Well, that was a nasty bit of business.

One of the best episodes of “Billions” in recent memory, “DMV” — named after the government agency turned into an unlikely bed of low-stakes graft and influence-peddling by the Rhoades family — shows the depths to which many of the show’s leading players will sink to get what they want. Even if their desires are relatively high-minded, the depths remain the same.

I reviewed last week’s episode of Billions for the New York Times.

“When did I become Lex Luthor?” Mike asks Wendy plaintively. I dunno, Mike, probably when you decided to run for president as a bald billionaire, something the comic-book villain did over two decades ago. He won, too, if you can somehow imagine a United States of America willing to elect a wealthy megalomaniac as president. Try not to strain yourself.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Billions for the New York Times.

Let’s do a little narrative reverse engineering, shall we?

Imagine, if you will, that you are a both a trader and a traitor — a high-powered executive at a major investment fund, looking to fatally undermine your own boss in order to stop him from becoming the president of the United States.

Your Plan A, recruiting your even more dangerous old boss to stop him, has failed. You’re tired of waiting around for your performance-coach colleague, the ringleader of your band of mutineers, to generate a Plan B. It becomes clear that coming up with Plan C is up to you.

So you generate some short-term, medium-term and long-term goals for this plan. In the short term, you need something that will cost your hated boss enough money to rattle his cage. In the medium term, you’d like to generate doubt and dissension among his key employees, as well as elsewhere on the Street. In the long term, you want to increase the power available to a member of your own inner circle to make mischief — enough power, you hope, to engineer the fatal mistake that will take your boss down for good.

I reviewed this weekend’s episode of Billions for the New York Times.

I’ve enjoyed these last couple of weeks of comparatively low-stakes scheming among the “Billions” bunch, but they raise an important point. What “Billions” needs for its final act is a bit of financial-thriller legerdemain on par with the instant-classic Season 2 episode “Golden Frog Time.” You remember: the bit where it looks as if Chuck is crying because his big plan to take Bobby down got his own father and best friend in big trouble, only for the show to reveal he’s actually laughing because that was his big plan? It remains my favorite moment of the series, not to mention a moment I would point to as a reason I love covering television for a living. It’s not the fault of “Billions” that my expectations for its conclusion are that high, but they are. I hope the show rises to the occasion.

I reviewed this weekend’s episode of Billions for the New York Times.

Watching a good episode of “Billions,” which this undoubtedly is, is like watching someone expertly play a puzzle game — solving a Rubik’s cube, say, or beating a level of “Tetris.” You gaze in admiration as skilled hands slide pieces and panels from one place to the next until everything lines up exactly where it should. Chuck’s friends and enemies inadvertently guide him to the correct course of action. Wendy’s petulance puts her on the path toward a major breakthrough. Winston’s defection provides Wags with the fresh kill he requires. “Billions” makes it look easy, but if it were, everyone would be doing it.

I reviewed this weekend’s episode of Billions for the New York Times.

Long one of the most purely entertaining shows on television, “Billions” has always preferred to let its message about the robber barons who rule our world play out amid the beats of a well-made financial thriller over the more direct and unmissable approach preferred by heavy-handed satires like “Succession” and “The White Lotus.” If what we’re seeing in this premiere holds true for the series’s remaining episodes, though, the show seems to have well and truly gotten religion at last. It will spend its final hours depicting our heroes, and many of our villains too, battling to prevent a dictatorial billionaire from becoming the leader of the free world.

Bobby Axelrod is back in the Billions business and so am I, baby. I reviewed today’s seventh and final season premiere (if you’re streaming, Sunday if not) for the New York Times.

As a pretty much miserable guy who’s sincerely angry about injustice, Perry Mason is a hero for our time.

I reviewed the season finale of Perry Mason for the New York Times.

I was interviewed by student journalist Isaac Suarez Flint about the New York Times’ coverage of trans issues and the response to it of which I was a part for his high school newspaper, the Evanstonian. Isaac is trans himself and writes about the issue with astonishing courage and clarity. I hope you’ll read his piece. It moved me to tears. This is why we did it.

