Here are the top 10 moments in the latest episode of “Billions” as Mike Prince realizes he has a rival trying to bring the Olympics to New York City…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
The first two episodes of “Billions” season 6 have been a nice introduction to the way that Mike Prince will be doing business now that he’s taken over for Bobby Axelrod but he still hasn’t faced the same kind of obstacles that made Axe such a cunning businessman.
That all changed in the third episode as Prince stared down a real possibility that his plan to bring the Olympic games to New York City might be swiped out from under him.
Much like last season when investors started threatening to pull money amid controversy stirred from a past relationship with a former business partner and Prince shut it down by issuing a reminder that he would eventually bounce back but every single person who jumped ship would end up blacklisted from ever doing business with him again (the phenomenal “Atomic Punk” speech) — he’s more than capable of cutting off an opponent at the knees.
The latest episode reveals how Prince is willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants and how that almost Axe-like attitude puts him at odds with some much beloved former employees who ended up on the opposite end of this particular transaction.
Meanwhile, Chuck Rhoades decides to intercede in his crusade against billionaires but rather than produce through his backroom dealings, he opts to turn to the people for help this time around.
It sets up quite a battle for the rest of the season.
With that said, let’s get to the top 10 moments from the latest episode of “Billions” titled “STD”
1 ) Sure Thing, Dude
The episode begins with an emergency meeting called by Ben Kim after he went out for drinks with his old pal Mafee after he left Axe Capital and started his own fund alongside former boxing opponent and friend “Dollar” Bill Stearn.
It seems Mafee and Dollar Bill took a major swing at a SPAC — special purpose acquisition company — that’s looking to make a major investment in New York City real estate. The plan would eventually net Mafee’s new company a huge windfall and he’s almost guaranteed to find success after letting it slip through some bad attempts at wordplay that somebody else is trying to bring the Olympics to NYC.
He even tells Ben this is an STD — sure thing, dude.
That puts Prince and everybody else on high alert to start digging into who exactly is trying to steal his idea and bring the Olympics to New York while Ben is feeling rather guilty about betraying his friend even if it serves his own financial ends.
2 ) The Land Bank
As Chuck instructs Kate Sacker to start digging into new cases that would push his agenda against the billionaire class in New York, he’s greeted by a surprise when finding his father just sitting alone in his office waiting for him.
It seems Charles Rhoades Sr. had an idea to purchase some land in New York and flip it into luxury condos masquerading as low income housing so he could qualify for a tax break, making just enough room for poor people to share space there and then fill up the rest with the ultra wealthy willing to pay a whole lot of money to live there.
The only problem is he was planning on using the New York Land Bank — a project launched in 2012 where government seized land is then resold under the guise that it will be developed to make surrounding areas thrive and prosper — but he discovered that somebody had already bought up all the parcels around the city.
Kate confirms that a shell corporation has been greedily eating away at all the available properties, which goes against the very spirit of the land bank in the first place. So Chuck decides to turn his attention to that problem before tackling anything else.
3 ) Winning the Committee
After a brainstorming session to smoke out the investor working against them — a tactic that’s breaking Ben Kim’s heart because it likely means crushing Dollar Bill and Mafee — Prince turns his attention to a man named Colin Drache, who was previously part of the International Olympic Committee before he got ousted for accepting bribery in the past.
It seems despite no longer sitting on the voting panel, Drache still influences the 104 members who ultimately decided where to take the Olympics and that’s why Prince is ready to woo him so they get the necessary go ahead to bring the games to New York.
Over the course of the conversation, Prince figures out that Drache is also talking to another potential player — likely the same person buying up land in New York — and he needs to get rid of them to secure the games in his favor.
Prince assigns this particular project to both Scooter and Wags and as surprised as they are, he believes this could be his own personal “Lethal Weapon.”
Prince: Be on it together
Wags: You serious? You want us to be your Tenspeed and Brown Shoe?
Prince: I’d have gone with Murtaugh and Riggs but yes.
Now it’s up to Scooter and Wags to find out which way Drache is leaning and how to make sure he sways the games back to them.
4 ) Let’s Go To War
Prince and Chuck both discover simultaneously who is plotting to buy up land all over New York in order to steal away the Olympics — it’s none other than former Secretary of the Treasury Todd Krakow, who unceremoniously removed himself from office after believing he was being set up as a fall guy during a criminal conspiracy investigation.
Now Krakow is determined to rehab his image — and make a shit load of money — by bringing the Olympics to New York.
Prince attempts to sway him into a partnership but Krakow isn’t really interested in playing second chair to anybody and that puts him directly in the crosshairs of a billionaire’s sniper rifle.
To his credit, Krakow has a sound plan that involves building a stadium, which is the most necessary piece of the puzzle to land the Olympics. He then expects Prince to huff and puff and come after him with all sorts of threats.
“I don’t go to war that way. I just go to war”
~ Mike Prince
5 ) Kill The Deal
Kate kills the land bank deals with plans to announce everything in a press conference about how Todd Krakow was manipulating the public trust for his own private gains. Out of nowhere, Krakow then appears while giving Chuck hell for taking away that land while presuming that he was then handing it over to Mike Prince.
Because Chuck teamed up with Prince in order to bring Axe down, Krakow believes they are once again working as a pair but that’s just not the case.
Krakow then reveals how both he and Prince are battling to bring the Olympic games to New York, which finally allows Chuck to understand why these two business titans are at odds with each other. While it may seem like a longshot now, Krakow knows how huge it could be for his career to secure the Olympics for New York.
“May seem weird now but Mitt Romney was a fucking god when he brought them to Salt Lake.”
