The fall was coming from inside the house. After years spent fending off attacks from without, from rival financiers to a certain ax-grinding United States attorney, Bobby Axelrod got caught flat-footed by his own prot\u00e9g\u00e9. Making good on the surprise ending of last week\u2019s episode, in which Taylor Mason made a surprising move to go solo, the Season 3 finale of \u201cBillions\u201d showed Taylor\u2019s plan in action \u2014 and it really was all action.<\/p>\n
Named \u201cElmsley Count\u201d after a magicians\u2019 trick in which key cards are kept hidden from the audience, tonight\u2019s hugely entertaining episode reminded me of nothing so much as another Season 3 finale: \u201cShut the Door. Have a Seat,\u201d the third-season closer for \u201cMad Men.\u201d That memorable hour was basically a heist movie in which the priceless treasure being stolen, by a breakaway ad agency led by Don Draper, was nothing more or less than their own talent (and client lists). Here, however, we see that heist more from the perspective of the gobsmacked titan than from that of the brash young upstart, as Bobby, Wags and Wendy slowly piece together the necessary details to form the big picture of their betrayal: the unreturned calls, the missing money, the absent analysts, and the juuuuust<\/em>-this-side-of-suspicious actions of Taylor the day before.<\/p>\n In brief asides, we also see Taylor\u2019s various pitches to potential team members: good-natured but misused Mafee, who agrees; timid Ben Kim, who demurs; and outraged Wendy Rhoades, who explodes. It is during this third and final pitch that Taylor\u2019s philosophy emerges. Protesting a bit too much considering the way she manipulated Mafee to save herself, Wendy tells the rebel leader that what they do in their business isn\u2019t only about money. \u201cThe thing that makes it matter is lasting relationships, true loyalty, real trust.\u201d<\/p>\n After the briefest pause from reflection, Taylor replies, in that maddening monotone: \u201cNo, I\u2019m pretty sure there\u2019s only money, and it can buy all those things, or at least the same result. That\u2019s what you and Axe taught me.\u201d Wendy\u2019s vengeful fury from that moment forward stems at least in part from the fact that she knows Taylor is right: This is <\/em>the message her and Bobby\u2019s behavior conveys.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Axe himself, naturally, is even angrier. Taylor\u2019s departure doesn\u2019t just remove from his control the most brilliant mind for money he\u2019s ever encountered, it also removes investments, future investors and his reputation for untouchability and for the loyalty of his staff. Such is his anger that he entertains, for a frighteningly long period of time, the offer of his Russian backer Grigor Andolov (who is playing both sides of this conflict) to have Taylor killed. However you feel about Bobby\u2019s very serious consideration of that offer, it\u2019s hard to deny the weight of Andolov\u2019s casually issued, completely sincere statements of lethal intent. Watching him contemptuously backhand Axe\u2019s coldblooded fixer, Hall, cursing at him with no more consideration than you\u2019d give a Twitter troll, you can see he means business, even among people for whom meaning business is<\/em>their business.<\/p>\n \u201cHow can I keep my money with a man who won\u2019t kill for it?\u201d he asks Bobby \u2014 rhetorically, since to Grigor, this is a question with only one answer: He can\u2019t. It\u2019s to Bobby\u2019s credit that he doesn\u2019t accept the offer, but it doesn\u2019t say much for him that he considered it at all.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, another palace coup is brewing \u2014 and no, it\u2019s not the one Chuck has spent the past few episodes engineering against Attorney General Jock Jeffcoat, although he thinks<\/em> it is right up until the moment he\u2019s proven wrong.<\/p>\n By the time Chuck arrives at his own office for what he thinks will be a listening party for taped evidence of Jeffcoat\u2019s obstructing justice, the signs are mounting that something stinks. Aside from the parallel story line of Bobby\u2019s betrayal and all its sleight-of-hand references, Chuck\u2019s snare snaps shut just a little too easily given the size and cunning of its intended quarry. When a steely-eyed Kate Sacker tells Chuck that the day he had long dreaded had arrived at last \u2014 when the political skills he taught her were used against him \u2014 there is no doubt that something wicked lurks behind those office doors. Apparently Bobby and Wendy aren\u2019t the only ones capable of teaching their brilliant underlings all the wrong lessons.<\/p>\n But the extent<\/em> of the wicked thing waiting was as much a shock to me as it must have been to Chuck. Gathered around the smirking, hulking personage of Jock Jeffcoat is a small army of people Chuck once trusted: not only the New York attorney general, Alvin Epstein, the real Judas in this case; not only Sacker, the worm within the Southern District; but also the previously defenestrated do-gooders Oliver Dake and (this one hurts) Bryan Connerty. The blocking of this scene is as important as anything that actually gets said: We\u2019ve never seen Chuck this badly outmanned<\/em>, let alone outmatched. Jock\u2019s position behind Chuck\u2019s own desk (he inevitably concludes their conversation by kicking his feet up on the thing) is also physical inversion of the world as we\u2019ve known it.<\/p>\n\n Season 3, Episode 12: \u2018Elmsley Count\u2019 The fall was coming from inside the house. After years spent fending off attacks from without, from rival financiers to a certain ax-grinding United States attorney, Bobby Axelrod got caught flat-footed by his own prot\u00e9g\u00e9. Making good on the surprise ending of last week\u2019s episode, in which Taylor Mason …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54463,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[391],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n