Billions Recap: Home Sweet Home - Vulture

Apparently, he was just getting warmed up for tonight’s opportunity zone bid, which saw Yonkers, New York’s native son pouring his heart and soul into revitalizing his old neighborhood, or “ancestral lands,” as he arrogantly puts it at one point.

(The use of Mötley Crüe’s “Home Sweet Home” didn’t hurt either.) I wasn’t surprised in the slightest that, after Mike Prince conceded his defeat over the Yonkers opportunity zone, Axe immediately reneged on his promise to have dinner with Savion Williams (Akili McDowell), the 14-year-old African-American kid who now lives in the billionaire’s childhood home.

While this episode had Axe wooing Kate Sacker’s businessman father, Franklin (Harry Lennix), as a partner in the Yonkers opportunity zone, it turns out that these two are also going into banking together — and Chuck, still champing at the bit to entrap Axe, is more than eager to follow where that trail leads.

As for Mike Prince, I think it’s safe to say that Chuck greased the wheels for his late-night conciliatory call to Axe.

As soon as Chuck found out Mike is Axe’s real enemy, he attempted to recruit the nice-guy billionaire.

But there is no way that Mike didn’t have an ulterior motive when he placed that 11th-hour phone call: I think he played with Axe’s mind just enough so he would abandon the opportunity zone project, allowing Mike to swoop in and save the town like the hero he’s fashioned himself to be.

This episode also kicked off a great Chuck arc courtesy of two words: Julianna Margulies.

Later in the episode, Chuck, having initially declined Catherine’s invitation to attend her lecture on his now-infamous speech (yeah, that one), reconsiders his decision and opens himself up to a discussion on his private life.

Finally, the last thing I expected to see at the start of this season was Wendy and Taylor forming a solid partnership.

To be fair, even though Wendy spent much of season four cruelly manipulating Taylor, season five has slowly built to this collaboration, so we might as well go with it.