Perry’s not especially charismatic, as was Raymond Burr’s interpretation of the character back in the day. God knows he’s not very pleasant to be around, either. But he is unimpeachably dedicated to justice, which he’s determined to serve by any means necessary. No wonder this show is such a delight to watch! We all need a little Perry right this now.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Perry Mason for the New York Times.

The other organizers of NYTLetter.com and I have released a final statement on our exchange with Times leadership regarding its coverage of trans people. It can be read here. Thank you for your support.

I can’t remember the last time I shouted at the screen as much as I did during this episode of “Perry Mason.” I’m not kidding: I was hooting and hollering for what seemed like half the duration of this week’s installment. It didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped in the end, of course. But in the meantime? What a rush!

I reviewed the sixth episode of Perry Mason season two for the New York Times.

I’m a broken record on this point, I realize, but good gravy, the lighting in this show. This time we can credit the director, Marialy Rivas, and the director of photography, Eliot Rockett, for the way Perry’s cigarette smoke obscures his face as light streams through his blinds; for the near-blinding morning light that similarly illuminates Milligan’s office when Pete pays his fateful visit; for the cold blue-gray glow of the small hours when Paul staggers in from the beatdown Perkins forces him to deliver, a smart, stark divergence from the lighting scheme of pretty much every other scene.

I reviewed the fifth episode of Perry Mason season two for the New York Times.

Life, like a murder case, has its ups and downs. First, the down: Perry, Paul and Della have learned that the brothers Mateo and Rafael Gallardo have been lying and did indeed murder Brooks McCutcheon. Now, the up: Perry, Paul and Della all hooked up. Call it a glass-half-full situation.

I reviewed the fourth episode of Perry Mason season two for the New York Times.

I spoke to host Tre’vell Anderson with my co-author Harron Walker about our open letter to the New York Times regarding its coverage of trans issues for the What a Day podcast. Listen in!

After another hour spent in Perry’s company, I get the sense that injustice and tragedy are, to him, almost like a physical malady from which he suffers. There are times when he can simply take no more and springs into action, as he did with Emily’s case in the first place, and as he is doing with the Gallardo brothers now. It’s this almost impulsive zeal that leads him to stand up against the oil tycoon Lydell McCutcheon, whose goons strong-arm Perry into a meeting that devolves into threats. (Elsewhere in the episode, McCutcheon maims a man who comes looking to collect on a debt owed him by his dead son, Brooks, so we know he is willing to make good on those threats.)

But Perry is also capable of ignoring this kind of pain until it’s too late, then wallowing in it, even exacerbating it. Yes, he is the kind of guy who can deftly, gently shame the new case’s slightly pretentious presiding judge (Tom Amandes) into having the Gallardos placed in protective custody after they report finding broken glass in their jailhouse chow. But he is also the kind of guy who’ll deliberately drive his motorcycle at unsafe speeds rather than admit to Della that he may have contributed to his former client’s sense of suicidal isolation and despair.

Perhaps the sad tale of his service in the Great War — he was discharged after mercy-killing his own wounded men in the trenches — says everything you need to know about Perry. He’ll fly in the face of authority and society at large to do what he feels is right, but as that judge points out to him, he almost never does so in a way that will lead to a happy ending for anyone.

I reviewed the third episode of Perry Mason Season 2 for the New York Times.

You can take Perry Mason out of criminal defense lawyering, but you can’t take the criminal defense lawyer out of Perry Mason. That Perry discovers this with no evident chagrin is a testament to the truth of it. You don’t gain a sourpuss like his without a keen sense of the injustice of the world; on the evidence of last season, he has the legal know-how to do something about it, and he’s not about to forget it.

I reviewed this week’s Perry Mason for the New York Times.

Working off a script by Amiel and Berger, the director Fernando Coimbra — with Blanchard’s invaluable help — crafts a convincing and familiar 1930s Los Angeles atmosphere for this motley crew of strivers and sad sacks to inhabit; it truly is hard to notice the creative handoff that has occurred between seasons. We’re back in business with Perry, and so far, business is good.

