‘Billions’ episode 12 (finale) debate: Should Axe be put away in prison?
Tomorrow night on Showtime brings to us the season 1 finale of “Billions,” otherwise known as the episode that could really change what the rest of this show is dramatically.
Through season 1, the premise has been laid out in relatively simple terms: This is a story about an investigator in Chuck Rhoades with a knack for putting away financial sharks. Bobby Axelrod is a great white, and we know that Chuck would love nothing more than to put him away, do a little bit of a happy-dance, and then go back to some of his other, shall we say, “obsessions” for a little while, provided of course that Wendy doesn’t uncover just what he was willing to do to violate her trust.
Yet, is what is good for the goose really good for the flock of geese watching the show? (Yep, just made that analogy up!) If this was a self-contained arc, you lock up Axelrod now and be done with it. However, there’s a season 2 coming up, and there is a certain amount of logic in keeping Axe as a free man and coming up with new ways for him and Chuck to wage verbal warfare with each other. It brings you a heck of a lot more drama. The irony here is that this is the second Damian Lewis show in which we’re having this conversation on; despite him winning and Emmy and being good enough to have a “Saturday Night Live” sketch made spoofing him, “Homeland” eventually realized that they were better cutting bait with Brody for the sake of the story.
We can see from a diplomatic perspective reasons to both keep Axe free and reasons to ensure that he ends up getting put away for good. It’s worthy of at least a little bit more discussion and debate.
The case to put him away – Maybe you make an entire season around Axe as some sort of informant behind bars; or, you do what you can to make this into “The People v. Bobby Axelrod.” Seeing what a guy with the funds that he has does with a legal team could be fascinating, even if it does fundamentally alter some of the DNA of the show. (Then again, there’s already been so much talk about Chuck and judges so far this season that it is really not as seismic a shift as it would seem on paper.)
Another school of thought is that you bring in a different sort of criminal for Chuck to go after, someone who is devious in a little bit of a different way and maybe under-the-radar. Axe was an obvious target who felt like he was protected on all fronts and his ego was the size of Manhattan; how would someone else handle the Chuck Rhoades approach?
The case to keep him out – More Damian Lewis doing stuff. Also, you potentially broaden the scope of the show if he decides to run, and you keep characters like Lara and Wendy more invested since there are such high stakes with him. Sure, you have to construct some sort of rich idea to ensure that it doesn’t just feel like the same show again, but these are people who came up with “Billions.” If they cannot come up with a new pitch, then why are they working for Showtime?
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