Season 6, Episode 6: ‘Hostis Humani Generis’
There are few issues on tv I take pleasure in greater than “Billions” fake-out. The sine qua non comes from the stellar Season 2 episode “Golden Frog Time,” by which a Chuck Rhoades who at first seems to be sobbing is definitely laughing hysterically as a result of his plan to undermine his enemy Bobby Axelrod labored like a attraction. (On the expense of his finest buddy and his father, however nonetheless!)
The sleight-of-hand that happens on this week’s episode isn’t almost as momentous, however it gives that thrilling frisson nonetheless. For a second, it appears as if Chuck has put the screws to Mike Prince’s alma mater, Indiana A&M, to stop it from investing in his agency. How? By blackmailing the college’s endowment chair, Stuart Legere (Whit Stillman alum Chris Eigeman), who has been embezzling.
But it surely seems that the other is true. Chuck is blackmailing Legere and the endowment into investing with Prince by threatening to reveal the embezzlement. Having beforehand rejected his father for the position as too apparent a alternative, Chuck desires an inside man who will report again on Prince’s each transfer, and now he has discovered one. The needle drop of the Police’s “Each Breath You Take” that accompanies the maneuver isn’t any mere music cue. It’s a mission assertion: It doesn’t matter what Mike Prince does, the watchful eyes of Charles Rhoades Jr. will probably be on him, whether or not he is aware of it or not.
Why? As a result of Chuck actually and actually appears to have gotten faith the place the billionaire class is worried. He calls Prince “a robber baron.” He denigrates Prince’s seemingly charitable donation of a brand new fleet of high-tech subway automobiles (funding for which was the aim for reopening the unique Prince Record to new traders, like his alma mater) as a brand new type of “noblesse oblige.” He characterizes Prince’s seeming benevolence as an try “to additional his personal ends, no matter they could be, whereas he enjoys ten thousand, 100 thousand occasions” the assets of anybody ostensibly benefiting from his largess. He has deemed all billionaires “hostis humani generis,” an previous designation for pirates: enemies of the complete human race.
And the way will Chuck defeat Prince’s newest gambit? Largely by counting on the acumen of his new lieutenant, Dave Mahar. In a short assembly together with her predecessor, Kate Sacker, Dave discerns that pace is of the essence the place Prince Cap’s plan to buy these new subway automobiles is worried. So she threatens to tie all of it up in crimson tape associated to the automobiles’ Chinese language producer — an end-run across the Transport Employees Union, which has been purchased off with half a billion {dollars}’ value of re-education and coaching for members who lose their jobs to newwer, extra automated subway automobiles. Kate truly tenders her resignation to Mike over the gaffe, although he doesn’t settle for it.
Then there’s the matter of Leon Sherald (Okieriete Onaodowan) to think about. Sherald is a soccer star who has began a blockbuster house health franchise, and he desires in on the reopened Prince Record’s unique checklist of traders. It’s Taylor Mason’s former underling-slash-friend-with-benefits, Lauren (a returning Jade Eshete), who brings Sherald’s supply to the agency, regardless of the awkward interpersonal dynamics.
However when Sherald finds out that the public-sector pension fund to which the Transport Employees’ Union belongs additionally contains the New York police union, he calls for Prince drop it, or he’ll nuke the checklist’s fame within the all-important courtroom of public opinion.
That is the place Taylor is available in. Having been tipped off to an app that suppresses problematic social-media posts by Rian, Taylor reverse-engineers the process and digs up damning details about Sherald, neutralizing his capability to tank the Prince Record within the course of. Rian, as soon as once more, is aghast, however the agency wins the day.
Ultimately, Prince agrees to fund public transport, even with out his futuristic Chinese language subway automobiles. However what’s the endgame right here? Effectively, keep in mind when Chuck talked about Prince’s “personal ends, no matter they could be”? At a number of factors within the episode, there are tantalizing hints that there’s a play behind the play, a maneuver by Prince for which the Olympic Video games are merely a pretext.
Scooter warns Prince that his gamesmanship is getting costly, however it’s maybe permissible if “there’s no different solution to all the pieces you need.” Later, Prince tells Scooter “You’re know the place we’re headed — you’re the one one — however once we depart to do the factor, we have to set up somebody who’ll run the place proper.” The dialogue appears to rule out the straightforward matter of getting his estranged spouse a plum teaching gig; it factors to one thing bigger, extra secretive.
The near-term ramifications are clear sufficient: Scooter’s nephew Philip is being groomed for management. The lengthy sport, although? The factor Prince is aiming for above and past the Olympics? That’s anyone’s guess. I don’t learn about you, however I take pleasure in a drama that retains me guessing.
Unfastened Change
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Till I heard them open and shut this episode, I’d by no means actually made the thematic connection between the Police songs “Synchronicity I” and “Each Breath You Take,” regardless of their each being on the album “Synchronicity.” The primary music is a kind of mystical paranoiac fantasy that all the pieces is linked; the latter is a stalker’s message that it’s proper to be paranoid.
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On this week’s “showing as themselves” rundown, we see the Warby Parker chief government, Neil Blumenthal; the Greenlight Capital founder, David Einhorn; the Wharton professor and TED talker Adam Grant; the dot com pioneer Seth Godin; and the philanthropist Jacqueline Novogratz as members of Prince Cap’s board.
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Your pro-wrestling reference of the week: Dave threatening to drag off a Bobo Brazil “Coco Butt,” one of the crucial feared head butts within the artwork type’s historical past, on the Transit Employees’ Union boss Tony Plimpton (Kevin Chapman).
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Your newest signal that “Billions” has advanced previous Bobby Axelrod: Comptroller Leah Calder (Wendie Malick) congratulates Chuck on taking down Axe, and Chuck replies that his one-time nemesis “is firmly in my rearview.” Adios, Axe.