Reality Index
by Staff | Comfortably Smug | March 26, 2018
The recap is back! Welcome back to the Billions Recap Reality Index, where we tally a list of events from each episode and rank on a scale of too real to fail or as fake as a toxic asset’s triple A rating, scored on our wholly subjective point system.
This week we provide you with due diligence on the first episode of Season 3, “Tie Goes To The Runner.â€
When we last saw Axe and Chuck, they were both crawling from the rubble of Chuck’s pyrrhic victory of vaporizing his father’s portfolio and his own trust to lure Bobby into shorting the Ice Juice IPO. With his fund under federal investigation, his marriage in shambles, and future completely uncertain, we begin season three with Axe at his lowest point, and Chuck working to make sure this time there’s no escape for Axelrod.
THEÂ BILLIONSÂ RECAP REALITY INDEX:
REALER THAN AN IDEA DINNER WHERE EVERYONE GETS A NOTIFICATION ANOTHER FUND MANAGER HAS HAD TO GIVE UP TRADING
- A crazy as hell southerner as Attorney General? Welp, that’s actually realistic now.
PLUS 2 - First fleece vest sighting of the season, and surprisingly it isn’t Dollar Bill sporting it.
PLUS 1 - Axe Capital has relocated to midtown Manhattan, where you can’t throw a rock without hitting a building that has a hedge fund inside.
PLUS 1 - Taylor mentions tomorrow night there will be an idea dinner, a staple of hedge fund world.
PLUS 1 - Axe handled his separation from his wife like any respectable hedge fund manager, by getting a penthouse bachelor pad in the city.
PLUS 1 - Dollar Bill, like all hedge fund traders, gives a shit about only one thing- putting up monster numbers to ensure as big a bonus as possible.
PLUS 1 - OK that’s Marc Lasry from Avenue Capital and Michael Platt from Bluecrest at the dinner table. I don’t think a show about hedge funds can get any more realistic than having actual hedge fund managers on the show.
PLUS 2 - Axe admits to Wendy that being investigated has made him insanely radioactive on the street and he had to beg for an invite.
PLUS 1 - Even while facing such a dire legal crisis, Axe is still driven by ego and sees attending the idea dinner as showing the other heavy hitters he isn’t worried or scared.
PLUS 1 - Axe describes growing up in a working class family and using that rage at not having any money as a driving force to succeed. A surprisingly common story among top fund managers.
PLUS 1 - Todd Krakow becoming Treasury Secretary is too perfect. I have my fingers crossed we get a Louise Linton this season as well.
PLUS 1 - Ari Spyros, formerly at the SEC, is now Axe Capital’s head of compliance. Typical.
PLUS 1 - Axe is stubborn to take the advice of his attorney and compliance to give up trading to unfreeze the fund’s assets because it would seem like admitting he got where he is by cheating, not by talent, and he can’t handle that hit to his ego.
PLUS 1 - “Hey. Want dinner?†“We need to do that?†Classic.
PLUS 1 - Chuck hits up Veselka for late night eats. Legit.
PLUS 1 - Wags is rightfully concerned that Taylor and other talent at the firm are shopping around for offers at other funds given Axe Capital’s legal situation.
PLUS 1 - Of course Connerty is into some lame shit like league ping pong.
PLUS 1 - Late night delivery from Wo Hop, nice touch.
PLUS 1
TOTAL FOR REAL:Â PLUS 20
FAKER THAN A FUND WITH ITS ASSETS FROZEN NOT HAVING A MASS STAFF EXODUS
- A new administration and the US Attorney for the Southern District isn’t part of the purge? No chance, see also: Preet Bharara.
MINUS 1 - I have to get this out of the way early, it is still completely bonkers that someone as young as Taylor (one year out of college?) would be CIO of a real fund, let alone one as top tier as Axe Capital.
MINUS 3 - The deal Dake and Rhodes have of covering up all of the Rhodes family money involved in the Ice Juice IPO is insane, and they would be at the very least throwing away their careers by going with this crazy plan.
MINUS 2 - Lara Axelrod bringing in Birch as her financial adviser makes zero sense.
MINUS 1 - The only thing crazier than Axe naming someone as young as Taylor CIO is Krakow then offering Taylor the same position at his fund.
MINUS 3 - Hard to believe that Chuck Rhoades Sr., bitter and angry as he rightfully is, would throw away a lifetime of work grooming Jr for higher office and try to convince Blackjack Foley to cut off support for Chuck.
MINUS 2 - Last time I point this out, but it has to be said. No fucking way does someone as young as Taylor show up to the ideas dinner of top fund managers representing Axe Capital.
MINUS 3
TOTAL POINTS FOR FAKE:Â MINUS 15
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