Mind you, I’m sick this week so be Nice to Me. There will be spelling errors, there might be a lost train of thought, and all the while, behind the screen, I will be writing this after taking one (1) Benadryl to have a good (Great) nights sleep. One Benadryl is the best Benadryl because more than one is no sleep and more than two is the Hat Man. The Hat Man exists across many forms and sizes but to me, it’s a tall guy with a long beak who stands near my door when I need to get up to go to the bathroom at night.
You: It’s your coatrack!
Me smarter, wiser: It’s the void threatening to consume us whole.
Arguably considered Danny McBride’s baby in the realm of television magic, Eastbound and Down premiered in 2009 and aired for four years, ending its reign after the fourth season in 2013. The profane comedy follows protagonist Kenny Powers (Danny McBride) on his descent from fame. After substance abuse and self-destructive behavior gets him in trouble following his MLB careers, Powers returns home to North Carolina to serve as a P.E. teacher at his former middle school. Along the line, a chance at returning to professional baseball pops up that sends Powers down to Mexico on what sounds like another party-infused-bender.
Knowing Danny McBride, I’m sure the show is very frat star, pot head, humor.
Especially at the beginning of his career, I feel like McBride leaned harsh in to a Chad persona that didn’t win me over until Vice Principals. Given the fact I loved Vice Principals and Righteous Gemstones, it will be interesting to see McBride in an early 2000’s role playing a character I feel won’t show his writing prowess as well as his later stuff. Fuck if I know, though.
I’ll probably be captivated regardless of all the bullshit I spew.
When his ass was 19 years old, Kenny changed the face of professional baseball, he laments as we get sweeping overhead shot of a baseball arena. Stakes are high in the 7th game of the World Series and the bases are loaded. Kenny goes to pitch and the batter strikes out, his team rushing him on the field securing Atlanta another World Series win that leads into a montage. He got multimillion dollar deals, endorsements, ESPN covers, and we get the idea Kenny is a massive hot shot. “You’re fucking out!” crowds cheering Kenny’s key slogan. Pitching 101 mph it makes sense why Kenny is popular and why that might have gone to his head. His pitch rate goes down and down parlaying his career trajectory, calling New York “Jew York” and just being a total ass in general. There’s a steroid allegation, intense music playing, a reporter attacked, and Kenny gets worse at his job. In the Seattle Vs. LA game, they lament this game was a “nail in the coffin of his career.”
We cut to “Several Shitty Years Later.”
Kenny has joined the Shelby County School system where he is starting a career as a substitute teacher. He hears someone on the phone say they’re sitting behind Kenny Powers and he looks like a bag of mashed potatoes. The guy chases him out afterwards and Kenny is not in the mood. He banged his stepsister back in high school and just as he gets close enough Kenny winds up for a big punch.
Cue the title card.
Kenny drives in his truck hauling a jetski through the back streets of North Carolina. Beautiful sprawling landscapes run by him in this lush green state as he parks his car and goes inside to have dinner with who I assume is his family. They ask him if he got their letters in the mail and he brushes it off saying yeah I got a lot of fan mail but I’m pretty sure I read the stuff you wrote. He sent them a tanning bed three years ago and relies on that as his point of contact between the two, the mother stiffens, the father looks forlorn. Mom is intense as Kenny tells her sons he used to beat up kids with their father and she insists he doesn’t encourage her kids to beat up children who are disabled. Mom asks him to tone down the language and Kenny is impressed by the three kids they’ve had. He seems confused by the fact there is a daughter there and laughs when he learns the daughter is named after Rose from Titanic.
In the pool Kenny thanks his brother for letting him crash at his place. We get the idea his brother doesn’t necessarily want him there and so does Kenny, insisting he needs a break now that the IRS and Gatorade are on his ass. He needs to take a job so the government can get off his ass and if his brother can give him some money in the mean time that’d be great :) His brother, little skinny easy-to-push-over boy he is, tries to get him to give a timeline and Kenny is like “four years, you really want me to have an end date in mind? I don’t fucking know.” I stayed with my sister and her boyfriend, now fiance, for three months and boy did I feel in everyone’s way. I don’t know how anyone could just couch surf willingly for more than a week or so. Granted, they lived in a basement apartment and I was on an air mattress, so it wasn’t as if I had a guest bedroom like Kenny probably has, but wouldn’t you WANT to get out of your siblings hair as soon as possible? I ran into her coming home from the club at 5 A.M. as she was on her way to work and it was the most surreal experience I realized “shit I should probably switch up my lifestyle or at least chill a little bit.”
