During Season One, Episode 6 of Ballers (2015), titled “Everything is Everything,” viewers were given a direct glimpse into what is going on in Spencer’s head, pun intended, related to his health concerns about his concussion history. Information about his struggles with head injuries had been foreshadowed in the opening credit sequence and the dream/flashbacks moments and then was addressed in Episode 4: “Heads Will Roll.” The interesting aspect here, from a screenwriting craft perspective, is not that they chose to return to the issue—it is an important topic for the character and the series—but narratively how they chose to address it.

Television is, by definition, a visual medium. The old writing cliché of “Show Don’t Tell” is even more apropos when a storyteller can literally show the audience what is happening through the actors or the action on screen. This gives the writer many options, but also requires the writer to have confidence in her collaborators on the production team. When it goes right, the spoken words and the unspoken sights and sounds on screen work together to tell the story and move the narrative forward seamlessly. When it doesn’t go right, particularly with story points involving background or exposition, the writer might take shortcuts with characters explaining things that don’t need to be explained or providing long, expository passages that slow down the story.

Ballers returned in Episode 6 to the issue of Spencer ducking out on his MRI. Tracy (Arielle Kebbel) forces his hand making him admit that he lied about having the MRI. “If you don’t give a shit, then why should I?” she says. He immediately denies that he doesn’t care. In that moment, the writing allows the actor, in this case Dwayne Johnson, to load that statement with the subtext of his obvious fear about the unknown with what has been going on in his head. This is where the visual medium works. Later, however, the writers fall into a common exposition trap: the phone call. Here we see Spencer, again talking to Tracy, but this time on the phone. He comes out and directly speaks to his fear. “I’m just really worried that all the hits I shelled out over the years knocked something loose. I’m scared because of all the headaches and nightmares that I have, the little outbursts. Truth is this whole thing really scares the shit out of me.”

There is no doubt that these are Spencer’s genuine feelings but having him say them out loud in this pointedly direct manner is too on the nose. Johnson has a good enough feel for this character and this character’s background trauma to portray those fears without an awkward speech on the phone. That was clear just minutes before in the same episode. The writers play off the direct exposition of the call by having Tracy lose reception. No other character actually hears Spencer’s confession, but the viewer does. It is obviously for the viewer’s benefit, and not necessary. Viewers knew he was scared. We have seen the flashbacks and we watched him duck and weave around the questions and skip out on the MRI. Making Spencer tell us when he was already showing us is a narrative misstep.