On this week’s episode of Billions, someone spraypaints “FUCK YOU PIG$” on Bobby Axelrod’s car, which is the least any right-thinking person could do. He and his wife Lara and his henchmen Wags and Hall and even his enemy Chuck Rhoades can quibble about the legality, but the fact of the matter is Axe had the sangfroid to make himself rich while nearly everyone he knew roasted alive and the world turned upside down on 9/11. What a horrible, upsetting, frightening incident it must have been for him to have this pointed out in graffiti on his luxury car! What quick thinking to call one of his many servants and instruct them to bring one of his other luxury cars to replace it before his beloved children could see!

If anything, “Where the Fuck Is Donnie?”, last night’s ep, underestimates how deeply, deeply satisfying it is to watch these smug rich bastards get their comeuppance. By all means, vandalize their car. Picket their office and throw shit at the people who pop out to shout insults back. Shut down their fancy-pants expensive-hobby restaurant and tear up their artisanal organic tax-dodge farm. We are under no obligation to believe, as the Axelrods seem to, that this is an existential crisis for them; their unimaginable wealth insulates them from actual consequences in a way that’s unimaginable to people whose yearly salaries are substantially less expensive than the weird cold-air bath machine Axe uses to psyche himself into stealing more millions. The very least they can do is suffer some inconvenience and humiliation, since economic justice remains a total pipedream.

I reviewed this week’s Billions for the New York Observer.