‘Chad Powers’ Review: A Charming, Awkward Sports Comedy Makes a Respectable Showing
The new Hulu series is fine, but a reminder you couldn’t make ‘Talladega Nights’ today.
Decoding TV readers: While we don’t think Chad Powers warrants week to week coverage, we wanted to share our review of the first two episodes with you. Enjoy!
Given the success of Ted Lasso (or at least its first two seasons), I’m surprised we didn’t see a boom in uplifting sports comedy series. Sports stories are so structurally easy that it’s almost a plug-and-play formula that works because it’s as comforting as the rules of any game. There are sports narratives that upend the genre tropes, but when it comes to the sports comedy, the audience expects a level of reliability. In that sense, Hulu’s Chad Powers is a success, taking the star-athlete-learns-humility story (e.g. Mr. Baseball, Talladega Nights, etc.) and setting it in the world of college football with Glen Powell donning some goofy makeup and silly southern accent. But the most striking aspect is how this simple premise had to be contorted to fit the demands of a streaming series rather than just letting it be an agreeable feature.
The streaming demands are apparent from the outset, giving us no exposition on athlete Russ Holliday (Powell), and instead diving into his worst moment. At the Rose Bowl, Russ, the star QB for Oregon, was about to win the game, but dropped the ball at the one-yard line thinking he had already crossed into the end zone. The opposing team runs it back and wins the game. A brutal loss becomes worse when an irritated Russ strikes a fan, sending him backwards into his wheelbound chair child who is undergoing chemotherapy. Eight years later and Russ is still professionally radioactive, and he’s unwilling to own his mistakes. Desperate for another chance to prove himself, he steals some prosthetics from his father (Toby Huss), a Hollywood makeup artist, and wears them as a disguise to an open tryout at the University of South Georgia. Going by the name of “Chad Powers,” and with the help of Danny (Frankie Rodriguez), the team’s mascot who learned Russ’ secret, the washed-up athlete tries to make it back onto the field while realizing that “Chad” is an opportunity to be a better person.
As a simple comedy, Chad Powers is a confident, breezy show. Co-creator Michael Waldron previously worked on Rick and Morty and Heels before serving as the showrunner on Loki, and he has no problem drawing us into the pathos of Russ’ failure while doling out quick zingers or visual gags like denoting Russ being a douchebag because he drives a Cybertruck. He also fills out the cast with the reliable supporting characters like Ricky (Perry Mattfeld), an assistant coach looking to prove herself, and struggling head coach Jake Hudson (Steve Zahn), who knows he’s on the hot seat because of the school’s losing football program. It’s not that everyone is particularly memorable, but everyone is where they’re supposed to be to make for some fun, interpersonal dramedy that exists beyond Russ’ antics.
However, trying to work out a full series from what was a bit that Eli Manning did on Eli’s Places (Eli and his brother Peyton serve as executive producers) makes for a heavier lift than just making this a movie. Instead, you feel the intrusion of streaming demands as we can only infer what Russ’ life was like before his life imploded. We understand that he’s a jerk, and that he will overcome being a jerk by pretending to be Chad. However, we know this because we know the genre, not because the narrative beats are effectively employed. It would be like starting Talladega Nights when Ricky Bobby crashes his car rather than building in all the funny stuff about his massive ego and shallow personality. Streaming is so eager to throw viewers straight into the action that it skips to a big moment at the expense of building a character.
This leaves Chad Powers feeling both rushed and oddly languid as we’re quickly shoved into the Mrs. Doubtfire of the whole thing, glancing over at other plotlines like the stuff with Ricky and Jake, and, at least in the first two episodes, finding jokes in Russ’ desire to keep his ruse going. This means a lot of Powell acting like a weirdo, but he’s talented enough to nail the comic timing and remain endearing. However, it would have helped to show some backstory beyond “Here’s why I have access to facial prosthetics,” that would explain why Russ opted to make Chad a bumpkin. There’s not much set-up to the comic payoff beyond, “This guy behaves oddly because his circumstances necessitate awkward responses.” Admittedly, I like the concept of relying on a character who doesn’t have an acting background to carry on a performance, but Chad Powers feels like it’s searching for the joke in the moment rather than having it spring organically from what we know about Russ.
And yet I can’t deny that the first two episodes had me constantly laughing, and wishing for when we had more sports comedies available. Ever since Harold Lloyd ran around the turf in The Freshman back in 1925, we’ve found humor in athletics, and Chad Powers is fully comfortable in its genre. However, that comfort level also never feels inclined to impress or demand our attention. It’s a show that’s funny, but rarely uproarious. It’s a show with R-rated jokes, but never daring. It’s comfort television, and that works well enough here. I’m not sure a TV show spun out of a former pro-QB’s sketch is burdened with great expectations, so the fact that Powell and Waldron have made a charming, inoffensive comedy is a nice surprise. It’s just strange to watch it scramble about to meet the demands of streaming series rather than being more effective as a tight, 100-minute movie.
Chad Powers airs Tuesday nights on Hulu. Matt Goldberg is a film critic who lives and works in Atlanta. If you enjoyed this review, check out his newsletter, Commentary Track.