Here are the top 10 moments from latest episode of “Billions” as Mike Prince takes on a sportswear company with bigger plans on his mind while Chuck returns to the city after getting his swagger back…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
After establishing himself as the new head of Mike Prince Capital in the “Billions” season 6 debut, Mike Prince himself took it upon himself to set the stage for a whole new way to do business after declaring that the shop previously known as Axe Capital would no longer operate in a grey area of morality.
In fact, Prince declared that his new company would only deal with clients who are doing everything with good intentions rather than just serving as money hungry investors concerned only with a fat bottom line.
In the latest episode, Prince starts putting his plan to action while seeking to topple a sportswear company making a ton of profit by nefarious means of production. Of course, Prince’s plans aren’t completely holistic after all because he’s also playing towards a larger end goal it seems.
Meanwhile, Chuck Rhoades spent the debut episode on a farm battling with a neighbor over his desire to fire Revolutionary War cannons twice a day so he could revel in his passion for ‘Murica. After Chuck was able to defeat his over entitled neighbor and shut down his daily cannon blasts, the New York State Attorney General finally got an idea that would allow him to tackle the biggest problem plaguing his state and perhaps the entire country — the billionaire class.
With that said, let’s get into the top 10 moments from the latest episode of “Billions” titled “Lyin’ Eyes”…
1 ) Rock Climbing
The episode opens with the classic track “Plush” by Stone Temple Pilots as Mike Prince scales a rather large rock yet coming up short each time he attempts to climb to the next highest rung. He’s getting lessons from an experienced rock climber and coach, who turns out to be his ex-wife (played by Piper Perabo).
It’s clear from this interaction that their relationship ended but Prince isn’t quite ready to say goodbye yet his dinner invitation is rebuffed without prejudice.
Still this early interaction colors everything Prince does for the rest of the episode as he seeks to impress his ex-wife while also plotting something much bigger for the city of New York.
2 ) Statement Win
After returning from his rock climbing expedition, Prince has his first plan of attack for his troops at the place formerly known as Axe Capital. He wants to expose a company called Rask Sportswear for horrendous atrocities carried out in the sake of making billions from clothing and shoe sales.
It seems Rask has been using forced labor camps in China to manufacture their goods and that leaves Prince with a perfect opening to take them down by revealing this information while his firm will short the stock, leaving them the chance to make a huge financial windfall. Without getting too deep in the woods, shorting the stock basically means Prince is betting on Rask’s stock prices plummeting, which means he would make a lot of money.
The only problem is Rask has been a financial juggernaut for years with a surplus that would help them withstand just about any attack against them. That’s when Taylor suggests a modern approach — revealing all of Rask’s dirty little secrets, which in turn will make the athletes endorsed by them jump ship and in turns the fans will follow.
3 ) Heist
Inspired by watching the great Gene Hackman work under famed director David Mamet in the film “Heist” gets Chuck to go back to work in the city with a new target in his crosshairs.
Rather than attempting to tackle one billionaire like he did with Bobby Axelrod for so long, Chuck is now determined to take down all of the billionaires ruining New York City.
“I realized it’s not one billionaire having his way with the city. That’s wrong but it’s not existential. But the overall effect of the billionaire class? They’re a scourge.”
~ Chuck Rhoades
The first objective comes with the Doormen’s and Custodial Union as they attempt to battle for better wages and hazard pay after helping to care for the one-percenters homes during a crippling pandemic. Chuck offers to help them in this battle for better benefits but just about everybody is skeptical about joining forces with him until he gives a rousing speech along with an endorsement from the doorman at the building where his ex-wife Wendy currently resides.
Now Chuck has somebody to go after and that’s never good for the person caught in his line of fire.
4 ) First Strike
After getting the doormen on board, Chuck sits down with the Tenant and Property Management board to help negotiate a new rate but they aren’t willing to go anywhere above a two-percent raise. That’s not good enough for Chuck, who believes the doormen are due at least a five-percent raise and anything else is just a good old fashioned slap in the face.
The board acts as a group but it turns out a man named Bud Lazarra — a particularly powerful real estate magnate — is the one making the decisions. When he turns down the offer while scoffing at the Attorney General getting involved in his business, Chuck immediately knows where he needs to aim when attempting to help the doormen receive the pay he believes they deserve.
When the head of the union pushes back, Chuck manages to throw a threat his way as well while telling him that it’s time for the doormen to go on strike because this will begin phase two of his plan to get them everything they deserve.
5 ) Firing Squad
With Prince’s play in motion against Rask, the entire company is expected to follow orders and even Taylor is getting behind this idea. The only problem is Rian still isn’t a Prince believer and she finds several more sportswear companies with far more egregious offenses — and those will potentially net Mase Cap a bigger windfall than what’s expected to come from Rask.
But Taylor is choosing to believe in Prince and his altruistic approach to finance so they shut down Rian and tells her to avoid making any moves.
Unfortunately, Rian doesn’t listen and she starts to go after those companies anyways, which is better for Mase Cap’s bottom line but it goes directly against what Taylor directed.
That’s when Taylor tells Wendy that they are going to fire Rian for going against orders.
Wendy believes it might be a slight overreaction — something that Axe would have done in his day — so Taylor lowers their guns and decides to take a different approach when dealing with Rian while ultimately giving her a second chance.
