[rating=3.00] “Move the Chains”
It’s easy to forgive a clumsy pilot. The tone is off a bit, the characters’ importance can get shuffled around, sometimes replaced or removed entirely. It’s even easy to forgive a faltering second episode, though it’s usually done in holding out hope that a show is at least close to finding its groove.
By the time a third episode rolls around, still suffering from the same lazy, glossed-over world building, and unlikable characters in scenarios that are completely impossible for an audience to derive even the slightest bit of empathy from, the show starts slipping into just plain bad television.
“Move the Chains” starts with Spencer worrying about his inferiority complex as a financier that he’s shown since the pilot. He’s been at Anderson Financial for a year and has made little impact, as his co-worker/partner/boss (it would take maybe one line of dialogue to clarify this) Joe has been ostracizing him for. After signing a single client, Vernon, Spencer and Joe look to cash in on his celebrity status and throw a giant party with the intention of drawing in new clients.
Oh, and to do this, they have to borrow their boss’s yacht. His custom built yacht that no one is allowed to wear shoes on. In order to better impress a bunch of celebrities paid millions of dollars to play a child’s game. How relatable.
As expected, they get the giant yacht to go with the giant house to hold the party at. Joe gives an impassioned speech to the guests, inviting them to invest, enticing professional athletes with a net worth greater than that of most small nations with promises like “not living paycheck to paycheck” and “having some money in the off season.”
Fucking really?
The macguffin, though, remains Vernon’s friend Reggie, whose beef with Spencer is so completely unfounded that he becomes the shows default villain akin to Don John from Much Ado About Nothing. A generic antagonist with no real motivation for his actions. Also, I promise not to make any more Shakespeare references when recapping Ballers. [editor’s note: Whatever, dude; to thine own self be true.]
Anyway, things come to a head, and in the most ridiculously over-exaggerated bits of incidental stunt work in TV history, Spencer lightly shoves Reggie, causing him to fly backwards into the DJ booth behind him. This is the millionaire-sports-celebrity-party equivalent to a record scratch, as all the conversations stop.
Spencer, however, makes a few remarks, promising to keep the party going, which was apparently enough for all the escorts and man-children to keep the party going. At least until Joe sticks his foot in his mouth and gets thrown into the water. This may have been an attempt at humor, but the show is too incapable of making that clear.
Of the two subplots (which is two too many, considering the show can’t make a compelling primary plot), only one shows any inclination of character depth, as Charles laments to Vernon how he misses his time on the field, and is restless and unhappy as a car salesman. Vernon is depressed hearing this, and Charles later loses his shirt and pukes in the dinghy. So it’s safe to say that’s still unresolved.
The other, which concerns Ricky, continues to get hazed by his new teammates, and ends up attacking the ringleader, the player who wears the number that we’re supposed to give a shit as to why this callous and petulant character sketch is attached to it in the first place. Though he does get to double-down on his despicableness later on at the party. So, at least there’s that.
Noteworthy line:
“(This yacht) is custom built. Just like that suit.” – Anderson (of Anderson Financial)
“Yeah, I know EXACTLY what he means.” – Less than .01% of the viewing audience
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