After a bit of a hiatus, Damian Lewis is returning to Billions for Season 7. He portrayed Bobby “Axe” Axelrod up until Season 5 when he left the show for mostly personal reasons. Unfortunately, he was largely the backbone of the show up to that point. In fact, the central conflict of the show features Axelrod and Paul Giamatti’s Chuck Rhodes. Axelrod is a corrupt hedge fund manager who’ll do anything it takes to amass more wealth, while Rhodes is an attorney attempting to take him down.
In the universe of Billions, at the end of Season 5, Axelrod takes a deal to avoid getting put away in prison for a decade. Mike Prince, portrayed by Corey Stoll, buys Axelrod out. Axelrod leaves the country and settles down in Switzerland. How exactly they’ll incorporate him back into the show remains a mystery, especially because they’ll have to figure out what they’re doing with Mike Prince’s storyline. Ideally, over the course of season 6, all the pieces will fall into place.
One of the reasons for Damian Lewis’ departure was the untimely death of his wife, Helen McCrory. Of course, it took a bit of an emotional toll on him, as it would on anyone. At that time, Brian Koppelman spoke a bit with Entertainment Weekly about Lewis’ tenure on the show. He said:
The goodbyes on Billions and the hellos on Billions are never permanent; nothing is etched in stone. But that said, Damian’s time as a regular on Billions has come to an end … We feel really honored and lucky to have had five years of being able to know that Damian Lewis was Bobby Axelrod. But, again, not saying it’s goodbye forever.
And it wasn’t; Lewis will appear in six of the 12 episodes of Billions Season 7, which will premiere on Showtime later this year.
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