You Can’t Always Get What You Want, You Get What You Need
by JaniaJania | Fan Fun with Damian Lewis | April 4, 2018
Bobby and Chuck are a set of twinsies this episode of Billions, Season 3, Episode 2, “The Wrong Maria Gonzalez.†Where we saw Chuck mildly relishing in his win in the first episode and Bobby not-so-mildly wondering what to do about his loss, in this episode the two foes are on more equal footing.
Bobby can’t act on his investing instincts about the earthquake on the coast of Africa, which he knows will lead to a tsunami on the coast of South America, leading to losses for Axe Cap investments in Brazil, specifically flooded sugar crops and interruptions in shipping.
On the other side, the wheel of fortune doesn’t roll in Chuck’s favor to be awarded the judge sympathetic to his cause in Eastern v. Axelrod.
Both Bobby and Chuck have obstacles set before them, both master their obstacle du jour, in essentially similar ways.
I worked my entire life to put myself in a position where I’d be truly free.
Is there even such a thing? Bobby certainly seems to think true freedom is possible. He calls Wendy with this complaint and gets her sound advice, which, on some level, he absorbs.
Limits, constraints, can be useful.
Right? Takes that extra effort, that extra push, but why not see the obstacle as a challenge? It’d take a bit more effort than taking the instinctual split second cognitive leap that an earthquake in one part of the world is going to affect the flow of resources in another part of the world. But essentially a cognitive leap is a cognitive leap. A challenge is a challenge. Right?
Letting go… is another kind of freedom. A more powerful kind of freedom.
As if we didn’t see the enchanted charm of this city already, we learn that New York City judicial assignments are still done via wooden wheel and crank. Digital randomizers? Fuggedaboudit, computers are for losers.
Dake is resigned to deal with the free market-friendly judge they rolled. Chuck doesn’t want to risk it. He goes to Wendy for some advice. She knows the temperature in which both of the men in her life work best. She knows how to play both ends, and how.
To Chuck, she gives advice on how to be harder, more cut throat, go out and get what you’re owed. She knows the unfriendly judge owes Chuck a favor, so her advice is:
Impose your will on him, until he does what he needs to and repays the debt.
To Bobby, she provided the opposite. She advises him to be softer, let go to let in. Her goal? A happy medium, a place where both men can find peace in themselves and in their work. She’s a conduit for them both. A path between and around, to some greater insight, some alternative path to the near-sighted ones they set upon when left to their own devices. The writing gives Wendy that power, and Maggie Siff runs with it.
Read the rest of the original article at Fan Fun with Damian Lewis