If you’ve ever heard the story of Chad Powers from Eli Manning’s documentary series, Eli’s Places, you’ll know it’s a story that’s ripe for a comedy series adaptation. That’s exactly what Glen Powell and Michael Waldron have done in the form of Chad Powers, with mixed results.
Russ Holliday (Powell) was once a gifted college football quarterback with a promising career ahead of him. After nuking any potential chance of that career by disgracing himself in a championship game, Holliday drifts out of the limelight for some time. Answering a call for open quarterback tryouts, Holliday dons the disguise of Chad Powers to resuscitate his dream and prove he can still perform at the highest level.
This sports comedy sets a tone right from the off as we see exactly how Holliday tanks his chances of a future in football. It feels like it’s going for the controversial angle with an opening that involves a child cancer patient. Yet, it soon steers away from being totally un-PC after that to resort to a balance between crude and goofy humour. Jokes about the likes of Chris Benoit really might catch you off guard, but they are few and far between. After the cold opening, it’s certainly a rough start as we see Holliday acting like a big shot but getting rejected and called embarrassing in a club by Haliey Welch. Yes, they give the Hawk Tuah girl a platform (yikes!), which falls flat now because she’s had her fifteen minutes of fame. Luckily, the show picks up in quality from the moment Holliday dons the Chad Powers disguise (if you can even call it that!) and the shenanigans really begin.
Russ Holliday is a true narcissist, out for his self and totally unaware of how his actions might impact others. He’s also a bit of a douchebag – owning a god awful Tesla Cybertruck confirms this. It’s only when we see him as Chad Powers that any growth as a character starts to happen, friendships are built within the team, and relationships are forged with the coaching staff, the catalyst for Holliday to truly change. It’s not a smooth change by any means; stepping on toes and making plenty of mistakes along the way, Chad Powers culminating in a cliff-hanger that teases a continuing redemption arc through a second season, if it were to be renewed.
The star power of Glen Powell works wonders for the show – the man himself playing a douchebag just too well in just about every project he stars in. Powell has the charm and charisma to make just about anything entertaining, and it’s exactly what’s required to make this show work. As much as he has the swagger, Powell also possesses a sense of vulnerability in his performance, which we see glimpses of as Holliday deals with the fallout of his actions as well as the fractured relationship with his father. It’s up to Powell to do a lot of the heavy lifting as the supporting cast doesn’t really leave a lasting impression, save for Steve Zahn as Coach Jake Hudson and Perry Mattfield as Ricky. With this and the season of The White Lotus he appeared in, Zahn is getting good at playing a vulnerable male figure with a fractured ego, while Mattfield is good as the steely female lead who Holliday really wants to impress, both on the field and off it.
With only six episodes, Chad Powers feels as if it flashes by in an instant – a few more episodes, maybe offering the chance to pad it out a bit more, and giving the narrative a bit more emotional weight. As a sports comedy, it does an okay job and teases bigger and better things for a second season.
★★★
Streaming on Disney+ from September 30th / Glen Powell, Steve Zahn, Toby Huss, Perry Mattfield, Wynn Everett / Dir: Tony Yacenda / 20th Television
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