Then again, I WAS 21.
Kenny’s kind of older though so his brother is realistically wondering when he’s going to get his shit together. This weighs on Kenny’s mind ass he fluffs up his pillow at night and stares down the hall at his nephew, who’s staring at him through a conjoined bathroom. Kenny is sobbing as a baby cries down the hall and laments the next day in his truck on how he’s better than everyone in the world and doesn’t deserve this kind of fate. We realize the voiceover is from his audiobook “You’re Fucking Out. I’m In.” by Kenny Powers and romantic music plays as the camera zooms in on a pair of some teacher’s boobs outside the school. April! He calls inside, his back turned to her in the doorway. He’s doing some real weird shit to catch her attention and they hug. April is clearly uncomfortable as Kenny indicates he cummed his pants from that hug. She plays it off, though, and we can already tell this is going to be some sort of weird fated romance taking place throughout the entire season.
He’s trying to play it cool as hell that he’s in town doing some rehab for his shoulder and she insists they are not going to hook up, if that’s where he’s thinking this is going. He doesn’t get the point though, saying they’ve got some fun energy, when he’s interrupted by Terence Cutler, the principal. Cutler says he’s stoked Kenny is substituting at this school and says he’s also an athlete, seeing as he’s training for a triathlon. Kenny Powers says him and April used to date in high school and that the sparks are still flying when she shuts him down saying she’s engaged, actually. To who, you’re wondering? The PRINCIPAL of the SCHOOL! Yeah, AND Kenny just smacked her ass in front of him.
Cutler doesn’t miss a beat though instead impressed that his ex dated someone famous which, yeah I would be too if they weren’t smacking my fiance’s ass right in front of me. He invites Kenny to the wedding and the bell rings.
Time for Kenny’s first day of school!
Kenny’s serving as the new P.E. teacher until Coach Booth’s back is fixed. He opens the floor for questions from the kids and one kid asks if they’re going to run the mile? A beat before Kenny is like ???? These are questions about me??? Do you not understand I am… famous? Honestly, I think if I was famous I would act the exact same way. Can you imagine making money hosting seminars simply about yourself and people are just really engaged in what you have to say? It kind of reminds me of this hole I went down last night of this woman who thinks Lana Del Rey is copying her every move. Pretty interesting here’s the link if you also want to piss away a Tuesday afternoon.
He’s mad these kids are ignoring the fact they’re with a SUPER star and have his UNDIVIDED ATTENTION right now and I agree, utilize this opportunity to get his social security number he clearly isn’t a smart person. Someone asks if steroids shrunk his balls and he goes “for your information I have full size balls next question.” The kids don’t shy away from absolutely dunking on this 40 year old man, hitting him with “were you in jail? did you hurt yourself? what’s rehab?” He calls on a timid kid who says “my dad said you ruined baseball” and Kenny makes a decision to bully this poor child.
Ever well spoken boy that he is Kenny saddles up to the teacher table at lunch and breaks up the conversation by saying he saw two boys raping a sixth grader and they all gasp. He laughs that he’s just kidding and catches up on the conversation of topic which is April’s dating history. Moments before, she was saying how she loved her fiance the principal because he doesn’t drink, indicating some shit probably went down between her and Kenny. The principal introduces him to all the teachers and one of them, Stevie, says they knew each other from high school. Kenny has no memory of him and says sometimes you have to dump the small memories to make room for the bigger ones and makes a small jab at April which the principal doesn’t pick up on.
Back at home, Kenny is on the phone with someone about a blowjob and having to pay for it when Cassie, his sister in law, shows upset to clean the living room around this pile of filth she’s related to. He asks if he can fuck the girl from behind on the phone with a Scream mask on and Cassie’s phone, which he presumably didn’t ask to use, dies on him. He says he’s exhausted and she asks if he could keep his area clean, keeping her cool despite the fact she has every right to freak out on Kenny. He asks her for advice on asking out a girl who’s already engaged and she said she was pregnant when she was engaged to Dustin and Kenny’s like right, right ok since no one would want to fuck a pregnant woman let’s pretend in this hypothetical you’re NOT pregnant. Cassie’s like if someone asked me out while I was engaged I would have said no because when a heart connects with another heart it’s magical and he shoots out the house, ignoring her. Having seen one of his nephews on his jetski, he begins yelling at him which results in Cassie telling him not to talk to her son that way
You go, Cassie! Good for you.
