We just watched the new hedge fund drama 'Billions' and it's going to be Wall Street's favorite TV show
Our verdict: Wall Street is going to be obsessed with it and non-finance folks are going to love it too.
This is a rare accomplishment, as a lot of the time the Wall Street movies the industry loves are too financey for laymen.
Conversely, Wall Street tends to think movies like "The Wolf of Wall Street" that become mainstream hits are oversimplified.
"Billions" hits a sweet spot between the laymen and the industry folk. That's because it stays true to the show's tagline - "It's not about the money."
Instead, it's about men and their egos - something anyone can understand.
The 12-episode series stars Damian Lewis, who plays a hedge fund billionaire Bobby "Axe" Axelrod, the CEO of Westport, Connecticut-based AXE Capital, and Paul Giamatti, who plays US Attorney Chuck Rhoades.
The drama is a "pissing contest" between the high-flying hedge fund billionaire and the US Attorney with a perfect track record of insider trading convictions who's trying to take him down.
The first episode centers around whether or not the US Attorney will go after Axelrod. Whether or not he does hinges on whether or not Axelrod, who is known for his charitable work, buys a massive, showy Hamptons house while he knows the feds are watching him.
All you have to watch to understand what's going on is how Axelrod interacts with his dog. In one scene the dog pees inside the house. Instead of yelling at it, Axelrod tells his kids that the dog is just marking its territory to show other dogs who is boss.
"That's why it's called a pissing contest when two men stake out their turf," he tells his two young boys.
Later in the episode the same dog is lying down with a cone around its head. Concerned, Axelrod asks his wife what happened. She says the dog was neutered and Axelrod's face falls.
That's when he decides to buy the Hamptons house for $63 million in cash. Catch is, his in-house trading psychologist told him not to do it, and she's the US Attorney's wife.
What Wall Street will love about it is that the show is true to life (Spoiler alert):
- First, the show nailed what all the hedge fund traders wear - fleeces and loafers. That's the classic uniform.
- There's a punchline about Axelrod going to Hofstra while his smart (but not quite worthy) analyst went to Stanford. It's the age old street-smarts vs. book-smarts Wall Street feud.
- There's a shout out to CNBC's David Faber who did a great job playing himself at CNBC's annual Delivering Alpha hedge fund conference.
- Speaking of the conference, Axelrod got to go face to face with his nemesis - a guy who short squeezed him on a trade - while he was on stage. It's a nod to Bill Ackman vs. Carl Icahn.
- The viewer learns that Axelrod lost his entire firm in 9/11. That's something Wall Street still reflects on ever year.
- US Attorney Chuck Rhoades' perfect record reminds us a lot of US Attorney Preet Bharara's winning streak.
- There's the former trader-turned-government informant who's wearing a wire.
- Rhoades' wife is Axelrod's in-house shrink. An in-house psychologist is not unheard of on Wall Street. Most famously, billionaire Steve Cohen had one at SAC Capital before he was forced to turn it into a family office.
The show was written by Brian Koppelman, David Levien, and New York Times editor/CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin.
The series debuts on Showtime on January 17.