'Billions' Season 5: What if second half of the installment could reintroduce Lara Axelrod into storyline?
Malin Akerman's absence as Lara Axelrod could be felt in Season 5 as the new instalment saw Bobby Axelrod's (Damian Lewis) life spiral into the endless bottom of rage and revenge. It didn't help that his loyal man. Wags (David Costabile) or his trusted friend and colleague, Wendy Rhoades (Maggie Siff) was around.
Axe's new adversary, Mike Prince (Corey Stoll), was getting the better of him, Chuck (Paul Giamatti) got perilously close to stringing the billionaire up, and Wendy, now shown as his probable love interest is actually more interested in Nico Tanner (Frank Grillo). This has led to fans debating if it was time Akerman should be back on the show so the Axelrods could kick some ass.
Lara was more than Axe's wife. The sexy lady from Inwood understood what it meant to go from zero to billions. She was a self-taught, equally ruthless, stylish and aggressive woman who was a perfect foil. A classic example is to roll back to Season 1.
June Raichlein (Melissa Errico), the widow of Rake Raichlen, one of Axe's partners at the hedge fund that he worked at prior to Axe Capital, writes a book and one of the chapters is on Axe that would put him in a bad light and legal trouble. Lara's mission sees her ruin June's world — a cancelled registration from her Barre class, tee time in a spot and her son's college admission to Stanford declined. She strips June of her sanity with some evil but genius moves.
That said, Lara was also more than just Axe's sounding board. She always did better and maybe, just maybe she would have hit the right plan for Axe to nip the Mike Prince threat in the bud. He would have managed to stay three steps ahead of Chuck and the Wendy-Axe's probable storyline of having a romance would have either been scrapped or would have seen a new shell-shocking surprise in the form of an affair? These could be a possibility as 'Billions' is not alien to common practices in the present-day world.
It is a pity that after Åkerman's exit from the show, there really isn't a character who could match up to be as ruthless as Lara was. While there was a filler in Rebbeca (Nina Arianda), she wasn't close to being what Lara was and for that matter for all the platonic romance between Wendy and Axe, it's doesn't come close to the character Akerman brought to life. It would have been interesting to have her on the show. With all the storylines happening, Season 5 could have seen a jolt with a Lara re-entry.
Is that a possibility on Season 6? We don't know, but the mere thought is enough to set the speculation dice rolling.
'Billions' Season 5 is available for streaming on the Showtime app.