Wendy Rhoades Was The Only Real Villain In Billions: Here’s Why

Summary:

• Showtime ’s Billions is a show where there are no good characters.
• While Chuck Rhoades and Bobby Axelrod are considered the two main villains of the series, Wendy is actually worse than both of them.
• The character masks evil behavior under the guise of helping others.

Viewers loved Billions for a lot of reasons: it's a chance to look into the lives of the 1%, a perfect opportunity to see the never-ending battle between government and business in its prime, and of course, what makes people like the show is the many flawed characters in it.

Nobody likes good characters more than bad ones, and for those who share this thought, Billions would be a real find, because there are almost no good people there. We have the obvious villains like Bobby Axelrod, Wags, and Mike Prince; not so obvious, but still pretty convincing, Chuck Rhoades and his father.

But after some time, we come to realize that the most villainous person on the show was actually Wendy Rhodes.

Of course, she didn't try to poison people and bankrupt companies for fun like Axe and Prince did, or betray a best friend like her husband Chuck did, but she did something worse: she was on board with every bad decision that was made there and helped make it all happen.

Even fans of the show mention that her lack of character development is very disturbing and say that these things she did on her own or in collab with other characters are simply the definition of what's inhuman.

Infidelity And Betrayal

One of the things that made us like Wendy in the first place was the relationship she and Chuck established in the early episodes. We realized that it was far from normal because of the emotionally damaging triangle they found themselves in with Axe, but we still saw that Chuck and Wendy were pretty solid as a couple.

However, after some time, we realized that it was okay for her to act out of spite. Even though Chuck was far from a perfect person and actually hurt Wendy several times over the course of the show, he always remained loyal to her and believed in their marriage.

But Wendy never thought twice about choosing between her husband and any other character, whether it was Axe and their platonic work relationship or the young and hot spaceship star she was having an affair with behind Chuck's back.

Nonstop Manipulations

While she justified her stay at Axe Cap by saying that she was trying to help the employees of the company and actually did good things for them most of the time, we can't ignore the fact that she was also constantly manipulating them to get something out of their privileged relationship.

The two storylines that fans can't get over and that have become the pivotal points in realizing Wendy's true nature are the ones where she betrayed Mafee and Taylor.

It was painful to watch her use Mafee's crush on her for her and Bobby's agenda. She acted like some kind of low life woman, using her sexuality as an advantage to achieve questionable goals while playing with another person's real emotions. Needless to say, when this was discovered, it nearly broke Mafee, who genuinely adored Wendy.

Another time she really crossed the line was when she used the information she got about Taylor as her therapist. By law, the client-therapist relationship is protected, but Wendy didn't care and used what she knew about Taylor and her father to manipulate her at work. As a result, she lost her medical license, but had the audacity to demand that Chuck somehow earn it back for her.

The thing about Wendy is she sabotages every important relationship she has and sincerely believes that she can be forgiven. Well, life has shown that for some reason people still find it possible to carry on with her being a part of their lives, but this is just another point making it clear just how good she is in using multiple techniques to use people as she pleases.

Inability To See The Wrong In Her Actions

Blind faith in their actions is indeed something that can turn a lost person into a lunatic. That was something everyone in the show thought of Mike Prince, especially Wendy herself. But the fans think it is hypocrisy, and Wendy is a lot like Mike.

“Everything she dislikes about Prince is projection. Not to say Prince doesn't display some of those qualities, but she always displays them more,” Redditor dogenes09 said.

Yes, at some point towards the end of the show she realized that what she was doing at Axe Cap and then at Prince Capital was wrong, that a "performance coach" is not something that should be provided to employees who are constantly working on something illegal, but she still chose to continue, lying to herself that what she was doing was saving them.