What comes after the fame, the money, and everything that embodies the glorified life of a professional athlete? Ballers, which returned on Sunday for its second season, spent the first year of the show setting up that question for Spencer Strasmore, the show's central character (played by Dwayne Johnson), who's in the early stages of transitioning from famous football player to financial manager. And Sunday's premiere episode sets the stakes ever higher for season two, as it puts Strasmore on his latest new path to happiness—or at least non-numbness.
One of life’s greatest mysteries has been solved.
In the first season, Strasmore hands out a six-figure check, without the promise of repayment, in hopes of monetizing his friendship with a current NFL player to jumpstart his career. He spends the entire season trying to find some stability with his career. He ends up eventually getting an insufficient-funds notice at the ATM, and in the meantime he takes the C.T.E. exam he's been avoiding, only to find out a negative test result doesn't mean the emptiness he feels with his job and with his life will go away.
Johnson, better known as The Rock, is charismatic almost by default—which puts the fatigue and gloom of Strasmore into even sharper relief. In between scenes where he's singing to a Taylor Swift tune in the car, or strapping a seatbelt to the urn of a former teammate who died in a car accident with his groupie lady friend, or attending any of the many extravagant parties and strip-club scenes the show puts on to liven up the mood, Strasmore's a mediocre person hiding behind a facade. He's not staring at the green light at the end of Daisy's dock like Gatsby, or holding on to a snow globe uttering the word "rosebud," but Strasmore is yearning for some sort of happiness, and he's unsure where to find it.
In the season two premiere, we find out where exactly he goes looking for fulfillment next. In the very first scenes, Ndamukong Suh, one of many NFL players to cameo as himself, opens a restaurant in Miami called SUH CASA (which should clear up any lingering confusion about how to pronounce Suh's last name). We find out later in the episode that Suh is the only new client Strasmore has signed in a while, and things only get more problematic when Strasmore appears on Jay Glazer's show Glazed and Confused (the NFL reporter also plays himself) (and man, I love fictitious sports-show names). He ends up getting into a physical scuffle with Terrell Suggs (who—surprise!—plays himself) that stems from an old Twitter beef, because these days everything stems from a receipt on Twitter years ago.
Strasmore comes out of the fight beaten up physically, but with a clearer vision on exactly what his next step is. Later, at Ricky Jerret's 30th birthday party, he makes up with Suggs. Not because he's actually feeling remorseful, of course, but because Suggs is the client of Strasmore's former agent and now rival financial manager, Andre (this season's big bad, played by Andy Garcia), and Strasmore plans on poaching all of his clients. Ballers! Season two! The financial-manager rivalry!
After spending season one trying to fix the athletes within his inner circle, Strasmore's venturing out and looking to rediscover the adrenaline rush from destroying an opponent, as he once did on the field. At the end of season one, Nas's "If I Ruled the World" played as the credits hit. This year, we might find out exactly what happens if Strasmore does so, and whether it'll actually make him feel alive again.
Best Scene of the Ballers Season Two Premiere:
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I've always wondered if ice sculptures were strong enough to withstand a chainsaw. Now I know.
Best Quote:
"Dude, without dental hygiene, you ain't got shit." —TTD to Reggie. He's not wrong.
And, of Course, Your Old Photo of the Week of The Rock:
