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S07.E11: Axe Global

CheshireCat

By CheshireCat
in Billions

CheshireCat
Message added by CheshireCat,

Anyone who wishes to remain unspoiled until the TV air date, please remember that the episode streams two days early. There will be spoilers in this topic before the broadcast.

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EtheltoTillie

EtheltoTillie

1 hour ago, paigow said:

If Axe does not have a contingency plan for Dunlop betraying them.... 

I wasn't sure if this wasn't the actual secret plan.  Dunlop teams with Prince and then they all take him down.  Who knows?  None of it makes sense.  I just follow along as best as I can. 

I don't know why people started pronouncing Rao's as Rayos.  We always pronounced it Row's (as in Ow, my leg hurts).  That would be an Italian pronunciation.  (I even ate there once about 40 years ago, before they started selling spaghetti sauce in a jar.)   But here it seems they have participation of the owners in filming there, and they're pronouncing it Rayos.  I give up. 

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paigow

paigow

(edited)
54 minutes ago, EtheltoTillie said:

I wasn't sure if this wasn't the actual secret plan.  Dunlop teams with Prince and then they all take him down.

She must be getting something bigger for sabotaging her future...

Ben Kim & Tuk are going to volunteer for whomever the Republican candidate is...

Edited by paigow
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dwmarch

dwmarch

I think Dunlop is actually on the side of Axe/Chuck. How better to get her to the Presidency than by using Prince to do it? Somehow they'll mess Prince up at just the right moment and she'll end up being POTUS instead.

I also think the Torre betrayal was intentional. Like she said, there's nothing for Chuck to actually go after him for. So it was a diversionary tactic to make sure Prince was looking in the wrong place.

Nice sendoff for Rian, I assume that is the last we will be seeing of her.

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paigow

paigow

21 minutes ago, dwmarch said:

Nice sendoff for Rian, I assume that is the last we will be seeing of her.

Or she suddenly becomes unable to read her GPS and ends up as a hostage in Libya... Prince sends a squad of mercs to KILL her because nutjob Fourth deems her a liability... However, Chuck swaps some Gitmo detainees for her before Squealer Team Six arrives.... 

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Bcharmer

Bcharmer

(edited)
On 10/20/2023 at 10:30 AM, EtheltoTillie said:

I wasn't sure if this wasn't the actual secret plan.  Dunlop teams with Prince and then they all take him down.  Who knows?  None of it makes sense.  I just follow along as best as I can. 

I don't know why people started pronouncing Rao's as Rayos.  We always pronounced it Row's (as in Ow, my leg hurts).  That would be an Italian pronunciation.  (I even ate there once about 40 years ago, before they started selling spaghetti sauce in a jar.)   But here it seems they have participation of the owners in filming there, and they're pronouncing it Rayos.  I give up. 

I used to work for someone whose wife was part of that family. I got a huge gift basket of Rao's products every year for Christmas. I am Italian, and thought it was strange they pronounced it RAY-os, too.  But they did. 

Edited by Bcharmer
typo
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aghst

aghst

On 10/20/2023 at 11:21 AM, paigow said:

She must be getting something bigger for sabotaging her future...

It makes no sense.  She's the leading Democratic Party candidate and she chooses to be VP to Prince, an independent candidate?

It would never happen.

This is some alternate universe US political system.

They can certainly bribe her, just give her some lucrative job after she steps away from politics.  A deal like that wouldn't be illegal but it would be scandalous and some ambitious reporter would try to uncover it.

People who run for president don't give up until they've lost several primary elections and another candidate has won most of the delegates.  If she's already the nominee, no way she gives up.

She's been winning Democratic primaries or she leads in the polls and Prince leads in the national polls.  But polls are not that reliable.

So this inevitability of Prince winning isn't convincing.  Also not convincing is why he is such an existential threat to democracy as they're trying to depict.

Prince in fact rattles off a litany of things Axe has done, many of which are worse things than Prince has done.  It's as if the writers realize it's absurd to pretend that Prince is worse than Axe.

Also why would he be going to Camp David?  Only the president and his guests go there.  The idea that he'd be cut off from any communications is absurd.  That place is for presidents to run a war from if necessary so he wouldn't be cut off.

They already used this device, Prince and Scooter spending all day to get Killer Mike's endorsement and willingly giving up their phones.  That wasn't believable either, because no serious candidate is trying to get some rapper's endorsement.

That scene with them facing each other across the long table was ridiculous.  It wouldn't the first time some characters pretended to be defeated by their antagonists in a show or a movie.  They had the dramatic entrance by Dunlop, announcing that she was teaming up with Prince.

