Ballers: “Everything Is Everything” — July 26, 2015
This week on Ballers, it appears that everything from the first five episodes is coming back to bite everybody, especially Ricky, in the ass, says our Special Contributor Ralph S. If you haven’t been watching, you should catch up with Ralph’s previous Ballers recaps. – David F.
Courtesy of HBO
Things start out with a nice day at the beach with Spencer and Tracy. Tracy talks about how much of a relief it must be for Spencer not to have the brain damage issue hanging over him since he had the MRI done. He agrees with her and then over does it in talking about how great he feels now that the MRI is over with and the results were good. “It’s a huge step,” Spencer tells her. “In a forward direction, like a triple jump. I feel like a new guy.” Talk about overkill, and Tracy knows he lying and she calls him on it. He immediately confesses and promises to get the MRI rescheduled. Tracy seems skeptical of the promise but Spencer is sincere.
Charles, who’s feuding with Julie over several issues, has left home and now arrives at the doorstep of Ricky’s ‘secret’ hideaway known as the Funhouse. After giving him a tour of the place, which turns out to be an opulent hive abounding with debauchery, Ricky tries to talk his friend out of crashing there. After all Charles appeared to be a happily married man and this joint is booming with booze, broads and blow. Ricky tells Charles how bad he feels for giving Charles’ number to the woman who sent him the sexting photos that caused this drama. “You got a special thing with your wife,” Ricky says. “A thing I’m far too selfish and immature to have for myself.” Ricky tells Charles to go home because the Funhouse is no place for a married man. He also mentions that it’s one of the few secrets that he’s been able to keep from his girl Annabella,that and the affair that he had with Alonzo Cooley’s mom. Charles declares that he’s going to stay at the house and be selfish himself. We find out that this just entails his getting on some serious weed while watching a movie in the theatre room with the crib’s two caretakers and then getting his groove on in the in-house disco that comes complete with a foam machine. Julie finds out where Charles is and shows up to confront him and when he tries to escape she easily corners him, he is stoned after all. When Julie asks him what the fuck he thinks he’s doing Charles sincerely apologizes to her and begs her to let him come home. She relents and agrees telling him that he can come home and she’ll take care of him. They embrace and kiss, all is forgiven. And then she pushes his big jumbo stack of pancakes-eatin’ ass into the pool. Lesson learned.
The thing with Kara, Alonzo’s mom, blows up in Ricky’s face when word of it hits the media. No sooner does a report air on TV, that includes incriminating pictures, than Ricky gets a call from Larry Siefert, the team’s general manager, for a meeting. Siefert quickly and coldly admonishes Ricky for his behavior with Kara calling it scandalous, and telling Ricky that Kara has already talked to TMZ. “I didn’t hire you to create a sideshow,” he tells Ricky, and then orders him to go out and find a way to fix things. Ricky calls Spencer for help with this and Spencer sets up an interview for him with Jay Glazer, with actual NFL Insider at Ricky’s house. When it comes time to do the interview Ricky seems a bit hesitant. “I ain’t doin’ this Oprah shit,” he tells Spencer none-too-politely. “I mo’ get crushed”. Spencer gets him out and into the chair in front of the camera by telling him that he’ll get crushed if he doesn’t do it. Spencer also says that this is a chance for the world to get to know the real Ricky Jerret. He actually read every one of the Harry Potter books and thinks they’re underrated. How could the world not like a guy like that?
The interview gets underway and Ricky starts out by apologizing to just about everybody he can think of for his behavior with Alonzo’s mom. After saying that he and Alonzo were able to work things out and they now get along fine, Ricky is asked why he tried to by Alonzo’s number, 18. “This ain’t about the number 18,” Ricky tells Glazer. “It’s about the number 81.” Ricky then opens up for the first time about his father who also played pro ball and wore the number 81. He says that as a youngster he watched all of his father’s games on TV and tried to emulate his style. But as he got older he realized that his father had abandoned Ricky and his mom and later he refused all of Ricky’s attempts to try to contact him. Ricky said he wore the number 18 to prove that he was the exact opposite of his father. It worked and Ricky knows it.
Spencer and Jason, who’s shown up for the proceedings, congratulate Ricky on his performance. Ricky then sees Annabella leaving the house with her bag packed. He runs after saying that things will be different now. She tells him she’s happy for him but, “you apologized to everyone but me and now I gotta go.” She then drives off leaving Ricky there yelling ‘I’m sorry’ in the driveway. Bet his ass is sore from that big bite.
Reggie and Vernon call a meeting at Spencer’s house with him and Joe to discuss how to handle the blackmail threat Vernon is facing from the woman with the cellphone he met at the ‘corporate event’. Reggie has found out that Spencer knows Angela Lee, the cellphone lady who has the photos that could ruin Vernon’s career if they are made public. He accuses Spencer withholding this fact from him and Vernon. Joe mentions that Angela and Spencer are only acquaintances and Spencer says that it has nothing to do with the situation. He says Joe will negotiate with Angela’s lawyer to get the blackmail number down and the situation will be taken care of. Vernon and Reggie then exit stage right, but not before Vernon tells Spencer that it would be best if he not keep anything else from them.
Joe meets the next day with Maximo Gomez, Angela’s lawyer, at the racetrack and they seem to be getting along fine until their purpose for being there comes up. Max tells Joe that Vernon makes it rain wherever he goes and his client just wants a bit of the precipitation. Joe explains to Max that Vernon’s got a big-ass mountain of debt and that his first contract has already been paid out. After a couple more jabs at each other the figures begin to fly. It all ends rather quickly when Max says they can settle things for $150 grand. Joe, a bit surprised at the low figure, agrees. All too easy — hmmm?
Finally keeping his promise to Tracy, we see Spencer staring down at the MRI machine. The moment of truth has arrived. Fear takes hold of him for a few seconds and he tries to get the MRI tech to reschedule. The tech tells him to relax and that it won’t take long. The tech also mentions that he saw Ricky’s interview and that he really admires Ricky for doing it.
Now we wait and see what the results will be for Spencer.
Ballers airs Sundays at 10 pm on HBO
