What’s Up With Wendy’s Book on Showtime’s Billions?

Okay, let’s see a show of hands… who has thought about writing your book before, but the thought of putting that work in and possibly never publishing it stops you cold? Well, let’s look over the shoulder of Wendy Rhoades, the performance coach played by Maggie Siff on Showtime’s Billions.

**Spoiler Alert** if you haven’t watched Season Six and want to be surprised, watch it and then return to this article.

They just finished the sixth season, and the show centers around a shady hedge fund, the billionaires that run it, and Wendy’s ex-husband, Chuck (Paul Giamatti), a lawyer determined to take them down. It’s Wendy’s job to get deeply into the psyches and motivations of the team members so she can help them perform.

And in Season 6 Episode 10, we discover she’s written a tell-all book about her work.

The final chapter is about Mike Prince (Corey Stoll), the hedge fund’s CEO. She spends all day with him to learn what really drives him after he loses a bid to bring the Olympics to NYC.

In the final scene at the end of the day, he breaks and admits, “I want to be the Pax Romana.” In other words, like the Emperor Augustus. He wants to be king… or, as it were — President. And he wants to be loved by the people.

Wendy gets to work writing Mike’s story for her final chapter and sends it to her editor immediately.

In real life, there’s no way she would submit a draft at midnight and the next day get 50 advance copies to share with everyone in the office.

That’s something the show gets wrong, and I wondered why they bypassed the whole story angle of book agent conflicts and the stress of publisher deadlines. In reality, Wendy would probably wait weeks to get feedback on that chapter which she would revise several times over months or even years.

Anyway, what the show did get right is before publishing the book, Wendy shows it to everyone she writes about in it.

She changed their names and identifying details, but she wanted to give them a chance to ask her to change something if it was wrong or too identifying.

I suggest that my clients do this for 2 reasons:

1: Otherwise, worrying what they will think or say can make you delay or avoid publishing

2: You can change things they ask you to change and hopefully get thier buy-in

Well, Wendy hurt a lot of feelings. And at the end of the episode, she burns the manuscript.

The Season Finale makes no mention of her publishing or not, and that might be the end of the book.

Even if the book plot ends here, it served two purposes on the show — revealing Mike’s White House ambitions and Wendy’s completing her inner work to figure out who she is and what she wants. You know, that thing she’s always doing for everyone else.

The show’s already renewed, and it’s possible in Season 7 the book may return as a plot point. But if it doesn’t, that doesn’t mean writing the book wasn’t worth it for Wendy. She still gained insight into herself and others.

If you have a book that’s not finished or finished and not published, what’s been the value to you for getting it as far as you have?

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