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unproduciblesmackdown · 3 years

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crossposting billions analysis/musings here but now thinking about 5x08 kind of makes more sense with the context of like, whether that could’ve kicked off them specifically being concerned about loyalty / worrying about unpleasant surprises, since they obviously don’t expect to run into rian having another job, and then instead of going “hey so like, what’s up” to rian about it, they apparently start off strong(arming) a bit, since rian is also starting off bothered by the treatment, and, while we don’t have any reason to think that rian apparently possibly having been moonlighting catering the whole time was going to make her want to quit or have any other conflicts with her mase carb job, after taylor again tries to just go right to the flexing authority / applying pressure approach, now rian’s apparently unsure about staying at tmc, which doesn’t seem to have been true before, establishing that taylor’s reaction to “oh shit is rian Not committed to working here” by already sort of taking a somewhat antagonistic / punitive approach, one which was somewhat bemusing in the first place since there was no indication this had or would cause problems or that they couldn’t just like, talk to rian without preemptively taking that stance, and thus not put rian on the defensive as well / Be antagonized from the start, but they sure did, and it showed us that this was counterproductive, and that only when they both decided to start an exchange with a more conciliatory approach (quantciliatory: see: taylor & winston in 3x03, and then in their next meeting in 3x09) was the situation set up to be resolved, also thanks to taylor voicing their actual motivations in a somewhat unexpected offering of vulnerability re: their lore & also not just trying to push rian into this / hold anything over her head here really

also of note that now, despite taylor’s own trust issues clearly at play, they’ve repeatedly told rian she just kind of has to trust them, despite rian knowing she doesn’t have a lot to go on / can’t really do anything but wait and see if she gets burned by that, which, you know, taylor might have to do with wendy, who hasn’t even gotten around to her “then trust me” line. and, in the midst of these points, is outright saying they can’t trust people b/c they get fucked over, so.

and of course thinking about the entirety of s5 here & gaining & losing (& firing) employees.....rewind to 4x11 when taylor’s saying nobody has to argue for comp b/c the results speak for themselves, but is also asking people to defer bonuses &, in doing so, presumably stay at mase cap for another year, & winston points out that this is less just giving them all a choice & there’s pressure to defer & this suggests employees might be expendable / collateral re: losses tmc might take on if taylor’s commiting to an indefinite revenge jag against axe, a journey that requires you to dig two graves and neither needs to be mine....but he also does not quit, and mafee makes it about trusting taylor, which winston acquiesces to. also notable that lauren like, pseudo breaks up with taylor, but doesn’t, but takes her bonus now b/c if they break up she’ll have to quit, and none of these things really seem to bother taylor at all. then there’s 4x12, where they get to tell their employees they’re all the best & sexiest in the business & tmc is getting back on track, but when we see [all of tmc, apparently] in s5, they’ve presumably had to downsize, or who knows if some people didn’t want to go to axe cap....they kept all their named people, so probably it wasn’t necessarily about taylor having to deal with people quitting, but also probably people Had to be let go, which they not only don’t enjoy like, in general, but of course sucks when it’s their own employees & they would rather not have to downsize or be dragged back to axe cap in the first place, just seems like an Insecurity & Vulnerability Issues exacerbating matter overall, and, naturally, specifically about axe fucking everything up for them

then over the course of s5 you’ve got wendy being generally unhelpful in 5x01, making sure to not really put her back into helping taylor & the rest of mase cap out as part of her job without taking advantage of a chance to ingratiate herself to lauren, which lauren goes ahead & names for what it is. then in 5x02 it’s time to take advantage of taylor’s absence, pull a non axe cap employee over to take care of an axe cap mess, aka lauren, refuse to defer to sara at all and then deflect any responsibility for sara’s disgruntlement / feeling out of place as a result onto taylor, and then of course, you have sara’s sort of halfhearted attempt to voice her grievances to taylor, whose response not only highlights their own unhappiness but now sure definitely seems to suggest that despite recognizing lauren’s business decision to do axe cap stuff as A Good Opportunity, that’s included in things they’re unhappy about but also can’t do anything about. and then in 5x03 sara’s still unhappy & despite clashing a bit further with taylor, apparently taylor doesn’t consider that sara might quit, cue their “don’t worry, i’m not going to fire you” line before sara does quit, & evidently being thrown & unhappy about the fact that she has. & shoutout to their outright telling wendy they can’t trust her & she shouldn’t’ve jumped in and decided lauren should do shit for axe cap, which wendy evidently takes to heart by which i mean she passive aggressively deflects the whole thing and i am sure nothing has changed at all with her and she’d do it again if she felt like it.

