S07.E10: Enemies List

[CheshireCat]

Quote

Prince makes big changes in the wake of betrayal. Chuck forges unlikely alliances as part of his mission to take down Prince. Wendy finds herself in an impossible position, while Axe and Taylor work to dismantle Prince's sinister moves.

Air date: Oct 15, 2023

[dwmarch]

Great episode, lots of good stuff in this one.

I loved the interaction between Wags and Chuck Sr. I don't think those two have ever shared a scene together despite their natural alignment. Chuck Sr. making up a snack plate out of someone's lunch was hilarious as was Wags' delight at pickles, cheese and baloney. There was also a great moment when Axe and Wags simultaneously realized what Prince was threatening to keep Axe from getting involved.

 

[paigow]

Derek is now a human grenade... BTW he looks like a combination of Hiddleston & Hemsworth DNA

Finally, a diabolical Axe plan... Part 2 will be Axe buying everything that Prince dumps...

 

[paigow]

Axe and Chuck should trigger a US Dollar crash and rebound to make Prince sell low and buy high...

[NeenerNeener]

I'm disappointed that the mental health company was a poison pill that Prince crafted for Wendy and not one that Axe created for Prince.

I'm sure Axe will come up with something equally diabolical though, to keep Prince out of the Whitehouse. At least I hope so.

[aghst]

First of all, it's Wendy's fault.  She should have done more due diligence than just ask Rian to take a look.

But she lives the lifestyle of someone worth tens of millions.  So the only way she was going to leave MPC was to line up job which would lead to another big pay day.

If Prince is as bad as she says (and she lists a litany of things this episode), why not just walk away?  But no she was going to somehow stop Prince as well as lining up another lucrative job for herself except it got her trapped.

And I'm not sure they're right on the laws as depicted on the show.  Most of the offenses occurred before Wendy accepted the job.  So how could she have certified that the start up company's financials were valid?

In the case of public companies, there would be CPAs certifying the books.  But if the books were falsified, the people in charge would be liable, not some newcomer.

Still, it makes no sense that she would certify the practices of what occurred before she took over.  But she hasn't even gone to that other job yet.  And she could work with prosecutors to testify against the company, plead that she was completely misled.

So this whole thing about her being in danger of being thrown in prison for 20 years or more is BS.  Rich white people don't go to prison, at worst they would plead it out, either get immunity or get probation for someone who's got no criminal record and above all rich and white.

 

So how does Axe rescue Wendy?  By taunting Prince as President Cuck.🙄

That is what they have on him, that his wife was unfaithful and some other man satisfied her more?

Yeah it wouldn't be helpful to his candidacy and it might be so humiliating that Prince would back down.  But then again, it's not credible that a billionaire running as an independent would be so far ahead in the polls.

Axe is only threatening to release the personally humiliating information.  He's actually not doing it.  So how are they stopping Prince's campaign?

And why is Prince telling Scooter to turn all financial assets to cash?  How would personally humiliating information hurt all their trades?  MPC is suppose to have unbelievable financial performance -- which is what people used to say about Madoff's firm always outperforming the market and other firms for decades.  They're not going to outperform the market if they go all cash.

 

They really binged on cultural references this episode.  One could Google all the names they dropped but who GAF enough to actually do so?  It's as if they can't write plausible plots so they load up the dialog with these references, as if it gives the show some cultural heft or the characters some kind of depth.

 

[paigow]

1 hour ago, aghst said:

Axe is only threatening to release the personally humiliating information.  He's actually not doing it.  So how are they stopping Prince's campaign?

Axe is a few moves from declaring Check Mate.

• Staff exodus from MPC
• Angry Taiwanese partner looking for revenge
• Andy secretly joins / helps Team Axe  for springing Derek
• Chuck launches diversionary attacks aimed at Sacker 

[AuntieMame]

15 hours ago, NeenerNeener said:

I'm disappointed that the mental health company was a poison pill that Prince crafted for Wendy and not one that Axe created for Prince.

I'm sure Axe will come up with something equally diabolical though, to keep Prince out of the Whitehouse. At least I hope so.

