I was such a lazy bum this weekend, but it was because Showtime did a marathon of Billions and after years of never watching it, I got completely hooked. Binge-watching almost all of season 2 and 3 made me love that friggin’ show so hard. I’ve always been a Damian Lewis fan and a Paul Giamatti fan, so I don’t know why I avoided the show for so long other than “I’m an a–hole.” Anyway, I know I’m late to the Billions party but it’s a great show. It reminds me a little bit of the good first years of The Good Wife. Anyway, the scene-stealer of the whole show is Asia Kate Dillon, the first nonbinary series regular/cast-member in the history of television. Dillon is nonbinary in real life, and they are nonbinary on the show, playing a brilliant wunderkind mathematician named Taylor. We’re supposed to use they/them pronouns, not gendered he/she pronouns for nonbinary individuals. Anyway, Dillon loves this gig on Billions because the script writers allow Dillon’s character to be multi-dimensional and “not precious.”

For Dillon playing Taylor is a “joy…Mostly it makes me grateful for a show like ‘Billions,” which I feel is a real reflection of the way in which power and money operate in this country.”

As Dillon explains it, when they started as a recurring character in Season 2, Taylor was ”sort of introduced as this moral and ethical center in a very unethical world.” A young, queer and nonbinary person entering the male-dominated hedge fund world, their character acted as an antidote to the hedge fund’s money-hungry male employees. But, as Dillon said, power and money “corrupt” and their character wasn’t immune.

“I would have never wanted to play Taylor if it had been a one-off episode and in that episode it would have been all about their gender identity,” Dillon said. “If it hadn’t been a fully fleshed-out character, I wouldn’t have wanted to do it, because that representation is old hat, frankly, and not interesting.” Even more, Dillon thinks facile representation can feel “tokenizing” and doesn’t want to be “made precious.”

“Nonbinary people are multi-dimensional human beings,” Dillon said, adding that often trans and nonbinary representation can feel flat. “You either get a one-dimensional trans, nonbinary or gender non-conforming character, and that’s what the story is about it — and it’s usually tragic,” Dillon explained. “Or you get the other end, where because a person is trans, nonbinary, or gender-nonconforming, they have to be perfect and angelic so that we can make sure to say: ‘Oh, they’re not scary, they can be good people too.’” Dillon thinks that kind of representation is “a disservice to the truth that we are all imperfect.”

[From NBC News]

It’s true, across the board. The Taylor character is so well-written, and Taylor quickly became some of kind of moral center grounding the toxic-bro bulls–t of that world. But to call them a moral center does a disservice to where the show runners are taking the character – on the premiere episode of Season 4 on Sunday, Taylor made the decision to present themselves as a woman – with a wig and a dress – to impress some Saudi princes and convince the Saudis to invest with Taylor’s new firm. To have the CHARACTER make that kind of decision to hide their nonbinary status for business purposes was a shocking moment. I’m still shook. But yeah, I know I’m late to the party. I’m so into this show now.

Photos courtesy of WENN.