SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for Chad Powers Season 1, Episode 1 and Episode 2.

Chad Powers feels like the second coming of Blue Mountain State. The Hulu sports comedy leans into its own absurdity while being often inappropriate, sometimes just because it can be. No one will compare Chad Powers to Ted Lasso, and that’s okay—the first two episodes establish this show isn’t meant to be taken that seriously.

The Chad Powers premiere, co-written by star Glen Powell and Heels alum Michael Waldron, never fully shakes off that first-episode feeling. There’s a lot of exposition that has to be doled out as the show takes Eli Manning’s idea of being an undercover walk-on at Penn State and transforms that into something completely fictional. (If any Hulu viewers also have a Disney+ subscription, it’s worth looking up that episode of Eli’s Places and seeing how much common ground Powell and Manning have in their performances. It’s easy to grasp how they ended up collaborating.) The show opens with the series of boneheaded disasters that torpedoed Russ Holliday’s career at the Rose Bowl, and it’s all downhill from there—for Holliday, at least.

Episode 1 has to leap all the hurdles of how Holliday is able to assume the identity of Chad Powers and walk on for the fictional South Georgia Catfish. These plot contrivances are handled well, because the script understands that there’s no real explanation for something so outlandish. Powell and Waldron don’t try to sway the viewer with any half-baked logic; instead, they lean into the skepticism and make the weirdness part of the joke. The audience is laughing at Russ Holliday as Chad Powers, rather than the episode treating him like he’s just gotten one over everyone else.

This is critical, because it legitimizes the rest of the Chad Powers cast. Fans can’t take the other characters seriously if the writers were to treat them as somehow less than Russ Holliday. The supporting characters, who are admittedly underdeveloped in the first two episodes, feel like they have valid reasons for buying into the illusion. Steve Zahn is a treat as Coach Jake Hudson—an excellent grounding presence for Powell’s more over the top performance—and Wynn Everett feels like she’s channeling Major League‘s Rachel Phelps as booster Tricia Yeager. Her condescending banter with Zahn is even funnier when one recalls that she played his ex-sister-in-law in the ABC show Mind Games. Meanwhile, Lethal Weapon alum Clayne Crawford completely understands his assignment as the show’s antagonist, Coach Dobbs. Their characters need more fleshing out, but the actors know what notes they have to hit.

The one character who sticks out is Danny, the Catfish mascot who takes it upon himself to be Russ’s psuedo-mentor in his new life as Chad Powers. He doesn’t grow past the stereotype of the nerdy mascot kid, and most of his dialogue is telling Russ the obvious, constantly reminding viewers of the premise of the show. He also has a shocking line in Episode 1 about how excited he was when he thought Russ was a school shooter, because he thought stopping Russ would make him famous. Given the recent school shootings and other mass shootings, this line is in incredibly poor taste, even by adult comedy standards. It’s also an example of how sometimes Chad Powers goes for the more provocative joke when it doesn’t necessarily need to. The show can be funny when it’s not crude, just as much as when it is.

But in general, Chad Powers Episode 1 and Episode 2 are a solid first chapter of an excellent season. They get past all the what ifs required to set up the premise, and on the occasions when Powell is allowed to be totally serious, he hints at a real heart underneath the quippy one-liners. People can appreciate Russ’s struggle to not only make the team, but humble himself. He’s the prototypical sports antihero: the talented but arrogant jock who has to learn to be part of a team. That story is a classic because it’s compelling, and Powell makes it a trip worth taking. By the end of the first two episodes, people want to see what happens to Chad Powers, either because they want to laugh at the chaos he creates or because they’re rooting for a redemption story. Both options are equally valid.

Chad Powers streams Tuesdays on Hulu. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Hulu.

Article content is (c)2020-2025 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.