then in 5x04 there’s the thing with mafee wanting to switch seats at the lunch table, aka sit with the axe cappers (even if it’s not that clear whether it’s Just a seating change or if it makes him more tied to axe cap re: the actual work he does, seems to at least partially involve the latter, for all intents & purposes) and while taylor does not express anything like “wow really betraying my trust here / this isn’t very loyal of you” they’re clearly unhappy with it, even if we don’t know that they’re actually upset with mafee about it, or anything

5x05 and everyone at least listening to winston about “we can’t and don’t trust wendy” even if nobody particularly cares if he’s fired, who knows if taylor was that concerned, but they at least put in Some effort in the form of stalling for time about it. just a bit odd if they cared enough to put in that nonzero effort but also maybe had no other contingency plan here, and winston’s pointing out that maybe they should be convincing him to stay on....like, yeah, why not? there’s no particular reason for winston to be singled out as Un Impact Fund Worthy, while apparently lauren, & for completely unknown reasons, mafee, are good to go. lauren telling mafee he has “nothing to worry about” to which winston somewhat incredulously goes “he doesn’t but i do??” does kind of sum that up lmfao like, yeah, sorry, but why??? and then there’s the fact that the oil divestment thing which directly led to this impact fund route came from a project winston worked on with taylor i guess, & which taylor decides to run with when, despite sara & mafee both voicing skepticism, winston alone is like “hell yeah we can let’s go for it,” and then, you know, winston also does not quit or anything after axe then invests in the shares that tmc theoretically could’ve. and wendy just got here and isn’t really citing anything about winston about Why he in particular has to be fired, and is figuratively Resting Her Case b/c he doesn’t get her metaphor correctly or w/e?? i see no reason tmc employees shouldn’t think wendy’s trying to isolate taylor / get rid of people who aren’t tied closely enough to axe cap over taylor.....and then spamming F for the fact that there’s this whole subplot that stems from this wherein lauren’s the one pointing out to taylor that they can’t trust wendy & to offer her like, a share of the company in the teens%, and then taylor doesn’t listen to lauren by offering wendy 40% and lauren doesn’t listen to taylor by confronting wendy & telling her she’d better not fuck taylor over, smash cut to wendy fucking taylor over in 5x10 there and lauren Not getting to take it out on wendy, and taylor not doing so either

but here we are still in 5x05, theoretically, wherein winston does just accept not being fired, and wendy’s bailing on the mase carb soiree b/c axe is whining at her to stop doing her stupid bullshit about her stupid life b/c he’s having emotions, so that’s great. and while maybe winston doesn’t need to trust anybody out here b/c apparently, unless ever discussed directly / otherwise, he Is just fine staying at tmc so long as he’s simply not fired, and taylor apparently presumes he will (not like they seem to worried about anyone else even considering quitting either, i guess), he also sure seems to have some people on his radar re: his own vulnerability, like, already Doesn’t trust wendy even if 5x05 is the first time she directly goes after him in any way, can point out that this is about taylor too even if, again, he hasn’t really been directly involved in wendy going after taylor in s4 or prior, & also he still would probably like some validation from taylor themself but will also shrug it off 4 sec later if he doesn’t get it, & for whatever reason may never be brought up in dialogue he sure is committed to working for them or he wouldn’t be here & stay here. & he likes rian, & doesn’t seem too threatened about like, not going “oh heyyy” & acknowledging he likes her actually, as soon as the soiree even, & then there he is in 5x07 having been negged but forging ahead with the determinedly amicability & just kind of tempering the “i’m Just Looking Sometimes, i’m Not Pressing” thing rather than being like “nooo i don’t have a crush on you” or anything. and also, in front of mafee during the soiree lol, and possibly now taylor & lauren if they inferred anything beyond “idk there goes winston operating in the wrong, too literal context / being overly earnest & spontaneous or something” about it....getting off topic talking about winston here maybe but originally the topic was “thinking about 5x08 in an additional/new context as of 5x10″ so guess the post has already gotten off lol

anyways winston’s not really being burned, except also he is (expressing repeatedly he doesn’t feel valued by taylor lol......) but also he doesn’t mind enough to like quit so it’s fine? and mafee might kinnnda have his back at times, won’t narc on him, might intervene if he’s being harassed / threatened, thanks guy. & rian seems to like him in some kinda way and you know, she Did jump in there & apparently truly singlehandedly of her own sole motivation save his employment, i guess? he may as well trust fall swoon into her arms immediately. but guess he’s just vibing out here, and really like, the way billions works, plot focus is dangerous & nobody really just has an episode’s focus of “and here’s [character] just having a great time! they’re so happy! hoorayyy” and even the attention of other characters can be bad. axe shouldn’t’ve looked at him, but do think that was probably just winston off the shits raring to be validated by anything and going “damn i was glanced at? big day for winstons,” and if other characters are writing him off, then they’re probably not also going to come after him (although you know. there’s 5x05!! but she did drop it quick enough i suppose) or be threatened by him in any way and Defensively come after him. i am off track here

