'Billions' Season 5 Release Date Announced for Showtime Premiere

Billions will return for its fifth season in May, Showtime announced Monday at the Television Critics Association's meeting in Los Angeles.

In its last season, Billions transformed its central conflict, as crusading lawyer Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) teamed up with hedge fund titan Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis), turning their legal and monetary powers against their enemies: U.S. Attorney General Waylon "Jock" Jeffcoat (Clancy Brown) and competing hedge funder Taylor Mason (Asia Kate Dillon).

But the pact could never last. By the end of Season 4, Rhoades and Axelrod are plotting against each other once again.

"When we thought of bringing them together, we didn't know exactly when they would start to be at odds again, but we just knew two men with these qualities, this alpha dog mentality, that a peace and alliance could never last forever," Billions co-showrunner David Levien told Entertainment Weekly after the end of Season 4.

The Billions cast is expanding in Season 5, with Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife) and Corey Stoll (Ant-Man) expected to appear in multiple episodes. Stoll will play Mike Prince, an Indiana billionaire who endangers Axelrod's business, while Margulies will play a sociology professor and best-selling author.

Daniel Breaker will join the cast as Scooter Dunbar, chief of staff to Prince. Rhoades will feel new pressure from a Manhattan DA named Mary Ann Gramm (Roma Maffia). Also joining the cast is Frank Grillo (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) as artist Nico Tanner.

The new cast members will join returning characters played by Kelly AuCoin, David Costabile, Jeffrey DeMunn and Condola Rashad. But it's not just the new characters who will upset the balance. Mason and Wendy Rhoades (Maggie Siff) will radically alter the old battle lines between Rhoades and Axelrod. The end of Season 4 suggested that Wendy would be allied with Axelrod against her husband, Chuck, at the beginning of Season 5. Meanwhile, Mason is back in the fold at Axe Capital, putting them in an ideal position to nudge Rhoades and Axelrod into destroying each other.

"What you get with Taylor is someone who is as smart, clear-eyed, lucid as the other two, and every bit as good at game theory and understanding power dynamics, with a different emotional toolkit than them. So it makes Taylor an incredibly formidable opponent," co-showrunner Brian Koppelman told EW.

In October, Koppelman shared his excitement for the coming season's premiere episode. "I'm having a good day at work. I can't say more. Won't say more. But episode 1 of season 5 is gonna be fire," Koppelman tweeted.

Billions Season 5 is in production in New York and will premiere on May 3 at 9 p.m. EST on Showtime.