MovieChat Forums > Billions (2016) Discussion > Not much action here .... what are peopl...

Not much action here .... what are people thinking about this show now?


This show seemed to make such a big splash with lots
of people lauding it for being so edgy. I watched for a
while, mostly out of interest for Damien Lewis who I
thought did such an outstanding job in "Homeland".

After finally finishing the last season I have to say this
series pretty much disgusts me all around.

Not only are all the characters in it repulsive and
immoral, but the story itself really seems to have no
arc, or moral foundation, and just gets worse and
worse as episodes go by. I am pretty sure when and if
there is a new season I am not going to be jumping on
it anytime soon, or maybe ever.

Does anyone agree, or disagree? Do you like this show?

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Love it... The action is mental and at times emotional.
...and yes the world of high finance, politics and law can be pretty disgusting and it's usually kept out of most people's lives by the media and once in a while something so salacious happens like Weiner or Madoff happens that it explodes like Rhodes after one of his whipping sessions ( which for me is the only really disgusting thing to see on this programme)

Billions shows the chess game behind these people.

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I find it repulsive and intriguing at the same time, each episode I want all the characters to get cut down to size but they don't.

I think that there would definitely be characters like this in real life especially in the finance world, it is television though and it is meant to be entertainment not reality. I will continue to watch until the story arc gets totally implausible.

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You did not find the prosecutor ruining himself and his father financially implausible? I sure did, but even stuff much earlier.

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Would you watch if they weren't risk-takers?

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It is not the risk taking that is the draw for me at least. I like
plots where the people do things for reasons that are set up
logically and sensibly that tell us something about people or the
human condition. The point of this show is simple sensationalism.
I think the reason I began watching it was, 1: I had a subscription
on Showtime so I could watch "Homeland", and 2: I thought
Damien Lewis did a great job in "Homeland". I got sucked into
the show for a while until it started to seem so ridiculous. I would
prefer the show was realistic, whether that involves risk-takers or
not.

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The biggest problem I have with this show is the totally implausible idea that the wife of the US attorney for the Southern District of NY would be the corporate shrink in the employ of a man her husband is actively pursuing and trying to prosecute. Uh huh, as if the conflict of interest in that arrangement would EVER be able to sustain itself in RL.

Pretty ridiculous IMO. But I can suspend the disbelief out of just morbid curiosity of checking out the other aspects of what the show tries hard to portray as a sensationalized version of what life in high finance must be like.

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Dead on. Totally absurd, trying to establish that the super-criminals of today's American financial industry are the new cool.

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There are familial conflicts of interest like that all over DC.

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That's a pretty extraordinary familial 'conflict of interest' depicted in this show that I think you might be confusing with the types of COI that go on in DC.

Can you cite an example of what you're referring to?

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I thought the first season was a bit on-the-nose.

But the second season was much better.

Third is good so far.

Compelling characters. Great dialogue.

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I like the show. Dark is the new black.

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and Fakeistic is the new Realistic ;-)

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"Not only are all the characters in it repulsive and immoral, but the story itself really seems to have no
arc, or moral foundation, and just gets worse and worse as episodes go by."

I agree 100% and this season 3 it got even worse where I hate Chuck and Wendy more than I did before. When you watch how sick and twisted almost every character on this show is and yet find it compelling too, but there is not one redeemable character on this show that I care about. They are all bunch of scum bags like rats in a sewer who eat on each other and Chuck to me is worse than Axe in more ways due to his abuse of power with a manipulative bitch of a wife like Wendy who is a borderline a sociopath who like Taylor says changes the pieces on the motherboard whenever she feels like it and always has a justifications for it, just like a criminals do. These people are really worse than criminals but they just have power and money to hide behind, that;s what this show is really showing us and that is what makes it repulsive because its very close to the reality of our times.

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