‘Ballers’ season 2, episode 6 review: Good news and bad news

Whether or not Sunday night’s new episode of “Ballers” can be considered the funniest episode of the season is most likely up for debate, but there is one thing that we do know: It is certainly one of the most authentic. Every storyline over the course of the half-hour contained moments that we could see happening in one way or another.

For example, just take a look at what Ricky Jerret went through with his father. Right when he was starting to figure things out for him in terms of his future, in came his father with the tweet heard around the NFL. The Saints withdrew the offer because of his remarks on social media, and we totally get that happening, just like we totally see Charles Greene struggling to handle his front-office duties in terms of telling a former teammate that he was fired.

While Vernon sat this episode out, we saw some antics with Spencer and Travis that were at least moderately realistic in terms of someone having to do something ridiculous (spring on the beach) in order to impress a critic. This was probably the most over-the-top out of any of the stories on the show this week, but given that it gave Spencer a rare win this week, we’re fine with it. We say “rare” in particular because Joe learned a thing or two about his partner’s past courtesy of Andre, who did his part to use a lavish party in order to scoop him up for himself.

Overall, we’d say the funniest moment of the episode was watching Ricky and his father get into an actual fight over a tweet, and that was a chuckle more than anything. This remains a fine show, but one mired in two particular problems: Not giving Spencer enough opportunities to hit rock bottom, and also spending a little too much time name-dropping and reminding us of its NFL street cred. At this point, we get it. Grade: B.

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