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Season 5, Episode 6: ‘The Nordic Model’Fakes, forgeries, phonies, fugazis — they’re all very much on the brain of this week’s crackerjack episode of ‘Billions.’ For some characters, faking it is all they know how to do.Take Spyros, Axe Cap’s pompous compliance officer. (Compliance? Please!) He becomes a target of mockery for wearing a fake pin for the high-IQ group Mensa, fronting as if he had taken and passed the membership test. A thoroughly annoyed Bobby Axelrod rips the pin off his lapel and chucks it; Spyros spends much of the ensuing scene on his knees, quietly searching for it in the background.But recovering the bogus pin is just a stopgap measure. Now determined to prove his detractors wrong, Spyros sets out to take the test and earn his membership the hard way. What he doesn’t realize is that his co-workers, dreading the man’s inevitable outbursts of pique and pettiness should he come up short, have hacked the exam and are entering (mostly) correct answers when he inevitably gets them wrong. (Shout-out to Mafee, the project’s mastermind, who aces every question in seconds.)Spyros’s victory lap when he finds out he’s earned his way into the group is so insufferable I was convinced someone would reveal the ruse, but for now the secret is safe. He has no idea his triumph is as phony as … well, everything else about him.His boss, Bobby, has fakes on the brain as well. With the help of his underling Danny Margolis (Daniel Cosgrove) and his dirty-deeds specialist Victor Mateo (Louis Cancelmi), Bobby has been storing replicas of his art collection in a free-port tax haven, reporting them as the genuine article while secretly keeping the real paintings in his residences. But a law-enforcement raid sends Axe and his merry men scrambling, especially when his nemesis Chuck Rhoades gets wind of the scheme: He remembers having seen a Van Gogh in the apartment where his ex, Wendy, has been living on Bobby’s dime, and he is convinced he was in the presence of the master’s authentic handiwork.It takes some doing, but Chuck finally gets his warrant and an art authenticator to go with it, ready to raid the apartment and pin Bobby to the wall alongside his paintings. But when the team arrives, it discovers the place has been turned into a private museum, literally overnight, thanks to a daring helicopter raid by the aforementioned merry men. “I would say you were wasting my taxes,” Bobby says of Chuck’s attempted raid, “if I didn’t have such giant [expletive] deductions.” That’s our Axe. He’s not content just to win, he has to let you know the margin of victory.Chuck’s plan has a bumpy road from the beginning. Early on, he finds himself outmaneuvered by the Manhattan district attorney, Mary Ann Gramm (Roma Maffia), who bigfoots him out of the art case on jurisdictional grounds. Chuck needs to come at her hard in order to get her to back off, and with the help of his sociologist girlfriend, Cat, he finds a way: threatening to throw the book at sex workers, whose profession Gramm has been hoping to decriminalize. (That’s “The Nordic Model” of the episode’s title.)Momentarily, at least, Cat is aghast when she hears Chuck’s idea. Fighting for the rights of sex workers has been a part of her life’s work. Surely this is just an empty threat, right?“Of course it’s a threat,” Chuck says, before adding “which I have to mean, because otherwise it’s not a very good threat.” The fake has to be indistinguishable from the real thing, in other words. And with that mind-set in place, Chuck successfully wrests the case back from Gramm. And while he may not nail Axe the way he hoped, Cat rewards him for not making good on his threat, real or otherwise, by purchasing them the services of a sex worker. The kid-in-a-candy-store look on Chuck’s face indicates he’s pretty happy with this silver lining.Taylor Mason has to fake it too, not once but twice. Landing the business of a promising methane-capture technology firm requires Taylor to think like two completely different men: Bobby, whose cutthroat attitude can be effective but corrosive, and Oscar Langstraat, Taylor’s laid-back ex-boyfriend and chief rival in the bid. (Asia Kate Dillon’s impression of Mike Birbiglia’s Oscar is spot on.) These acts of interpersonal forgery work like a charm, though you have to wonder if Taylor Mason Carbon’s do-gooder mission will be undermined by all the shifty behavior undertaken to get there.The one person who seems truly unhappy with having to fake it is the artist Nico Tanner. A private sketch of his new girlfriend, Wendy, catches Axe’s eye. Recognizing the rarity and value of such a piece, the hedge-fund king effectively orders the painter, who is deeply embarrassed by his representational work, to create a portrait of maybe the single least portrait-worthy character on this show: the treasury secretary and fellow art enthusiast (and tax cheat) Todd Krakow (Danny Strong). Bobby’s gift induces Krakow to help expedite his banking plans. For Tanner, it’s more evidence that working on commission, even for the ungodly sum Bobby is paying him, isn’t worth the price.Of course, there are some things you can’t fake. Neither Chuck, nor Wendy, nor any of Charles Rhoades Sr.’s illegitimate children are a blood-type match for Charles père, who needs a kidney transplant to survive. A high-spirited, heist-infused episode like this one can obscure it somewhat, but “Billions” at its best always digs down to what its brilliant characters can’t fake their way through.Loose change:For “Godfather” reference spotters who enjoyed the last episode’s homage to Don Corleone’s orange-peel smile and subsequent collapse, I hope you got a kick out of it when Chuck’s assistant Karl Allard compared the cops who shooed him from Axe’s apartment to the crooked Captain McCluskey.I really enjoyed the interplay between Mafee and Ben Kim as they watched the slow-motion train wreck that was Spyros’s Mensa exam throughout the episode. “It’s like we’re all being tested.” “For a horrible disease.”Bookmark this for later: Bobby wants to create a food empire out of the (real-world) restaurant Una Pizza Napoletana, and the place’s (fictional) business manager, played by Domenick Lombardozzi of “The Wire,” is sharp enough to do business with him.It’s morally repellent to watch Chuck expressly threaten dire legal consequences for women in the sex trade and their dependent children unless he gets what he wants. Doubly so knowing that he doesn’t actually care about the issue. Triply so seeing him disport himself with a sex worker (he keeps using terms like “hooker” and “prostitute”) as a reward.The episode’s closing scene: Bobby, staring for hours at the secret surveillance cameras he set up outside Nico’s studio and apartment, watching Wendy go in and then come out the next morning. It’s not just the art he has an eye for. More

