In episode 5 of Chad Powers, the titular persona of Russ started to come apart at the seams because he had finally gotten the success that he had been yearning for for 8 years, but it had also come with the limelight that was one of the reasons behind the destruction of his career. Even though Russ tried to avoid doing a second interview with ESPN after fumbling the first one, Tricia wasn’t ready to give him such an easy pass, because it was crucial to the Catfish’s financial situation. Since Jake knew that Ricky and Chad had an amicable relationship, he asked his daughter to convince him to do another interview, which would happen at Jake’s house. Chad accepted the offer, but then Russ went to a bar to chill out and ended up hooking up with a woman who turned out to be Jake’s wife, Wendy. Now, the day after that incident, when Wendy joined Chad, Ricky, and Jake for the interview, Chad did a great job of keeping his cool. However, Wendy decided to use that opportunity to not only berate Jake for prioritizing football over everything, but also reveal the fact that she had hooked up with Russ. After Wendy, Tricia, and the camera crew left, Jake told Chad and Ricky that he was going into cardiac arrest. What happened next? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Chad Rushes Jake to the ER
Episode 6 of Chad Powers picks up the plot where the previous one left off, with Jake feeling his chest tightening up, Chad trying to calm Jake down, and Ricky calling 911. Due to some glitch on Ricky’s phone, her call is put on the waiting list, which means that the ambulance isn’t coming anytime soon. Ricky asks if Chad has a car, and Chad obviously doesn’t reveal that he has one, because as soon as he shows up in his Cybertruck, it’ll become apparent that he is Russ, since Wendy said that she hooked up with Russ in a Cybertruck. When Jake learned about that, he threw the keys to his truck into the lake behind his house, so his vehicle is inaccessible. Ricky has left her car at the campus, and it’ll take way too much time to tell someone to bring it over to the house. Ricky even tries calling Wendy, because she has just left, to ask her to come back and take Jake to the hospital, but her number goes straight to voicemail.
Chad realizes that this is a matter of life and death, and he can’t prioritize his dual identity over Jake. So, he brings over the Cybertruck and delivers Jake and Ricky to the hospital. When he says that he’s going to join them after parking the car, Ricky tells him that he doesn’t need to, which pretty much makes it clear that she has put two and two together and figured out that Chad is Russ. Before going forward, I do have to mention Glen Powell’s delivery of “All aboard.” I belly-laughed for half a minute, because the more I thought about it, the funnier it got. I have said it for the past few weeks, and I will say it again: Glen has delivered an acting masterclass here, and I love the fact that, after delivering one blockbuster after another, he can give such a great performance in a TV show like this.
Ricky Knows Chad Is Russ
Chad rushes to Danny and tells him everything that has gone down between him, Ricky, Wendy, and Jake. Danny hilariously says that Chad should have just let Jake die in order to protect his identity, but of course, he is just saying it for laughs. If Danny had been in Russ’ shoes, he would have done the same thing. That said, Danny advises Russ to appear as Chad and act like he usually does, as if he doesn’t know that Ricky suspects anything. He has already told Ricky that the Cybertruck doesn’t belong to him and that it is Danny’s property. So, obviously, there’s no reason for Ricky to accuse Chad of being an impostor, right? Wrong! When Ricky meets Chad during the practice session before their next match, she rips off his arm sleeve, revealing the tattoo that’s synonymous with Russ. After that, Russ has no option but to make a run for it. He goes to Danny’s home to pack up his things and just leave.
Danny tries to dissuade him from doing so because the Catfish’s fate is at stake, and if Chad isn’t on the team, all the work they have done so far will go to waste. But Russ is in no mood to listen to Danny, as he thinks that Ricky will tell everyone about his duplicitous nature, and then it’ll be pointless to keep pretending to be Chad. Danny asks what he is going to do after leaving Georgia. Russ says that he wants to go back to his home in Oregon, but he suspects that his dad, Mike, probably won’t welcome him back with open arms because he has stolen his expensive make-up kit, thereby forcing him to make his prosthetics for the Michael Bay movie from scratch. Danny says that the shoot for that David Crockett biopic is happening in Atlanta, which is 3 hours away from South Georgia, and if Russ wants to re-enter Mike’s good books, then he can just go there, return the make-up kit, and apologize for his actions. Since facing one’s father on one’s own after making a massive mistake can be pretty daunting, Danny offers to go along with him. Given how Ricky tries to confront Jake regarding the truth about Chad all on her own, she fails to express herself properly.
