TV Show Review: ‘Eastbound’ is anything but down
Sports icons come in many varieties.
A majority of them are seen as role models that live the lives many of us can only dream about.
Kenny Powers is simply not one of those athletes.
“Eastbound and Down” is a comedy television show that aired on the HBO network beginning Feb. 15.
The series is based around a fictional ex-major league baseball pitcher named Kenny Powers after he is forced to leave baseball.
Powers must retreat to his brother’s household in his hometown of Shelby County.
Powers finds a job as a substitute physical education teacher, and it is through this job we begin to meet a variety of characters from Powers’ adolescent years, including April Buchanon, a past lover that Powers has not fully gotten over yet.
“Eastbound and Down” is based around a brilliantly crude script filled with an overwhelming amount of improvisational acting and highly offensive language.
The show contains many jokes that leave you filled with moral disgust and begging for more.
Several jokes leave you in disbelief and wondering if what you heard was actually what they meant to say, but the laughter that follows the thoughts more than makes up for the uneasy immaturity that the show thrives on.
Powers’, played by comedy’s rising star Danny McBride, is a well developed, mullet-wearing character that hates what his life has become.
Powers is portrayed as wanting to be big leaguer with no regard for others’ emotions and pride being his only fuel for living.
McBride, who has also acted in “Pineapple Express” and “Tropic Thunder,” is one of the show’s creators and writers.
McBride proves that he is just as funny off the screen as he is on it.
McBride molds into the Powers role with perfect comedic timing that is neither subtle nor overacted.
Will Ferrell is one of many executive producers for the show, and his humor can be seen vividly throughout the entire season.
Ferrell also makes a guest appearance on two of the episodes as used cars salesman Ashley Schaeffer.
So far, two different directors, the “Pineapple Express” director David Gordon Green and the “Observe and Report” director Jody Hill, have directed the show.
Although many of the visually and cinematically stimulating directing is missing in the show, humor is shown in the truest of forms in each scene.
With a cast and crew like “Eastbound and Down” has, it is easy to see how this show is growing into a leading sitcom series.
Make a call to the bullpen and put Kenny Powers on your TV, because “Eastbound and Down” is the show to rally behind.
