Over the last few years, Glen Powell has strung together a variety of hits that quickly established him as a star on the rise. From a supporting role in Top Gun: Maverick, to the rom-com world in Anyone But You, a quirky crime comedy with Hit Man, and a big-budget disaster flick with Twisters, it began to seem like Powell could do anything on the big screen, which made his decision to slot back into TV all the more surprising.
And the project he was taking on caught those following his career even more off-guard.
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Chad Powers is a Hulu comedy based on a segment from an Eli Manning ESPN+ docuseries, naturally. In this version, Powell takes on the role of disgraced football star Russ Holliday, who creates a new persona to return to the gridiron for a prosthetic-assisted comeback.
The series, which premieres on the streaming service on Sept. 30, has been screened by critics, and the largely negative reviews frame the execution of the crazy concept sort of like a meaner Ted Lasso.
“The creators of Ted Lasso knew that if you’re going to build a show on a wisp of a concept, you better make sure the world and the characters in it are fully developed,” writes Entertainment Weekly‘s Kristen Baldwin. “Alas, everything in Chad Powers feels a little slapdash, starting with the central relationship between Russ and Danny (Frankie A. Rodriguez), a University of South Georgia student who aids Russ in his scheme.”
The meanness, according to Meredith Hobbs Coons of the A.V. Club, stems from the show’s sense of humor, which leans in to the jerkier aspects of Powell’s character.
“Poking fun at this project from pretty much every angle (the voice, the look, the premise, the source material) sure has been a lot of fun,” Coons writes. “But to sit with all six episodes isn’t, as they amount to about three hours of the same goddamn joke: Chad sounds a bit off, looks a bit off, says weird things, and may get discovered as a fraud at any second. Oh, and there’s some mean-spirited jock humor.”
The write-ups weren’t all bad, however. Some found the mix of tones refreshing, especially when working in the same vein as the occasionally treacly Ted Lasso.
“As you can tell from this setup, Chad Powers is absolutely absurd in its premise, but the six-episode first season (all of which were provided to critics ahead of time) quickly outkicks its coverage, becoming one of the year’s biggest surprises,” writes The Wrap’s William Goodman. “Like the tension between the protagonist’s two personas, Powers toggles between comedy and drama like a dual-threat QB, just as capable in the air as it is on the run (that’s a sports metaphor, folks). Much of those two tones are derived from how Waldron, Powell and the rest of the creative team, including director Tony Yacenda, drive right into the skid of its premise.”
One interesting thread popping recurring in the reviews is a nod toward how the first six episodes of Chad Powers end and the opportunity to explore different tonal areas in a potential second season.
“The sixth and final episode of Chad Powers takes the show — until that point conventional to a fault — to an intriguingly cynical place that made me wonder if all the things I found completely unconvincing had been intentionally unconvincing and if Chad Powers had been, in fact, a stealthily subversive series all along,” writes The Hollywood Reporter‘s Daniel Fienberg. “If the finale is a starting point for the somewhat dark story Chad Powers actually wants to be, you can consider me truly curious. If the finale is just a contrived speed bump to over-extend what’s conventional about the show and its unpersuasive redemptive arc, I don’t like Chad Powers very much at all.”
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