Characters / Billions Taylor Mason Capital

Billions Character Index
Main Characters | Axe Capital | Taylor Mason Capital | Department of Justice | Recurring Characters

Mafee

Dudley Mafee

Played By: Dan Soder

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• Always Second Best: Not as smart as Axe, not as tough as Dollar Bill, not as funny as Wags, not as intuitive as Taylor. Mafee is a solid employee (with Axe even noting offhand that he "loves" Mafee), but he doesn't excel in the way that most of the others at Axe Cap do.
• Beard of Sorrow: Grows one at the start of Season 7, after his fund with Dollar Bill ended.
• Bumbling Sidekick: To Axe and Wags, and later Taylor.
• Butt-Monkey: Someone makes a joke at his expense at least once an episode.
• Character Development: In Season 4; now occupying a position of trust and responsibility at Taylor's hedge fund, Mafee is given free reign over the hiring of an old friend, and regretfully rejects him because Mafee recognises that he simply isn't very good at his job.
• Flanderization: Mafee is more of a frat dude in the early episodes, but as time goes on, he becomes increasingly bumbling and childlike.
  • Season 4 starts to reverse this, however.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Leaves Axe Capital to join Taylor's new hedge fund.
• Last-Name Basis: Oddly, the only other character subject to this trope is Hall, who is Mafee's antithesis in nearly every way.
• Manchild: He has the dopey personality and taste of a teenager.
  • Season 4 shows some change here; during the Character Development moment above he specifically talks about putting away childish things for the sake of being a man who's good at his job.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Being manipulated by Wendy into perjuring himself to help her, and consequently being forced to pay an SEC fine while previously priding himself on his ethical track record, plays a role in his decision to leave Axe Capital and join Taylor's fund.
• Nice Guy: Taylor states that he has a strong sense of honor, and he's one of Axe Capital's most moral members, showing more empathy and less sadism than most other employees. He also has no problem whatsoever acknowledging the much younger Taylor is vastly smarter than him.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Stupidly gives Wendy enough information about Taylor and Douglas's invention to allow her and Axe to engineer its sabotage.
• Odd Friendship: With Taylor. Most of the men at Axe Cap wouldn't have even given Taylor a chance to shine, but when Taylor's star begins to rise, Mafee doesn't get jealous and continues to support Taylor. The two eventually go into business together by starting a breakaway hedge fund from Axe Capital.
• The One Who Made It Out: Grew up in Aurora, Colorado, and is the only one of his friends who does not live there or have to worry about pocket money anymore.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Mafee is probably the mellowest guy on the show. But after he learns about how Wendy used him to sabotage the Masons' invention, he shows up at Axe Cap to deliver a "Reason You Suck" Speech to Wendy and gets into a scuffle with Dollar Bill.
• Only One Name: His first name isn't given until the third season.
• "Reason You Suck" Speech: Delivers an absolutely brutal one to Wendy in "Infinite Game", which causes her to break down crying by the end of the episode:
  Mafee: You! Do you have any fucking idea what you've done? I used to think you were this idealized version of a person with all the answers and the ability to make each of us the best of who we could be! I trusted you - we all did - because you charmed, manipulated, worked us too! All with that bullshit Buddha smile! And now, I know what was behind that smile wasn't some serene and wise teacher! It hid a sick, vicious phony! Now I know what you really are: a goddamn monster!
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Is one of two employees who walk away after Prince takes over Axe Capital, starting his own shop with Dollar Bill.
• "Well Done, Dad!" Guy: Craves Taylor's approval.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Craves Bobby's approval.

Sara

Sara Hammon

Played by: Samantha Mathis

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Chief Operating Officer at Taylor Mason Capital.

• Action Girl: Her introductory scene has her allude to a past career in the Navy, and Taylor specifically mentions having hired her because of her reputation for being fearless.
• The Creon
• The Dragon: Fills the same role at Mase Cap that Wags does at Axe Cap.
• Number Two
• Undying Loyalty: To the point of reporting Wendy to the medical board and having her license held up in review after the Douglas incident, without Taylor's knowledge. Eventually she gives up on Taylor, after they allow their feelings to get in the way of making good deals.

Lauren

Lauren Turner

Played by: Jade Eshete

Mase Cap's investor relations expert.

• Office Romance: With Taylor.

Winston

Winston

Played by: Will Roland

"Q is for 'quantitative' baby!"

Mase Cap's main quant.

• Good with Numbers: Although his abrasiveness caused him to fail his interview and later caused the other quants to quit, Winston was still hired and kept on by Taylor due to his incredible quantitative skills and his impressive algorithm.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Although Winston can sometimes be a bit abrasive and rude, he really does seem to care about TMC and his coworkers there. He also claims that he is trying his best to be better, but can't promise that he will never backslide.
• Pride Before a Fall: When he first interviews for Axe Cap, Winston tries to turn his interview on its head and makes a lot of cocky and obnoxious remarks before he is quickly shut down by Taylor.
• Strawman Has a Point: Although he is told off by Mafee for a lack of loyalty, when he complains about Taylor's decision on compensation, Winston makes a valid argument. This is somewhat later validated in show when Taylor apologizes to their employees and says they were wrong and blindsided by the desire for revenge.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Despite being one of Taylor's core employees, Winston is frequently ganged up upon and treated as an outsider. Some of this he brings upon himself through his frequent snark and occasional genuinely mean comments (although to what extent he intends to be mean is often unclear), but Winston's outsider status is often through no fault of his own.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Although Winston often struggles to have positive interactions with the others, he clearly wants to form friendships with them and frequently tries to joke around with them or share his passions with them.

Rian

Rian

Played by: Eva Victor

A new quant hired at the formation of Taylor Mason Carbon.

• Contrasting Replacement Character: Wendy’s initial plan for Rian was to take Winston's place as the main quant for Mase Carbon. However, Taylor and Wendy ultimately decide that it makes more sense to keep both Rian and Winston as their contrasting views and personalities would be beneficial to the company.

Douglas

Douglas Mason

Played by: Kevin Pollack

Taylor's father, also an intelligent mathematician.

• Hypocrite: Douglas denounces Taylor for caring only about money after they agree to sell his invention to the Defense Department, then immediately hesitates tearing up the $1.3 million payout check Taylor gave him.
• It's All About Me: Douglas' justification for being held back in his aerospace career was that he refused to allow his work to be exploited by the military. The truth was that he refused to collaborate on his projects and got fired because he tried to sell one such project to a competitor rather than let his supervisor "screw it up." Taylor uses a Secret Test of Character to glean that Douglas was only ever using them to get his invention off the ground, and was never interested in a sincere re-connection with his child.
• Parents as People: Being of an older generation, Douglas struggles to understand Taylor's gender identity and has a difficult time using "they/theirs/them" pronouns instead of "she/her". That said, he doesn't reject Taylor because of this, and does seem to make an effort. It's later revealed that he's only trying to reconnect to get his invention off the ground, and their relationship is destroyed as a result, but Taylor's gender identity doesn't seem to be a part of their re-estrangement.
• Pride: It's Douglas's pride in his own intelligence, rather than his struggle with Taylor's gender identity, that ultimately destroys the relationship between the two.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Douglas thinks he's smarter than everyone else and resents not being given what he thinks is his due, and resists Taylor being given shared credit for their invention. Taylor finds out that he wasn't laid off from his aerospace job as he originally claimed, but was fired after he refused to collaborate with his co-workers on a project, then tried to take the project to a competitor because he thought his own company would screw it up.
  • Called out when he's annoyed with Taylor, and Mafee tries to cool him down by drawing on his own experiences of realising he's not the smartest guy in the room. Douglas replies, as if dismissively stating an obvious fact, that he's always the smartest guy in the room. Mafee just tells him that if he still thinks that while he's in a room with Taylor, there's not a lot that can be done. To be fair to Douglas, he does seem to take this onboard, and acknowledge Taylor's genius properly though it's not enough to save their relationship.
• "Well Done, Dad!" Guy: Seems to want Taylor's approval, as part of a reconnection with them, but they realise that this isn't true when they see him for what he is.

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