A few billion more Wall Street gets a new Prince in Season 5 of ‘Billions’

By Dana Simpson TV Media

F asten your seatbelts for another year of dollars and deceit.

“Billions,” Showtime’s most provocative corporate drama, returns for its fifth season on Sunday, May 3, and fans of the show can’t wait ing complications caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The first seven episodes will air starting this week, and the show will take a break mid-June at a natural point in the story arc. At this stage, there is no way to know when the second part of the season will air, but the much-antici-

Giamatti, “Sideways,” 2004) and Bobby “Axe” Axelrod (Damian Lewis, “Band of Brothers”) as they try to take each other down in a grueling game of cat and mouse. Providing more twists and turns than a Shakespearean production, Chuck and Axe have been on a collision course with one another since 2016. From Chuck getting a tip about insider trading and Axe’s subsequent disappearance in Season 1 to the two men going head to head in court in Season 3, it appears the billionaires will squabble over just about anything from money and business to women

Just when it seemed they would band together to form an alliance — especially with Axe’s focus now more clearly aimed at the destruction of Taylor (Asia Kate Dillon, “Orange Is the New Black”) and her company — Chuck and Axe are once again pitted against each other as Season 5 will feature a new player, Michael Prince (Co- rey Stoll, “House of Cards”), who joins their high-stakes — and, quite honestly, exhausting — game.

At the end of Season 4, “Billions” co-creator David Levien told Entertainment Weekly a bit about the fate of Chuck and Axe:

“When we thought of bringing them together, we didn’t know exactly when they would start to be at odds again,” Levien said. “We just knew two men with these qualities, this alpha dog mentality, that a peace and alliance could never last forever.”

With the arrival of this new threat to Axe and his company, Axe Capital (AxeCap for short), Chuck appears to have a plan in the works — because when does he not? — but all the alliances that have been crafted over the past four years are likely to fall apart as companies lose money, employees and power. Now, a newcomer to the feud (and the series), Chuck’s friend, Prof. Catherine “Cat” Brant (Julianna Margulies, “The Good Wife”), expresses her concern that his quest for dominance has gotten out of hand. Amid triple crosses, double agents and a single common goal, things begin to get “tribal,” and every player involved in this corporate chess game will quickly begin to realize who is the king and who is a pawn.

It’s not just the kings at play in the business game, either. Taylor, who has been fighting to keep her firm together and pull away from Axe, will have to make some serious adjustments as she is forced back to work at AxeCap, while Wendy (Maggie Siff, “Sons of Anarchy”), who had just spent the day at a closed-course recreational demolition site with Rebecca (Nina Arianda, “Goliath”) venting her frustrations and “moving earth,” can’t avoid her problems forever as she anxiously awaits the medical board’s decision on her case.

Throughout all of this, Rebecca finds herself a pawn in Axe’s game as she is blindsided in the boardroom and realizes that he purposefully orchestrated her demolition day with Wendy to suit his needs so that he could broker a deal and liquidate Saler’s Department Stores — a company Rebecca was very fond of — behind her back. As Rebecca shares her feelings with Axe and leaves the office, she has Axe (and viewers) wondering whether she will be back for another round.

To top off all of the excitement, with rumors of Wendy branching out on her own, creating new connections and inciting some tension between her and Chuck, some fans of the show are wondering if Axe will finally make a romantic move on Wendy — did anyone else catch that slow rise in sexual tension? And, although Chuck always seems to have a plan in motion, could Season 5 find him finally losing steam? Will this new billionaire, Prince, overshadow one of the leading men for good? So many questions, and the only way to find out what really happens is to tune in. After all, things on Wall Street really can change in a New York minute.

The first seven episodes of “Billions” Season 5 kick off Sunday, May 3, on Showtime.

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By Dana Simpson TV Media

WHAT’S NEW ON NETFLIX

“The Eddy”

Academy Award-winning director of “La La Land” (2016), Damien Chazelle, and his team bring a slice of the Paris jazz scene to Netflix on Friday, May 8. The eight-episode limited series tells the story of Elliot Udo (André Holland, “Moonlight,” 2016), an American expat co-managing The Eddy, a fictional modern-day jazz club in the City of Lights, alongside his partner, Farid (Tahar Rahim, “The Past,” 2013). The series is a much darker take on jazz culture than that of “La La Land” and focuses on the raw feelings, financial struggles, personal traumas and race dynamics that are at play in the Parisian music subculture. Each of the eight episodes homes in on a leading character and tells their story, but the main character of the show is, without a doubt, the music itself. Written by producing legend Glen Ballard of “Jagged Little Pill” fame and Randy Kerber, Oscarnominated composer of “The Color Purple” (1985), the soundtrack sets the stage for much of the action and underscores the themes of the seedy, yet gripping, Parisian nightlife. The show’s writers and production team aim to provide an as true-to-life depiction of the capital city as possible, going as far as to incorporate French, English and Arabic throughout the dialogue from beginning to end and shooting the entire series in Paris rather than in a studio. The show also stars Amandla Stenberg (“The Hate U Give,” 2018), Joanna Kulig (“Cold War,” 2018) and Leïla Bekhti (“Paris, je t’aime,” 2006) in recurring roles.

