Billions

An absolutely uninspiring, jaded conversational piece. This episode is indistinguishable from pretty much any middle episode in this series. And the characters that can give it verve are either very few or don’t have much to work with. (08/12/2023)

The long pause was very noticeable. Paul Giamatti has aged about five years in one year and it is extremely visible. He's gone from a burly, chubby bureaucrat to a grey old man with good in his eyes. I really the allusion to the famous Heat , otherwise the twists are knitted with a hot needle without any deeper continuity and consistency. (08/12/2023)

It would have been more than enough if those 55 minutes had been condensed into the final five, where everything important happens.  The endless monotonous chatter is really tiring at times. (08/13/2023)

Good character psychology. Finally, in the jumble of dialogue fluff and questionable motivations, the characters start to emerge in a way that would be believable in a real world full of real people. However, the five minute cooking scene was either totally bonkers and some guilty pleasure of the creators, or it was so sophisticatedly otherworldly that I missed something. (08/13/2023)

The only episode of six so far that had a twist, a realistic framing of our world, and a great plot. (08/13/2023)

A finale that is surprisingly sober, emotional and at the same time a preparation for the next season. There was too much pulling of strings, but the final denouement is for the audience, or rather die-hard fans. (08/13/2023)

If the fifth season slowly stumbled into the finale, the sixth has been stumbling since the start. So many generic templates, clunky dialogue and twists that are often pulled out of thin were perhaps not enough in the first 3-4 seasons together. For God's sake finish the job and let our favourite characters have at least a little of that personality fluid. Between 2 and 3. (10/13/2023)

A fresh and entertaining episode that I didn't even expect, but the first shot of Chuck on the tractor gives a signal that something unusual is going to happen, and indeed it is the case throughout the beginning of the sixth season. There's a funny mini-battle with an aristocratic nobleman and his cannons, and a surprising maneuver by the new head janitor Prince that hardly anyone would have expected. If it continues on this relaxed, relatively unpredictable and entertaining note, this season has quite a bit of potential even without the main character from the last few episodes and, in fact, the driving force of the entire series. (08/16/2023)

And that's where we are at with the twists, which are downright pulled out of thin air. Not exactly the best way to succeed. And yet the main villain, Lazarra, is superbly portrayed. (08/16/2023)

The motivation to hold the Olympics in NYC is about as extremely far-fetched as the entire sixth season is starting to get. And if by some chance someone misses this episode, nothing much will actually happen. Only the traditional last five minutes are worth it. (08/17/2023)

Finally a twist that has a psychological underpinning and the creators work with it well and it all makes sense. If the character of Sacker takes hold well, this could be great fun now that the box has moved in such an uncompromising way. (08/17/2023)

The writers don't know which way to go, they bring in monks, teenagers insulting senators, weird plant-based burger reviewers, and a pretty lackluster plot with an interesting lawyer making the most unlikely career decision near the end. And to top it off, Prince puts his socks on at the end. A parody of a power drama. (09/11/2023)

Unnaturally slick, seemingly flawless, monotonous, this is also the problem with the whole sixth season. The only interesting thing here is Sacker in a tight dress, and perhaps diehard fans of Chuck Rhoades will enjoy his analogical anabasis, but that's about all that can be gleaned from it. (09/21/2023)

Actually quite fun, one of those rare episodes that works well on its own and isn't directly tacked on to another one. It stands on its own, has pretty decent character drama, a plot that spills from left to right, and an interesting femme fatale in the form of Mike Prince's wife. Sure, it's still the same theme, it's still kind of back and forth, and even the motivations are pretty hard to understand, but if that's the style it's going to be heading into the finale, it's easy to breathe. (10/08/2023)

Corey Stoll tries as hard as he can, but when the writers set up a few twists in 50 minutes, he can do whatever he wants and still the viewer just shakes their head in disbelief. The various moves on the chessboard are so stilted and inarticulate that they happen only for the purpose of the plot, rather than there being any real suggestion that they could actually happen this way in the real world, full of real characters. (10/10/2023)

A roller coaster full of slick dialogue that looks more like an advertisement for robots, but then Paul Giamatti comes in with his speech and you're willing to forgive a lot of things for this tired series, which is quite hard to swallow, especially in the last episodes. (10/11/2023)

Quite a tasteful respite where Paul Giamatti as the maverick Chuck Rhoades leads the troops again, all in the beautiful atmosphere of a rustic luxury country-club by the lake, which sets the stage to come out with more twists and turns and return to the battlefield. (10/11/2023)

A hedge fund revelry with a polymorphic structure, sometimes incomprehensible editing and skipping of important moments in the story and character development and the final twist? Fincher should look at this. (10/13/2023)

One big wannabe dramatic charade with crypto magic boxes, throwing billions of USD left and right, all in a retrospectively cut episode where nothing makes much sense and the screenwriting ineptitude hides behind dense, wannabe sophisticated dialogue. (10/13/2023)

If anyone was expecting back to basics and the definitive elimination of "paper dialogue" and endless speeches and annoying metaphors with the seventh season, they will be sorely disappointed. It continues, give or take, in the rhythm of the tired sixth season, and even the main attraction, the return of Bobby, is delivered rather sporadically in a supporting role. The over the top crazy finale just shows the total inability of the creators to come up with a story that frames reality and doesn't edge on the fictional world in the style of Ocean’s Eleven, and even most of those guys had more charisma than the robots here. (02/10/2024)