Thoughts on Things Seen

  I am, admittedly, behind schedule in watching the final season of Billions , the Showtime series that wrapped up its decades-long battle between a NY state attorney general (played by Paul Giamatti ) and his various opponents at a hedge fund earlier this year. Season 7 opens with billionaire Michael Prince ( Corey Stoll ) telling his right hand woman, psychiatrist & performance coach Wendy Rhoades ( Maggie Siff ), that he's running for President.  She concludes that not only would Prince make a frighteningly awful president, he's a threat to American democracy (sound like anyone you know?). And she has to keep this from happening. The entire episode sets out the goals of this final season. But THE scene - one of the best written, directed, and edited scenes I've watched in a long time - starts at the 18:40 mark.  Wendy emerges from her black chauffeur-driven SUV in front of Wo Hop, a hole in the wall Chinatown mainstay familiar to millions of New Yorkers (it's at ...