The first 2 episodes of Chad Powers tell the story of Russ Holliday, the controversial star quarterback of the Oregon college football team, which is going up against Georgia at the Rose Bowl. The match is going fine, and Oregon is poised to win, but while going for a touchdown, Russ makes a fatal mistake. He drops the ball right before the end zone, and by the time he realizes what he has done, a player from the opposing team has picked up the ball and scored a touchdown. Instead of dealing with this defeat gracefully, Russ manhandles a cancer-stricken kid and his dad, who were just watching the match from the sidelines and trying to assure Russ that all is not lost. 8 years go by since that incident, and Russ is now going through some sort of early-onset midlife crisis by driving a Cybertruck, being friends with Hailey Welch (even if this is ironic, this is not a good look for the show), and delivering prosthetics for Mike, his dad, who is a successful make-up designer in Hollywood. The only silver lining in his life is that he is going to join the XFL—which is a real thing that used to exist between 2020 and 2023—and relive his glory days. But Tyler, his agent, informs him that since that aforementioned cancer-stricken kid has died, and Russ is on the news again, the XFL has canceled his contract. Even worse, Tyler refuses to work with him anymore. So, albeit reluctantly, he starts working solely for his dad—as if he has any other options—and hits the road to deliver a set of prosthetics for Michael Bay’s movie (a David Crockett biopic by Bay sounds dope). At the traffic signal, while looking at a poster for Mrs. Doubtfire, he is struck with an idea: he’s going to re-enter college football as a completely different person. Hence, he steals the prosthetics, bids his dad farewell, and attends the tryouts for the South Georgia Catfish (yes, the irony isn’t lost on anybody). What happens next? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Russ Meets Danny
At the University of South Georgia, we are introduced to Ricky, one of the coaches of the Catfishes. She hands over some of the strategies that she has chalked up for the team to Coach Dobbs, who straight-up chucks the documents into the trashcan because he thinks they are worthless. Well, technically, they aren’t worthless; Dobbs hates Ricky because she’s the daughter of the head coach, Jake Hudson. The episode shifts its focus to Jake to show us that his life isn’t going all that well. His wife, Wendy, seemingly wants to call it quits with him. His sister, Tricia, who is a member of the booster club—which is a parents’ association that looks after the finances of a college football team—for the Catfishes, has fired one of the coaches, Mark. Jake is clearly upset by this because it seems like he used to depend a lot on him. But once the boosters make a decision, that’s it. Jake wants to find out if there are going to be any more layoffs, and Tricia says something vague enough to keep everyone on the edge and performing at maximum efficiency.
When Jake passes on the information of Mark’s firing to Coach Byrd, to be honest, his reaction is the exact opposite of “focus” because, well, fear is never a good driving force in any field, especially sports. Going back to Russ, he puts on his prosthetics and make-up and heads into the tryouts. That’s when he is attacked by Danny, who portrays the college mascot, because he thinks Russ is a school shooter (very timely). However, when part of the makeup comes off, Danny realizes that it’s Russ who is standing before him. It doesn’t take too long for Danny to figure out what Russ is up to, and he decides to help him. Russ wonders why, and Danny bluntly says that he is a strong believer in second chances—and he thinks even someone as atrocious as Russ deserves one—and he thinks that if Russ’ gambit works out and he becomes successful, he’ll give Danny a slice of his profits. Russ knows that’s a long shot; for now he has to qualify at the tryouts.
Chad Attends the Tryouts
While registering his fake name, Chad Powers is born. Ricky suspects something is off about Chad, but since Dobbs is hellbent on opposing anything that Ricky does, Chad gets to try his luck. His warmup session starts off pretty wonky, and that almost causes him to quit. However, after a pep talk from Danny, Chad goes back in and plays some grade-A football, thereby impressing his potential teammates and his coaches. In fact, Jake is so happy with Chad’s work that he calls him in for a meeting in his office. Danny informs Russ that Chad’s videos of his tryouts are going viral already. He even gets a pat on the back from Ricky. By the way, during Chad and Ricky’s conversation, there’s a sweet moment with deer. While talking about how the XFL is his ticket to stardom, he compares his career to Chernobyl and says that if a place as toxic as that can breed life, then his career has a chance as well. So, it’s kind of poetic when deer show up right after Chad’s tryouts, signaling his resurgence.
However, based on his meeting with Jake, it becomes evident that Chad/Russ has a long way to go before officially labeling his return to college football as a “resurgence,” because in addition to making sure his real persona doesn’t slip up, Russ has to ensure that Chad is registered as an actual human being to avoid drawing the ire of the authorities. Danny arranges that with the help of a member of the university’s parking enforcement division, Dylan, who will apparently slip Chad’s files into the pile of applicants without anyone flagging it. However, their meeting—which is happening near the dumpsters—turns into a full-on horror movie as a fly from the garbage bins enters the gap between Russ’s prosthetic and his skin and starts squirming. And Russ thrusts his finger into that gap, but since Dylan is unaware of the fact that Russ is wearing a prosthetic, he is shocked to the core.
