Billions Premiers in NYC

Billions Season 2 premiered in NYC on Feb 13. You know as well as we do that where there’s a red carpet and our beauties are out and about being beautiful, we’ll be there to bring you the glamorous highlights.

Variety and Vogue both tell us the party and screening of the first episode of the new season were held at Cipriani on Broadway, an opulent events space, fittingly right across the street from Wall Street’s iconic charging bull sculpture.

Gotta love this shot of Showtime’s David Nevins taking a selfie with his peeps.

Let’s just call this one Poise.

Here’s our splendid trio under the lights.

Maggie Siff and her very particular brand of stunning.

Damian namaste-ing back some love to the adoring throngs.

More pics of all the faces we love from the Showtime Selfie Cam and more: Storify

We learned that Damian was late to the red carpet, having to traipse down to Wall Street from Rockefeller Center after taping the Seth Meyer’s show. That appearance will air on Wednesday night’s Late Night with Seth Meyers. (Watch HERE)

Damian will also be appearing on CBS Sunday Morning on Feb 19. (aside: I grew up watching Charles Kuralt every week when he hosted this show and have great memories of loving the slow, easy, totally non-flashy non-gimmicky way he’d deliver his stories. Sort of a Mr. Rogers for those years after you outgrow Mr. Rogers, yet still live at home. Haven’t tuned back in for ages, but, thanks to Damian, will be doing just that on Feb 19!) We came across some shots of the filming of this appearance a few weeks ago in London.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BO2JZEyhOZW/

A special thank you to CBS’s Jim Axelrod for sharing pics with us and letting us know when we can catch the show!

Here you go @FunFunDamian a shot from our interview. @CBSSunday #damianlewis pic.twitter.com/6OvRLup4Fz

— Jim Axelrod (@JimAxelrod) February 14, 2017

Look what Damianista has herself surrounded by as she spends Valentine’s in NYC.

Now, glamour is all well and good, but if you’ve been following along with my writing on this blog, you’ll know I’m always all about the story. To that end, there was an interesting bit from Maggie Siff in the Vogue article. She said that, in learning more about the Billions world, she consulted Tony Robbins, life and career coach to many power players. She asked him “what makes billionaires tick.”

“He told me something that really stuck, and that is, for every human being it’s different what you need to accumulate, what you need to possess, what you need to fill yourself up to feel worthy.”

There was a “self-help” book that came out a few years ago, How Full is your Bucket. The premise is that each of us has an invisible bucket. When our bucket is full, we feel great. When it’s empty, we feel awful. Strategies from that book have since been incorporated in a lot of early learning environments. For instance, the kids in my daughter’s school give each other random bucket drops, slips of paper containing some compliment or expression of gratitude. Along the way they learn it’s just as rewarding to write a bucket drop for a friend than it is to get one.

Adults could use such routes to humanity too, of course. It sounds like Billions this year will examine more closely the buckets at the core of each of the show’s characters. I’m betting we’ll see a deeper exploration of character motivations and psychology. That coupled with the very real intersection of the philosophical thought lines running through the story and current events and what we all think about what is going on in our world, the ethics and morality of it all, the gosh darn incessant examination of the messiness…all of that, I sense, will figure at least peripherally into this season.

The first episode came to Showtime early, we’ve seen it, and, as you can guess, we’ve got our share to say about it. On the official release date, February 19, Showtime will be running a free preview weekend with a marathon of Billions Season 1, the new Homeland episode, then Billions Season 2 Episode 1. For those of you waiting to watch on that official release date, suffice it to say, you will not be disappointed. Be sure to come back and read our recaps and analysis in the coming days!

Now, for some punctuation for the glamour shots, here’s a great sketch, full of character, from an artist on instagram:

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