The stylish cat-and-mouse game of “Billions,” which will eventually pit Emmy winners Paul Giamatti (“John Adams”) against Damian Lewis (“Homeland”), is the first new series of the new year to command attention.
Lewis plays Bobby Axelrod, a hedge-fund titan who runs his company, Axe Capital, with an iron fist. He can be good — he bails out a cash-strapped pizzeria owner from his old Bronx neighborhood — or unaccountably awful, settling 30-year-old scores with vicious impunity.
Giamatti is Chuck Rhoades, US attorney for the Southern District of New York, and — when a tip comes in about some insider trading connected to Axe Capital — Axelrod’s worst enemy. Clearly based on Eliot Spitzer, Giamatti is equally merciless in the pursuit of justice.
What connects both men in the show’s power triangle is Chuck’s wife, Wendy (Maggie Siff), who works for Axelrod as his in-house performance coach. Her job performance is nothing compared to the stunts she pulls at home, though. As dominatrix to her submissive hubby, she steps on him with a black stiletto heel, stubs out a lit cigarette in the soft flesh of his chest and puts out the fire with her own bodily fluids (use your imagination here).
The plot’s axis turns on the kind of double-crossing, blackmail and spying commonplace to the toxic world of high finance. The guilty weasel out of their crimes and the innocent wish they were smarter and more devious. As Chuck confides to his wife, “I wish I could be more human, but I haven’t figured out how to do that — and my job — at the same time.”
Giamatti has one of his best roles as Rhoades, a kinky avenger who will not compromise his principles even if it means sending a widower with two children to prison. At first, Lewis seems miscast as Axelrod. We really do not believe that he’s the guy who grew up in The Bronx, and his presence begs the question whether any New York-born actors were considered for the role. Still, Lewis is such a good actor, with a sleek, flinty edge that gives him a believable authority. And he has proven such a good-luck charm for Showtime that it’s easy to see why they wanted to stay in business with him after his Nicholas Brody was hanged on “Homeland.”
The real excitement, though, comes from seeing Siff (“Mad Men,” “Sons of Anarchy”) in such a meaty role. With her hooded eyes and deep voice, she radiates erotic and sometimes insidious intent. One senses that whatever Chuck and Bobby get up to, Wendy will end up having the upper hand on “Billions.” Wait until she steps into a pair of stilettos.