Prince sees himself as an ethical billionaire. Is there such a thing?

It’s an open question. There are billionaires who definitely do great things with their wealth, and their companies generate wealth for others, and they may be good people. I think the show is actually more interested in … There’s the cliché “Behind every great fortune is a great crime.” The other side of that is what the great fortune does to that person — what the power and wealth and resources do to a person’s soul, for lack of a better word.

In terms of my own opinion of it, it takes a big leap for me to imagine having that kind of wealth and hoarding it, keeping it for myself and doing whatever I have to do to grow it. I find it very hard to put myself in the shoes of someone like that. I understand greed and covetousness as much as anybody, but on that scale, I find it really difficult to conceptualize what would keep you underpaying your workers when you already have tens of billions of dollars.

I interviewed actor Corey Stoll about his role as Mike Prince, Billions‘ new antagonist/co-protagonist, for the New York Times. This should be in the print edition too sometime soon, so keep your eyes peeled!

SPOILERS AHEAD

“So this is what it is to lose,” says Bobby Axelrod. “OK.”

He’s talking to Mike Prince, the man who helped engineer his downfall — a decisive one this time. How do we know it’s decisive? Because, I think, of that concluding “OK.” (Also, Damian Lewis, who plays Axe, just made public he is leaving the show.) Until this point, Axe has always scratched and clawed like a cornered animal to fight his way out of defeat, whether at the hands of his legal nemesis Chuck Rhoades or his business rivals, like Prince. This time, though? He admits he has been beaten, and makes his peace with it.

So why does it feel like a loss for Chuck, too?

I reviewed tonight’s big, big Billions season finale for the New York Times.

Watching “Billions” may be a breeze, but watching “Billions” to recap it is not. Constant pausing and rewinding is required to catch the countless twists and turns of every scheme; I would estimate that an hourlong episode takes me an hour and a half — at a minimum — to finish.

Nice work if you can get it, but it makes covering even famously dense shows like “The Wire” or “Game of Thrones” feel like recapping “Blue’s Clues.”

And this second-to-last episode of the show’s fifth season is even more complicated than the average. The conspiracy to take down Bobby Axelrod by involving him in a shady cannabis-funded banking deal, hatched by his enemies Chuck Rhoades, Mike Prince, Kate Sacker and Taylor Mason, is as dizzying a display of double- and triple-crossing as the show has ever served up.

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

Chuck Rhoades is cooking eggs.

That’s it. That’s the scene.

For three uninterrupted minutes — without dialogue, without music, without so much as a single cut — the attorney general for the great state of New York cracks, scrambles, fries, flips and serves an omelet to his daughter, Eva (Alexa Swinton), and their guest, the billionaire Mike Prince. In “Billions” time, those three minutes might as well be an eternity. Suddenly, we’re miles away from the mile-a-minute patter and breakneck plot twists that make “Billions” one of the fastest-moving shows on television. For these three minutes, it is slow cinema, a cousin to the endless floor-sweeping and glacial soup-sipping of its sister Showtime series, “Twin Peaks: The Return.”

That this happens in the most momentous episode so far of the season’s long-delayed latter half seems like no coincidence. As the first installment to truly address the Covid-19 pandemic — it appears to be set after the initial quarantine stage, when people started making their way back to workplaces and family gatherings — it is keenly interested in the ways human beings connect. There’s video conferencing and FaceTiming, as well as spirited dinner conversations, an in-office date and an intimate phone call. Viewed in this context, the omelet scene is an attempt to slow things down and capture the vibe of what it’s like to pull an all-nighter with a colleague, share a joint and then fix an early breakfast for your daughter.

I wrote about last night’s episode of Billions, which contains one of my favorite scenes in the history of the show-slash-on TV all year, for the New York Times.

“He’s not dead till I say he’s dead,” says Bobby Axelrod of his decabillionaire rival, Mike Prince.

