Why 'Billions' Could Turn Out To Be The Defining TV Show Of The Trump Era - Page 2 of 2

Beyond perhaps sensing unconsciously what was in the water, it certainly wasn’t deliberate that “Billions” would feel quite as relevant as it does now. Still, there were, from the beginning, clear echoes of Trump in Axe: an enormously wealthy man (much wealthier than Trump, in fact) who hails from outside East Coast society and desperately wants his immense success to buy him acceptance and access into those elite circles. Axe is from decidedly humbler beginnings, but that sense of money buying them everything they want, except the ability to be seen as “one of them,” runs and drives both characters.

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That said, Chuck is reminiscent of Trump, too. One of the show’s cleverest character tricks is making the crusading Chuck someone from a background of money and privilege — his father (DeMunn) is a hugely wealthy big swinging dick — too. He’s living in the shadow of his father, a man who he constantly attempts to make proud, though the complete acceptance he wants may never quite come (the relationship between the two Chucks is actually warmer than, by most accounts, the one between Fred and Donald Trump, but the similarity is striking).

As season two has continued, we’ve seen more and more echoes of the horrible world in which we’ve found ourselves, though the show was written and shot before the election. Another Wall Street bigwig character, played by Eric Bogosian, mentioned in the most recent episode that he, like Trump, was mentored by Roy Cohn, while the show was partially inspired by the battles between Preet Bharara, the real-life U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and hedge-funder Steven A. Cohen, something that we were all reminded of this weekend when Trump fired Bharara.

billions-damian-lewis-asia-kate-dillonPerhaps because it’s semi-coincidental in covering this particular ground, it actually proves more valuable in understanding how we got here, with a resolutely un-drained swamp and democracy being tipped entirely into the service of the top 0.01%, than the various election-themed miniseries in development ever will. “Billions” presents a world where you can buy whatever you want, from police officers to NFL franchises, and details the entitlement that comes with it, and the lengths that people are willing to go to win, or maintain, that power.

It wouldn’t be difficult for “Billions” to fall into the trap, as many have done before, of glamorizing the world it claims to be skewering. There’s a fine line between this and, say, “Ballers,” and Koppelman and Levien patently relish this particular big-money sandbox, and the Mametian tough-guy dialogue that goes with it (and even as big fans, we’d concede that sometimes the cine-bro references get a bit much: this past episode alone nodded to “Die Hard,” “Blade Runner” and “No Country For Old Men,” and it felt a bit exhausting).

Episode 203But you need to entertain a certain level of wish-fulfillment with this subject matter, in the same way that the best stories about drug addiction acknowledge the literal highs as well as the lows. But more importantly, the quietly progressive streak of the show has always made it clear that Axe and Chuck are not laudable figures, even at their most triumphant. Season two’s been particularly good at this, through the introduction of Asia Kate Dillon’s gender non-binary character Taylor (Dillon becoming the first gender non-binary actor in a major TV role).

Taylor is fascinating, a young intern at Axe Capital who is as moral as they are ambitious, and stands out like a sore thumb among the hedge-fund bros of the company. Taylor could come across as tokenism, but their appearance actually offers a intriguing perspective on the world of “Billions”: a character made visibly uncomfortable by the culture around them, but who nevertheless finds something seductive in it, and who finds an odd kinship in Axe (at least so far). The show’s progressive nature has also, it should be noted, been mirrored behind the scenes, with a higher-than-usual proportion of female directors, with Reed Morano and Anna Boden (with directing partner Ryan Fleck) doing superb work helming the first couple of episodes of season two.

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At this point, we’re only a third of the way through the season, and it’ll be interesting to see how these themes continue to play across the remaining episodes, and into season 3 (which Showtime greenlit last week). One hopes that Koppelman and Levien don’t steer too much into the Trump trough when breaking story — it’s working perfectly as a parable of wealth and privilege right now, perhaps more so for being relatively non-partisan about it. But if it continues to be as strong as it’s been of late, it could end up, like “The West Wing,” “The Wire,” “24” and “Parks & Recreation,” as one of the TV shows that truly define the presidency under which they were made.

“Billions” airs on Sundays on Showtime. You can catch up with the network’s on-demand service.