6 ) The Glenn Frey Parts
With Rask in free fall, Wags readies the troops to pull the trigger once the stock drops below $15 per share but Prince intervenes and says he doesn’t want anything to happen until the price plummets to $5. While the troops are impressed by Prince’s willingness to make such a ballsy move, Wags has a much bigger problem on his hands as he explains to Wendy and Taylor.
It seems Wags is rather close with Stuart Rask — the current CEO in charge of Rask Sportswear — and they were kindred spirits after hanging out at rock fantasy camp. In fact they were such bosom buddies that Rask allowed Wags to sing all the Glenn Frey parts while they were crooning to Eagles songs.
Unfortunately in an effort to serve two masters, Wags waited until the stock prices dropped enough to net Prince a nice profit while then helping to orchestrate a buyout for Stuart that would then allow his company to rebound. But now that Prince has declared his intention to let Rask crash and burn, Wags’ plan is about to go down in flames just as quickly.
After revealing all this to Prince, Wags is told to do whatever it takes to stop this buyout from happening or he’ll be off the team for good.
7 ) A Reasonable Man
After delivering strike letters all over town, Chuck gets the word that the doormen have settled and the union struck a deal to get them back to work. That doesn’t come as much of a surprise to Chuck, however, as he plans to go crawling back to Lazarra just as he always planned to do.
The meeting is arranged by Charles Rhoades Sr. and Lazarra is full of bluster after feeling like he got one over on the sitting New York Attorney General.
The only problem is Chuck isn’t so easily defeated.
It seems he had Carl track Lazarra to a meeting with the head of the Doormen’s union, which involved a bribe and a promise of a beachfront property that he could use at his leisure. Turns out, Lazarra has been paying off the head of the doormen’s union for years and Chuck found the wire transfers to prove it.
So now those doormen will be getting the five percent raise he promised or Lazarra will suddenly have just about every law enforcement agency in New York coming down on his head.
8 ) The Billionaire Class
Chuck’s plan to go after Lazarra was two pronged — if the billionaire real estate owner balked at his threats, he would release all of this information to the press. As long as Lazarra conceded to give the doormen the raise and backpay, Chuck would bury that information to ensure it never gets released.
But after Lazarra folded and gave into the demands, Chuck wasn’t so ready to let him off the hook.
Instead, Chuck tells Kate Sacker that he’ll still meet with her reporter friend and while he won’t betray any confidences, he’s just going to give her a rather adequate road map so she can find the information herself.
Kate knows this is going to start a war with the billionaires of the city but Chuck isn’t concerned about the battle ahead. In fact, he’s inviting it.
Chuck has already watched all of the skeletons in his closet get revealed to the world when he was running for public office. Now he’s inviting the billionaires to come after him because he’s going to fire back with both barrels.
9 ) Welcome to the Team
Wags decides to man up and join Mike Prince Capital for real this time while helping to finish off the plan to short the Rask stock and bring the entire company tumbling to its demise.
The planned buyout gets cratered after news is revealed that Stuart Rask has been in business with Kim Jong-un from North Korea for years and that’s not a scandal he can survive. Wags tells his new boss that Stuart took a trip there with Dennis Rodman many years ago and he returned with his company fully funded with Kim as a silent business partner.
It turns out, Kim is still involved with Rask to this day.
That’s all it takes for Rask to implode, the stock to drop like the ball on New Year’s Eve and Prince gets the win he needed to prove to his team that his approach will work while still making them all a boat load of money in the process.
Sadly, Wags’ days of singing the Glenn Frey parts are over after his pal Stuart kicks him out of the band.
10 ) Concrete Jungle Where Dreams Are Made Of
The big revelation this week came from Prince’s ultimate plan that started with tearing down Rask Sportswear and ended with his ex-wife giving him a second chance after revealing that he’s going to do everything possible to bring the Summer Olympics to New York City in 2028.
His ex-wife Andy was heading up the climbing team with the games headed to Los Angeles and Rask was their main sponsor. Now with Rask crashing and burning, the entire plan to bring the games to L.A. is falling apart and with it Andy’s plans to coach an Olympic team.
Enter her white knight, Mike Prince.
Prince took down Rask while simultaneously dismantling whatever chance there was for an Olympics in L.A. in order to bring the games to New York instead. He will orchestrate the plan, which will coincidentally bring the love of his life back to the same city so they can work on what appears to be a rather fractured relationship.
Of course, Prince also plans on using the Olympic construction to then help convert many of those buildings into low income housing and other needs for those less fortunate in the city.
Mike Prince: “The city’s down. Busted up. Hurting. It’s the perfect opportunity to rebuild. Every time New York has fallen…
Andy Salter: “It has been lifted up and rebuilt by a great man.”
Back at the office, Taylor tells Wendy that they are buying into Prince’s vision for the future because in the long run, it may provide a chance to get back the soul that was auctioned in order to work for Bobby Axelrod.
As much as Taylor is ready to go all in, Wendy warns them to take caution because she believes there’s more at play here than just bringing the Olympics to New York, especially now that she’s seen Prince’s wife come storming into the office. Wendy can’t be sure that Prince is driven purely by ego and the audacity to believe that the world will fall before his knees because he’s just that much smarter than everybody else.
Wendy may be right … but then again Prince might just be that good.
“Billions” will return for a new episode next Sunday night at 9 p.m. ET on Showtime.
