‘Billions’ Recap Reality Index: Season 3, Episode 3 (“A Generation Too Late”)

The recap is back! Welcome back to the Billions Recap Reality Index, where every week we tally a list of events from each episode that we found to be either too real to fail or as fake as a toxic asset’s triple A rating, scored on our completely subjective point system.

This week we provide you with due diligence on the third episode of Season 3, “A Generation Too Late.”

In Billions Season 3 Episode 2, Axe had been plotting on a way to use “straw fund managers” to run money while he was jammed up by an agreement to give up trading. This week, we see him try to make that happen. Meanwhile, we see fear and loathing at Axe Capital as everyone there deals with the existential dread brought on by the newest threat to the hedge fund trader, the rise of quants and algorithms.

Will Axe find a home for his secret $2 billion? Will Taylor turn Axe Capital into Renaissance Technologies and replace the traders with MIT PhDs? Will Dollar Bill reign supreme as the undisputed fleece vest king? Let’s go over the numbers and find out.

THE BILLIONS RECAP REALITY INDEX

REALER THAN A US ATTORNEY FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT ON A POWER TRIP THINKING HE’S THE LEADER OF THE RESISTANCE

• A gold digger who loves truffles. Nailed it.
  PLUS 1
• Faced with the possibility they might be left with only $300 million in their bank account —the horror!— Lara Axelrod is shocked and says it might not be enough. Once you get used to that UHNW lifestyle you can’t go back.
  PLUS 1
• Traders at the fund getting anxiety from the arrival of the quants. Too real.
  PLUS 1

• Dollar Bill rocking the fleece. That’s always good for a free PLUS 1.
• The cardboard box cube Taylor uses to test the quant is so real. You can get everything from word problems to a Rubik’s Cube thrown at you interviewing with a fund.
  PLUS 1
• The bullshit spiel the quant gives Taylor about combining the human edge with the quant edge is such a typical bs pitch.
  PLUS 1
• Chuck’s buddy has hit hard times and is hitting a Gray’s Papaya for cheap eats.
  PLUS 1 (also god DAMN is Axe a savage calling him out for it)
• Ben Kim storming into Mafee’s session and exclaiming his mother told him he should have gone into coding instead of applied mathematics at Stanford is hilarious and real.
  PLUS 1
• Of course Connerty is a Fordham hard-on.
  PLUS 1
• Axe sets up the meeting at the Whitney Museum, which would be just a quick walk from his new bachelor pad in the city.
  PLUS 1
• Axe talking to a fund manager hurting with redemptions is so real. He’s complaining that he only bought art his advisor told him to, not because he liked it. Now he’s nervous realizing $40 mil won’t be enough to live off of, and Axe lets him know how right he is when you count private school for the kids and the lifestyle you’ve gotten accustomed to.
  PLUS 2
• The discussion between Taylor and Mafee about the existential crisis Mafee feels and a world where the quants have gotten the upper hand in the battle for an edge is perfection.
  PLUS 2
• Culleen’s tavern does look like a shithole divebar under an overpass in Queens.
  PLUS 1

• Charles being a dick about Chuck’s 3rd place trophies is perfect.
  PLUS 1
• Of course Wags is a meathead Lehman alum.
  PLUS 1
• The new regime at the Justice Dept is more Breitbart than New York Times with how it views issues.
  PLUS 1
• I love Mafee being a tryhard gunner staying late when everyone else dipped out of the office by 7. Oh well, at least he gets to take the car service home.
  PLUS 1
• An older divorcee proposing to his much younger girlfriend even though he knows she only loves him if he has money. What a dumb bastard. And real.
  PLUS 1

TOTAL POINTS FOR REAL: PLUS 20 (!)

FAKER THAN A FUND MAGICALLY HIDING TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS BY USING BITCOIN

• The quant being interviewed offers to create an algorithm modeled after Taylor’s trading pattern, and to execute it 100 times faster. That is really weird since the idea is to have the model based on pricing of securities being traded and/or patterns in the trading of them, not on the behavior of an individual at the fund.
  MINUS 2
• Axe meeting in public with the Trustee and his straw fund manager is totally reckless for someone not trying to be caught doing what he’s doing.
  MINUS 2

• Also the Trustees decided to fork over money to a fund by meeting the CIO at night? The fund’s investor relations team would have handled that, especially with the amount of due diligence the trustees would demand given that his fund is in a tailspin.
  MINUS 3
• The idea that the profits from Axe’s straw fund managers can just be converted into crypotcurrency to make them magically disappear is bullshit. There’s a reason thousands and thousands of attorneys have employment due to specializing in anti-money laundering laws.
  MINUS 3

TOTAL POINTS FOR FAKE: MINUS 10

OVERALL SCORE FOR “A GENERATION TOO LATE”: PLUS 10

OVERALL SCORE FOR BILLIONS SEASON 3: PLUS 20

A PLUS 10! That’s a pretty monster finish and the writers really deserve a lot of credit for how grounded in reality this week’s episode was. Beyond just the technical score, though, this episode of Billions deserves some extra recognition: whether it’s Axe deviously using the engagement ring to close the deal, or Dake now seemingly corrupted by Chuck’s influence lecturing Connerty on loyalty, or watching Taylor confidently grow into their role of CIO and deciding to build a quant squad in house, there is a lot of richness to these characters. Another thought that occurred to me after seeing Dake fully embrace the Chuck approach was there is not “good guy” left on Billions. Every character exists in shades of gray between good and bad, flawed and human instead of a black and white caricature.

They’ve had two seasons to develop these shows and it really feels like more than ever before the show is hitting on all cylinders, it’s a joy to watch, and it’s getting to where you can argue it’s the best drama on TV (sorry Game of Thrones).

So where do we go next week? Will Axe’s plan to use straw fund managers work? Will Chuck finally get caught by Connerty for his family’s role in trapping Axe? Will anyone break the record for 20 grams of truffle on a single plate of pasta? Stick with the recap and see if Billions can keep the positive streak going or if the irrational exuberance comes to an end.

Comfortably Smug is a government relations professional with a focus on the financial services industry. He can be found on Twitter with his musings on all things finance and politics at @ComfortablySmug

Watch Billions Season 3 Episode 3 ("A Generation Too Late") on Showtime