The storytelling suddenly feels tighter, fueled in part by the return to a clash-of-the-titans backbone.
"Billions" also benefits from the sharpness of its writing, which tosses off lines referencing movies like "Trading Places," presents alpha males bonding over Harry Chapin's song "Cats in the Cradle" and gives Chuck lines like, referencing his public admission that he had been in a dominant-submissive relationship, "No more skeletons in my closet to rattle.Let 'em just try to Spitzer me."
The new season works in some amusing cameos, one capitalizing on Prince's love of using basketball philosophy to motivate the troops (he's a big fan of coach John Wooden's Pyramid of Success), and another involving real-life journalist Olivia Nuzzi, with the threat of a damaging leak dangled over somebody's head.After blazing hot at the outset, "Billions'" star has cooled, eclipsed (rightfully so) by "Succession" as the standard-bearer for premium-TV dissections of the rich and powerful.Nevertheless, the Rhoades campaign against a city run by a "cabal of billionaires," and his railing against "plutocrats," provides the sort of hook that, through five episodes anyway, has moved "Billions" from "hold" back into the "strong buy" column."Billions" begins its sixth season Jan.