Billions – With or Without You

By: Jay Smith

As workers are putting away the birthday party tent and equipment, Bobby (Damian Lewis) awakes to a note from Lara stating, “You lied to me.” He jumps up, calling for Lara and the boys and then finally leaves a message for her to call him back. Wendy (Maggie Siff) is out for a morning run when Hall (Terry Kinney) stops her and tells her to get in the car. Bobby is upset at Wendy for telling the truth about their new work policy to Lara. Wendy asks to leave and before she’s completely away from them, Hall tells her he’ll contact or just show up if he has questions. Hall shows and informs Bobby of Lara’s (Malin Akerman) actions before she left and they can’t track her. Wendy gets back in the house and cancels her morning sessions after the abrupt shake down. Mistress (Clara Wong) is with a client and after she receives payment she leaves to go freshen up. When she’s out of the room, the client gets up, snags her laptop and runs out with it. Bobby calls Lara again and expresses his reasoning for lying to her. Chuck (Paul Giamatti) is with Minchak (Mary-Louise Parker) getting ready to be vetted. Sr. is lingering around until he finally gets the hint to leave them alone to start their session. Minchak goes over what she looks for first before asking her questions. Chuck answers “no” to a lot of the questions and promises to get an update on his marriage because the campaign can’t work with a “maybe marriage.”

Taylor (Asia Kate Dillon) is out getting their morning coffee when Bryan (Toby Leonard Moore) abrasively approaches them about working at Axel Capital. Bryan tries to start over but Taylor gets their coffee so they can be to work on time. Wags (David Costabile) watches Bobby pace back and forth in his office before finally going in. Bobby opens up to Wags about Lara leaving with the boys and Wags praises him for being a black swan when it comes to his marriage and asks if the siblings know about her whereabouts. Bobby tells him he hasn’t. He gets a call from an unknown number and answers it. To his chagrin, it’s Larry (Eric Bogosian) and he specifically asks for Bobby to meet him at his work release job with an extra gift for the information he’s going to give him. Mafee (Dan Soder) is going over Ben’s (Daniel K. Isaacs) numbers for the Klaxon recall venture and they aren’t adding up. Taylor asks if they are still on for lunch with Mafee and he tells them to bring their wallet. Minchak’s questions are getting more and more absurd and Chuck’s answers eventually annoy her to where she tells him he can’t control everything and needs to open up. Chuck takes the advice and opens up about being bullied when he was younger. Sr. comes in, assuming he heard his name, and Minchak ends today’s session and leaves.

Bobby is hitting golf balls when he calls Lara, yells at her for taking the boys, and defends his decision for hiring Wendy again. Chuck asks Bryan about his meeting with Taylor and they’re both optimistic on Taylor being willing to help them. Bryan tells him he found Casson and Chuck thanks him. Bobby walks up to a house, surrounded by officers, and Mike (Chris Cafero) opens the door. Mike is annoyed because he already told Bobby Lara wasn’t there and then he proceeds to subtly threaten him. Bobby calls Mike a good brother and leaves. Wendy calls Chuck and they make a quick juice date. After they sit with their drinks and discuss the kids’ tuition, Wendy comes clean about feeling lonely at the moment. A realtor is showing Mafee and Taylor a beautiful property and the amount for it floors Taylor, but Mafee putting their position in the company into consideration makes them wonder about renting it. Mafee then asks Taylor to give another look at the Klaxon numbers before he gives them to Bobby. They agree and they tell the realtor to give them until the end of the day for a decision on the property.

Hall gives Bobby an update and knowing the location of the go cart place, Bobby knows where they are headed next. Bobby arrives at the bar and of course Johnny (Kevin Breznahan) and Terry (Michael Stoyanov) have been waiting for him. They tell him where she is, but he has to not follow and give her space. He leaves and once he gets to his car he calls Lara to reminisce especially about a night they shared while U2’s “With or Without You” on repeat and pleads for her to call him back so they can work through this. Chuck is at an ice cream shop where he and Mistress secretly talk. She informs him her laptop was stolen and it is protected. A bottle cap hits the ground and once Chuck reaches to pick it up, Mistress steps on his hand causing old memories to rush his head. He gets back up and he expresses his want to see her again under different circumstances and she adds in once he gets proper permission to do so is when he can. Wendy goes into Bobby’s office and offers to help. He opens up to the type of woman Lara is and tells Wendy he intends to wait even though he hates it. Wendy leaves and Bobby calls Lara to propose the idea of expelling Wendy out of their lives for good.

