hitting them. 

[RealReality]

3 hours ago, Auntie Anxiety said:

I thought going to the mattresses was about old time gangsters putting up mattresses in windows to keep the bullets from hitting them. 

Me too!  Thank goodness, I thought I was going crazy because I swore I had heard the same thing.  

[Auntie Anxiety]

This show was great for the first couple of seasons, went downhill for the next couple and we have officially reached jump the shark territory. The characters have become caricatures of themselves and totally unlikable (except for Willow). The plot lines have gotten beyond stupid. It’s all so contrived. The only question remaining is why I continue to watch. I won’t miss it when it’s gone.

[Auntie Anxiety]

On 6/14/2020 at 3:07 AM, scrb said:

Chuck tries to get Yale Law brains to try to destroy Krakow but then he and Sacker just gaslights Krakow, who loses his cabinet post as Treasury Secretary, which torpedos Axe's bank dreams.

So is Tanner now excused from painting Krakow’s portrait? Does anyone even care?

[rhygirl720]

I think the writers  have been using the limitless sh** and we are suffering the consequences!

[BigDfromLA]

Of all the characters on this show, Rhodes Senior is the most rotten of them all. He is a true bastard and his death would make the world a better place. He is a ruthless scumbag who treated his wife and son like garbage. I would think Chuck privately, deep in his heart would want his Dad to kick the bucket. He would be free from the abuse and likely in for a good inheritance. 

While last season seemed to be a big showcase of the Taylor character, this season is going nuts on Wendy. Interesting how I like the character less as she gets shoved down our throats.

[Lone Wolf]

On 6/14/2020 at 6:51 AM, dmc said:

The way this show is going Axe will likely be the match.

 

That actually occurred to me at one point. 

On 6/14/2020 at 6:57 PM, LibertarianSlut said:

I thought it was a little funny that Chuck was basically forcing his employees to give blood and taking too much for his dad.  It was so bizarre that it worked for me on some level. He should also hit up his Yale students, since he teaches there.

 

Even Chuck knows he wouldn't be teaching there anymore if he tried that.  I'm not sure he'd really even be able to get away with having indentured servants students go after a sitting cabinet member.

We all knew he'd end up going back to the organ monger, didn't we? 

It seems unlikely to me that out of all the family, in-laws, and Chuck's staff, someone wouldn't have been a match by now.  But even if there was, the further out of the family circle the match is, the less likely they'd want to give up a kidney.  I'm not an illegal El Salvadoran girl (what??), but I'd need Axe's gross annual earnings to even consider it.   

On 6/16/2020 at 9:47 AM, Auntie Anxiety said:

This show was great for the first couple of seasons, went downhill for the next couple and we have officially reached jump the shark territory. 

Agreed.  When I was watching the dinner scene with Wags, Tanner, Wendy and Axe, I literally thought, we've turned a corner.  Cringe worthy, grade school-level pettiness (Wendy) and jealousy (Axe).  And you know the Wags-wants-a-do-over-kid storyline is going to end well.  Just silly.

I did like the way Axe alpha-dogged Tanner:  "Your 'work' isn't ready to be shown to me?  Watch this, Sherwin WIlliams - you're showing it to everyone."

Edited June 17, 2020 by Lone Wolf

[Cotypubby]

This is the last new episode? Aww man, it was actually starting to get good after the terrible start. 
 

So did they do a reshoot to add in that coronavirus line? 

[AAEBoiler]

There is absolutely not a single person to root for on this show. As a viewer, I'm hoping they all fail and get thrown into jail! Please tell me this is the last season. Otherwise, I'm going to need some Vigilantrix to help me finish up future episodes because my "mild" OCD tendencies requires that I finish the entire series.