Friday Night Law: Billions is Legit
As far as television is concerned, the last few weeks of my life have been consumed with Netflix’s Making a Murderer. I’ll get into this much more on the upcoming return of the BingeCast. When it was over I was left with a void unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I was convinced all I had to do was sit in a dark corner and wait until Banshee or Game of Thrones started up. I’ve recently started to consider the Golden Age of television is trailing off. The majority of the greats have ended (most badly) and even with the emergence of things such as Mr. Robot, Jessica Jones, and Fargo the last couple years, it seems the superiority of the small screen is getting slightly less noticeable. HBO doesn’t even have a drama on right now – what the fuck is that? And then somebody released the pilot episode of Billions early and some of my faith was restored. Welcome to my new shit.
There was no doubt I was watching this show regardless of it’s hype. I love Paul Giamatti with a passion. Whether he’s playing Pig Vomit in PRIVATE PARTS or voicing a fat snail in TURBO, I will watch. What I didn’t realize was how familiar the rest of the cast will be. To put it plainly, they’ve seemed to recruit an all star cast of People Who Have Died Horribly on Other Shows I Watched. It’s brilliant. Let me break it down for you.
Brody, himself, Damien Lewis is the main rival for Giamatti and their back and forth is going to be legendary. This is a charismatic Brody. A cock-sucking douchebag Brody with more than enough money to be the world’s biggest asshole. Lets face it, he’s always going to be Brody so just deal with it.
“Fucking Tara is in this?” My exact words when she showed up. And she’s pretty un-Tara, if that’s a thing. It is, shut up. Maggie Siff drops the glum mystery she brought to SOA and fits perfectly as a go-between voice of reason here. She’s banging one (maybe both), is a successful and strong personality, and actually says more than 1-2 sentences in a row. Who knew?
By the time Gale (David Costabile) shows up I was starting to giggle. Did everyone have their characters killed off to be a part of this show? Does this show take place in TV Heaven? Am I drunk again? Yes, to all of this.
Okay, my gathering of other TV characters theory is gone to shit. Dale (Jeffery DeMunn) was eaten by a zombie on The Walking Dead. So, even if this was weird TV Heaven, Dale would be a zombie. Imagine if he’s actually a zombie on this show? Here he is giving procedural law advice while secretly waiting to eat your face. I just made this show even better than it is.
Now they’re going deep and getting personal. Tim (Terry Kinney), from Oz is in this fucking show too? Has someone been watching over my shoulder for the past 15 years and just picking random awesome characters from shows that I obsessed with at one point or another? Yes, they have. This is a fact I’ve convinced myself of over a couple shots of chocolate vodka and eleven beers.
The creepy glasses guy from Daredevil too? C’mon, man. There’s nobody on this show I can’t link to some other great show I once watched religiously. Call it Six Degrees of Law’s Work Playlist. Call it that!
Anyway, before I burst a head vein, you put all these throwbacks together and add people like Malin Ackerman and I’m more than interested. Like I said before…. Welcome to my new shit. It’s the same as the old shits.