Minchak resumes the bullying story from Chuck and pieces together that he was the victim. Chuck admits to running into the leader of his abuse later on in life during a baseball game and swinging a bat at his jaw causing it to shatter. Minchak tells him they can spin the story if it comes up and Chuck presents her with Mistress’ laptop. She asks if the person who snagged the laptop could’ve copied the hard drive and in a flashback we see the assailant. Chuck assures he didn’t and Minchak leaves with it to examine what she’s working with. Taylor walks into Bobby’s office and gives insight on why Ben and Mafee couldn’t produce the right results for the Klaxon numbers and gives a better solution. Because of this revelation, Bobby promotes Taylor making them chief of the analysts. Wendy is at the property where Lara and the boys are. Wendy wants to make it right but Lara thinks Wendy is the problem in the Axelrod marriage and tries to buy her out. Wendy iterates that money means nothing and admits to her that Bobby is scared because of her abruptly leaving him. Lara asks for advice on making it through this rough patch and Wendy tells her to forgive him if she can. Mafee asks for the Klaxon research on Bobby’s behalf and Taylor repeats they haven’t signed off on it yet. Once Mafee leaves, Taylor looks into Bobby’s empty office and picks up Bryan’s card. Bryan thanks them for the call and tries to be more welcoming this time to them. After Bryan explains the reason for contacting them, Taylor pulls Bryan’s card and reveals that Bryan has nothing on them or Axe Capital and leaves the meeting. Kate (Condola Rashad) asks about the meeting as Taylor storms out and then gets confused after Bryan says he’s no Ed Harris.

Bobby is at Bruno’s and Bruno (Arthur J. Nascarella) is cold with him because of what he’s doing to Sandicot. Bobby gets his meal and proceeds to trash it once he gets outside. Bobby calls Lara and completely loses it with her via voicemail. Bobby ends the call and then we see he’s at Larry’s job site. Larry admits he was kidding about the gift, a bottle of alcohol, because they randomly drug test him but Bobby tells him to live a little. Larry gives Bobby the information on Sr. getting involved in a new venture, Ice Juice, and Bobby thinks of a plan to crush him. Bobby thanks him for the information, leaves and we see Larry having a sip from the bottle he was gifted.

Chuck arrives at their therapy session and Wendy admits to not wanting to be there. Chuck is relieved and because of their afternoon outing, he invites Wendy to dinner and to listen to her day. Wendy agrees and then the two sneak out. Wags asks Bobby for an update and offers to cheer him up. He gives Bobby the paperwork he’s been waiting on from Taylor, and once seeing their signature he insists on giving them a bonus, the title of “Head of Research” and a new desk. They arrive at a restaurant and we see Antoine Casson (Stephen Schnetzer) is the chef. They catch up with him and Wendy wants to know how did Chuck find him before they toast. Bobby is at home alone having dinner.

After dinner, Chuck gives an update on his campaign progress and he asks about why Wendy was in the neighborhood earlier. She admits to being mean to an enemy who has been mean back but after the initial happy feeling of defeat, she had regret for the situation. Chuck tells her its okay to be human and to react the way she did. Chuck lovingly looks at Wendy and tells her he agrees with Antoine about her shaming the angels. Chuck drops Wendy home and they have a cordial goodbye. Bobby angrily calls Lara to tell her he’s never cheated on her and he’s had plenty of opportunities to do so especially with her friends. Before he hangs up, he gets a call from security on the house phone letting him know Lara just arrived with the boys. Wendy is sitting in the bedroom when she calls Chuck and demands he comes home. Happy to get this call, Chuck makes an illegal U-Turn to go back. Taylor meets with the realtor and signs for the property. U2’s “With Or Without You” is playing in the background as Bobby opens the door and is happy to see Lara with the boys. Bobby tells her he’s been calling all day and Lara admits to her phone being off. Bobby tells her he’s been thinking about the Thunderbolt and once Lara says Apollonia got blown up by a car bomb, it makes Bobby realize they really aren’t okay. Chuck arrives home and Hall has been following the two all night presumably. Wendy is in her dominatrix outfit and makes Chuck take his clothes off after putting a collar around his neck. After Lara enters the house, Bobby goes through her purse, gets into her phone and deletes the voice mails he left her. Hall watches The Rhoades house and we see the lights go off.