Another strong season from a great young voice in comedy, although a season where one or two of the show's flaws become more obvious.
The third season of the show sees Issa (Issa Rae) continuing to try and move on from failed relationships with her long-time boyfriend from season one and short-time fling from season two. Now, she is also dealing with leaving behind her job at We Got Y'All, where she felt that her voice was not being heard, despite her being the one and only African-American in an organization whose purpose is to assist underprivileged kids, many of whom are African-American. In addition, her relationships with certain friends start to become a bit strained, as they start to have children and become more focused on their jobs. All the while, Issa's love life is in shambles, and her professional life is far from satisfying.
The humor is still as good as its ever been in this season, which is to say excellent. The writers continue to create engaging, organic situations for Issa to work through, and Issa Rae is a brilliant actress, especially when it comes to the comic elements of the part. As a woman rolling right up on the age of 30, her self-examinations about who she is and what she wants all feel very organic. Relationships with her friends which could be overly dramatized actually feel fairly organic. She is stuck in that place where a person is trying to seriously decide who they will be for the rest of their lives, but they are still young enough to make some head-shaking mistakes.
My one and only criticism of this show regards the men in the show. Frankly, they're pretty boring, fantasy types. I suppose that this is probably what women have felt for ages, watching TV shows with and endless parade of pretty but relatively simple and shallow women brought through the show as fodder for the main characters to figure themselves out. Thus far, the only man in Insecure who has been allowed any depth and long-term development is Lawrence, who had been Issa's long-time boyfriend until the end of season one. Aside from him, every man in the show is a handsome but one-dimensional foil for either Issa or her best friend Molly's personal growth. It's a minor point, and one that is probably a well-earned turning of the gender tables, but I think that it is something that could strengthen the show a bit.
I'm looking forward to the next season, and I'm hoping that Issa Rae and the rest of the show-runners can find the delicate balance between having Issa start to find herself while maintaining the awkward missteps that provide the humor, which is still the show's greatest strength.
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| Spence and Joe talking business with Lance, the rebellious extreme sports mogul. This new story line keeps things afloat for a while, but the season ends up where the previous ones have - with the characters more or less where they started. |
I'm starting to lose interest in this show, sad to say.
Ballers has never been what I would call a "great" show, but it's always had enough going for it that I would tune in. Through three seasons, former NFL star player Spencer Strasmore (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) has been trying to build his business as a financial adviser to professional athletes, all while trying to put his wilder days behind him and deal with the chronic pain from his playing days. For each of its four seasons, the show has touched on some of the more serious elements of professional sports. The problem is that it has never really dived in, choosing to pull its punches and take easy ways out of what could be intriguing narratives. The fourth season of the show was no exception.
The end of the third season saw Spencer and his partner, Joe (Rob Cordry), ultimately scuttle their own plan to facilitate moving the Raiders from Oakland to Las Vegas. The fourth season sees the guys pivoting into the market of extreme sports. To do so, they court the brash, rising media prince of that semi-fringe realm, Lance Klians (Russell Brand). While Joe spearheads that movement, Spence starts making some ethically questionable moves towards the mother of the hands-down hottest high school football prospect in the country. Spence, also dealing with unresolved feelings about his older brother, who had committed suicide, decides to also take on the entire NCAA system of using athletes to make huge profits while casting aside those who end up injured or otherwise unable to produce for the massively wealthy organization.
As already stated, this season set up what could have been some really intriguing story-lines, only to let them come to uninspired or unsatisfying ends. And the show is at the point where one can be less and less sure of why anyone would trust Spence and Joe with much of anything. While they always seem to land on their feet, it is often after several colossal and colossally public missteps. The other two primary characters - Ricky Jarret and Charles Greine - also have stories that only reach semi-interesting levels, at best.
I think this was probably my final season of watching the show. A fifth season is planned and forthcoming, but I feel zero excitement about watching it. Maybe my tune will change when football season is closer, but for now I think I'm finished with Ballers. It didn't end poorly, but there's simply too much other excellent television out there for me to give much time to anything that is merely "OK."
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