“Bobby Axelrod has to be wiped from the face of the earth,” says Mike Prince of his decabillionaire rival, Bobby Axelrod.

Heck yeah, says I.

“Billions” is never better than when its combatants (often a more apt word than “characters”) have well and truly joined the battle against one another, concocting complex schemes and building toward dramatic denouements for their rivalries. As this week’s episode drew to a close, not one but three worthy adversaries — Mike Prince; Chuck Rhoades; and, in something of a surprise, Taylor Mason — had all joined forces to take Bobby Axelrod down.

Will it stick? Probably no more or less than all their past attempts, including those that took place in this very episode. Will it be fun to watch? I would bet a decabillionaire’s daily ill-gotten gains on it.

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

Chuck Rhodes has shaved off his beard. But he wants to be clear: It’s not that big a deal.

“You look ready to toss your cap in the air at West Point!” exclaims his underling Karl Allard (Allan Havey).

Rhodes’s weary reply? “Don’t make a whole thing of it.”

My guess, and it’s just a guess, is that this new clean-shaven Chuck Rhodes has more to do with the vagaries of scheduling talent for the back half of this Covid-scrambled season than a decision made in the writers’ room. If your show stars Paul Giamatti, and if he has gone beardless sometime during the many months since you were last able to film, then by God, your main character will go beardless as well.

But “Don’t make a whole thing of it” doubles as a mantra for the entire … what should we call it? A half-season premiere? Season Five version 2.0? However you slice it, the writers have taken a steady-as-she-goes approach to the show’s return. No hard reset, no launching point for a slew of brand-new story lines — this is a standard “Billions” episode, which is to say it simply advances its pre-existing plotlines in dense and dizzying style, through crackling dialogue and confident performances.

I’m back on the Billions beat for the New York Times, starting with my review of the show’s big return last night.

Take a pandemic. Add the paranormal. Make it a uniquely American story of survival horror. The result: “The Stand,” Stephen King’s epic post-apocalyptic novel from 1978, a new mini-series adaptation of which debuted Thursday on CBS All Access.‘The Stand’ Review: Stephen King’s Pandemic Story Hits TV AgainDec. 16, 2020

Conceived in the pre-Covid era, the show has taken on new resonance since, telling the story of a weaponized virus that wipes out 99 percent of the population. But that’s only the beginning. The real battle happens afterward as supernatural forces of darkness and light — embodied by the demonic dictator Randall Flagg (Alexander Skarsgard) and the holy woman Mother Abagail (Whoopi Goldberg) — duel for the souls of the plague’s survivors.

Since the original novel’s original release, King’s saga has entered the pop-culture consciousness in many different incarnations, including an expanded edition of the book and an earlier mini-series adaptation. In anticipation of the show’s arrival, we’re tracing the story from its point of origin to its latest mutation.

I wrote about the many inspirations and iterations of Stephen King’s The Stand for the New York Times.

Looking back on this refreshingly ambiguous season of whodunit television, I think I’ll revisit Perry’s reunion with Sister Alice quite a bit. Before he gives up on the case entirely, before he takes out the stitch he saved from baby Charlie’s eyes and blows it into the Pacific Ocean, he tells Alice about her mother’s new ministry and wonders who removed Charlie’s body.

But however much she has questioned her own gifts, Alice is still a woman of faith. What comfort has digging for proof of the truth ever given Perry, she asks? In the end, both of them, with their diametrically opposed views of how the world works, will be alone. (She’s more right than she realizes; Perry has officially called off his relationship with Lupe, though he has finally admitted that her asking price for his family farm was a fair one and given her the land.)

Which leaves Perry with one final question: “Did you really think you could bring Charlie back?”

“I did, didn’t I?” Alice replies. As far as her mother and Charlie’s mother are concerned, the answer is, for all intents and purposes, yes. It’s not true, of course. But maybe it’s right.