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The ‘Iron Man’ actor crashes a panel at the online television festival to announce the premiere of date of a new TV show ‘Perry Mason’ starring Matthew Rhys.
Jun 8, 2020
AceShowbiz – Robert Downey Jr. made a surprise appearance at the “Perry Mason” panel on Friday, June 5, 2020 during the virtual ATX Television Festival to reveal the show’s premiere date.
The 55-year-old actor and his wife Susan are executive producers on the HBO show, which stars Matthew Rhys as the title character, and Robert’s cameo occurred when the moderator asked panellists when the show would premiere.
To everyone’s surprise, the “Iron Man” star popped up on the screen to answer the question, joking, “I have been on my heels for 92 minutes!”
“First I would like to say the usual: you’re welcome,” he added before revealing “Perry Mason” would debut on June 21 at 9 P.M. ET on the primetime network.
“That’s the slot, by the way. That 9 P.M. Sunday slot, that’s the good one,” he added.
Back in January, it was announced the “Avengers: Endgame” actor and his wife and production partner had signed a one-year deal to create and develop new projects with the premium cable network.

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The Snow Patrol frontman is expected to explore his personal record collection and shares his personal stories in a new radio show dubbed ‘All Things All at Once’.
Jun 7, 2020
AceShowbiz – Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody will explore his personal record collection for a new six-part series for a BBC radio show.
The “Gary Lightbody Show: All Things All at Once” will air on BBC Radio Ulster and will include personal stories as the chart-topping “Run” hitmaker reflects on the records that influenced him and explain what each song means to him.
“I’ve dreamt of having my own radio show since I was a teenager, but no one would give me one,” he shared. “I’m very grateful to BBC Radio Ulster for the opportunity.”
“I also realise that I’ve been given something that other DJs don’t get – which is free rein to play whatever the heck I want.”
He continued, “Loving music feels like a life’s pursuit – and I’ve always wanted an opportunity to share my favourite songs on the radio. And you don’t know what you’ve let yourself in for – ‘cos my music taste is all over the place. It’ll be a little mad musical journey through my brain.”
The “Chasing Cars” star vowed to play music across a broad spectrum of genres, including “rock, metal (don’t be frightened!), funk, soul, hip hop, dance music, folk and country… anything that takes my fancy at any given moment.”
“If a song comes up you don’t like, stick with me – the next one you’ll love, I promise. Hopefully you’ll enjoy the journey,” he added.
The “Gary Lightbody Show: All Things All at Once” begins on BBC Radio Ulster and on BBC Sounds on June 14, 2020 at 4 P.M. BST.

