Eastbound & Down

Our Review

Danny McBride’s monumental portrait of self-delusion: Kenny Powers, a washed-up major-league relief pitcher with a rocket arm and a personality disorder, returns to his hometown to teach middle-school PE and claw his way back to the Show. Kenny is one of TV’s great monstrous protagonists — egomaniacal, tender underneath, narrating his own greatness in a fog of denial — and the show’s genius is that it never fully redeems him. Every season ends with growth; every next season flushes it.

Four seasons of escalating bad decisions (Mexico, Myrtle Beach, the Russian-league detour), with Steve Little’s Stevie Janowski — the world’s most loyal, most disgusting sidekick — as the comedy fulcrum. The finale does the impossible: gives Kenny a genuinely earned emotional ending without pretending he’s changed his nature. Jody Hill and McBride’s whole comedic worldview — arrogant men failing upward — starts here, and it’s still the purest expression of it.

Verdict: Watch it. You’re fucking out!