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

What follows is admirably ambiguous. Bloodied from the chaos at the grave site, Sister Alice watches her mother proclaim Alice’s success in resurrecting the baby — and runs away, by herself, blood streaming from her broken nose, silk garments catching the wind behind her. Is she smiling in the episode’s final shot? Is it a smile of triumph or, more likely, one of bitter recognition of her mother’s skulduggery in producing a fake miracle in lieu of a real one?

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

One of the gifts this episode gives us is a side of Matthew Rhys we’ve rarely seen before: absolute fury. Perry explodes in anger at Emily after the courtroom revelation that she took her baby to a motel assignation with her lover — and Charlie’s eventual co-kidnapper — George Gannon, a fact she failed to divulge to him as her lawyer. He loses it again after Emily’s jailhouse matron perjures herself by claiming Emily admitted to the crime while behind bars: First, he imitates his dead mentor E.B. Jonathan (read: Matthew Rhys doing his best John Lithgow), excoriating himself for thinking he could catch the killer while working as a defense attorney. Then he vents his rage at E.B. for killing himself instead of upholding his duty to his client.

I reviewed tonight’s episode of Perry Mason for the New York Times. What a pleasant surprise this show has been.

It begins with the death of a lawyer and ends with the anointing of a new one. In between, this episode of “Perry Mason” covers a good deal of ground with nearly all of its characters, from the fed-up Black cop, Paul Drake, to the true-believer evangelist, Sister Alice, to the dogged legal secretary, Della Street, to the title character. It’s the hour when “Perry Mason” stops being an origin story and starts becoming the first proper Perry Mason case.

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

“Cops investigating cops? That’s a trip for biscuits,” E.B. says at one point.

Which leads me to my final point about this episode: E.B. Jonathan’s way with words. Aging, he tells Perry at one point, is a matter of finding “a nose hair half the length of your arm, half your friends in the cemetery and a million strangers on the street.” Truth, he says, “won’t move wind chimes.” George Gannon’s faked suicide note? “Donkey dust.”

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

It’s a bold choice to end the episode this way. But on this show, bold choices abound. There always seems to be some new weirdness around the corner, something stranger or sharper or gorier or more romantic or more unpleasant than what is strictly called for by the standards of a whodunit.

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

The flashbacks occur at intervals throughout the episode. They take us to the trenches of World War I — still without its even more savage sequel by the time “Perry Mason” takes place — where our title character is an American military officer, leading his men in a charge over the top. In the chaos of the no man’s land, the charge breaks down. Those who’ve survived German machine guns and flame throwers now must contend with a huge wave of enemy troops mounting a counterattack … and the lethal poison gas clearing their way.

As Perry flees, ordering his men before him, he sees that some are too badly wounded and maimed to move. Unwilling to let them suffer or leave them at the mercy of the gas, he takes his handgun and shoots them to death himself, one after another. When one of them begs — whether for death or a reprieve from it isn’t entirely clear — Mason murmurs, “Forgive me,” and pulls the trigger.

If it accomplished nothing else, this week’s episode of “Perry Mason” established why the private detective seems so perpetually ground down. With memories like that playing in your head every time you take a cigarette break, wouldn’t you look and feel exhausted? Moreover, it accounts for his dishonorable discharge from the military — and, according to his wealthy backer Herman Baggerly, his bloody nickname: “The Butcher of Monfalcone.”

Even for a private eye, a career for which an unsavory reputation kind of comes with the territory, it’s a lot of weight to bear.

I reviewed the second episode of Perry Mason for the New York Times.

I can’t think of another television show as contemptuous of commercial culture as “Awesome Show.” Using the fictional Cinco brand of products as a touchstone, Heidecker and Wareheim mercilessly attacked the snake-oil salesmen, disposable junk and corporate double-talk of a culture that treats people first and foremost as consumers — a frequent target of sketch comedy, to be sure, but rarely one assaulted with this level of crass vitriol.