Except that we saw that little smile when he heard that Mental was the company from Taylor. Soon enough Axe will know how the trap was built because Wendy’s uncovered that information. 
 
 

 

15 hours ago, aghst said:

First of all, it's Wendy's fault.  She should have done more due diligence than just ask Rian to take a look.

But she lives the lifestyle of someone worth tens of millions.  So the only way she was going to leave MPC was to line up job which would lead to another big pay day.

If Prince is as bad as she says (and she lists a litany of things this episode), why not just walk away?  But no she was going to somehow stop Prince as well as lining up another lucrative job for herself except it got her trapped.

And I'm not sure they're right on the laws as depicted on the show.  Most of the offenses occurred before Wendy accepted the job.  So how could she have certified that the start up company's financials were valid?

In the case of public companies, there would be CPAs certifying the books.  But if the books were falsified, the people in charge would be liable, not some newcomer.

Still, it makes no sense that she would certify the practices of what occurred before she took over.  But she hasn't even gone to that other job yet.  And she could work with prosecutors to testify against the company, plead that she was completely misled.

So this whole thing about her being in danger of being thrown in prison for 20 years or more is BS.  Rich white people don't go to prison, at worst they would plead it out, either get immunity or get probation for someone who's got no criminal record and above all rich and white.

So how does Axe rescue Wendy?  By taunting Prince as President Cuck.🙄

And why is Prince telling Scooter to turn all financial assets to cash?  

1. I agree. I seriously doubt that Wendy could ultimately be held criminally liable for things that went on at the company before she became CEO. Even both sets of books on her devices could be explained as high level hacking. Now if all of this had been done in Wendy’s first year or two with Mental that might be more of a threat, but as it was presented? Easily defended legally without even having to resort to rich and white to stay out of jail. 
 
2. The whole Prince will fold because his pee pee will be publicly mocked seemed ridiculous beyond words. Even taking into account that people are emotional and that perceived strength and virility are attractive qualities in a man for both men and women the idea that his wife cuckolding Prince was due to a lack of sexual prowess is a stretch. As a poster said upthread, Prince and his wife were separated for a long time and adultery is a fact of life. This just doesn’t work and Derek being a threat because he’s the proof of Prince’s lack of manhood rather than because he’s proof that Prince is capable or murder and treason seems silly too. 
 
3. I don’t understand why going to cash is a thing either but all of his courtiers looked distressed and worried. 

 I enjoyed watching this while I was watching it but you really can’t think about it at all or everything falls apart. 

[paigow]

2 hours ago, AuntieMame said:

As a poster said upthread, Prince and his wife were separated for a long time and adultery is a fact of life.

Earlier, Prince was warned that any public evidence of an open marriage would be ballot box poison. Regardless of the reasons / justification provided. 

[aghst]

1 hour ago, paigow said:

Earlier, Prince was warned that any public evidence of an open marriage would be ballot box poison. Regardless of the reasons / justification provided. 

I would agree that would be difficult for a candidate, not to be in some traditional marriage.  Not only that but he or she would probably have to have children.

But Axe went for the cuckold angle, like Prince was betrayed because he couldn't sexually satisfy his wife.

That probably wouldn't be good for a candidate either.

That's what makes this story line about him running for president dumb, especially as a third-party candidate.

Or that he'd be leading in the polls.

Presidents have been well off though not necessarily very rich.  We had one president claiming to be rich but he got in for other reasons than his wealth.

So they keep pushing that MPC has to be seen as an asset to Prince's candidacy.

I don't know, when Mick Romney was a candidate, there were a lot of stories about his career, especially on the question of whether his business activities involved acquiring companies and cutting jobs as he and his partners enriched themselves.

So being uber rich isn't the political advantage that this show is trying to portray.

Edited October 14, 2023 by aghst

[txhorns79]

6 hours ago, aghst said:

That's what makes this story line about him running for president dumb, especially as a third-party candidate.

