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Episode Three of HBO’s Ballers, “Move the Chains,” takes place almost entirely at one party hosted by Spencer (Dwayne Johnson) and his boss Joe (Rob Corddry) on a borrowed yacht. Spencer has his back against the wall financially and he needs clients—-badly. The idea behind the party, at least on the surface, is to right the ship, so to speak, by seducing clients with the trappings of the extravagant lifestyle represented by the oversized yacht and bayside mansion. This single setting provides the characters with an intentional bottleneck which, in theory, forces story conflict to the surface. Theory is one thing, but practice is another. Unfortunately, the intentional bottleneck in “Move the Chains” stalls the narrative in empty space. Superficial conflicts are addressed but the core tensions of the series only hum under the surface like the thumbing bass beat from the DJ. The overall story of the series, despite the name of the episode, barely moves down the field at all.

A trope is a storytelling device that viewers expect in a certain genre or medium. Tropes generally aren’t a bad thing. They provide touchstones that make familiar connections with the audience. A cliché, on the other hand, is a tired, overused, often stereotypical narrative choice. Clichés are almost always a bad thing. The Ballers party trades almost exclusively in clichés during the extended scene. Athletes are shown behaving badly in predictable ways. Spencer, generally the voice of reason and the viewer’s entry point into this world, is uncharacteristically one-note, as are Ricky Jerret and Charles Greane. Where the writers have written complex, funny plot lines for the pro players in previous episodes, here they simply follow the least complicated path: women, drugs, drinking, and overindulgence.

Keeping an audience engaged requires deliberate choices on the part of the storytellers. In “Move The Chains” the writing team makes a strong choice, but then fails to capitalize on the story opportunities of that choice. Tensions between Spencer and Reggie, Vernon’s boyhood friend and manager, present the most striking conflict but does not elicit enough tension to support the entire episode. The stark absence of any three-dimensional female characters paired with the gratuitous nudity and sex only serve to highlight the lack of three-dimensional storytelling.