From The Trader’s Desk: Everyone’s Playing 3-D Chess!

Billions Season 7 Episode 2 ‘Original Sin’

by Lady Trader | Fan Fun with Damian Lewis | August 25, 2023

Got no religion, don’t need no friends
Got all I want and I don’t need to pretend
Don’t try to reach me, ’cause I’ll tear up your mind
I’ve seen the future and I’ve left it behind
Supernaut – Black Sabbath

Happy Friday from “From the Trader’s Desk”.

Axe is living it up in an absolutely stunning castle in the north of England. If you need to be in exile, well that is the way to do it! Besides the chip off the old block Gordie, Axe has no friends with him; he’s got all he wants and he don’t need to pretend! But does he really?

Let’s get into “Original Sin”….

Everyone on Billions is always strategic and thinking ten steps ahead. It’s almost as if everyone is a student of three-dimensional chess, most famously played by our favorite Vulcan, Mr. Spock. Chuck moves his rook, Jeffcoat to get his SDNY job back, Prince is moving his queen, Andy to get to the White House, and Taylor, Wendy and Wags are trying to move their king back to the US. Axe is contemplating his moves, that is for sure, I’m just not clear what they are – yet.

And speaking of Star Trek, I recently found something that was a nice coincidence. Back in Season 4’s episode “The Oath”, I wrote about how there must be some Trekkers on the writing staff, as there were several references to Star Trek in relation to the story line regarding Craig Heidecker’s space travel project, FarPoint. Wendy was tasked with psychologically evaluating the pilot, Elena, who would be heading into space. In the episode, Wendy does not give Elena the all-clear, but she did get into space eventually! The actress who played Elena is the wonderful Melissa Navia, who currently plays Lt. Erica Ortegas, helmsman of the USS Enterprise on “Strange New Worlds” (which is also streamed on Paramount Plus!).

If Axe and Wendy are not together in only 5 out of 100 alternate universes, then that is the same odds that a political candidate’s “character” matters. A running storyline this week was Prince basically bending over backwards to get Bradford Luke to run his presidential campaign. Luke makes it clear that the only way for Prince to run and win as an independent is the “Eisnehower Path” – to be excellent in his chosen field and seem to do good for and be more like the “common man”. Now I know this is how it must be for this story (to set Prince up like a bowling pin for Axe, Wendy, Chuck, et al to knock down) but in this real day and age it wouldn’t mean a thing. We unfortunately live in an age where despite how poor a politician’s character is (and in some cases because of how poor it is) they get elected. Divorce, affairs, plagiarism, lying, stealing, cheating – have any of those things stopped some of our current elected officials from getting nominated and elected? No, and in fact, in some cases, has made the “base” love them even more. So, I doubt an “open marriage” would be that outrageous to the voters (hell, some guys would vote for Prince because he was able to pull it off!) if Prince was still promising a goodie bag of treats to the public. Sadly, we live in an era where “ask not what your country can do for you” has been replaced by “ask what freebies your candidate will promise you”. OK, enough politics. That is not what we are here for!

Read the rest of the original article at Fan Fun with Damian Lewis