Billions Season 5 Preview: For Chuck and Axe, It's About Being Top Dog

With only a week to go before critically-acclaimed drama series Billions makes its way back to Showtime for a fifth season on Sunday, May 3, viewers are getting another look at how the escalating war between Bobby "Axe" Axelrod (Emmy and Golden Globe winner Damian Lewis) and Chuck Rhoades (Oscar nominee and Emmy and Golden Globe winner Paul Giamatti) has not only been reborn, but it's risen to "scorched earth" levels when it does. In the following teaser "Top Dog," Axe has his eyes set on a new and powerful rival while Chuck's rage from a previous season betrayal brings him a sense of clarity of purpose. When the dust settles, only one of them will be able to come out on top.

Created by executive producers-showrunners Brian Koppelman and David Levien, as well as Andrew Ross Sorkin, Billions sees some familiar faces joining the now-it's-personal fray: Emmy and Golden Globe winner Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife, ER) and Golden Globe nominee Corey Stoll (House of Cards, Ratched) are set to recur during the fifth season. Joining Lewis, Giamatti, Margulies, and Stoll are Maggie Siff, Asia Kate Dillon, David Costabile, Condola Rashad, Kelly AuCoin, Jeffrey DeMunn. and Roma Maffia.

This season, Axe and Chuck have not only their own reignited rivalry to contend with but also some new faces that are looking to take them both down a couple of pegs, permanently. For Axe, it's the threat emanating from social impact pioneer Mike Prince (Stoll) that could prove his downfall, while Chuck finds himself taking on the law in the form of a skilled and savvy district attorney (Maffia). Taylor Mason (Dillon) is set to play a much larger role this season. Being the one person who can walk that thin neutral line between Axe and Chuck is what forces Taylor back to Axe Capital.

Having to protect the company's employees and their assets, Taylor could be the ace of Axe's sleeve or the "monster slayer" Chuck's looking for to end Axe's dominance once and for all. Meanwhile, Wendy (Siff) reevaluates her past allegiances and begins forging some new and powerful team-ups of her own, the kind that will raise Chuck and Axe's eyebrows (and tension levels). Margulies joins the ensemble cast as Catherine Brant, an Ivy League sociology professor and bestselling author whose role in all of this will become much clearer to everyone.

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