The second episode in Season 2 of Starz’s pro-basketball comedy “Survivor’s Remorse” addresses domestic abuse — an issue that has generated multiple headlines in the real sports world. In the episode, a female character hits a male character, only to have the incident caught on video and draw the ire of a zealous prosecutor.
“Grown men and women can’t lay hands on one another,” Mike O’Malley, the show’s creator and executive producer, said Friday during a panel for the show at the Television Critics Association summer press tour. “They just can’t do it. There’s no excuse. And that’s what this episode is about.”
O’Malley tied the episode back to the show’s overall approach to its characters.
“What we’re trying to do in this season is [establish] that the obstacles for these chartacters are the seven deadly sins, as they are for all human beings,” he said. “The mistakes that they’re making in their own lives is what’s preventing their own happiness.”
O’Malley was joined onstage by the show’s cast as well as fellow executive producers Tom Werner and Maverick Carter.
The panelists also were asked about the sexuality of Erica Ash’s character M-Chuck, who is a lesbian.
“The fact that she’s a lesbian doesn’t affect the family that people from the outside think that it would,” star Jessie T. Usher said of the fictional family at the show’s center. Regarding his character’s view of Ash, he added, “To me she’s just my sister, regardless of whether she’s straight or gay.”
Cleveland Cavaliers player LeBron James is an executive producer on the basketball show, and he will also guest star in the upcoming season following his recent role in “Trainwreck.”
Season 2 of “Survivor’s Remorse” premieres Aug. 22 on Starz.