The Kingmaker

Billions 2×8

& Rhoades, Sr.: Now, some people, when aging a cigar, keep it at 70 percent humidity. That mellows the Puro. I, of course, want no such thing. I take it to 80 percent ’cause I prefer...
    Chuck: The funk.
    Rhoades, Sr.: Exactly right.

& Chuck: We don’t have kings, Dad. We live in a democracy.
    Rhoades, Sr.: You sound like a fucking hippie.

& Wags: Foley won’t talk to you. He won’t even talk to me.

& Bryan: No, I’m out of the guessing-what-Chuck-Rhoades-wants business. My new line is listening to what he actually says, and his standing directive is stay clear of Axelrod, so that’s what we’re gonna do.

& Axelrod: You’re more afraid of him than you are of me...

& Axelrod: .... A billion dollars.
    Domingo: Are you offering me that?
    Axelrod: No. I’m not fucking insane. But you would have taken it.

& Bryan: Axelrod banished you. He made you a Ronin.

& Bryan: ... All because you pledged yourself to an unworthy lord. Axelrod lacks five of the eight virtues of the Bushido.
    Dr. Gus: .... Six. Oftentimes, he wasn’t even polite.
    Bryan: Under these circumstances, honor doesn’t demand silence or self-harm. It demands vengeance.

& Wendy: How can I help you?
    Taylor: I have to tell you, I’ve had 927 hours of therapy.
    Wendy: So you’ve seen... cognitive, humanistic, probably some holistic... What do you think you need?

& Taylor: Since Axe likes me, other people do, or pretend to.
    Wendy: Why do you think he likes you?
    Taylor: One of the two reasons anyone likes anyone else. Either they recognize a part of themselves, or they see something they can use. In this case, I imagine it’s both.
    Wendy: There’s another reason people like each other. They see something they’re lacking, and they want to be near it.

---

& Taylor: I don’t like to lie. To myself, to others. I’ve been there, and I’m past that.
    Wendy: Well, then encourage him without words. Let him know you care.
    Taylor: How?
    Wendy: ... Just buy him something.

& Chuck: You know what it takes to find a truffle? A hog, a dog, whatever keenly scented, carefully trained animal gets the assignment, spends a lifetime traipsing through the dark, sniffing out the slightest aroma. And only then the digging begins. And what do you think they’re digging through?.. Shit. That’s the thing we don’t say much about, right? The things we most value, the things we pay most dearly to ingest are grown in shit.
    Ira: What the fuck are you talking about?

& Chuck: .... Or you can step aside and explain that you have looked at the future, and where we’re going, «We need Rhoades.»

& Axelrod: Would you mind telling me who?
    Jack Foley: Inelegant of you to even ask.

& Axelrod: You could have written something more stylish.
    Jack Foley: It’s not supposed to be stylish. It’s supposed to make you feel a little bit ill, like an out-of-season oyster.

& Chuck: So, what’s the trick?
    Jack Foley: The trick? Hmm. Well, like most, it’s bracingly simple. You pick the right man, and then you get him the fuck out of his own way so people can actually see him.

& Jack Foley: Elections aren’t about ideas. Elections are about candidates. And candidates are about what’s in here.

& Jack Foley: I am not going to ask you. You can’t think it works that way.
    Chuck: Jack. Will you make me governor?

& Jack Foley: Whatever’s meant to happen always does.

& Rhoades, Sr.: You know the joke about the two bulls on top of the hill and the cows down below?
    Chuck: The young bull wants to run down and fuck one. And the old bull says, «Let’s walk on down and fuck ’em all.»
    Rhoades, Sr.: That has been repeated so many times in movies, TV shows. It’s taken as received wisdom, except the thing is you can’t. Nobody gets to fuck ’em all. You got to choose which one you’re gonna fuck, and then... fuck her good.

& Axelrod: You know, they say that a boy never really becomes a man until he’s buried his father...

& Rhoades, Sr.: Maybe in the end, you’re the one guy that does get to fuck ’em all.

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