S07.E04: Hurricane Rosie

[CheshireCat]

Quote

Chuck embarks on a case with ties to Prince in his latest attempt to bring down his foe. The Prince Cappers face an ethical dilemma when a crucial aspect of their latest play is revealed. Wendy finds herself asking for guidance.

Air date: Sep 3, 2023

[aghst]

Kept dozing off had to play this a few times to finish.

 

It's not illegal for Prince to run for POTUS.  So how can Chuck propose that he won't prosecute possible violations by Prince's company in exchange for dropping out of the race?

Wendy also wants to prevent Prince from becoming POTUS but she's not using the law.  Though you can say two psychiatrists deciding that Prince has too much ego or would be too authoritarian and using their professional judgement to try to stop him is ethically dubious in their profession.

US Attorney has discretion on which cases he or she wants to prosecute.  But in general, if there are big crimes, they can't look the other way.

DOJ is wary about appearing to engage in any kind of political interference.  On what basis can Chuck tell Prince not to run?  His reasoning may be similar to Wendy's, that a person like Prince can't have too much power.  But it would be easy to depict Chuck as doing it for politically-motivated reasons, and the DOJ would not allow the US Attorneys to do such things.

That scene at the airport was absurd.  First of all, Chuck can't order the SWAT teams around.  He'd tell the commander that they have to get the suspect and not allow the plane to depart again.  Then the commander might give orders such as force their way onto the plane or prevent the plane from leaving.

Then Chuck and Prince are both preening for the cameras and Chuck will pose for pictures but won't take questions.  Prince isn't the only one who's politically ambitious.

As for the whole classical music thing, sure it could be spun the way Bradford said, that Prince winning an auction to have Scooter conduct is not manly and people wouldn't want to have a beer with Prince because of classical music!🙄

Prince could simply say he won an auction, whose proceeds go to a good charitable cause, to reward a loyal, long-time employee.

So Prince has to worry about optics of every move.  Wags took a shot to make MPC look bad, by preventing billions in losses.  So the solution is for Prince to pay for relief efforts, good for optics.

But how does it eliminate the problem that Wags bribed some govt. official to prevent billions in losses for MPC?  That still happened and if they're thinking about optics, that transaction will still overshadow the relief efforts, which could be seen as PR after the fact.

Mayer is convinced by Wendy that Prince must be stopped.  So she drops all her other MPC employees as clients because Wendy might have to smear them to stop Prince.

Meanwhile, Wendy now has a Mrs. Robinson thing for Bradford, the campaign manager who has this thing about classical music.

That character is really annoying, know it all type.  If he was such a great campaign manager, he wouldn't agree to run a third-party candidate.  With him having a bigger role this season, they've pushed Taylor and some of the other supporting characters more to the background.

Presumably, Wendy will reach out again to Axe to take down Prince, because they didn't make a splash of announcing the return of Axe just to do that brief cameo of just one episode and a little part of another.

Yeah Wendy has been married to Chuck and has worked for Axe, fallen for him too.  So she may have some experience with hubristic, overly ambitious men.  But why does she decide to draw the line now?  They certainly haven't depicted Prince as being this authoritarian to be, capable of some of the horrific things Wendy enumerated in the first episode of the season.

My guess is, they started out with the plan to depict him as a nicer human than Axe but then with the decision to end the series, which is part of a larger Showtime/Paramount + strategy to create a Billions universe of spinoff shows, they wanted to bring Axe back and the way they'd do it is to give this sudden heel-turn for Prince and Axe coming back to save the day.

Probably Chuck and Axe will team up.  Like Chuck will decide to let Axe come back to the country because Prince is a greater threat to democracy or whatever -- so far, they've not shown that he's this horrific figure, just Wendy's hyperbolic language.

Edited September 4, 2023 by aghst

[catherinejane]

Yes I am not sure who is the evil baddie here that we are supposed to be wanting to fall.

surely anyone running for president must have a huge ego to even consider it. I really can’t see why Prince would be that bad? (Not heard his political leanings so ignoring those) 

I hope Wendy goes for the political chap and axe just stays single (if he returns)

[UnikornRainbowz]

Horrible. Each episode worse than the previous. What happened to this show?? It is a joke now. 

