CHAD POWERS: Episodes 1.1-1.2

Here's the tension: this is a genuinely well-made show. The football sequences move with real energy, the direction is confident, and the cast — Glen Powell especially — is funny and charming. If quality alone decided the verdict, this would be an easy yes.

But quality isn't the only measure. The foul language in these first two episodes is excessive and constant, running the full length of both. There's male nudity, a scene involving casual drinking, and a main character built entirely around a lie — pretending to be someone he's not to get a second chance. The show never quite justifies his deception, which is to its credit, but it also never slows down long enough to let that matter land.

You can admire the craft here and still walk away unable to recommend the experience. This one costs more than it gives back. Skip it.

Russ Holliday is a star quarterback whose career implodes after one terrible decision on the field. Locked out of professional football and out of options, he spots a billboard and hatches a plan: disguise himself, using his father's prosthetics, as an unknown player named "Chad Powers" and walk onto a college team for a shot at redemption. A team mascot named Danny becomes his reluctant accomplice in keeping the secret — and in keeping Russ's ego from wrecking the second chance he's been handed.

Four stars means this is genuinely strong television craft, and the show earns it. The football sequences are shot with real dynamism, Tony Yacenda's direction keeps both episodes moving with confidence, and the comedy lands. Glen Powell plays convincingly against type as Chad, and the supporting cast — Toby Huss as Russ's worried father, Frankie Rodriguez as the loyal Danny, Wynn Everett as an insufferable-on-purpose boss, Perry Mattfeld's deadpan timing, and Steve Zahn's mix of drama and comedy as the coach — all pull their weight.

Where it falls short of "thoroughly entertaining" is the sheer volume of profanity running through every scene, plus a hero whose entire arc rests on sustained deception. The craft is real. The cost of sitting through it is real too.

Give the show this much: it doesn't celebrate Russ's lie. His bad behavior is never framed as admirable, and there's at least the suggestion — one worth hoping the season follows through on — that he'll eventually have to answer for the identity he's built on a false front. A father's warning that "forgiveness can run out" lands as a real moral note, not a throwaway line.

But the show also treats faith mostly as a punchline. A character claims to be praying for someone purely for comic effect, and another talks about "walking the path God laid before him" while actively performing as a fabricated identity — the irony seems intentional, but it's played for laughs rather than conviction. That's a light moral worldview, not a Christian one: right instincts about honesty, wrapped in language and content that undercut the very restraint the story gestures toward.

The deeper story underneath the jokes is an old one — a man who believes he must become someone else to be forgiven and start over. Scripture says otherwise: real redemption doesn't require a disguise. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17). Chad Powers is a mask. The gospel offers a new heart instead.

There's a genuinely funny, well-crafted show buried in these first two episodes — good direction, a strong cast, and a hero whose lie is never actually endorsed. But the language never lets up, the nudity and drinking add up, and none of it is for families or teens. Our answer stands: skip it. Looking for something to watch together instead? Start here:.