Tag: Charles Rhoades Sr.

Billions on Showtime, Season 4 Episode 4: Overton Window

First things first. Thank you Xfinity Watchaton Billions Watch Party for an amazing evening at Classic Car Club of Manhattan! Lady Trader and I felt like billionaires as we sipped Champagne on Axe’s plane, ate quail-masquerading-as-ortolan with napkins on our heads, played Black Jack like there is no tomorrow, enjoyed a Q&A with show creators and cast members followed by an early screening of the crazy good Episode 4, and, hey, we got to hang out with these two! Kelly and Toby, you guys rock!

Credible threats? Check. Ultimate sabotage? Check. Unparalleled favors? Check. Shocking twists and turns? Check. Taking care of business at all costs? Check. We are in a “World Gone Wrong” exactly like in Dylan’s song opening and closing the episode and Billions is on fire this week!

Primary Day / 5 hours until the opening bell

It is 4:30 am in the morning and the Burke brothers are “bright fucking yellow like you’re in Kill Bill” and busy at a school bus parking lot making sure the buses will be out of commission this morning. Huh? Continue reading “Billions on Showtime, Season 4 Episode 4: Overton Window”

Billions on Showtime, Season 4 Episode 3: Chickentown

A migraine. An algorithm. A blossoming friendship. And lots of chickens! Billions gives us a fun episode in which Axe and Chuck fight at multiple fronts and end up in Chuck’s office drinking to their friendship of a sort 😀

Chuck’s day starts with a migraine and gets downhill from there.

Chuck Senior calls from Kingsford to tell his son it is time for Pericles, ahem, Chuck, to stroll the Parthenon, ahem, the casino built on Senior’s land.  They are having the grand opening with fanfare and two important union leaders with 400K potential votes for Chuck in attendance. Chuck has to show up with Wendy, smile, shake hands and seal the deal. And when Chuck resists:

Senior: “Do you think JFK complained when Ol’ Papa Joe sat him down with steel workers?”

Junior: “You’re delivering Schenectady, dad. Not Ohio.”

Continue reading “Billions on Showtime, Season 4 Episode 3: Chickentown”

Chuck Seniorisms by the Dozen, Part II

A Baker’s Dozen…And Then Some

You should know by now from my ‘Chuck Seniorisms by the Dozen’ Part I and watching the show Billions that Charles Rhoades Sr., often referred to simply as Senior, is played by the extraordinary actor Jeffrey DeMunn. Senior oozes a noble, high-born conviction with not so subtle hints of a slime ball undercurrent magnified by his Bob Barker mischievous smirk.

Senior is an Upper East Side grand master and epitome of the WASP elite who went to Yale and was a Whiffenpoof. He’s a member of the Yale Club of New York, stores his cigars at Nat Sherman Tobacco Lounge, although in season three he tells Wendy he’s cleaning out a walk-in closet of his prodigal son’s trivial prep school trophies to make room for a humidor, and hangs around with the likes of pals named Tate Tappan and Stuckey Brown, and rubs elbows with Kingmakers named Black Jack Foley.

Continue reading “Chuck Seniorisms by the Dozen, Part II”

Billions on Showtime, 3.05: Flaw in the Death Star

In case you haven’t noticed, I tend to watch stuff with the eyes of one who looks for dark and light and all the gradations in between. Light for the fun and entertaining, dark for the real and true. This episode, “Flaw in the Death Star”, balanced the two quite nicely, never spending too much time in either extreme and provided a fair and balanced view of this world we’ve come to know as Billions.  Continue reading “Billions on Showtime, 3.05: Flaw in the Death Star”

Billions on Showtime, Season 3 Episode 5: Flaw in the Death Star

I may find the way they operate appalling, but it is impossible not to applaud Axe and Chuck for eliminating a lot of risk in the first four episodes. Chuck has been able to convince Dake to cover up Wendy’s Ice Juice short,  change the judge in the Axelrod case and keep his father quiet about his involvement in Ice Juice. Axe has given an even better performance by keeping Danny Margolis and the Burke Brothers quiet on his side, having Maria Gonzalez deported, and giving Ira his life back along with an engagement ring from Buccellati’s exclusive collection. We now find the two men going after the loyalty of the same man simultaneously.

Dr. Gilbert is the man of the hour.

While Axe is ready for his trip to Silicon Valley, the new Halls deliver news big enough to keep him in New York. The Eastern District has grilled every doctor Axe has been or donated to including Dr. Gilbert. This reminds Axe that the good doctor may still have the slide he told him to get rid of once he verified with him that the bacteria they put in Ice Juice would not be fatally hurting anyone. Given Axe is saying his line of business is about eliminating risk, I highly recommend him to hire our own Gingersnap as a personal consultant 😀 Gingersnap said the day after Season 2 Episode 11 Golden Frog Time that Axe should not have left that slide with Dr. Gilbert and it would come back and bite him in the ass. Kudos! Continue reading “Billions on Showtime, Season 3 Episode 5: Flaw in the Death Star”