[paigow]

Wendy needs to watch assassin movies that are not comedies...

 

[paigow]

Wags will eventually out himself as a mole to divert attention from Wendy...

[Joimiaroxeu]

On one hand, the hurricane references were timely. But on the other hand, it must have been hard for people in certain parts of the country to watch given what they've gone through IRL recently. Hurricanes are no joke.

"Classical music is pussy music." Hmmm. Scooter and Prince were sure making a weird big deal about it though. That was perhaps the real problem.

So Grosse Pointe Blank was the movie Wendy was watching obsessively. Guess I'll have to watch it again because I didn't understand the reference.

Of course Wags bribed the hurricane grader. Too bad he couldn't bribe Mother Nature too.

Oh okay, Wendy was acting like the symphony thing was a good idea because she believed it'd be bad for Prince's presidential campaign. Again, hmmm.

I didn't expect Dr. Mayer would chose Wendy over her coworkers who were also patients, as well as decide to help Wendy take down Prince. That seems unethical to me. She may end up being made a scapegoat if Wendy's duplicity with Prince is discovered. (However, there's a theory on reddit that Dr. Mayer is working for Prince and is telling him what Wendy's up to.)

Chuck played his hand too soon. Now Prince has a definite heads up that Chuck is after him.

Prince is teflon-coated. What's it going to take to find a mistake that'll stick to him?

[Starchild]

On 9/1/2023 at 11:00 AM, aghst said:

  Hide contents

a larger Showtime/Paramount + strategy to create a Billions universe of spinoff shows

 

I hadn't heard this. I can't think of a single person I'd want to see more of. Maybe Taylor.

[NoReally]

12 hours ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

However, there's a theory on reddit that Dr. Mayer is working for Prince and is telling him what Wendy's up to.

I've been wondering about this, too.

Although, she is a well-established psychiatrist, and I'm sure Wendy checked out her background. Doesn't seem that Mayer would risk her career by revealing patient secrets. But...this show?

[dwmarch]

I could see it. Where did Dr. Mayer come from? All the MPC people started seeing her in secret so the referral must have come from someone at MPC. Perhaps even Mike himself. Is he rich enough to get a doctor to throw her ethics out the window? We've seen plenty of sketchy doctors on this show, including Wendy herself.

[paigow]

Dr. Mayer is probably drinking buddies with the coke dealing Doc earlier this season...

[txhorns79]

18 hours ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

(However, there's a theory on reddit that Dr. Mayer is working for Prince and is telling him what Wendy's up to.)

I wouldn't be shocked if that turned out to be the case. 

Though I don't really understand Prince's political plans.  Even for a billionaire, it's extremely hard to run for President as an independent, much less winning.  You have no party apparatus or base of support.  Just getting on the ballot in most states is a very expensive and litigious ordeal.  The least of his problems is whether voters will care if he bid on a charity auction so one of his employees could conduct an orchestra.           

[paigow]

Until Fox News exposes that there were 5 higher bids... and that Wags bribed the charity people to throw the other bids away...

1 hour ago, txhorns79 said:

The least of his problems is whether voters will care if he bid on a charity auction so one of his employees could conduct an orchestra.           

 

[katenm]

Alarms should have gone off for Wendy when Dr. Mayer so quickly got rid of her other MPC clients. Transferring clients is a careful process that takes time. Like Chuck, she is so focused on her goal she doesn't see likely warning signs flashing in front of her.

[ahpny]

On 9/1/2023 at 11:00 AM, aghst said:

They certainly haven't depicted Prince as being this authoritarian to be, capable of some of the horrific things Wendy enumerated in the first episode of the season.

Though I thought this episode was the best of the season so far, I still don't get Wendy's defcon-5 concerns about Prince. What exactly has he done that's so irredeemably aweful? As sage and intuitive as she may be, what exactly gives her the confidence that he'll turn out to be the disaster she fears? She put up with (and clearly still loves) Axe for, what, decades at this point. Isn't he worse, though of course he never tried to run for president?

On 9/3/2023 at 10:46 PM, Joimiaroxeu said:

I didn't expect Dr. Mayer would chose Wendy over her coworkers who were also patients, as well as decide to help Wendy take down Prince. That seems unethical to me.

