TV Review: Danny McBride Delivers Comedy Heat With HBO’s ‘Eastbound & Down’

Television Rating: 4.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Danny McBride had an amazing 2008, stealing scenes in “Tropic Thunder” and finding comic gold with director David Gordon Green in the great “Pineapple Express”. McBride, Green, director Jody Hill, and producer Will Ferrell have teamed up for the six-episode HBO comedy series “Eastbound & Down,” one of the most laugh-out-loud, promising comedy premieres in a long time.

It’s impossible to judge an entire show based on a first episode and it helps to have directors like Jody Hill and David Gordon Green (who also directed the excellent “Snow Angels” last year) behind the camera to start, but I thoroughly enjoyed “Chapter 1” of “Eastbound & Down” from first scene to last. It’s easily the best thing that McBride has done in a lead role (he and Hill also worked together on “The Foot Fist Way”) and a show that would make people who may have canceled HBO to save some cash think twice about it.

Danny McBride and John Hawkes in HBO’s “Eastbound & Down”.
Photo credit: Fred Norris/HBO

Danny McBride plays Kenny Powers, a character who feels loosely based on Atlanta’s John Rocker. Once a superstar relief pitcher for the Atlanta Braves, Powers let his mouth and his bad behavior destroy his career. With no filter on his rampant racism, sexism, or homophobia, Powers was a black eye on baseball who fell deep into drug use and steroids before his career ended with a whimper.

Danny McBride in HBO’s “Eastbound & Down” Photo credit: Fred Norris/HBO

“Several sh*tty years later,” Powers is back home in North Carolina, teaching physical education at the middle school he once attended, living with his brother Wayne’s (John Hawkes) family, pining after his old girlfriend (Katy Mixon) and continuing his unbelievably obnoxious ways. He does cocaine in the back room of the local watering hole, haggles with hookers in his sister-in-law’s living room, and swears like Tony Montana.

With a raging mullet and ridiculous facial hair, McBride gives a performance in “Eastbound & Down” that is likely to be massively underrated. He’s both a caricature of an obnoxious redneck and someone who feels completely believable at the same time. Kenny is an overgrown child who was given the ability to have all of his dreams come true because of the excess of sports. Now, he’s just a big, stupid fish in a little pond, constantly running into the shore.

The great Hawkes (“Deadwood”) anchors the lead character’s more over-the-top behavior in realism, and there’s an honest sadness in Powers fall from grace that adds depth to the barrage of f-bombs that I hope is developed in future episodes.

Ben Best and Danny McBride in HBO’s “Eastbound & Down”. Photo credit: Fred Norris/HBO

My biggest concern about “Eastbound & Down” is that it will be ALL childish behavior and vulgarity for all six episodes. There’s room to go either way with “Eastbound” after the premiere and maintain the show’s strong start or descend into repetition. Can they keep this up for six episodes without getting boring? Will we really care about Kenny when the joke grows old? It certainly doesn’t in just 30 minutes, but I’m worried about the ability to keep the show fresh in the later innings. The short order - only six episodes - definitely gives me pause.

“Eastbound” is not for the easily offended. Powers is a raging jerk who swears more than a drunk truck driver and cracks jokes that would make a lot of people turn away in disgust. Personally, I think Green and McBride have found something sublimely brilliant by dropping an ego-centric, crazy SOB back into the bible belt that created him. When someone like Kenny Powers becomes a household name, can he possibly be turned back into an average gym teacher?

Wherever it goes from here, the premiere of “Eastbound & Down” is just damn funny. Kenny’s response to the kid in gym class who says “My dad said you ruined baseball” is worth tuning in for by itself. “Eastbound” had me laughing from the very beginning and more consistently through its first thirty minutes than anything in a long time.

A lot of the humor may be juvenile, but “Eastbound & Down” hit my funny bone like a fastball, which simply cannot be said about a lot of TV’s recent scripted comedy. I’m still not sure he’ll make it a full nine innings, but I can’t wait to see Kenny Powers take the mound again.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com