I've never really understood the storyline.  Even for someone with near unlimited personal resources, it's extremely hard to run as a third party candidate for President.  Just getting on the ballot in most states for a third party candidate is a huge endeavor.  And that doesn't even get into the practical aspects of running.  Who is his base?  What policies is he offering that the major two parties aren't, and how would he implement his policies with both major parties against him?  Essentially, you'd have to co-opt one of the major parties in order to get anything done.       

[paigow]

5 hours ago, aghst said:

I don't know, when Mick Romney was a candidate...

So being uber rich isn't the political advantage that this show is trying to portray.

MA citizens elected him Governor with the same career history... his name was not on the firm... Bain Capital

 

[aghst]

24 minutes ago, txhorns79 said:

I've never really understood the storyline.  Even for someone with near unlimited personal resources, it's extremely hard to run as a third party candidate for President.  Just getting on the ballot in most states for a third party candidate is a huge endeavor.  And that doesn't even get into the practical aspects of running.  Who is his base?  What policies is he offering that the major two parties aren't, and how would he implement his policies with both major parties against him?  Essentially, you'd have to co-opt one party in order to get anything done.       

I guess this is the story they came up with for this final season.

But instead of a showdown between Axe and Chuck, which has been the setup for most of the series, it's a showdown between Axe/Chuck/every other supporting character and Prince.

I don't know if that was the plan when they brought on this character 2-3 seasons ago or they had to introduce the character to the show because Damian Lewis wanted to leave.

It feels like they didn't have a mapped out plan for him and they've had to pivot, maybe more than once, for this character.

At first, he was just another billionaire rival to Axe, as if they wanted to move away from the Axe vs. Chuck plot which had driven the series for 5 seasons.

Then they had to write Axe off the show, with Chuck and Prince kind of teaming up for it, Chuck to prosecute Bobby (forget what his crime was) and Prince at the last minute giving Axe an escape hatch.

So with Axe gone, it was suppose to be Chuck vs. Prince but Prince wasn't breaking laws necessarily and Chuck really didn't have jurisdiction to go after Prince until this season when he got back to the SDNY.

Prince's crime became his overwhelming ambition, first with the now-aborted plan to bring Olympics to NYC and now running for the presidency.

There's no sense of any master plan.  If Prince was serious about being elected, he'd have cultivated politicians for years, got close to one of the parties and decide on an agenda on which to campaign.

There was none of that because Prince and Scooter kept the plan to themselves and just sprung it as they announced the candidacy.  

That is why the writing feels like they're pivoting.  Maybe they didn't know Lewis would be willing to come back.  Then this whole big corporate decision to create a lot of spinoffs from this show and I guess they had to find a way to wrap up this show?  So they had to come up with a story for why Axe would return, why he had to return, why Chuck who was after him would not only welcome him but urge him to return, forget about Axe being a fugitive from a case that he wanted badly just a couple of seasons ago.

The show was originally based loosely on Preet Bharara prosecuting Steve Cohen and SAC Capital.   That drove the first 3 or 4 seasons, though they made it too much about personalities, not much about the legal issues.  They tried to make Rhoads and Axe bigger than life personalities than their real life models but maybe just turned them into caricatures.

Then Prince replaces Bobby and Chuck is talking like some populist, about how billionaires think they can do anything and he's going to be the voice of the regular people or some such nonsense.

It was far more interesting when SDNY was matching wits with Axe Capital.  Axe was trying to recruit Chuck's lieutenants like Connerty, who tried to get Taylor to flip.  There was even a story about Sacker and her father and her ideals but now she's just a hired gun for Prince because she wants to be a congresswoman following Prince's path to power as an independent.

They've also pushed Taylor more to the background, introducing Scooter, then Philip.  The supporting characters in the earlier seasons like Connerty were more interesting than these newer characters.

[paigow]

4 hours ago, aghst said:

The supporting characters in the earlier seasons like Connerty were more interesting than these newer characters.

Chuck & Ira will get drunk together and walk into Not!Benihana ... Connerty will offer to rat out Sacker in exchange for reinstating his law license.

