Behind great power lurk great crimes. This, in essence, is the premise of Showtime’s Billions, whose seventh and final season is set to stream on Disney+ Hotstar starting August 12. Since its debut in 2016, Brian Koppelman, David Levien and Andrew Ross Sorkin have created a show revolving around three hyper-successful men, all of whom can compromise on goodness but not on greatness. In a society that is slowly having its moment of reckoning with the moral ambivalence of the male ego, Billions both indulges and exposes toxic masculinity. With the show wrapping up across 12 hour-long episodes, winners and losers will be definitive this time, as three alpha males look to seize the ultimate showdown, one unscrupulous act at a time.
An Axe to grind
After two seasons of wilderness in Switzerland, Bobby ‘Axe’ Axelrod (played by a dazzling Damian Lewis) is back in action and he is “wide awake”. The former CEO of Axe Capital, one of the biggest hedge funds in New York City, Axe had seemingly given up at the end of Season 5, accepting the end of his empire to stay out of prison. But for a man who defies natural selection, having “selected myself by harnessing my nature”, quitting, like vacations, is never permanent. The return of Axe promises more Metallica merchandise, pizza guzzling and the coolest one-liners in prestige TV. More importantly, it means that Billions’ final battle is set to be a three-way contest, with the other two already embroiled in their own tug of war.
One half of those two is Charles ‘Chuck’ Rhoades (an irrepressible Paul Giamatti), an ex-US attorney and the spiritual successor of Winston Churchill (having traded the liquor for BDSM!), who is convinced that there are “no innocent men, not on Wall Street”. Chuck and Axe are arch-rivals, having ignited their game of one-upmanship in the inaugural season. Back then, the show used to be an extended boxing match between two possessed men, refereed by Wendy Rhoades (a splendid Maggie Siff), Chuck’s wife and Axe’s colleague-cum-soulmate (yes, Billions, much like corporate America, does not believe in conflict of interest). At the culmination of Season 6, Chuck is no longer an attorney, though he is still very much a man possessed.
Having seen off Axe in Season 5, Chuck’s latest obsession is Michael ‘Mike’ Prince (an imperturbable Corey Stoll), an “ethical billionaire”, who, having bought Axe Capital, lost out on bringing the Olympic Games to NYC. Now, Mike wants to move on to the next thing on his bucket list — becoming the president of the United States. Unlike Axe, Mike is a compassionate capitalist (or so he thinks), driven to make the planet a better place. The irony, of course, is that Mike is willing to bend conventional notions of right and wrong to do so.
Season 7 should begin with Chuck and Mike mired in legality, dragged in for questioning by Chuck’s one-time collaborator, Dave Mahar (the class act that is Saffina Jaffrey). While Mike is desperate to damage control en route to the White House, Chuck is hell-bent on wreaking havoc on Mike’s path. As for Axe, revenge against both Chuck and Mike is on the agenda, alongside reclaiming his cult-esque hedge fund, where he could convince anyone to have an “idea dinner” with a shark as long as it meant a greater ROI for the company.
Put competent characters in Succession and you get Billions…Well, sort of
The intersection of money and power in Billions has made it, for years, the perfect accompaniment to Succession, HBO’s gripping family drama (available on JioCinema) that came to a fitting end in May. Apart from a shared appetite for conversational set pieces and ortolans (one of the most expensively edible birds), Billions and Succession are united by board rooms as Shakespearean theatres of intrigue, protagonists as compelling caricatures and insults as makers and breakers of identity. Marginalisation of women is also common to both stories as the lion’s share of the focus is on men behaving, for better or worse (mostly the latter), like only men can.
Undoubtedly, Succession is the richer show (literally, too), whose slower pace and tighter characterisation are superb at simmering tension. Billions, for its part, believes in puncturing and rebuilding tension rapidly, laced with pop-culture riffs, celebrity cameos and more twists and turns than a race track. But the biggest difference between the two is that Succession is a show where insecurity — at least for the three Roy siblings — stems from a lack of competence, whereas in Billions, insecurity is a side-effect of too much competence. People in Succession are trapped in a vicious cycle of failed expectations, constantly finding new ways to let themselves down. In Billions, it is the vicious cycle of victory that fuels people, where everything is all about “winning, long-term, big time”.
The least of the three evils
For seven years, Billions has provided an engrossing example of the cat-and-mouse relationship between capitalists and lawyers in the highest echelons of American life. In the process, it has repeatedly underlined how masculinity can be more toxic than capitalism, with even more loopholes than the law. Which is why there is unlikely to be a glorious coronation for any of Axe, Chuck or Mike once the bottom line on Billions is clear.
Instead, what is far more plausible is a situation of mutual destruction, where all three men nullify their strengths and weaknesses, paving the way for the least of the three evils to triumph. Or, taking a cue from Succession, an outsider, with a bit of luck and a lot of manoeuvring, steals the throne and Wambsgans their way to the top.
A large part of Billions’ increasing resonance in the recent past has been the inexorable rise of the likes of Elon Musk and Donald Trump in real-time, men who have achieved incredible things by operating in incredulous ways. In the manner of these uber-powerful men, Axe, Chuck and Mike chase what they want, and usually get it, too, no matter the cost on their conscience or community.
But as Musk is finding out with Twitter (now X) and Trump with his present presidential campaign, you can sometimes bite off more than you can chew. When the desire for control breaks long-established ceilings, the battle is as much against the self as it is against your enemies. For Axe, Chuck and Mike, beating each other also means overcoming their own selves, separating their needs from their narcissism. It is only when the male ego is checked that concrete objectives can be gleaned from naked ambition. That winning feels like a worthy outcome, beyond the animalistic urge of outlasting another. That values are forged out of virtues and vices that are worth defending. After all, what is the point of being the last man standing if you do not know what you stand for?