“The Wrong Missy” (2020)

Adam Sandler fans can delight in Happy Madison Productions’ newest film coming to Netflix on Friday, May 8. Starring David Spade (“Joe Dirt,” 2001) as leading man Tim Morris, the film follows the hilarious consequences of technological privilege gone awry. When Tim meets his dream girl, Missy (Molly Sims, “Fired Up!,” 2009), and sends a text inviting her to his corporate retreat, he quickly learns that he has been texting the wrong woman, a different Missy (Lauren Lapkus, “Jurassic World,” 2015), the whole time. Directed by comedy triple threat Tyler Spindel, (“The House Bunny,” 2008) and co-starring household names Sarah Chalke (“Scrubs”) and Nick Swardson (“Just Go With It,” 2011), the film follows the classic comedic tradition of mistaken identity and the bumbling-protagonist trope to deliver lots of hearty laughs to the audience. The film also features rapper-turned-actor and television personality Vanilla Ice (“That’s My Boy,” 2015).

WHAT’S NEW ON HULU

“Solar Opposites”

Get ready for an out-of-this-world experience coming to Hulu on Friday, May 8. “Rick and Morty” creators Mike McMahan and Justin Roiland are set to debut their new adult animated sitcom about members of an alien family who have to start their lives over in America. The series, originally made for the Fox Broadcasting Company, will air exclusively on Hulu and features eight episodes. Following a rash decision to leave their own exploding planet, an extraterrestrial family crash lands their spaceship into a vacant, prefurnished home and battles to blend lina (“Spider-Man 2,” 2004), Andy Daly (“Bob’s Burgers”), Christina Hendricks (“Good Girls”) and Rainn Wilson (“The Office”), among others.

“Saturday Night Live” into their new, middle-American neighborhood. Constantly oscillating between whether planet Earth is amazing or awful, the series explores environmental issues, political turmoil, the plight of consumerism and the human condition in the most comically ridiculous and absurd ways possible. Main characters are voiced by Justin Roiland (“Smallfoot,” 2018), Thomas Middleditch (“The Final Girls,” 2015), Sean Giambrone (“The Goldbergs”) and Mary Mack (“Golan the Insatiable”), while Season 1 guest stars include Alfred Mo-

Live on Hulu, it’s Saturday night!

There are currently 21 seasons of “Saturday Night Live” now available to watch on the streaming service. The classic late-night sketchcomedy series has been tickling fancies since 1975 with celebrity guest hosts and highly anticipated live musical acts. Known for their witty, often exaggerated, parodies, “Saturday Night Live” has facilitated the rise of comic legends from John Belushi (“The Blues Brothers,” 1980), Bill Murray (“Ghostbusters,” 1984) and Chevy Chase (“National Lampoon’s Vacation,” 1983) to Julia Louis-Dreyfus (“Seinfeld”) and, more recently, Amy Poehler (“Parks and Recreation”), Tina Fey (“30 Rock”), Andy Samberg (“Hot Rod,” 2007) and Kenan Thompson (“Snakes on a Plane,” 2006). Hulu has made archive episodes from Season 1 to Season 5 available, as well as those from seasons 30 to 45. To make matters even better, as new seasons launch on NBC, the site makes each new episode available for next-day consumption, so get ready to laugh.

WHAT’S NEW ON PRIME “Baseball”

Join film documentarian Ken Burns (“The Central Park Five,” 2012) on a cinematic journey through baseball history, streaming now. Known for balancing archival footage with thorough research, interviews and photographs, Burns uses his talents to unveil the history of the all-American sport in this 11-part docuseries from PBS. Beginning in the 1840s with the game’s launch as a distraction from the mundanity of everyday life, the program tackles the vast topic of baseball in relation to wartime, immigration, homelessness, shifting social and economic pressures, and the struggle to keep the game as “America’s pastime” despite the globalization of the sport.

The Lodge

Investigative writer Richard Hall (Armitage) requests a divorce from his devout Catholic wife, Laura (Silverstone), after a prolonged separation. His plan is to marry Grace, (Keough), the last remaining survivor of a fundamentalist Christian suicide cult and the subject of his newest book. When Laura commits suicide, the couple’s children, Aiden (Martell) and Mia (McHugh), are devastated by the loss of their mother and refuse to ac- cept Grace, their future stepmother, into their lives. Less than a year later, the new family journeys to its remote Massachusetts lodge for Christmas. When Richard leaves the children in Grace’s care, however, her traumatic past comes back to haunt them all.

Directors: Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz. Stars: Richard Armitage, Alicia Silverstone, Jaeden Martell, Riley Keough, Lia McHugh, Rebecca Faulkenberry,