anyways then 5x06, things are fine, nobody’s quitting or being threatened with firing, 5x07 they’re fine but also axe is fucking everything up and taylor has to deal with that / know that even [him not being able to be trusted to not fuck everything up For Himself] can fuck with tmc as well as collateral damage, then 5x08, as once stated way back at the beginning of this post, maybe sets off taylor having trust issues re: closer to home threats here, i.e. how committed their employees are, even if it Seems like they are (which, they probably are! i.e. how there probably need not have been any issue w/rian having this side job if taylor hadn’t kind of forced it as an issue) & taylor’s able to resolve it with a bit of vulnerability / dropping the [best Defense is a good offense] insistence

then of course there is 5x09 & seems like maybe it’s A Problem that not only did axe fuck things up for them after saying to their waist that he wouldn’t, but he also said it to wendy & in part b/c wendy backed taylor up, but then also axe went through mafee like well fuck things up for taylor or i’ll fire you, and mafee’s response may have been one that taylor understood but also sure like, had the implication that there’s nothing else he would have or could have done in the face of axe, either then or going forward so long as they’re at axe cap, which can’t be very heartening, and although of course taylor just realizes axe is the problem, when in 5x10 they’re clearly fucked up about not being able to count on anyone truly standing between them & axe / not siding with loyalty to axe vs them when push comes to shove, it’s not difficult to retroactively apply that to this situation with mafee & suppose that like, even if in that moment they didn’t consciously go “wow so i’d better be worried about this from other people too” apparently by the time in 5x10 they learn actually lauren’s Not guaranteed automatically staying with mase carb / them & that wendy, despite again a face to face conversation, is like yeahhhh fuck it i entrusted axe with this and i have no reassurance(tm) for you except bullshit nothing, seems like maybe the first [i’m unexpectedly vulnerable??] internal emotional dustup from 5x08 & then the much more obvious one in 5x09 wherein mafee’s just asserting it as a given that if axe wants to hurt them he will & there’s nothing for it has kinda coalesced & been set off here by first realizing lauren isn’t automatically with them & then that wendy’s just over here doing whatever making them all the more vulnerable to axe & then they’re apparently launched into very defensive mode about all of it, but they’re also clearly personally hurt about things rather than Just like, considering strategy or whatever, or yeah their directing their reaction at their relationship w/lauren & just cutting it off themself wouldn’t be so spiteful & yknow, maybe they’dve simply fired her but been like eh yeah sure go to axe cap but don’t give axe any tmc secrets and also maybe we should break up. meanwhile, if they can have one personal relationship blowup after having tamped down [being bothered] by issues in it for a good while now, it’s like, maybe not guaranteed that just b/c they’re not confronting mafee about anything here they’re not also tamping down [being bothered] which may Potentially blow up later.......do not want that

so congrats i guess to winston if nobody’s really bothered re: him lmfao, like, hey, then they won’t be Bothered(tm) down the line either......again with the like, taylor maybe trusts him to be Loyal b/c they’ve given him the least individual / personal focus here ever so like, if i Don’t trust you, i trust you lol....guy who’s just kinda Around, and is also kinda invulnerable(tm) for it, where rn his most vulnerable thing going on, which is uncoincidentally his most like, involved arc / thread re: character material, is Liking rian, and we don’t know whether that’ll go anywhere. if it’s a joke, that’s kinda underwhelming, but if it’s setting up a romance watch out, that’s where billions concentrates the theme of what’s lost / fucked up in the course of trying to play / compete in / win in this game, but wherein winston is maybe protected by the fact he’s Not really trying to be exceptionally ambitious / at the forefront of things & is instead just kinda out here vibing & rolling w/stuff, which is harder to narratively come down on so as to execute some thematic material....but which may also result in like, his not getting any relationships really, although if he & rian have this mutual affinity / kindred spirituality, why shouldn’t they get to be buddies, which is not so often crushed to make a thematic point as romances are.....also, let’s see him talk to tuk outside just the once, that went great, in 5x08 anyways. i’d say like, as is true of anyone amicable w/him, feel free to kiss but also everyone watch out with that around here. and that brings us back to 5x08 so may as well pretend that’s a definitive conclusion b/c the [series of interconnected billions tangents] that this post has been can go on indefinitely.

#winston billions #if you can believe it tl;dr the issue w/rian in 5x08 may have set up this thread w/taylor coming to a head in 5x10 there....

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