[dwmarch]

5 hours ago, aghst said:

Chuck to prosecute Bobby (forget what his crime was)

It was a bullshit weed charge. He bought a company from Janeane Garofalo and signed off on due diligence Prince had supposedly done saying the cannabis sales were lily-white when it turned out she had been dealing on the side. Kind of a similar thing to what Prince did to Wendy now that I think of it. Always read the fine print!

[paigow]

13 hours ago, aghst said:

So with Axe gone, it was suppose to be Chuck vs. Prince but Prince wasn't breaking laws necessarily 

Prince was guilty of tax evasion via crypto. He sacrificed all of it to avoid prosecution.

[meira.hand]

On 10/13/2023 at 11:40 PM, aghst said:

Axe is only threatening to release the personally humiliating information.  He's actually not doing it.  So how are they stopping Prince's campaign?

This was only to free Wendy from the threat, so Axe can be free to start working on how to stop prince. The whole episode he delayed coming to the US to join them because Prince basically blackmailed him with Wendy.

[ahpny]

On 10/14/2023 at 6:34 PM, aghst said:

Prince's crime became his overwhelming ambition, first with the now-aborted plan to bring Olympics to NYC and now running for the presidency.

But none of that makes him irredeemably evil, as the ex-AXECappers nevertheless seem to intuit. His overwhelming ambition does, however, explain why someone as smart and calculating as Prince couldn't see through Chuck's unilateral "present" of the released Chinese kid. Chuck's surprise "gift" should have raised all sort of red flags, but even careful and wise people cannot see beyond their own ego sometimes. Where were Prince's minions to reign him in on that?

The prisoner exchange plan only seems to hang together if the mountaineer-lover's threat is credibly capable of sinking Prince's campaign. Would such a tawdry tell all really be the end of a campaign in today's oddly-forgiving climate? I know this show isn't set exactly in today's political climate, but I don't think the current Republican leading candidate is losing much support over troubles with Stormy.

[Starchild]

On 10/13/2023 at 4:40 PM, aghst said:

They really binged on cultural references this episode.  One could Google all the names they dropped but who GAF enough to actually do so?  It's as if they can't write plausible plots so they load up the dialog with these references, as if it gives the show some cultural heft or the characters some kind of depth.

I swear, at some point one character said to another something like "You're X, like Y", where "Y" was some obscure reference most wouldn't get.

And I thought, why? Why double the number of words you needed to make a point? So unnecessary, so inefficient, so self-indulgent. Way to underscore how these characters don't talk like normal people.

 

On 10/14/2023 at 5:47 PM, txhorns79 said:

I've never really understood the storyline.  Even for someone with near unlimited personal resources, it's extremely hard to run as a third party candidate for President.  Just getting on the ballot in most states for a third party candidate is a huge endeavor.  And that doesn't even get into the practical aspects of running.  Who is his base?  What policies is he offering that the major two parties aren't, and how would he implement his policies with both major parties against him?  Essentially, you'd have to co-opt one of the major parties in order to get anything done.       

He seems to be running on personality alone. Which I guess emphasizes his ego.

 

On 10/14/2023 at 6:34 PM, aghst said:

They've also pushed Taylor more to the background

Which reminds me, watching Taylor and Axe was a joy. They always worked really well together. I've missed that.

[AriAu]

How did they make Wendy into some damsel in distress....complete with Prince saying he was Snidely Whiplash, complete with tying her to the train tracks. All that was missing was a mustache. Nothing about Wendy has ever shown a level of weakness that required the men in her life to try and save her. Maggie Siff has played her as quiet and insightful rather than ruthless and cunning, but NEVER weak or not in control. And as mentioned above, Chuck would know that actions prior to her taking over could cost her damages, but not jail time.

Hey a Silverado reference (a personal favorite, at least for the first 80% of the movie), which makes sense since a chunk of the storyline (the part I like least) has Padden (Kevin Kline) trying to save Stella (Linda Hunt's character), who was also a wicked strong women in what was truly a man's world.

[paigow]

58 minutes ago, AriAu said:

How did they make Wendy into some damsel in distress....