Kenny’s upset there’s chocolate on his jet ski now and Dustin gets invovled, saying he should sell the jet ski if he’s strapped for cash. He says he doesn’t tell Dustin what to do with his money and also calls out Cassie for staring at him with “those eyes- you church bitch.” What an absolutely devastating insult “church bitch” is and one that I will employ at every given moment from now on. He apologizes for it, since it was a horrible thing to say, and goes “it’s just… I’m Kenny Powers!!! I have a horrible time expressing my emotions and I can’t stop yelling!” He seemingly screams his apology out at them because if he stops yelling, he lost the argument, and heads out to the local bar to get shit faced. The idea of a character screaming out an apology because he doesn’t want to lose is so relatable and I applaud Danny McBride for finally giving a voice to those who live in fear (me) of emotional intimacy (Me).
We need our moments reflected on screen as much as the next person.
At the bar some blonde girl slides up next to Kenny and says she knows him from TV. She’s laying it on thick and the bartender tells her to get out of the bar which she does before licking his face and passing out. The bartender invites him to the back to do blow and he’s super excited to do it. They talk really fast while blowing through lines of Coke mutually talking about all their problems. He says April’s got “two big poppers attached to a sell out” about her tits and the two dance as they rail line after line. When Kenny gets home he stumbles to get into bed while one of Dustin’s sons watches in horror, covering his face when he sees Kenny standing in the doorway.
The turmoil these kids put up with is pushing me to be a better Uncle than Kenny ever could be. I’m going to buy my nephews an iPhone so they can see me all the time.
The next day, Cutler has some sad news for Kenny. Coach Booth died from overdosing on pain pills (oops) and asks Kenny if he’d want to join the team full time. He thinks the kids could really benefit from having a star around plus, he’ll get health insurance, a 401k, and tenure in a few years. What’s better than this? Cutler asks if Kenny wants a smoothie and while he blends, Kenny lets out that he took April’s virginity. “What’s that?” Cutler turns, happy as a clam. Kenny says “nothing” and we get a sad montage of a sad man fallen from grace showering in the boys locker room with a beer in his hand, shaving his balls. I can’t tell if he’s upset about April because it’s a conquest he can’t have or if he’s genuinely not over her, but he watches her walk out of school with Cutler in the parking lot after the bell rings and I can’t get a gauge on Kenny as a person. His audiobook plays out saying “sure I’ve been called a xenophobe but I just think America’s better than everyone country. That used to be called patriotism.”
He ducks down as he honks at April and Cutler walking to their cars.
Dustin wakes up at night to a loud thud and him and Cassie finally give us some background on their family situation. Dustin is the older brother to Kenny, apparently, and he goes out to yell at Kenny for throwing baseballs against the side of his house. Dustin tries to figure out what the hell is up and Kenny says the “love of his life is getting married to some smoothie eating fairy, the only job opportunity he has is teaching a bunch of piss pants how to tie their shoes,” and he’s just finally figuring out his life is at a dead end. Dustin says he needs to stop acting like a baby, this life isn’t a prison sentence, and he doesn’t like being around Kenny the way he used to. Kenny takes this as “I need to remind everyone who the fuck Kenny Powers is, that he’s the greatest.” He sidetracks from Dustin responding to this by saying he’s going to sell the jet ski and it will help Dustin and his family which, good!
Maybe he IS turning his life around.
He walks in to school the next day to a Black Keys song as the kids cheer him on in the halls. In reality, no one is responding to his entrance, but he’s taking it as that being the case and breaks in to morning announcements where he says over the intercom that “no one knows shit about who Kenny Powers is.” He says he’s a man, he’s an athlete, a lover, but he’s also a god damn champion who faces his enemies and conquers them. Kenny Powers is officially accepting the position of PE Coach until the majors call him back up. Cutler stands helplessly trying to grab the mic from him and April tries to wrangle her class under control as Kenny stands in the doorway and points at her. Kenny walks outside and high fives the janitors on the way out who are confused about where he’s going.
Cue a montage scene of Kenny on his jet ski with the topless woman from the bar.
Overall I’d give the Eastbound and Down pilot a solid 7/10. It established the universe, introduced us to long lasting characters, and played on McBride’s strengths of driving a plot forward through dramatics, jokes, and great dialogue. Maybe it’s unfair of me to return to Eastbound and Down knowing the gold Vice Principals and Righteous Gemstones became but this does feel more like a series to practice, strengthen, and test McBride’s skills as opposed to fully hone on their capabilities. I’m sure it gets better as time goes on, but in my opinion, Eastbound and Down walked so Vice Principals could fly.