"Ballers" – Wrecked S03E07 Review

Well, if you wanted a cliché-ridden explanation of why Todd is the way he is, "Ballers" is for you. And find out where Chet has been. Other than Todd, Jess, and Pack, we don't get to see any of the other main stars except briefly on cameras and in a resequencing of the beginning of the hunt.

To recap: Pack runs off in fear, because Asif Ali screaming like a girl never gets old. Jess runs after Pack, and Todd stops long enough to grab a bow & arrow and runs after them. Jess demonstrates her skill with a staff, developed from her years working on the high school color guard. And then she and Pack come to a cave occupied by Chet (who wandered off after the first episode), and a group of survivors from the ship led by Bruce (Will McLaughlan).

Pack doesn't want to tell the others how they got there for fear they'll think Pack and Jess put them in danger by leading Declan to them. Declan has Martha send a drone into the cave and finds them. Chet goes all "Lawrence of the Flies", draws his second knife, stabs Bruce in the leg, kills another survivor, and runs away. Pack runs away, screaming like a girl (again). Jess fights off the other survivor with her staff-twirling skills. And congrats to Ally Maki as Jess. She and/or her stunt double do some excellent work here.

Meanwhile, Todd hallucinates up Rob Corddry from Ballers. And Corddry appears to be a good sport about the whole thing. From irritably pointing out that Ballers is a two-hander and he's not the "second lead" to The Rock, to noting that The Rock couldn't show up for Todd's dreamquest because he's too busy making movies and Corddry has nothing to do, to dealing with Todd's denseness, Corddry is on point the entire time.

Corddry takes Todd through a floating wooden door, which must be popular because they just did the same thing on Wynonna Earp last week. Todd has to learn a valuable lesson because if he doesn't, he'll die in his real body. Which would sound a lot more ominous if Wrecked wasn't a comedy. As it is, Corddry takes Todd first to the bedroom of the childhood bully Greg who picked on him. Corddry tries to explain Greg has his own rough home life and took it out on Todd, but Todd doesn't get it and gets into a fight with Greg.

Then Corddry takes Todd to a waiting room that looks like it belongs more in a dentist's office than a bank. Todd's mother storms out and takes Todd away, and Corddry shows Todd she was in with a banker trying and failing to get a loan. Todd doesn't get it and hits the banker.

Corddry finally takes Todd to a dojo and has him fight himself in a Cobra Kai outfit. Shades of... well, Cobra Kai. Todd easily beats his other self, and Corddry shows him a mirror revealing that Todd has been beating himself up. After some prodding from Corddry, Todd finally gets that he really hurts himself when he hurts other, tells Corddry he's the heart of Ballers but asks for The Rock in his next dreamquest, and wakes up in his own body.

Todd finds Pack and tells him he doesn't want to kill him anymore. Jess finds them, and they find the others just in time to watch as Chet shoots Steve with Todd's bow & arrow.

Overall, "Ballers" was a decent episode, mostly because of Corddry. And Will Greenberg as Todd. Greenberg actually manages to bring some depth to a pretty shallow character. We get to see Todd is more than just an intellect-challenged jerk, and Jess is more than just arm candy. We learn absolutely nothing about Pack or get any new insights into his character. He's the least interesting regular on the show, and that's even compared to Steve. At least Rhys Darby gets some moments of inspired lunancy. Alif Ali just gets stuck with playing frustratingly cowardly.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?