Billions' Power Players Aim for World Domination in the Final Season

Looking for your next binge-watch, or just need to fill an hour? Welcome to Your Weekly Watch List, our curated collection of the best shows on television. Here's what to watch from Sunday, August 13 through Saturday, August 19.

Axe is back. Nearly two years after his high-profile departure from Billions, Damian Lewis returns as embattled hedge fund manager Bobby Axelrod in the final season, setting the stage for one last showdown with Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) and Mike Prince (Corey Stoll). Elsewhere on TV, Netflix's Depp v. Heard interrogates the coverage of the headline-making defamation trial, Solar Opposites Season 4 crash-lands on Hulu, and more.

Billions Season 7 Premiere

Sunday, 8:00 PM ET on Showtime

No longer content with dominating just the New York finance scene, the men of Billions set out to amass power on a global scale in the seventh and final season of the Showtime drama. Lulled into a false sense of security after "beating" Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) at his own game in the Season 6 finale — or so he thinks — Mike Prince (Corey Stoll) officially declares his candidacy for president of the United States. But while the public still believes Prince to be an ethical billionaire, the people closest to him have seen his true colors, and they begin making moves to thwart his campaign. That includes turning to a familiar face for help: Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis), who sold his company to Prince and fled the country at the end of Season 5. Axe's surprising alliance with his former enemies flips Billions on its head, injecting new life into a show that went off the rails long ago.

Though Lewis' return is welcome, he will only appear in six episodes of the 12-episode season, so fans should savor Axe while they still can. (Thankfully, his first appearance comes in the premiere, "Tower of London.") Those eager to see the hedge fund manager back in action can stream new episodes of Billions every Friday on Paramount+ with Showtime, or wait for the linear airing on Sunday nights.

Telemarketers

Sunday, 10:00 PM ET on HBO

Calls from telemarketers have become an unavoidable part of modern life, but HBO's new docuseries seeks to expose the corrupt industry that lies beneath this everyday annoyance. In the early 2000s, high school drop-out Sam Lipman-Stern was hired as a telemarketer for a company that claimed to be raising money for charity. When the company was shut down by the federal government, Sam and coworker Pat Pespas, a top salesman struggling with addiction, began to question the dubious tactics they used to raise money, and they resolved to shine a light on the scam. Telemarketers chronicles Sam and Pat's whistleblowing efforts, which took them from a New Jersey call center filled with outrageous characters to the halls of Congress over the course of 20 years.

Sam and Pat are committed to enacting justice, but Telemarketers adopts a darkly comedic tone in telling their story, blending raucous footage from the call center (filmed by Sam in the early aughts) with that of their present-day detective work. The resulting three-part docuseries is exactly what you'd expect from executive producers Benny and Josh Safdie — the minds behind Showtime's mysterious new dramedy The Curse — and The Righteous Gemstones creator and star Danny McBride, all of whom have plenty of experience balancing serious subject matter and ridiculous antics.

Solar Opposites Season 4

Monday, August 14 (Full Season)

It's a season of change for Solar Opposites. After parting ways with co-creator and voice actor Justin Roiland, who was fired from the animated comedy after he was charged with domestic violence in January (the charges were later dropped), Solar Opposites will chart a new course forward in Season 4, with Dan Stevens assuming Roiland's role of Earth-hating alien Korvo. Rather than ignore the elephant in the room, executive producers Mike McMahan and Josh Bycel have written the recasting into the plot — those voice-fixing rays are so temperamental — a canny move that corresponds with the comedy's wacky sensibility.

Solar Opposites' zaniness is on full display elsewhere in Season 4, which features more anti-consumerism commentary from Korvo and Yumyulack (Sean Giambrone) and fresh adventures inside The Wall. A reunion with the SilverCops intergalactic police force also ensures voice actors Kieran Culkin, Christopher Meloni, and Sutton Foster will be making their way back to Hulu for the 11-episode season, the entirety of which drops Monday, followed by a Valentine's Day special in 2024.

Depp v. Heard

Wednesday, August 16 (Full Season)

"Responsible" isn't a term that's typically been associated with coverage of the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation case, but Emma Cooper attempts to change all that with this three-part Netflix docuseries. For the first time — which is saying something, considering how widely the case was covered from April to June 2022 — Depp's and Heard's testimony is presented side-by-side, allowing for a more neutral overview of the headline-making trial that was live streamed for the entire world to see.

In that respect, the footage included in Depp v. Heard isn't anything new, but Cooper expands upon it by featuring clips from the millions of TikToks and YouTube videos made throughout the six-week trial, the overwhelming majority of which were produced by users demanding "Justice for Johnny." Through these clips, as well as the context provided about why the pro-Depp videos became so popular, the docuseries becomes more about the way the case played out in the court of public opinion and whether the media frenzy may have impacted the jury's decision. That's a question well worth asking, and it's one Cooper navigates with surprising grace, even if the show doesn't attempt to offer a clear answer.

If You Have...

An Hour

The Love Experiment: Tuesday, 10:00 PM ET on MTV
Snoopy Presents: One-of-a-Kind Marcie: Friday, Apple TV+
The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 2 Finale: Friday, Prime Video

An Evening

90 Day: The Last Resort: Monday, 9:00 PM ET on TLC
Harlan Coben's Shelter: Friday, Prime Video
Stand Up to Cancer 2023: Saturday, 8:00 PM ET on ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC

A Full Day

At Home With the Furys: Wednesday, Netflix
Killing It Season 2: Thursday, Peacock
The Upshaws Part 4: Thursday, Netflix

Up Next

Invasion Season 2: Wednesday, August 23 on Apple TV+
Star Wars: Ahsoka: Wednesday, August 23 on Disney+
Riverdale Series Finale: Wednesday, August 23 on The CW
And Just Like That... Season 2 Finale: Thursday, August 24 on Max

Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.