That was an interesting and unexpected twist. It does seem "wrong" in some way, but I'm not sure what ethical rule it actually transgresses. Was it also similarly "wrong" for the Peter Bogdonavich pysch character who was treating Dr. Melfi on the Sopranos to be treating her too, since they were both ultimately helping a mobster be, well, a better mobster? Unless Wendy was planning on doing something illegal, and told that to Dr. Mayer, I can't really put my finger on what rules, ethical or otherwise, either might be breaking. As far as I know (which admittedly isn't much), there's no absolute duty to continue to treat a psychiatric patient when stopping that treatment isn't a danger to anyone (as it would seem to be here). Being duplicitious and immoral doesn't necessarily mean illegal or a violation of an ethical rule.

 

Edited September 6, 2023 by ahpny

[Ottis]

On 9/3/2023 at 10:46 PM, Joimiaroxeu said:

(However, there's a theory on reddit that Dr. Mayer is working for Prince and is telling him what Wendy's up to.)

Yeah, first thing I thought of given Mayer's abrupt refusal to continue to treat Wendy after learning of Wendy's plan to stop Prince, and then going to the trouble of ditching all of her other Prince Cap clients just to help Wendy - based solely on Mayer thinking Wendy is "a rational person." But it can't be that obvious, can it?

On 9/3/2023 at 10:46 PM, Joimiaroxeu said:

So Grosse Pointe Blank was the movie Wendy was watching obsessively. Guess I'll have to watch it again because I didn't understand the reference.

Wasn't this assassination method also in an old and classic James Bond movie (and by "old," I mean 1960s or maybe early 1970s)? I would have gone with that movie myself.

On 9/3/2023 at 10:46 PM, Joimiaroxeu said:

Of course Wags bribed the hurricane grader. Too bad he couldn't bribe Mother Nature too.

Small disconnect here IMO. Roker told Wags that grading hurricanes involved multiple agencies in what seems like a complex process. That sounded far more complicated than bribing a single "hurricane grader." I thought Wags went nuts and bribed whole agencies, but the show choosing only one person seemed inconsistent to me.

17 hours ago, ahpny said:

Though I thought this episode was the best of the season so far, I still don't get Wendy's defcon-5 concerns about Prince. What exactly has he done that's so irredeemably aweful?

Someone (Chuck? Wendy?) said it in an earlier ep. The danger from Prince comes from the fact he believes an idea is good simply because *he* thought of it. That's dangerous, and IRL we just had an example of that, which is what I think is this season's purpose, FWIW.

 

Edited September 6, 2023 by Ottis

[Taget]

On 9/1/2023 at 4:55 PM, catherinejane said:

Yes I am not sure who is the evil baddie here that we are supposed to be wanting to fall.

surely anyone running for president must have a huge ego to even consider it. I really can’t see why Prince would be that bad? (Not heard his political leanings so ignoring those) 

I hope Wendy goes for the political chap and axe just stays single (if he returns)

You're supposed to cheer for mega millionaires to beat the billionaires.  This is classic Marxist class struggle.  Except the proletariat are prep school educated, attended Ivy League universities and have 100  million dollar IRAs.  And rather than quoting Hegel they quote Andrew Ross Sorkin's favorite band this week.

Plus Wendy is like Christopher Walken in the Dead Zone.  Except rather than psychic powers she has the ability to compel plutocrats of already questionable morals to do even worse in the name of making bigger bank.  This makes her the greatest moral arbiter that our era has been blessed with.

All that said keep an eye on the prize.  It is to keep as many pieces on the chess board for as many possible spinoffs as possible.  And while that means Prince is not going to become leader of the free world, long term consequences beyond that might get in the way of possible future tv pilots.

[paigow]

Prince will end up owning a POTUS as opposed to being POTUS.

[CSunshine76]

My nitpick (and yes I realize it’s ridiculous) is the wagers on the name of the hurricane. Each hurricane season, a list of the potential names is published…they aren’t made up on the spot. It would have taken two seconds to Google and know the next name in rotation, not to mention they are named once they become a Tropical storm, so it would have been named days prior. The show gets the simplest things so very wrong.

-Annoyed Houstonian who lives thru this every year.