‘Billions’ Season 6, Episode 8 Recap: Games Over

Season 6, Episode 8: ‘The Big Ugly’

“What’s the only thing worse than not getting what you want?” Chuck Rhoades asks.

“Getting what you want but having it ripped from your hands,” replies his lieutenant, Dave Mahar.

Chuck laughs. “It’s like I hired my own twin.”

Chuck and Dave are very much on the same page when it comes to their battle against Mike Prince in this episode. To them, Prince’s success in securing the 2028 Olympic Games for New York City last week wasn’t the end of the battle — it was just the beginning. And this time, they played to win.

It was almost easy, the way they put the kibosh on all of Prince’s plans. Step 1: Take advantage of the wee-hours voting scramble at the end of New York’s legislative session — the so-called Big Ugly of this week’s episode title — to introduce a provision that will close the carried-interest loophole. If passed, it will effectively raise the mega-rich’s tax burden to a whopping 50 percent.

Step 2: Gather the governors of New York and its neighboring states over dinner to make it look as if they’re agreeing on an interstate compact that will prevent the mega-rich from simply decamping to other locales.

Step 3: Theatrically reveal this gathering to a gaggle of Prince’s mega-rich compatriots, including the former Treasury secretary Todd Krakow, the real estate magnate Bud Lazarra, and the transit expert Sruthi Reddy (Sulekha Ebelle). (“Welcome to [expletive] Cuba, kids,” Krakow says, with characteristic capitalistic bluster.)

Then present them with a simple quid pro quo: Chuck will have the provision yanked if they proclaim publicly that bribery was involved in Prince’s Olympic bid. (Bribery was involved in Prince’s Olympic bid, but under enough layers of plausible deniability that basically only Wags knows it for sure. In other news, you may be shocked — shocked — to learn that gambling goes on in certain drinking establishments in Casablanca.)

And just like that, poof, the Olympics are gone. All of Prince’s grand plans, from personally running a marathon to promote the Games to moving back in with his wife, go up in smoke. And we’re left with this usually jovial figure staring furiously into the distance. It’s a pose mirrored by Chuck, who surely anticipates repercussions.

One such repercussion comes in the form of professional woes for his ex-wife, Wendy. Prince had promised her a gig as the head of the American performance-coach team, and she had already hired the soccer star Megan Rapinoe to be her No. 2. But when news of the bribery scandal breaks, Wendy literally dumps binders full of prep work into the trash.

Wendy has seemed a little lost this season, as the end of her personal and professional relationship with Bobby Axelrod left her at loose ends, narratively speaking; I’m hoping that watching her dreams once again go up in smoke at Chuck’s hands will bring renewed fire to the character.

Taylor Mason is also back-footed in this episode, but deliberately so. When Prince directs his employees to free up capital in order to pursue big new plays, Taylor feels squeezed out by the hot shot new recruit Philip, who has out wunderkinded the firm’s former wunderkind. So Taylor goes all in on a — you’ll pardon the pun — fly-by-night hypersonic airline start-up that promises to get players and fans to the Games in record time.

But Taylor’s Jiminy Cricket, Rian, smells a rat. When she warns Taylor that it’s too big a play, she is summarily rebuffed. And here comes the part where Wags — that’s right, Wags — winds up being the voice of reason. He and Rian wind up partners in a scheme wherein he continues to maintain his secret suite in the Pierre hotel behind the back of his inamorata, Chelz (Caroline Day). Rian agrees to let him register the suite in her name, only to have Wags discover her there later, ensconced a therapeutic face mask with a bag of Cheetos, debating what to do.

Wags’s advice to Rian: Go to Taylor and speak up about her findings regarding the airline, which reveal that its science is entirely bogus, even dangerous. Rian’s advice to Wags: Don’t keep secrets from the woman you love, and divest yourself of the secret suite.

Both of them wind up doing what they’re told, to positive effect. Rian saves Taylor’s bacon — the cratering of New York City’s Olympic bid provides the perfect cover for divesting, and Philip even helps — while Wags earns major Brownie points in his relationship. You’re left wondering why more characters on “Billions” don’t simply cooperate. Can’t we all be gold medalists in this game we call life?

Loose change:

• Your wrestling reference of the week: A lengthy quote from one of the sport’s great talkers, Dusty Rhodes, delivered by Mike Prince to, of all people, Gayle King, appearing as herself.

• “Life is a sprint — you just hope it’s a long one”: words of wisdom from the volleyballer Gabrielle Reece, also appearing as herself.

• “This doesn’t have to be a competition,” Philip tells Taylor at the tail end of a lengthy metaphor involving Evel Knievel’s ill-fated attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon. This is the kind of thing people who do believe it has to be a competition say to people they think they’re beating.

• When dealing with the Olympics honcho Katerina Brett (Jennifer Roszell), Chuck embarks on a lengthy analogy involving “high-grading” bears, which before hibernation eat only the choicest parts of the salmon they catch, leaving the rest to rot. To Chuck, billionaires like Prince are the bears, and we civilians are the salmon. I’m not quite sure what that makes Chuck.

• Gov. Bob Sweeney of New York goes full Vizzini from “The Princess Bride” while trying to determine whether Chuck intended his invitation to the big dinner to be accepted or declined. Unsurprisingly, he guesses wrong.

• Chuck and Dave: The New York attorney general’s office is one Vera short of the full “When I’m Sixty-Four.” (Sorry, Karl: Sir Paul never stipulated you as one of his grandchildren.)

• This episode leans hard on Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’s “Empire State of Mind,” first for Mike and, later, for Chuck — the sound of winning (or at least thinking so) in New York City.