Chuck and his team draw in the net around Dollar Bill in the hopes of getting him to flip on Axe.
Axe, however, isn't terribly bothered, as he's currently either having a massive existential crisis or orchestrating an incredibly complicated power play for shadowy reasons of his own. Could go either way.
And that's really the thing that makes this episode work as well as it does – the way they handle the uncertainty around that central question.
To illustrate what I mean, let's take a look at what we think the structure of the episode is. At first blush this appears to be one of those episodes with two separate plotlines ticking away doing their thing. Chuck and his people are working on getting solid evidence to arrest Dollar Bill, and Axe appears to be shutting down his entire company to trade it all for a life of yachting and private screenings of classic film. And sure, to an extent that is how this is structured.
But then we look at the way that Axe's plotline intersects with Chuck's plotline and bank shots it off into an entirely new direction.
For somewhere in the neighborhood of the first half of the episode, Chuck is diligently and methodically putting in the work to build his case against Dollar Bill for insider trading in typical Chuck fashion. But then he gets the news from Weaselly reporter Dimonda that Axe is apparently totally, definitely shutting down his business and leaving it all behind, which would mean that Chuck now has a very limited amount of time left to 'get him'.
And 'getting Axe' is Chuck's entire reason for existing at this point. Letting him slip through his fingers is simply not an option. And so, the raid on Axe's office to arrest Dollar Bill has to happen now.
Which is an interesting plot development all on its own, but it's seasoned in an interesting way by the fact that we honestly don't know if Axe is about to slip through his fingers or not. If the facade of 'leaving it all behind' is just that - a facade - then Chuck is being rushed unnecessarily and is getting played. And if isn't, and Axe really is giving it all up to sail to the Galapagos Islands, how can Chuck possibly 'get' him in time. 'I don't know if this actually matters' is a really interesting plot dynamic, and it makes everything in this one so much more interesting.
Let be real about something at this point. We're on episode five of the first season of a show that ran for seven seasons. Even if we didn't know about seasons 2-7 at this stage, there's still eight more to go in the season we're currently watching. On some level we know that they aren't going to write Axe out of the show. It should by completely impossible to get the viewer to be concerned that this is anything other than a ploy on Axe's part to trick everyone else into thinking he's going to leave.
But the show does such a good job showing us Axe slowly convincing himself that he's earned the right to walk away and rest that we can't help but believe him. The metaphor of him trading his extremely expensive mountain bike (a friend of mine paid upward of $5000 for a very similar one. He and I lead very different lives) for the old beater bike with attached basket from his fresh egg dealer was a little heavy handed as visual metaphors go, but it did make its point pretty clearly. Then the new yacht, the trip to the Galapagos, the shots of Axe looking longingly at his new boat with the name 'The Good Life' literally painted in letters two feet high right in front of him. Dammit, they convinced me.
At that moment, looking at that boat, fresh from a screening of Citizen Kane from a proper projector and afternoon pool sex, there's no doubt whatsoever that Axe is all in on getting all out. It would be interesting to know what would have happened if Wendy hadn't intervened.
But of course, in the interests of Axe Capital, Wendy does intervene. And proves yet again how good she is at her job. Her suggestion - made both indirectly through Wags and then directly to Axe in person - that Axe owes it to his larger and most important investors to tell them that he's shutting down and will help them find other homes for their investments is a good one on several levels. Primarily, she's not wrong, those organizations, trusting them with those levels of capital, damn well do deserve the courtesy of being told about Axe leaving in person. That's just basic professionalism. But more importantly, and this was actually Wendy's stated goal, let's remember, having to sit down and actually say the words out loud to his clients makes the situation real to Axe. And Wendy is banking on having the situation become real will cause Axe to change his mind.
And here's where the irony really kicks in and the episode begins several of its ending twists. It's really only when Axe sits down with the head of the New York Police Union and tells him that he's shutting down shop that we completely believe him. He has no reason to lie in this situation, and Damian Lewis does such a good job beginning this scene as a man who's completely at peace with the decision he made. We weren't sure what was in his mind and heart when he was biking to buy eggs, but here it is iron clad certain. Axe is out. He's halfway to the Galapagos in his heart. Which is why it's so ironic that this discussion is exactly the thing - perhaps the only thing - that could re-ignite his passion for what he does. That could put him back on the path of running his company, which also puts him back in the crosshairs of a newly re-energized Chuck Rhoades.
And all of that is great storytelling if we'd just left it there. We just watched The Last Temptation of Bobby Axelrod in which he was tested by the possibility of just walking away and came through more himself than he was when he started.
And then the news report hits. It's a little confusing, deliberately, as to what the significance is of a telecom CEO being arrested for cooking the books at first. But then the show starts methodically piecing all of the clues that we missed together. The mysterious 'information' that Axe received at the start of the previous episode. At the time it was played off as notification that Metallica was playing a gig, or possibly something to do with the titular 'Short Squeeze', but now we know what it wasa really about. And we're reminded that when Axe began his quest to shut everything down, what was the first sector he divested? Telecom. It seemed like an arbitrary choice at the time, but now we know that it very much wasn't.
Was this episode showing us a complicated and underhanded scheme on Axe's part for shadowy reasons of his own or was it showing us his existential crisis.
It turns out that the answer was 'yes'. And while the entire company is busy celebrating Axe's grand 'win' on getting out of telecom for ostensibly understandable reasons before the entire sector falls, only Wags understands Axe well enough to see what really happened. It wasn't real at all. Until it was.