A recurring series of ads promoted products that, almost as an aside, required all of the consumer’s teeth to be pulled out. Another line of products, called “Cinco Brown,” was designed to either stimulate, contain, or impede the bowels. One ad urged viewers to save money on eggs by hatching their own.

The most vicious satire of all: an ad for Cinco Boy, a child mannequin marketed to bereaved parents. “Isn’t he pretty?” coos the guest star Peter Stomare with sinister callousness. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, Cinco’s founders are murderers.) In moments of loss, when I’m as mad at the world for exploiting my grief as I am at the source of the grief itself, the garish gallows humor of “Awesome Show” makes it one of the few works of art up to the task of helping me express and exorcise my feelings. It may not be free real estate, but it’s worth a lot to me.

I wrote about my favorite comfort viewing, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! (???), for the New York Times.

Corruption, torture, murder, full-frontal nudity, foul mouths, a dead baby: “Perry Mason” boasts the full complement of HBO’s genre-revisionist techniques. But Rhys is the glue holding it all together. I can’t recall the last time I saw a lead performance this embodied, for lack of a better word; Rhys’s every glance, expression and gesture seems made of weariness the way Abraham Lincoln’s cabin was made out of logs. Credit must also go to the costume department, led by Emma Potter, who dress him exclusively in clothes that look as if they were pulled out of the hamper into which they were tossed three days earlier. When we discover that Mason bribes the mortician in order to steal clothes worn by people who have died in them, Yeah, that sounds about right is the only appropriate response.

And Rhys’s performance as Perry isn’t just empty, woe-is-me sad-sackery. Perhaps it’s his alluded-to experiences in the Great War bleeding through, but he comes across like a man who is the way he is because the awfulness of the world really, really gets to him. (“Worst thing you’ve ever seen,” the mortician tells him about the dead baby. “What do you know what I’ve seen?” comes the reply.) When Perry examines the baby’s mutilated corpse, delicately extracting a thread used to stitch the infant’s eyes open, the camera lingers on his face as he chokes back horror and sorrow. A slight tremor of the lower lip is the only physical catharsis his body allows him.

It’s that shot, more than anything else, that sold me on this version of the character and his journey through Los Angeles’s 1930s underbelly. Any show that kills a child owes it to its audience to take that killing seriously; this sounds like a truism, but such killings can provide cheap pathos and shock value in unscrupulous hands. Despite its Hollywood glitz and Perry’s Murphy’s Law antics, “Perry Mason” is, at first blush, a show that understands the gravity of what it has chosen to present to both its protagonist and its audience.

I’ll be covering the new Perry Mason show for the New York Times, starting with my review of the series premiere.

Directed by David Costabile (who plays Wags) from a script by Emily Hornsby and the co-showrunners Brian Koppelman and David Levien, this episode of “Billions” is replete with punchy plotlines and payoffs. Schemes are cooked up and pulled off in rapid-fire succession, ending with a declaration of all-out war. Thanks to a Covid-19-necessitated hiatus, the episode stands as an ersatz season finale, and as such it stands tall.

I reviewed tonight’s episode of Billions, the last for some time I’m afraid, for the New York Times.

Fakes, forgeries, phonies, fugazis — they’re all very much on the brain of this week’s crackerjack episode of ‘Billions.’ For some characters, faking it is all they know how to do

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

As a music cue, [Neil] Young’s plaintive ballad [“Old Man”] makes emotional sense, even if crosscutting between the two old men in question drives the point home a bit too hard. Young’s old-before-its-time voice erases any edge of condescension his youth might have brought to the material at the time he recorded it — he was 24, amazingly. It’s the sound of a young man trying to find common ground with one of his elders, and the song never reveals whether the effort is successful. Chuck and Bobby, two complicated men with difficult fathers, could surely relate.

I reviewed tonight’s Billions for the New York Times.

Wendy Rhoades stares at the man opposite her. And stares. And stares. And stares some more.

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