This is why we root for the rich

people as long as these people are, in fact, successful,” he says. “We are compelled to examine why grabbing power and influence is a stand-in for being a quality person in the minds of many people.”

The second season also introduces a unique challenge to that power in Taylor Mason (Asia Kate Dillon), a gender nonconforming character who starts as an intern at Axe Capital and whose analytical brilliance proves an indispensable asset. Operating outside he-or-she binaries, Taylor shakes up a business culture that’s hypermasculine and notoriously resistant to change. But in an office often playfully likened to a zoo, tension over Taylor’s presence is a certainty.

“We wanted somebody as smart as Bobby Axelrod in the room,” Koppelman says. “As we started to think about the character, we realised that we had an opportunity to introduce into Axe Capital somebody who looks quite different – who would cause people to, in a supposed meritocracy, react in a certain way. At the same time, we didn’t make it a message thing. We put this person into this world. They have these incredible skills. They also happen to be gender non-binary. We let that situation play itself out.”

For Koppelman and Levien, Billions continues an almost twodecade- long collaboration about the rogues in American culture, those men and women who make their money playing the angles. This includes the poker sharps of Rounders and Runner Runner, the thieves and casino brass of Ocean’s Thirteen, the high-end prostitute in The Girlfriend Experience, and Michael Douglas’ car salesman in Solitary Man.

Billions deals with dirty dealers on a much larger scale, as the firsttime showrunners have an expansive terrain of 12-episode seasons. But they’ve approached Billions with the same journalistic rigour as their past projects, drawing on conversations with hedge-funders who, like their other characters, exist outside the normal channels of society.

“We made studies of how these people in these positions comport themselves,” Koppelman says. “More than that, we thought about what was going on in their internal lives and the way people looked at them. I don’t think the world has made liars out of us. Though our show is a lot funnier than Trump.” – Washington Post