Russ Returns the Makeup Kit to Mike
Byrd had contacted Jake earlier about how Chad didn’t attend the practice session; hence, Jake assumes that he is still spooked after that incident with Wendy and Jake’s heart attack. And he is hopeful that when the bus leaves for the match in Athens (the city in Georgia, not the capital of Greece), Chad will join them. Ricky doesn’t say it, but it’s pretty obvious that she’s afraid that if she breaks Jake’s optimism with the truth, he might suffer another cardiac arrest, and this time he might not recover from it. Hence, she just hopes that Chad won’t show his face again and Jake will just accept whatever the Catfish will deliver at the “tournament’s most important game” sans Chad. Speaking of Chad or Russ, he reaches the location for Michael Bay’s latest movie and immediately runs into Mike, who is testing out a fat suit for the character of Santa Anna. Russ hands over the makeup kit, tells his dad that they are even, and as soon as Mike says that he still needs to pay for what he has done, Russ tries to leave. Danny stops him in his tracks, takes the father-son duo to a make-up van, and explains everything that Russ has done since becoming Chad Powers.
Surprisingly enough, Mike doesn’t chastise Russ for his actions because, by becoming Chad, he has gone back to doing what he was good at, which is football (I cried during this scene with Glen). He was so focused on creating the myth of Russ Holliday that he probably stopped enjoying football, and after the Rose Bowl incident, he wanted to “kill” Russ; yeah, he doesn’t exactly say that, but it’s insinuated that that’s what he wanted to do. Therefore, when he got the chance to become someone else, he embraced the persona of Chad. However, since Ricky knows the truth, Russ thinks that that dream is over, and now he has to live with himself for the rest of his life. Mike thinks otherwise. He is of the opinion that Russ should become Chad again and rejoin the Catfish because, as a father, if he has been able to forgive his son for such a blunder, maybe Ricky can as well. On that note, Mike and Danny work together to get the Chad prosthetics back on Russ and send him to Athens.
Russ Gets Serious With Ricky
Ricky, Byrd, Dobbs, and the rest of the team can be seen bracing for the worst outcome imaginable because they don’t have Chad as their quarterback anymore; they have Gerry. Well, Gerry is undoubtedly excited about Chad’s absence, because he finally gets to play in the quarterback position. Meanwhile, Jake is sweating it out at the hospital, where he is joined by Tricia because she can’t fathom the idea of the head coach watching such a tantalizing game on his own. She is so upper-class that she can’t even tolerate the simplicity of the hospital chamber that Jake is in, but she is ready to tolerate it for the sake of Jake; first-worlders do live such a different life than the rest of us. Back in Athens, Chad finally shows up and tries to have a chat with Ricky on the team bus. He tries to explain that even though Chad is a personality that he created to fulfill his dreams of playing football, his feelings for Ricky and the points that the Catfish have amassed are all real. And he thinks that they should not squander it all because of a lie and an accidental hookup with Wendy.
For a second, it does seem like Ricky is going to forgive Russ, but the slap that she lands on his face makes it pretty clear that she won’t. She calls Russ a psychopath and even says that when she saw Russ throw away that game at the Rose Bowl, she actually wanted Russ to kill himself; that’s not my interpretation of her dialogue—she literally says that to Russ’ face. In addition to that, Ricky advises Russ to stay away from the Catfish lest he want her to expose him and ruin what little reputation he has. This is where Chad gets serious, and he says that he knows Ricky won’t do any of the things that she is threatening to do because if the authorities learn that the Catfish have been winning games with the help of a fake player, all of their wins will be nullified. And since Jake is the one who signed him on, he’ll face the brunt of this scrutiny.
Ricky Doesn’t Expose Russ
In the ending of Chad Powers, episode 6, the realization that what Russ is saying about how maintaining the myth of Chad is instrumental to the success of the Catfish is true sets in pretty quickly for Ricky, and she decides to keep him on. This obviously causes Gerry to go on an extremely loud and expletive-laden rant in the locker room. He even tries to interrogate Chad for being irresponsible and not showing up on time. However, Ricky covers for him and orders everyone to focus on the match and win the game against Georgia for Jake. As the team walks onto the field, the episode cuts to credits, leaving us on an absolutely insane cliffhanger. I don’t know what version of this show some of the critics have watched, but they need to rewatch this and reassess their opinions, because this is hands-down one of the best shows of the year. Ever since Barry ended, I have been craving a show like that, knowing full well that nothing can be as good as Barry. But folks! I think we have a winner on our hands, because the way Michael Waldron, Glen Powell (yes, he is one of the co-creators), and the rest of the team have transitioned the tone of the show from an out-and-out silly comedy to a semi-comedic, tense drama is insane.
I mean, did you see what happened to Ricky and Gerry (brilliant performances from Perry Mattfeld and Colton Ryan) by the end? If a second season of the show is greenlit, I can totally see them being the two main antagonists. Also, Chad was the good guy and Russ was the baddie so far, but they have sort of fused together to become someone who can use the rules for his own benefit while also living his dream as a key player of the Catfish. And much like how I was worried about Gene Cousineau in Barry, I am worried about what’s going to happen to Jake once the veil is lifted from his eyes. Anyway, those are just my thoughts on Chad Powers. If you have any opinions on the same, feel free to share them in the comments section below.