We'd sooner see real peace in the Middle East than the leading candidate of one of the main two parties in the US stepping back to yield to an independent candidate.

Writers didn't want to associate Prince with either party so they had him be an independent candidate for the presidency, as ridiculous as that notion is.

 

 

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aghst

aghst

46 minutes ago, paigow said:

If any of the spinoffs get launched, maybe Dunlop will be POTUS and she has to do whatever Axe wants... although he will not appear on screen...

 

8 minutes ago, Starchild said:

Why would anyone watch spinoffs of this awful show? Amoral Kate's run for Congress? Amoral Dollar Bill's Wall Street startup?

OK I might watch a Taylor spinoff.

I wonder if they would base it on one of the characters in the original series or just set it in the Billions universe.

Maybe they refer to some of the Billions characters but they never appear or at best make cameos.

Even if they're completely different characters, if they start dropping references like a Rolling Stone rock critic or some characters are boasting about how they not only make a lot of money but defeat or ruin their enemies, then you have to wonder if it's any different, but maybe without actors like Lewis or Giamatti.

May also depend on how many spinoffs they have in production.  If they have more than one, they would probably need more writers and possibly show runners who weren't involved with this show.

So they may be free to use the name but produce a different kind of show than this one.

I'm sure Koppleman and his production company will at least get paid some from the spinoffs, if not still be involved in creative decisions like which actors are cast, who are the show runners.

But at a minimum, they get paid just for creating the original show and concept used to produce these spinoffs.

Hopefully it's the latter and they get some fresh blood making all the creative decisions because this show is limping to the finish, battered and bruised by all the acclaim Succession received, another show about billionaires and plutocrats which came along later and finished sooner with worldwide adulation.

 

 

 

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ahpny

ahpny

On 10/20/2023 at 2:49 PM, Ottis said:

I still think the nephew is a deep plant

Two two kinks in Prince's armour seem to be the nephew and Prince's wife. The nephew has repeated voiced doubts about Prince and questioned his motives and plans. That the nephew got personally burned in the whole magic cement ploy has to sting. What, if anything, becomes of that I guess we'll see. But I still bet on the wife as the vehicle that brings its all down. There's really no other reason to include her and her mountaineering lover issues. And she seems mightly pissed. She has already renounced the (temporary?) monogomy "deal" they struck based on her interpretation of his breach of it by having the mountaineering lover arrested in China. But how exactly is she going to fulfill her promise to be at the next campaign event when she's going so "off the grid" in the mountains with Derek to be unnoticed, but still reachable enough to be summoned for that next campaign event?

While the whole Dunlop VP issue seems wildly problematic and unrealistic, there's so much we don't know about the fictive political environment of this season. But what we do know is Torre's running to Prince's inhouse lawyer is about as disbarring a career move as any attorney could ever make. In what world would that happen? Even if that were a double-agent ploy on Chuck's part, why would Prince's inhouse lawyer - savvy attorney that she is - believe that Torre would risk her law license to help Prince?

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paigow

paigow

1 hour ago, ahpny said:

why would Prince's inhouse lawyer - savvy attorney that she is - believe that Torre would risk her law license to help Prince?

Sacker wants Torre at MPC because it will be a path to Congress [for both of them]

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ahpny

ahpny

12 minutes ago, paigow said:

Sacker wants Torre at MPC because it will be a path to Congress [for both of them]

But a flagrantly disbarrable offense wouldn't seem to be step in the right direction for that, for either of them.

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Ottis

Ottis

21 hours ago, ahpny said:

But I still bet on the wife as the vehicle that brings its all down. There's really no other reason to include her and her mountaineering lover issues. And she seems mightly pissed. She has already renounced the (temporary?) monogomy "deal" they struck based on her interpretation of his breach of it by having the mountaineering lover arrested in China.

That's why I think she is too obvious as the long con. We already know she is pissed. It wouldn't be a surprise.

The nephew, on the other hand, appears to be on board with Prince. When you think about it, that doesn't make sense - he never recovered from the cement/professor betrayal, and yet suddenly was A-OK with Prince. But for this show, maybe it is enough to ignore that, show the nephew is onboard and then later spring the long con planned by him, Wendy, Wags and Paul Giamatti. 

Sacker is a wild card. If she is in on the long con, that would be smooth ... I haven't spotted that, yet, unless Prince gets in the way of her being elected. There is probably a moment coming where he ham-handedly does that and she switches sides.

