My personal opinion is that he has wayyy too many characters on it, set up a very ambitious story, and needs to trim it back.
Have James & Val swing with some coworkers/celebs adventures, maybe add a little spice from James' household, and then end it and then consider a separate game as Part 2/Chapter 2 or otherwise move on. Mary & boyfriend, Diego & Girlfriend, Hippie Chick & Nerdy Boyfriend, and maybe some of James' fam, plus Darius & Father and maybe a couple of other brief apperances celebrities who join in. That's plenty. Now it's exploded to former friends owning a gym and such like. There's too many threads and potential interests going on now.
The writing, characters (doesn't everybody know a Diego?) and heat was great until the party, then it lost focus because the original plan was ambitious and the writer is getting burned out. I think he looks at what he has laid out and says "Oh man, this is just so much" and gives us a cool render or two of all the ideas he has.
The last episode was fine, but I thought the whole old rival thread was a distraction from the party aftermath.