Part of me honestly mourns that Axe didn't get his Galapagos farewell. That's a sign of drama done well.
Bits and Pieces:
- Both Chuck and Wendy got a bit of short shrift in the main body of the review this time, but there's plenty of interesting stuff going on with them in this one. The way that the episode uses Wendy's different relationships with each of them to complicate the plot is really well handled and allows for some interesting character development that's left quietly just sitting there in the background. When Chuck is on the road in Iowa, he gives in to his desires and looks up a local bondage club on kinkplayfinder.com. I have no idea if that's a real site, and if blogger made it a link, do not click on it. While he's sitting outside the club longing to go in, he calls Wendy and has a refreshingly open and honest discussion with her about where he is and what's going on. Wendy then gives him permission to go in and phone-dominatrixes him through the experience. It's just so wonderfully decent of both of them, if that's the right word in this situation. Consenting adults, navigating their marriage through open communication. Love that.
-- Which makes it a perfect dark mirror for later in the episode when Chuck learns through Dale the spy that Wendy is alone in Axe's house with him. And you can tell that he doesn't trust her as much as she trusted him outside the sex club. And compounding that, the way that he straight up uses Wendy to try to get information about whether or not Axe is really closing down is just gross.
-- I'm not sure how I feel about his calling her to verify that she wasn't going to be in the office and thus wouldn't be around to get caught up in the raid. Bryan is very right, his conflict of interests on this whole situation is off the charts.
-- It's hard not to feel badly for the farmer in Iowa who leaked the information that the cow laxative was going to be approved to someone who he thought was his friend and had helped get his daughter treatment for her Cystic Fibrosis. Chuck displayed a level of cold bloodedness that was off the charts in that conversation. Of course, in his position he kind of has to be able to do that to be effective, but still. So cold.
-- Kate continues to go from strength to strength. Bryan's not wrong, she's good at everything. And apparently also super rich. Did we already know that? The glacial pace at which I've been doing these reviews is preventing me from recalling if that had ever come up before. If she did achieve her stated ambitions here and got to run for president, I would totally vote for her.
-- I get that it's part of their will they/won't they dynamic, but it's probably a bad idea for Kate to be a guarantor for Bryan for an apartment loan. That sort of thing in the workplace can get messy. Nice of her to offer though.
-- Would Dale, as some flavor of assistant DA, really be doing all that undercover work himself? That seemed odd.
-- Saying this as a Minnesotan - the concept of a hardcore S/M bar in Iowa strikes me as very, very funny.
-- Has Terri not noticed how hardcore the flirting vibe has gotten between Bryan and Kate?
-- There is absolutely no way that Dollar Bill is a volunteer firefighter. He'd have to live in a suburb far enough out to not have a full-time department for one, and he would definitely never make his call percentages with the hours he works. Sorry, personal hobbyhorse there.
-- I know I say this every time, but they still don't seem to know what to do with Lara. All she really does in this one is have sex with Damian Lewis in a pool, which.. You know what, Lara's life is fine.
-- You should definitely talk to your spouse before closing down your business, buying a yacht, and planning to run away with the entire family at a few days' notice.
-- All of that said, I absolutely adore Lara and Wendy's relationship. I was going to say friendship, but that doesn't feel exactly right. Like, they're friendly, and if pressed I suspect that they'd both say nice things about one another, but it feels very much like an 'employee and boss's spouse' kind of friendly. If that makes sense. I enjoy how they play that.
-- It was a great detail that they were able to pin Dollar Bill as having been in Iowa because he hadn't been able to resist claiming his hotel rewards points.
Wags, on employee relations: "Then it’s a good thing your feelings aren’t a fucking priority."
Quotes:
Kate: "It’s an enzyme they’ve been testing out in Iowa. Genetically modifies corn so that cows can actually digest without antibiotics..."
Terri: "It makes them shit better."
Kate: "Um, are you still keeping that stick of deodorant in your office?"
Bryan: "Yeah, you need some?"
Kate: "...no..."
Lara: "Did I miss us having a conversation about this somehow?"
Axe: "I want to feel like that once in my life. Like I’m saying, ‘fuck you’ to gravity."
Lara: "Didn’t that guy die?"
Chuck: "No one quits while they’re ahead. This isn’t France."
Wags: (Quoting Citizen Kane) "You know, Mr. Bernstien, if I hadn’t been very rich, I might have been a really great man."
Chuck: "See, right now, this seems like a friendly conversation, but it’s not, really. Because we all know that it could turn hard in a different direction. And that there’s days that I would push it there. But… I like it out here. And the two of you."
Kate: "I should suck at bar sports. Because I was always studying."
Bryan: "Yeah, but apparently you don’t suck at anything."
Wags: "A couple more days it’ll be fucking Lord of the Flies in here."
Wendy: "I think it’s time for one of your offsite team building exercises."
Wags: "Yo, bitches! Saddle up! Body sushi at the strip joint, on me."
Wendy: "In each of us, there is another self we do not know."
Wags: "Holy shit. It was real?"
So, Who Won Today?
Kate. one thousand percent Kate. She spends the entire episode just crushing it at everything she does while looking fabulous doing it.
Nine out of ten cow laxatives.
Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, retired firefighter, and roughly 78% water. You can find more of his work at the 42nd Vizsla. If you'd like to see his raw notes for this and other reviews, you can find them at What Was Mikey Thinking.
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