~ Todd Krakow
Realizing that he can hurt Prince with this transaction, Chuck decides to strike a deal with Krakow by allowing him to purchase those parcels — under his own name this time and not some shell company — and then he’ll handle the infrastructure so when the games are over, New York City will benefit from the construction and the buildings won’t just end up abandoned like what happened in Brazil and Russia in recent years.
6 ) Feeling Guilty
Despite warning everybody with a 3 a.m. call for an emergency meeting, Ben Kim is really starting to feel bad about the fact that Mike Prince winning means Dollar Bill and Mafee will likely lose everything.
He turns to Wendy for help but she gives him the hard truth — he should have thought about those consequences before revealing information to Prince. To make matters worse, Wendy explains how Ben was really just doing his job after Mafee failed to protect his cards while talking to a friend who just so happens to work at a rival fund.
In other words, Ben Kim needs to man up and face his actions because he can’t put the genie back in the bottle now — or put the shit back in the goose as Wendy so eloquently says.
While Ben Kim is falling apart inside, Taylor isn’t feeling nearly as bad, especially considering they still share a weekly meal with Mafee yet this is all getting chalked up to the cost of doing business.
That all changes when Mafee’s plans go bust and he erupts on Taylor while accusing them of having a calculator where their heart should be. It’s then that Taylor finally realizes the gravity of the situation.
7 ) America’s Mayor
Prince has a meeting with the new Mayor of New York so he can reveal Krakow’s plan to bring the Olympics to New York, which would also involve building a massive billion dollar stadium in the heart of Manhattan. To understand what a nightmare that could create explains why both the Giants and the Jets play in a stadium across the river in New Jersey.
Rather than allow Krakow to move forward, Prince pitches the mayor on denouncing his plans publicly, which would all but sink any hope he has to get the necessary permits to build such a stadium in time for the 2028 games.
In return, the Mayor would then back Prince as he look to bring the Olympics to New York while building a stadium in West Chester instead.
Of course, Prince is lying his ass off — he absolutely plans on building a stadium in Manhattan but he intends on also transforming an entire neighborhood with quality, affordable housing and other endeavors that would actually benefit the people of New York.
First things first, he has to get rid of Krakow and that’s what he needs to Mayor to do before anything else can happen.
8 ) Cat’s In the Cradle
It turns out Scooter and Wags made an effective team together after they discover that Colin Drache is also flirting with the city of Madrid in Spain as another alternate location for the 2028 Olympics. It seems Drache is a rabid soccer fan and he’s been promised a private lesson from the head coach of Real Madrid as compensation for swinging the committee in that direction.
But Wags and Scooter are able to intervene to ensure that he’ll never set foot on that pitch, which means Drache will have no other choice but to give the games to New York and Mike Prince.
While preparing to share dinner, Wags puts on his favorite playlist and he and Scooter share a moment while commiserating about the powerful lyrics in the song “Cat’s In the Cradle” by Harry Chapin. They both remark how the song used to mean a lot to them because they used to relate to it as the neglected son but as time passed, each feels more like the absentee father.
By the end of the episode, Wags and Scooter are not only working well together but they actually decide to share an office adjacent to Prince. If they are both going to be his right hand man, they might as well learn to embrace it.
9 ) Let the Games Begin
Thanks to the Mayor sinking Krakow’s bid, Prince is back in control but rather than make the former Treasury Secretary an enemy, he decides to embrace him as a friend. Prince offers to keep Krakow on board as a partner so he can use the land that Chuck Rhoades just allowed him to buy but now he’ll be acting as the quarterback in charge of bringing the Olympics to New York.
While it’s not the plan he wanted, Krakow lost all his investors and now it’s either partner with Prince or fund the entire endeavor himself and he remarks that he doesn’t want to end up like Trump.
“My investors dumped me like Winthorpe and Billy Ray Valentine in the orange juice pit.”
~ Todd Krakow
Krakow agrees to let Prince take over the deeds on the land so he can handle development but he cautions him that this entire plan will spit directly in Chuck Rhoades’ eye.
Of course, Prince already has a plan for that as well after partnering up with Bud Lazzara — the land baron who crossed Chuck in last week’s episode — and they team up together to build state of the art apartments that will first serve as athlete’s quarters before being transformed into low income housing.
This is all part of the strategy Prince has to build a stadium in Manhattan while also benefitting the people of New York at the same time. With that, the Mayor hears everything she needs in order to approve the plan as she declares ‘let the games begin.”
Oh one more thing — Taylor and Wendy even manage to help Dollar Bill and Mafee stay afloat by getting Spartan Ives (the company that Axe once torpedoed) to fund them after the loss they took on the SPAC plan. Wendy warns them to stop going after giants because it’s a war they can’t win but thankfully this helps Dollar Bill and Mafee save their new company, which also eases Ben Kim’s conscience along the way.
10 ) The Ghost of Tom Joad
Kate has to break the news to Chuck that not only did he not get one over on Mike Prince but now he’s actually managed to partner up with Todd Krakow to bring the Olympics to New York. Now even the Mayor has endorsed this plan but Chuck isn’t done fighting just yet.
As Prince is announced as the chairman for the New York Olympic committee, his speech is interrupted by loud horns and yelling from down on the street.
It’s Chuck with a megaphone as he shouts at the literal rooftops about the issues that building a stadium and bringing the Olympics to New York will cause for everybody who actually lives in the city. His impassioned plea eventually turns the nearby people to his cause and he actually leads them in a chant much to the chagrin of Prince and his partners.
“What’d Bruce say? ‘Wherever there’s a fight against the blood and hatred in the air, look for me, Mom. I’ll be there.”
~ Chuck Rhoades quoting ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’
Now the battle lines have been drawn as Chuck plans to do everything within his power to prevent Prince from bringing the Olympics to New York and that sets the stage for one hell of a fight for the rest of this season.
“Billions” returns next Sunday night at 9 p.m. ET on Showtime.