Gerry Is Chad’s Competition
Given that Chad gets to show up to the next round of tests, it means that Dylan must have done what he was asked to. Maybe Russ and Danny calmed him down by giving him a drink or something; well, whatever they did, it seems to have worked. If not, I guess in the later episodes, Dylan is going to make a reentry into the plot to exploit both Russ and Danny. For now, though, the focus remains on Chad officially playing for the South Georgia Catfishes in the quarterback position. The only other person who is vying for the position is Gerry Dugan. Now, Gerry comes off as a bit of a buffoon, and since Russ is a narcissist, he underestimates Gerry and overestimates himself. During the game, when he has to throw the ball to Nishan, Chad messes up big time. So, Dobbs has no option but to put Chad on the bench and give Gerry a chance. During shower time, Chad probably rubs Jake the wrong way by not “socializing” with his teammates in the showers. I have a confession to make: I find this whole communal bathing arrangement to be very weird.
I am not into sports. So, I don’t know what you learn about your fellow teammate by glancing at their private parts “by chance.” We humans have invented the concept of walls, right? What’s the issue with showering in a space that’s surrounded by four walls? What’s the purpose of roaming around butt-naked with other men in a washroom? I know Chad gives a preposterous reason for not showering with his teammates, but I think if he had just said that it’s weird to roam around naked with other men, that should have sufficed. Anyway, after freshening up at Danny’s place—which is where Russ is staying for the time being—Russ updates him about all the nonsensical tales he has peddled as a part of Chad’s backstory. Danny is doing the smart thing by making a record of it all so that Russ never deviates from whatever he has said so far, thereby maintaining the myth of Chad Powers, especially during an important event like the barbecue at Jake’s house.
Chad Attends Jake’s Barbecue
Jake gets a call from Wendy, where she tells him that she has decided to skip the barbecue entirely, which seems like the final nail in the coffin that holds their marriage. Since Jake can’t do anything about it, he goes off to have a chat with Byrd and Dobbs about who should be their quarterback: Gerry or Chad. Ricky advises her dad to take the boosters’ suggestion into consideration, and as soon as Jake makes a bold statement about the boosters being in his pocket, Tricia arrives and begins treating everyone in the room like her servants. To make things more miserable for Jake, Ricky removes all the pictures of her from the house so that it doesn’t give Jake’s players the impression that she still lives with her dad. But doesn’t an abundance of pictures of you at your parents’ house mean that you don’t live with them and your parents are keeping you close to them via those pictures?
I don’t know, but yeah, Ricky does such a good job of removing all the pictures that she empties the mantle over the fireplace, which leads to an all-timer dialogue delivery from the great Steve Zahn, who says that it seems like he has murdered his whole family. Anyway, as the party begins, Ricky seeks solace in the outskirts of Jake’s estate, which is where she runs into Chad, who is coming out of the woods after parking his cybertruck in a covert spot. After getting to the party, Chad essentially gets bullied by Nishan for not entering the swimming pool with the rest of his teammates. Chad doesn’t let Russ’s mentality govern his actions, and he simply walks away from the ragebaiter so as to protect his non-waterproof prosthetic. He tries to seek refuge in the kitchen, but that’s where he is cornered by Tricia, who bombards him with questions about his history under the garb of creating a proper media rollout plan when he becomes the quarterback for the South Georgia Catfishes. Chad somehow manages to get away from Tricia and finds himself in yet another pickle: a water-balloon battle.
Russ Isn’t The Quarterback Yet
Initially, Chad tries to avoid confrontation during the water balloon battle to protect his prosthetics and his identity. But after realizing he has no way out of it, he commits to the task at hand and almost single-handedly defeats the opposing team. In order to celebrate this victory, Chad’s teammates dunk a tub of water on him. Since that messes with his prosthetics, he rushes to the washroom to squeeze all the water out of the fake skin. Before he can get out all the water, though, Ricky tells him to go and meet Jake. Hence, right when Jake says that Gerry will be the team’s quarterback, while he’ll be the reserve, the water comes out of the prosthetics in such a way that it seems like Chad is crying after hearing the news. On that note, Chad decides to run to safety, which currently is his hidden Cybertruck.
At the end of Chad Powers, Russ seems to be done playing this fictional character just to relive his glory days. He is ready to go back to his home in Los Angeles. He even calls up his dad to feel out his mood, but since Mike makes it clear that he thinks that his son is beyond redemption, Russ decides to cancel his trip to LA and see this charade all the way to the end. It’s possible that Russ thought that his return to college football was going to be easy, but the thing about sports, or any other field for that matter, is that it’s progressing by the second. Russ might’ve spent only 8 years away from football, but football has seen centuries’ worth of evolution. So, it’s not surprising that Russ has to catch up before he can come close to being in the spotlight again. On top of that, there’s the case of his dual identity, which will probably make him a better person because Chad is the exact opposite of Russ. However, much like every story of dual identities, Russ will need to come clean about the fact that Chad is not real. How the world reacts to that will make or break not just Russ’s career but also his life. Anyway, those are just my thoughts on the first 2 episodes of Chad Powers. Feel free to share your opinions on the same in the comments section below.
