10 best shows on Showtime Amazon Channel

6. Billions

Loosely based on true events, Billions follows Charles “Chuck” Rhoades Jr. (Paul Giamatti), a ruthless US Attorney who despises criminals who can use their money to bribe their way out of being punished for their crimes. His character is modeled after Eliot Spitzer and Preet Bharara.

Along with Chuck, the series also focuses on Damien Lewis’s character, Bobby Axelrod. He is essentially the polar opposite of Rhoades’ character. In the public eye, he is a spirited and charitable billionaire who survived the 9/11 attacks and uses his money to better the world around him. But in reality, he uses bribery and insider trading to move his company forward.

Billions primarily follows the growing tension between Axelrod and Rhoades as Rhoades is determined to catch Axelrod doing some kind of illegal activity, no matter the cost. All of this is made trickier by Wendy Rhoades (Maggie Siff), Chuck’s wife but Bobby’s psychiatrist and Axe Captial’s performance coach, with whom he shares an extremely close relationship. Their relationship is not looked upon favorably by Chuck or Bobby’s wife, Lara (Malin Ackerman).

I am not caught up on Billions at the moment, although I enjoyed it. At times it can be a little overwhelming with the amount of technical jargon in regards to hedge funds and economics, but overall, I found the show to be sharp, fast-paced, and engaging. Showtime has renewed it for a fifth season.