I reviewed tonight’s season premiere of Perry Mason for the New York Times, where I’ll be covering the show all season.

That seems to be the case most specifically with Prince Daemon. Much of the fandom wants to see him, as you put it, wearing a white hat or a black hat, to the point that many of them criticized Sara Hess, a writer and executive producer on the show, for her less-than-glowing assessment of Daemon. Did you see this coming?

I’m having trouble understanding it. We established right out of the gate, in the pilot, that Daemon is a fascinating guy, but he’s not Ned Stark. So I didn’t see it coming.

To me, Daemon is the antihero of this story. He’s a character with a real darkness to him, who’s dangerous and charming in equal parts. I knew people would be fascinated by him and latch onto him, but I figured they’d do it in the way they did with Jaime Lannister or Bronn or the Red Viper. I did not think they would oddly apply this sort of super-fandom to him and try to justify every single thing he’s done as being intrinsically heroic. It simply isn’t. It’s not the case. Nor will it be in the future.

Nobody in the show writes in a vacuum. I’m the lead writer; I oversee everything that happens on the show; every choice comes through me. If it’s on the screen, it’s because I either wrote it or approved it being written. Sara Hess and I wrote 85 percent of Season 1 together. We did not set out to write villains and heroes in this. We set out to write interesting humans and complex characters who are hopefully compelling, but compelling doesn’t always mean heroic or unimpeachable.

I see Daemon as having heroic aspects to him, and I understand why people would. I mean, he’s incredibly charismatic, he’s handsome, he looks great in that wig, he rides a dragon, he has a cool sword. I totally get it. But if you’re looking for Han Solo, who’s always going to do the right thing in the end, you’re in the wrong franchise, folks.

I interviewed House of the Dragon co-creator and co-showrunner Ryan Condal for the New York Times.

Perhaps it’s too late at this point to ask, but does some part of Ser Criston still love Rhaenyra?

[Smiles ruefully.] First love is first love. I think everyone will always love the person that they fell in love with for the first time. From the first time you hear a beautiful piece of music, you’ll always love it, even if you’ve heard it a hundred times, because you remember that first time you heard it. So yeah, he will always love Rhaenyra.

I interviewed House of the Dragon star Fabien Frankel for the New York Times.

Olivia, I’ve seen a lot of debate over the end of this episode, when Viserys mistakes Alicent for Rhaenyra and tells her about his ancestor Aegon the Conqueror’s prophecy of a messianic “Prince That Was Promised.” She mistakenly believes Viserys is referring to their son, Aegon. Does she fully believe it, or is she hearing what she wants to hear?

COOKE We spoke a lot about this. There was a massive amount of relief when Alicent told Rhaenyra, “You will make a great queen.” She’s so over the fighting and having this ball of bitterness and anxiety in her stomach: Just let it go, Rhaenyra is the heir, this is fine.

When Viserys says that, I genuinely think she thinks he’s talking about Aegon, her son. And I think she’s furious. She’s like, “After all that?” But Viserys is on his deathbed; that’s what he requested, and so she must follow it through. Whether that’s unconscious wishful thinking, I don’t know, but that’s how I played it.

Emma, this is shifting gears pretty dramatically, but there’s a video clip of you telling Olivia that your favorite drink is “a Negroni Sbagliato with prosecco in it” that went viral on TikTok and Twitter and inspired a numberofarticles. Is this something you’re aware of?

D’ARCY I thought it’d be quite funny to be drinking one right now, but I’m not. [Laughs.] I keep thinking I should tell my mum that I’ve become a meme in the hope that she’ll be happy for me, but I’d have to explain what a meme is, and I’ve decided it’s too much effort.

I feel so embarrassed. Because in those interviews, when we’ve been at it for six hours, I’m honestly only trying to make Olivia laugh.

COOKE [Laughs.] Is that right?

D’ARCY No, I’m obviously doing Campari’s next campaign.

COOKE I’d be like, “Ten million pounds, please!”

I interviewed House of the Dragon stars Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke for the New York Times.