Billions Season 6 recently premiered, and I already miss Bobby Axelrod. He was one of the best characters in the show, if not the best, and brought a certain amount of grit that no other character could.
With Mike Prince in charge now, the show’s tone and pace are entirely different, and the void left by Bobby Axelrod is starkly apparent. While I still reminisce over Bobby’s character and how his arc ended in Season 5, Billions Season 6 premiere seemed like a bittersweet opening to its next phase.
On the other hand, this new tone of the show seems quite intriguing, and I think I want to see how the story unfolds from here.
Billions Season 6 premiere without Bobby Axelrod feels like a slow-burn version of the previous five seasons. With Mike Prince in the lead, the tone is more subdued, but at the same time, the new season feels like a new phase for the show, which is quite exciting.
Bobby’s absence is quite subtly addressed in the premiere. On one hand, we have Mike Prince trying to create a fresh start for the company and change the legacy Bobby Axelrod left. On the other hand, the employees wonder why their boss can’t just tell them what to do, instead of asking their opinion on things.
Besides all this, we have essential characters like Taylor and Wendy who just don’t trust Mike yet and think he’ll be the same as Bobby. Chuck Rhoades seems to be taking some time off and is still trying to get that “win” he was after when it came to Bobby. Finally, there’s Wags, who realizes that he needs the company as much as the new company needs him, so he decides to stay.
With all these things happening simultaneously, the show seems to be leveraging the premiere to set the stage for its next phase and the rest of the season. It does so in the following ways:
- Billions Season 6 puts Mike in the lead as this woke boss who wants to transform the Axe’s legacy. He removes all dirty investors who have issues with the law and creates Prince List, where investors have to be worthy (clean) to invest their money in Mike Prince Capital.
- Chuck Rhoades Jr. is the same but isn’t actively pursuing Mike Prince to get him off the “chair.” Instead, he’s at his own farm, working on getting back, and while doing so, he has a tiff with someone, and you see him get back to his old ways. It indicates how he’s slowly gearing up to go after Mike Prince.
These two, being the main characters of the show, set the stage for the remaining season. The only thing on my mind now is that Billions has never shown any character as completely good or bad. Everyone has their own shades of grey.
So when Mike Prince is trying to go completely clean, I’m just thinking, what does he have up his sleeve, and if it is all just an act. Furthermore, Chuck Rhoades Jr., a “champion” of the law, seems to be following twisted methods to get his new enemy on a neighboring farm to stop his activities.
While this is not new with Chuck, there still seems to be this newfound grey trait that I think will be further explored in the upcoming episodes.
Well, we all said that Billions wouldn’t be the same without Bobby Axelrod, and I guess that holds true. The start to Season 6 might seem slow, but I think the writers are onto something and are taking the show in a new direction tonally, which just might turn out to be equally good. I guess we have to wait and find out.
About Billions
Billions is an American drama created by Brian Koppelman, David Levien, and Andrew Ross Sorkin. The series is set in financial centres based in America.
The series follows hedge fund manager Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis), as he accumulates wealth and power in the world of high finance. The series premiered on Showtime on January 17, 2016.
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