Although Prince is presented as the clear and present danger, it’s Chuck who frightened me more this week. Simply put, the man has gone beast mode. Despite signing an agreement to play along with Dave’s scheme and act like an indicted man, he engineers a public-relations campaign so successful she had no choice but to drop the charges, leaving her to rue their erstwhile alliance and making him an enemy. (I’d say “for life,” but no one stays enemies for life on this show.) Despite having helped put his one-time foe, the former attorney general Jock Jeffcoat (Clancy Brown), behind bars, he makes the man an offer so compelling (in the form of new cowboy boots) that the fire-breathing Jeffcoat records a mea culpa admitting he wrongfully fired Chuck from his job.
And despite having heard directly from the president — via their intermediary, Solicitor General Adam DeGiulio (Rob Morrow) — that there’s no chance he’ll get back his old U.S. attorney job, the exonerations plus the good P.R. make his reinstatement a no-brainer. Indeed, there’s an almost fiery swagger to Paul Giamatti’s performance as Chuck in this episode, a self-confidence extraordinary even by Chuck’s standards. What’s that everyone’s been saying about a man who believes he can do no wrong?
Indeed, Chuck reminds me of no one so much this week as Victor. Once described by Axe as “my stone and steely assassin,” he’s the most ethically dubious trader of the bunch, which is saying something; his mirthless, severe face gives him the air of a guy who could kill a man without raising his own pulse rate. Victor lands Mike the killer investment he’s been looking for — a purported miracle medical device — by blackmailing a doctor involved in its manufacturer’s research.
Who tipped off Prince to this problem in the making, prompting him to let this practitioner of the dark arts sort it all out? A hot shot political consultant named Bradford Luke (Babak Tafti), who spends much of the episode mentally sparring with Mike in order to feel out whether the billionaire is worth his time. Luke suggests that Prince’s route to the presidency runs along “the Eisenhower Path,” which means establishing unquestioned pre-eminence in his field. Mike needs to make a killing the likes of which the market has never seen, all according to strict moral guidelines. (This is the exact combination of goals a firm run by Philip and Taylor in tandem can deliver, by the way; that’s a smart bit of setup.) And if making an ethical fortune means allowing traders like Victor and Dollar Bill to behave unethically in the process, so be it.
Luke’s other concern is Prince’s wife, Andy (Piper Perabo). Their marriage is an uncommon one by most American standards, separated as they are by most of the continent in terms of living arrangements. They have a plan for that. But Bradford figures out quickly that their relationship isn’t merely long-distance, it’s also sexually open.