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During an Instagram Live chat, the former SUR employee opens up about her experience appearing on the fourth and sixth season of the Bravo’s all-white cast series.
Jun 6, 2020
AceShowbiz – Faith Stowers is sharing her side of the story behind her exit from “Vanderpump Rules” and her move to MTV. Being the only black cast member on the Bravo series, the 31-year-old reality star finally opened up about the incidents leading to former castmates Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute calling a cop on her.
During an Instagram Live chat with “Floribama Shore” star Candace Rice, the former SUR employee first addressed her hook-up with Jax Taylor, who was at-the-time dating his now-wife Brittany Cartwright. “I felt like after their friend did something that we both were involved in that he’s done like, a thousand times…they wanted to attack me instead of him,” she recalled.
“It was like they wanted to attack, attack, attack, attack, attack. ‘I was wrong and I was this and I was that,’ calling me names, saying my hair was nappy, which is weird coming out of their mouths,” she said of her former co-stars. “And I believe it hit the ceiling for me, and made me really want to run for the hills, when Kristen and Stassi decided they were going to call the cops on me.”
The “Ex on the Beach” star went on to note that it had become too much for her to handle. “This is when I quit – like, I left the show,” she explained. “I was invited back to tell my truth, but decided it wasn’t going to do anything for me. So, I ended up not coming back, so I decided to go over to MTV. Once I did that, I felt like they got upset with me.”
Stowers’ touble, however, did not stop there. She went on to spill that her former castmates later reported her to the police after spotting a news article about a black woman wanted for theft. “There was this article on Daily Mail where there was an African American lady. It was a weird photo, so she looked very light-skinned and had these different, weird tattoos,” she shared.
“They showcased her, and I guess this woman was robbing people. … The woman was at large. … and they called the cops and said it was me. This is like, a true story,” the TV personality further claimed, adding that she “heard this from actually Stassi during an interview” as referring to Schroeder’s 2018 appearance on the Bitch Bible podcast.
Per RealityTea, Schroeder claimed she and Doute compared the photo published by Daily Mail with “video footage stills” of Stowers before reporting her to the police. During the interview, she further claimed that when they tried to push the investigation further, the police ignored them.
On the Schroeder and Doute’s allegations, Stowers commented during the Live chat, “It was just funny, because they thought it was me because it was a black woman with a weave. So, they just assumed it would be me, and they called the cops on me…It didn’t work, so they were upset about that.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Stowers also shared her thought on her never getting a chance to do any “confessional” interviews. “I didn’t have anything like that,” she admitted. “It could be different on their end, but in my opinion, I thought it was weird that everybody on the show got to do interviews and confessionals and I didn’t even get a chance to do that, to tell my story.”
“Which was a very interesting story, being a black woman in the military at the time. At the time, I was still in the army…leaving military drill…to come film with y’all…,” she added. “I didn’t feel like they appreciated that.”

Stowers first appeared as a recurring character in season 4 of “Vanderpump Rules”. She briefly returned to the show as a guest on season 6. Following her candid confession on the Instagram Live, she told E! News that she has received much support.
“It’s crazy…It’s been overwhelming and it makes me feel like I was actually heard this time,” she admitted, before clarifying, “I just want to say this is not an attack on ‘Vanderpump Rules’. It wasn’t done on the show.”

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Rachel later notes that ‘The Bachelor’ franchise had only one black lead in 40 seasons, referring to the 15 seasons of ‘The Bachelorette’ and 25 seasons of ‘The Bachelor’.
Jun 6, 2020
AceShowbiz – Rachel Lindsay calls for diversity on “The Bachelor” franchise. Rachel, who starred in season 13 of “The Bachelorette”, revealed that she was upset that “The Bachelor” has yet to have a black male leading “The Bachelor” and deemed the show “white-washed.”
“It’s been asked of me will I continue in this franchise if it continues in this way. I can’t. I have to see some type of change. It’s ridiculous. It’s embarrassing,” Rachel shared during her experience on AfterBuzz TV’s “Bachelor A.M. With Kelsey Meyer” on Friday, June 5. “At this point, it’s embarrassing to be affiliated with it.”
Rachel later noted that “The Bachelor” franchise had only one black lead in 40 seasons, referring to the 15 seasons of “The Bachelorette” and 25 seasons of “The Bachelor” though season 25 of the ABC dating show has yet to be cast. “You are almost on par to say you’re more likely to become the president of the United States than you are a black lead in this franchise. That’s insane. That’s ridiculous,” she continued.
“I’ve always been outspoken in my frustration about the need for diversity. Ever since I’ve been the lead, I’ve always spoken on that. But there’s certain things that I don’t speak out on that have frustrated me on the franchise,” she added.
Rachel went on to say, “We don’t speak on the things that contestants do that are racist. And it bothers me that certain things have happened that we just say, ‘Oh, hush hush,’ and ‘Let’s just move on past it.’ No! We need to acknowledge it, because what you’re doing is perpetuating this type of behavior, you’re continuing to.”
Reflecting on George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter rallies, the TV personality says, “I don’t know how you are a part of ‘The Bachelor’ franchise and you’re watching what’s happening in our country right now and you don’t self reflect that you’ve been part of the problem. You continue to perpetuate this type of behavior when you’re putting out something that is very white-washed and doesn’t have any type of color in it and you’re not trying to be effective and change that. So I think that they have to, at this point, give us a black ‘Bachelor’ for season 25. You have to. I don’t know how you don’t.”

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