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paigow

paigow

(edited)
5 hours ago, Ottis said:

Sacker is a wild card. If she is in on the long con, that would be smooth ... I haven't spotted that, yet, unless Prince gets in the way of her being elected. 

She has no path to Congress WITHOUT Prince. If he flames out, she is done.

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Ottis

Ottis

4 hours ago, paigow said:

She has no path to Congress WITHOUT Prince. If he flames out, she is done.

Unless she positions herself as the moral compass who helped stop Prince, after he pisses her off by pushing her away. That’s what I mean. 

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aghst

aghst

In previous seasons, they showed that Sacker came from this good background, which lined her up for politics.

Unless she's implicated in a big scandal at MPC, why would she have problems?

She was going to leave to run and she can point to her time at SDNY, because people in that office have gone on to political office, though usually the US Attorney becoming mayor or governor.

That is what they were talking about in early seasons for Chuck, that he'd go on to the governor's office and then maybe a run at the WH.  Or at least that's what Chuck Sr. was talking about.

 

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paigow

paigow

42 minutes ago, aghst said:

In previous seasons, they showed that Sacker came from this good background, which lined her up for politics.

Unless she's implicated in a big scandal at MPC, why would she have problems?

She burned her Party-Line bridges by declaring Independent status. Scandal or not, she needs Prince as POTUS.

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aghst

aghst

For congressional races, it mostly comes down to how the district was drawn because gerrymandering is the rule, not the exception.

So if the district she's targeting has overwhelmingly residents of one party or another, she's not going to have a chance as an independent.

I believe there are 1 or 2 independents in the Senate, though they caucus with one of the parties.  But there aren't any House members who are independent because of gerrymandering -- which obviously doesn't come into play for Senate races or the presidential election.

So that makes the decision portrayed on the show even dumber, she has less chance than even Prince winning the presidency as an independent.

Beyond the composition of the district, it's which candidate has the most funds.  She should be rich that she can put a couple million into her campaign on her own, even if she breaks it off with Prince and can't count on him funding her campaign.

 

 

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Taget

Taget

On 10/24/2023 at 8:16 AM, Ottis said:

That's why I think she is too obvious as the long con. We already know she is pissed. It wouldn't be a surprise.

The nephew, on the other hand, appears to be on board with Prince. When you think about it, that doesn't make sense - he never recovered from the cement/professor betrayal, and yet suddenly was A-OK with Prince. But for this show, maybe it is enough to ignore that, show the nephew is onboard and then later spring the long con planned by him, Wendy, Wags and Paul Giamatti. 

Sacker is a wild card. If she is in on the long con, that would be smooth ... I haven't spotted that, yet, unless Prince gets in the way of her being elected. There is probably a moment coming where he ham-handedly does that and she switches sides.

On Sacker.  Here is the thing.  She is running in New York City.  And that already puts her at a disadvantage running as something other than a Democrat.  Mike Prince is running to destroy the Democratic Party.  Full Stop.  His platform is basically a centrist Democratic Party platform.  If he succeeds in New York given the way the system is set up you will have thousands of people thrown out of work if the Democrats are thrown into third party status.  Unless the Democratic Party nominates someone really crazy against her and the party itself wants to throw behind her as independent she is just the tag-a-long of a spoiler.

The nephew has seemed pretty fine with bulldozing people for profit.  The professor was personal but he knew exactly what he was getting into when he applied for the position.  It's not Rian joining a hippy dippy firm that got merged into something else.

But here is another possibility related to the nephew.  Scooter himself.  He didn't want Philip hired because he saw the firm as potentially too dirty for him.  He is obviously protective of him and was rather thrilled to push his cousin ahead once hired.  Take this very possible scenario.  Wendy, Axe, & co are able to dirty up the firm and put Prince at risk and Prince decides the best course is for Philip as head of the firm to take fall arguing that it will only be a little time in Club Fed (and FYI that is DEFINITELY not the Brooklyn Federal Detention Center) and he'll take care of him as President.  Scooter disagrees and pushes Prince in front of the train to protect his nephew.

And actually Daniel Breaker is a great actor.  I'd watch a Scooter spinoff.

 

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Joimiaroxeu

Joimiaroxeu

Condola Rashad is going by Dola now?

Amanda Torre is an idiot. That is unless she's part of another scheme to get Prince not even Chuck knows about.

Prince is going full-tilt paranoid. That business with the white board was insanity.

Vagabonding. Is that what used to be called backpacking? Or hostelling?

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