The first two episodes of the new TV series “Chad Powers” were released on Hulu on Tuesday, Sept. 30. Created by Michael Waldron — primarily known for his work with Marvel — and Glen Powell, the show is about a disgraced college football quarterback who disguises himself to revive his collegiate career through walk on tryouts for the fictional South Georgia Catfish. Powell stars as Russ Holliday, who eventually becomes Chad Powers through a clever but impractical disguise.
Powers was created by Eli Manning during a skit he did for his brother Peyton’s media company, Omaha Productions. In the skit, Manning attempted to blend in during a walk on tryout for Penn State, disguising himself as Powers. The show follows in the footsteps of “Ted Lasso” as a series based off a one-off skit that follows an oddball underdog trying to save an ailing program.
The biggest initial difference is that, unlike Jason Sudeikis’ Lasso, Holliday is incredibly difficult to like as a character. For football fans, he has the worst character traits of Johnny Manziel and Aaron Rodgers combined into one messy personality. In relation to Lasso, Holliday is very much the Jamie Tartt of the series: an obnoxious former star who falls out of the spotlight and relies on reality TV appearances to keep his name relevant. He is rude to friends, fans and even his father, who allows Holliday to continue living with him despite not having a job and graduating over a half decade ago.
At times, the first episode offers instances in which a viewer would normally feel sympathy towards the main character. Events like Holliday having an XFL contract offer revoked or being asked to make a video where he refers to himself as cursed are admittedly sad. Despite this, the viewer likely doesn’t feel bad for Holliday as much as they feel uncomfortable being forced to watch an unlikeable character going through negative life events.
In contrast to Holliday’s Californian frat boy image, Powers falls into the hillbilly stereotype with a distinct country accent. With a goal to make Powers everything that he isn’t, Holliday is careful to be humble, polite and quiet while embodying the quarterback. As such, Powers offers a more relatable personality who is easier to connect with. The functional difference between Holliday and Powers is that, while we are disconnected from Holliday, we see the show through Powers’ eyes.
What makes Powell’s acting so great is that he still lets small glimpses of Holliday shine through while embodying Powers. It’s not Powell playing Powers — it’s Powell showing how Holliday would pretend to be Powers. It can be argued whether Holliday would be able to give such a convincing performance given his lack of acting background, but Powell’s performance as Powers is charming and endearing.
This quality of Powers is what begins to redeem Holliday as a character. When Holliday’s father degrades and essentially abandons him at the end of the second episode, there’s a newfound sense of empathy towards Holliday that wasn’t there before. Holliday is quickly able to grow as a person through his experiences as Powers, something that I hope continues as season one carries on.
Something that I wasn’t expecting from the series was the abundance of absurdist humor that is prominently featured. For one, Holliday is a clear conspiracy theorist. His theories range from fears about COVID vaccinations to Hillary Clinton’s email controversy. It is also suggested in the first scene of the show that he got in trouble for making a bomb threat and for a “Las Vegas freeway incident” that is never clarified. In a show where Holliday punching the father of a child in a wheelchair and knocking both over is played for laughs, the series is clearly comfortable operating in shock humor.
Overall, the first two episodes of “Chad Powers” were generally enjoyable. While episode one tends to be an uncomfortable experience while mostly focusing on Holliday’s back story, episode two does a good enough job redeeming him while also building up Powers and the supporting cast. With Hulu deciding to release the series on an episode-by-episode basis, Powell’s acting and the introduction of multiple intriguing storylines seems likely to be enough to retain viewership.