“Money doesn’t talk,” said Bob Dylan. “It swears.” This is almost literally true in the blizzard of books, movies and TV shows about our financial one-percenters. If our wolves of Wall Street love anything more than obscene wealth, it’s obscene language. These guys — and they are mainly guys — don’t trust anyone who’s shy about dropping F-bombs.
Who’s effing who — and how — is one of the governing metaphors of Billions, a new Showtime series whose opening shot features one of its lead characters trussed up and awaiting a dominatrix. Though my heart sank when I saw this, such an image is truth in advertising. This is a show about power relationships, one that’s positively shameless in its desire to grab you.
Billions is built around the collision of two megalomaniacal power-brokers, both played by actors who specialize in characters you can’t trust. That Pavarotti of prickliness Paul Giamatti is Chuck Rhoades, a well-born U.S. Attorney with just enough conscience that he can’t completely enjoy his vaulting ambition.
The calculating Rhoades dreams of being governor, which will be easier if he takes the scalp of a financial high-flier. Enter Bobby “Axe” Axelrod, played by perma-slippery Damian Lewis, far different here than in Homeland. He’s a hedge-fund maestro who presents himself as a regular guy, but is the kind of thug who remembers, and avenges, slights decades later.
At first, Rhoades worries about going after Axe, who’s popular because of his casual dress, blue-collar origins and canny post-9/11 donations. But when Axe courts bad publicity by deciding to buy a staggeringly expensive house, Rhoades thinks it safe to make his move.