Chad Powers Season 1 Episodes 1-2 Review: 1st Quarter / 2nd Quarter

If you’re looking for the next Ted Lasso, turn back now. Hulu’s new sports comedy Chad Powers, co-created by Glen Powell and Michael Waldron and based on the Eli Manning sketch, is a darkly funny sports redemption story with fewer platitudes than similar tales.

Chad Powers Season 1 Episode 1, “1st Quarter,” dives directly into the history of Russ Holliday (Powell), a college quarterback who disgraces himself by fumbling the national championship and behaving like an ass after. Years later, Holliday still hasn’t fully given up the dream of returning to football, even though he’s been relegated to life as a D-list reality and tabloid star.

When an XFL opportunity is taken away after his past catches up to him, Russ throws a final Hail Mary. He goes undercover with the help of prosthetics and tries out for the University of South Georgia as the fictional “Chad Powers.”

To adopt a quote from the film Hitman, which also features Powell taking on a new identity, “Who the f*** is Chad Powers?”

Powers is made up of advanced prosthetics stolen from Russ’s dad to erase Powell’s movie star good looks and a high-pitched voice with a remixed southern accent that Powers passes off as from “west West Virginia.” The more Holliday tries to avoid coming up with a backstory for the character, the more convoluted and bizarre it becomes.

He ad-libs things like not having high school football games because of rabid wolves in his village and not being able to go into water because of having a large “pee hole.”

The result is a hilarious mix of physical and situational comedy as well as some critical commentary on the world of college sports. Despite Coach Jake Hudson’s (Steve Zahn) uplifting speeches and heartfelt commitment to the game, at the end of the day, he is just a tired coach trying to win and not get fired, and that means putting up with Chad’s weirdness because he has a rocket of an arm.

The supporting cast of the show somehow manages to feel real in Chad’s bizarre world, especially Perry Mattfeld’s Ricky, who is revealed to be the coach’s daughter and constantly has to prove herself on the coaching staff. She and Chad/Russ share a strangely parallel journey and form an unexpected kinship that reveals Russ’s softer side through Chad.

Wynn Everett as USG booster Tricia Yeager is a great comedic foil who parodies the stereotypical college football-obsessed Southerner and may be the only one who poses a threat to Chad. If you’ve lived in the South, you’ll probably recognize this woman. 

Although there are some well-shot football action moments, the show is accessible to even the most sports-agnostic of comedy fans. The pop culture references on the first two episodes range from Radio to Mrs. Doubtfire, proving this isn’t just for the ESPN crowd.

My favorite joke from the premiere is Russ’s insistence on comparing his comeback to the return of the deer in Chernobyl, something that earnestly comes full circle when he actually witnesses deer after his tryout. (Of course, Ricky is confused why someone from West Virginia is surprised to see deer, and Chad quickly pivots into talking about eating them).

While it isn’t a feel-good show like Ted Lasso, it is a comedy that will make you feel something beyond the humor. Under Russ’s douchebag exterior, there is a wounded man who just wants one more chance.

Powell knows when to let the metaphorical mask slip in addition to the prosthetic one to reveal real vulnerability in the character. “Without football, I don’t know who I am,” Chad admits to Coach Hudson when asked why he plays, but it’s the most honest Russ can be.

Chad Powers’ biggest weakness is in its pacing, which takes off at a sprint once the concept is established. Viewers will have to quickly buy into the conceit and maintain a certain level of suspension of disbelief to accept that Russ is actually pulling this off.

Yes, making his dad (Toby Huss) a Hollywood special effects makeup artist does a lot of the heavy lifting of the premise, but there are so many close calls it puts the coaching staff at risk of looking unrealistically stupid. The show should want you to like these characters, not always question their intelligence.

Danny the school mascot, played by Frankie A. Rodriguez, is Russ’s only ally on the ground, but his motivations for helping Russ are thin. He says he just wants Russ to owe him if this works, but the simplicity of that logic in such an absurd situation doesn’t quite sit right.

Chad Powers successfully moves the ball down the field through its premiere, but the rest of the season will determine whether it fumbles as big as Russ Holliday.

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Chad Powers airs Tuesdays on Hulu.

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