Wendy was blinded by her ego into taking the CEO job... much like Prince accepted that Chuck was simply sucking up...  

[aghst]

2 hours ago, ahpny said:

But none of that makes him irredeemably evil, as the ex-AXECappers nevertheless seem to intuit. His overwhelming ambition does, however, explain why someone as smart and calculating as Prince couldn't see through Chuck's unilateral "present" of the released Chinese kid. Chuck's surprise "gift" should have raised all sort of red flags, but even careful and wise people cannot see beyond their own ego sometimes. Where were Prince's minions to reign him in on that?

The prisoner exchange plan only seems to hang together if the mountaineer-lover's threat is credibly capable of sinking Prince's campaign. Would such a tawdry tell all really be the end of a campaign in today's oddly-forgiving climate? I know this show isn't set exactly in today's political climate, but I don't think the current Republican leading candidate is losing much support over troubles with Stormy.

No but apparently Wendy and the show would have us believe that Prince would do all kinds of evil things like first strike nuclear attacks or rounding up political opponents.

The way they rendered these characters, I would more likely believe Axe would do things like that than Prince.

[paigow]

47 minutes ago, aghst said:

The way they rendered these characters, I would more likely believe Axe would do things like that than Prince.

Axe stopped Dollar Bill from murdering thousands of chickens many years ago...

[paigow]

Derek as Sex-God is only part of the issue... Prince dropped Derek down a dark hole to win an election.  That story on CNN would be more damaging to his Centre-Left support.

[dwmarch]

On 10/16/2023 at 6:29 AM, ahpny said:

Would such a tawdry tell all really be the end of a campaign in today's oddly-forgiving climate?

It didn't seem to slow Chuck down. Remember when he aired his own dirty laundry live on TV and outed his BDSM lifestyle so it couldn't be used against him? Yet he somehow lived that down and has managed to keep a successful career going. But with Prince I think it's more the hit to his ego. His campaign could very well survive it but it's not how he wants the story to go.

[aghst]

11 hours ago, dwmarch said:

It didn't seem to slow Chuck down. Remember when he aired his own dirty laundry live on TV and outed his BDSM lifestyle so it couldn't be used against him? Yet he somehow lived that down and has managed to keep a successful career going. But with Prince I think it's more the hit to his ego. His campaign could very well survive it but it's not how he wants the story to go.

Yeah the writers are being inconsistent.

But really if a candidate had been separated for a long time from his wife and the campaign was putting them up as a traditional couple, the reporters would be digging and would find out that they lived separate lives for a long time with each having other partners.

Derek understandably might want to get back at Prince for getting him arrested by the Chinese but would he really give out private details about his and Andy's sexual encounters?  That is what Prince was alleging.

It would be one thing to acknowledge that they had an intimate relationship but go into details which are suppose to humiliate Prince?  That's also not credible.

[paigow]

Billions does not only refer to money... But also the number of ridiculous facts we are supposed to accept as true... Like Connerty was a Teppanyaki Master Chef during college...

[catherinejane]

Just catching up on last 3 but keep being distracted by it seeming that axl is never actually in the sane physical room as other characters.

[Joimiaroxeu]

Corey Stoll imitating Damian Lewis' imitation of a New York accent. Inception!

Marsellus Wallace? I think Prince might be one of the least likely people in the world to make that reference.

U2 to sing at his nomination celebration. Now I know Prince is fucked.

Bologna and American cheese canapes. Hilarious. You can't get much more basic than that except maybe to have put ketchup on it.

Prince making his employees backstab each other probably isn't a winning move in the long run. It won't be survival of the fittest, it'll be a cesspool of the most amoral.

Medicare fraud. Whoa. Prince played quite a long game to box in Wendy.

Kate doesn't seem to understand, not everyone is primarily motivated by money.

When all else failed, Chuck decided to act obsequious and appeal to Prince's vanity. Of course it worked.

Wait, Derek threatened to tell the world that he's Andy's lover? I  dunno, "President Cuck" kinda has a ring to it.

Edited October 30, 2023 by Joimiaroxeu