Chad Powers

Russ Holliday was the hotshot college quarterback with a cannon arm and a mouth that wrote checks his game couldn’t cash—until one colossal blunder tanked his dreams and left him scraping by in anonymity. Fast-forward eight years, and he’s reinventing himself as Chad Powers, a bumbling, mustachioed everyman crashing the tryouts for the scrappy South Georgia Catfish, a bottom-feeder D-II squad desperate for a miracle.

Chad Powers Mini-Review

(S1: E1-5)

Chad Powers has heart. That, Powell’s charisma, and some surprising comedic instincts for a pretty boy are largely the driving factors for the show. Otherwise, it’s a pretty standard tale of seeking redemption and learning selflessness amidst daily teamwork.

                   

For a show about a football player who is trying to redeem himself on the football field, the pigskin gets tossed around surprisingly little in Chad Powers. Furthermore, there’s some directorial weakness that peeks its head out during the one major game that is shown. Not all of the characters seem believably invested in the outcome as would feel natural, and there are some other layup emotional beats that are, if not squandered, not as impactful as they easily could and should have been.

That said, Chad Powers offers some laughs and, if you can look past some of the woke rot in the report below, you’ll probably dig it.

We’ll see how the finale goes.

WOKE REPORT

Magic Homo

• Chad’s BFF ends up being just the gayest-acting and sounding fella. The only thing higher than his loafers is his voice. However, aside from a few attempts at humor, like him floating around and singing Disney princess songs,  and some implied insults directed at Chad knowing him, his sexuality isn’t made a point of in the story. Were it not for his obnoxious affectation, you wouldn’t know the character was gay.
• It’s mentioned once that Chad’s dad is gay. There’s no reason for it; the character’s sexuality has nothing to do with his few moments on screen.

Put a Chick In It

• The head coach’s daughter is an assistant coach on the football team. There is a single sentence in which she partially blames her less-than-wonderful status on the team on her being female. However, the show’s narrative never supports that. Instead, her subplot is almost entirely driven by the nepotism that got her the job.
  • It’s actually handled pretty well. She doesn’t have a massive chip on her shoulder. She’s good at her job, works hard, and is understandably frustrated, as a low man on the totem pole who was also new to an established organization would be if they had any ambition or talent.
    • This subplot is more or less dealt with early, and her character organically pivots.
    • Mysoginistic caricatures don’t assault her throughout, or ever.
• The head coach’s wife is a real piece of work, and in episode 5, we see just how awful she is. Yet the show doesn’t definitively color her as a complete piece of crap. Instead, it leaves things open so that her issues could be made to look like they are at least 50% her husband’s fault. They are not.
  • Again, the Woke-O-Meter might not reflect your feelings about this egregiousness, but that’s because she is only in about 8 minutes of the fifth episode and only has a handful of lines.
    • She mostly exists as a narrative tool for some third-act conflict.

Watch Where You Point That Blazer

• The one openly religious (i.e. Christian) character is a doofus, and his Christianity is regularly a tool used to make him (and Christianity) seem weird.
  • I didn’t slam the Woke-O-Meter on this because he’s not in the show much. He’s good for an eye roll every other episode.
  • In one episode, one of the coaches matter-of-factly tells him that “God isn’t real.” However, the intended joke isn’t that the kid thinks that God is real, but that this coach would be so oblivious and callous at a time when the kid could really use encouragement.

I Am Science

• They regularly poke fun at COVID and the COVID shot, and they do it in such a way that audiences will interpret the point of view as being the same as theirs, no matter what side of the aisle they come down on. So, if you’re pro shot, you’ll think they are making fun of those of us who refused to be injected with experimental gene therapy, and if you’re not someone whose blood is slowly turning into plastic, you’ll see it as a dig on those silly enough to volunteer as guinea pigs.

It’s Bullet Proof

• Powell’s character is a douche; therefore, he drives a CyberTruck. When he decides that he no longer wants to be a douche, he puts it up for sale.
  • Subtext notwithstanding, every moment the CyberTruck is in use, it’s portrayed in a flattering light. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that the production received significant product-placement bucks from Tesla.

Chad Powers Mini-Review

(S1: Finale)

WOKE REPORT

Helium Loafers

• There really isn’t much in this episode to discuss except that Chad’s obnoxiously flamboyant sidekick continues to be flamboyantly obnoxious. The show never makes his sexuality into a sermon for the “intolerant.”