Ballers: “Move The Chains” — July 5, 2015
Special Contributor Ralph S. takes a look at the off-the-field fun, feuds and foolishness on HBO’s Ballers as the show takes to the water. There’s a lot of territory to cover, so let’s go!
This week things open up with Spencer (Dwayne Johnson) and Joe (Rob Corddry) strolling onto the yacht owned by their boss who they call ‘Old Man Anderson’, the owner of Anderson Financial. They’ve come with the proverbial hat in hand to ask to use the yacht to throw a party in order to get more high-end clientele.
Anderson (Richard Schiff) is initially not fond of the idea of loaning out his yacht, which appears to be almost the size of the Titanic, for any such purpose. He tells Spencer and Joe they’d have a better chance at gaining carnal knowledge of Anderson’s wife. He reluctantly gives in only after Spencer convinces him that the yacht will make a big impression on the high-income athletes they are trying to attract as clients. “The players love the bling,” Spencer tells Anderson. “‘This event is strictly corporate,” Joe adds.
Next, we visit the Dolphins’ locker room where we see Ricky (John David Washington) discover that the contents of his locker, including his cell phone and his prized pair of Air Jordans have been dropped into a tub of ices water. He manages to play this off for about 30 seconds, until he realizes that Alonzo Cooley (Antoine Harris) is behind this stunt. Ricky immediately goes after Alonzo and they tussle until the other players break it up. As we will find out later, there is much more at stake here then just numbers on a jersey. The event gets underway and Spencer seems surprised at the turn out. There are indeed quite a number of high-income athletes that have shown up, and the athletes, in turn, have attracted quite a number of beautiful women, all of whom seem to be wearing dresses shorter than Ricky’s temper. They obviously like the bling as well. As Spencer and Joe are schmoozing and reminiscing with prospective clients Vernon (Donovan Carter) and Reggie (London Brown) arrive on the scene. Reggie starts out complaining about Spencer but Vernon counsels him to get a drink and just have a good time.
As the party heats up, so do things between Spencer and Reggie. Reggie takes every opportunity he can get to continuously work on Spencer’s last nerve concerning the issue of Vernon’s friendship and finances. Finally Reggie comes out with it. Spencer’s fee for handling Vernon’s finances comes to three percent of Vernon’s earnings. Reggie wants one percent of that fee. He leaves Spencer to ponder that proposition, and Spencer pops a couple of pills while he does the pondering. More complications arise for Spencer as he gets into a conversation with ex-girlfriend Tracy Leggett (Arielle Kebbel), a sports journalist who covers the Dolphins. They discuss the ongoing drama between Ricky and Alonzo and Tracey lets loose the real reason for the trouble between the two. Ricky is currently carrying on an affair with his interior designer, Kara, who is also Alonzo’s mother. If this gets out in the press it will create a possible career-ending problem for Ricky, Tracy tells Spencer. When he asks her if there’s any proof she produces her phone and pulls up a picture of Ricky embracing this dame with his hand on her thigh, rather incriminating I would think. Tracy assures Spencer that while she would never print the story, the tabloids will run with it like wildfire though a drought-plagued forest.
Meanwhile Joe, who initially has no success at getting the players to listen to his financial sales tactics, is finally winning friends and influencing people with his crap shooting skills. He walks up to a group of them shooting dice, flashes a big wad of bills and in no time he’s in like Flynn. He later tells Spencer that he managed to rack up a nice list of potential clients from his efforts.
In between all this, we see that Charles Greane (Omar Miller) has joined the festivities. He and Vernon sit down over drinks and Charles confides that while it seems like he should be enjoying his retirement, he really misses life on the gridiron with its adulation and recognition. “Man, you take away that helmet and the jersey and I’m just a big dude who works down at the Chevy dealership,” Charles laments.
Spencer talks to Ricky about his relationship with Kara, and while Ricky doesn’t deny it he does seem shocked to find out that Kara is Alonzo’s mom. Later in a small group that includes just Charles and Jason Antolotti (Troy Garity) Spencer again brings up the subject with Ricky. When the group reaches the consensus that Ricky should break it off with Kara in the interest of team unity and his career, Ricky takes offense and stomps off all broke, busted, and disgusted. Later though, when he and Kara are alone and about to get down to the business of getting intimate, Ricky begins to question his actions in this situation.
As the episode ends things finally come to a head between Spencer and Reggie. Standing in front of the DJ stand Spencer accuses Reggie of trying to bait him with the proposition Reggie mentioned earlier. Reggie maintains that he isn’t going to let Spencer get between Vernon and him. Then things go ballistic. Spencer’s temper gets the better of him and he shoves Reggie, who crashes into the DJ stand sending everything to the floor. Needless to say this causes a scene that Reggie is quick to take advantage of by playing to the crowd and asking if Spencer is the kind of person they want to have looking out for their futures. He then leaves, but not before telling Spencer he wants two points from Spencer’s fee, instead of the one he mentioned earlier, and that Spencer has to deal directly with him on anything involving Vernon. Joe, who’s been watching this calamity unfold, quickly advises Spencer to get control of the situation. Spencer manages to spin the incident by blaming it on the booze and then expressing some feel-good, corporate bullshit. It seems to work and the crisis appears to be averted for the time being.
As I mentioned last week, things on this HBO show are beginning to get interesting. There is going to be fallout from this party. Not only from the obvious events, Ricky and Kara and Spencer and Reggie, but also from those that weren’t so obvious. There were quite a few instances of nefarious goings on involving brief nudity, controlled substances and cellphones that never makes for a good mix. Stay tuned sports fans, ‘cause things are really gonna start to blow up.
Ballers airs Sundays at 10 pm on HBO
