When Ballers returned last week for its fifth and final season, things had jumped ahead a year and Spencer had retired and moved away from his former life.
However, by the end of the premiere, Spencer (Dwayne Johnson) had a chance to buy the Kansas City Chiefs, Joe (Rob Corddry) was running SportsX in a dangerous and loose fashion, and Ricky (John David Washington) was hit by a car, endangering his NFL career.
Here is a look at the second episode of Ballers, “Must Be the Shoes.”
Spencer
The big story for Spencer is wanting to buy the Kansas City Chiefs. He does what everyone would expect — he pays a visit to the Anderson brothers (Steven Weber and Richard Schiff) to see if they will be his financial backers.
However, his journey takes an interesting turn when he learns that Candace (Emayatzy Corinealdi) is getting a promotion to second behind only Roger Goodell for bringing Spencer to the table to buy the team.
This rubs Spencer the wrong way because he wanted Candace to be the Chiefs’ team president and feels used. This doubtfully stops him, though, and Candace knows that.
Joe
Joe has been a mess this season. It is extremely hard to get used to the fact that Joe is foul-mouthed and has no filter and is completely unprofessional while Lance (Russell Brand) is the voice of common sense.
Everything Joe has done is a workplace lawsuit waiting to happen. He had to go apologize to an employee that he had cursed out and treated horribly. Joe misses Spencer and it seems he was the only thing keeping him balanced.
This episode showed a great direction for sports, as they brought in Odell Beckham Jr. to be the face of their new goal of building a sports/art/music complex.
However, if Joe’s growing attraction to his co-worker is any sign, this story will head down the road of workplace harassment controversy and Joe is headed for a huge fall.
Ricky
That leads to Ricky. He had three tears in his leg, and as he learns that he has an eight-month recovery ahead of him, he decides to call it quits.
Ricky has decided that God might have plans for him, but Ballers has shown that he never sticks with these decisions.
This also doesn’t help Charles (Omar Miller) who not only lost Ricky, but learned that another star was involved in a shooting incident where his friends opened fire on another car.
Charles is hiding evidence and one has to wonder if he will get away with this or if he is heading for the same fall as Joe.
Ballers review
There is a curious format to Ballers this season. Throughout the first two episodes, there have been a lot of sit-down television interviews with Spencer and it seems that this interview takes place possibly after the story we are watching right now.
Did Spencer buy the Kansas City Chiefs and become the NFL’s first black owner? Did he refuse and this is his interview after a Hall of Fame induction?
This is confusing, but the story, so far, is moving in a fast and furious direction and one wonders if Ballers will see happy endings for everyone or if one or more people are heading off the ledge, to crash and burn.
This season on @BallersHBO… #Ballers @TheRock pic.twitter.com/rIsJkpVQCl
— lolesports (@lolesports) August 25, 2019
Ballers airs Sunday nights at 10:30 p.m. EST on HBO.