S2:E4: This week’s episode of Eastbound and Down should not have surprised those of you who remembered that each season should be treated like part of a movie (and those who have studied film and story structure). The first two chapters were our first act, the next two represent our second act, the final three our third act. And since this is the transition from the second to the third act we hit our “Point of No Return” which takes our character and absolutely puts him or her in the worst possible situations and leaves them with no hope. No punch backs, freebies, or amnesty. This is the bottom of the barrel.
Which is the furthest place we could imagine Kenny Powers to be when the episode opens.
But let’s see just how royally he can mess up every single area of his own life. We start with him on the roof, dictating the tenth chapter of his self help book. He is on top of the world (symbolism!) and going strong. Kenny Powers is throwing heaters, his girlfriend and her badonkadonk are hot as ever, Stevie is his little bitch, and he is wearing the finest threads and dining in the finest food establishments. But since all good things must end, he starts to tear himself down.
On the field, the manager is getting fed up with his antics. He tries to install some emotional investment in Kenny’s heart with some cautionary tales from the past, but Kenny Powers is uncomfortable around that sort of stuff and tells the coach off. He gets so fed up that he eventually rides a donkey drawn carriage out of the bull pen. This infuriates the manager who doesn’t play him the next game.
Now, that alone would normally make Kenny Powers mad but luckily he has his smoking hot babe to come home to so it doesn’t faze him that much. But her singing career is about to take off, especially with Kenny’s connections to the owner’s audio studio. He hooks Vida up and totally digs her new song which even Kenny can read the undertones of how she just wants to be alone. Kenny tries to get her to sing about the new man in her life and how it made her life better, but the meter and rhyme must be off. He eventually comes back with Vida’s son to find the owner’s nose deep in her rug trying to see if he could find the little man in the canoe. Kenny can’t believe a woman with an ass like that would treat him so badly but luckily he has his trusty side kick to fall back on.
However he also manages to screw up everything with Stevie too. Poor Stevie, the one guy in the whole world who would literally do anything for him, Kenny has him break up with his new husky next door neighbor girlfriend. Stevie doesn’t want to but through his tears he manages to break up with her. It’s heartbreaking. Also it’s kind of amazing how many sex scenes Stevie is getting. And by amazing, I mean gross.
Left alone, heartbroken, and without the fame of the game, Kenny resorts to drinking and drugs. If he’s going to live at the bottom, he’s going to be sauced for it at least. And just when you think he couldn’t go any lower, he storms the baseball field drunk. And armed. And also with a soccer ball. That goes over about as well as you would think.
That’s when it hit me. If there was ever a character that lived in chaos, that thrived at the opportunity to cause mischief, that prospers as their world collapses around them, it’s Kenny Powers. He’s right where he wants to be. He’s the mother fucker that causes trouble. He is destruction with a mullet.
But we don’t have our main characters knocked down to see them stay there, we want to see them rise up. And with our last three episodes before us, we see where this is going. The long mysterious Eduardo Sanchez finally makes an appearance, and as long known, it’s Kenny’s father. Things have been shaken up in the world of Eastbound and Down, but since the shaking has to come before the baking, things should start to cook soon enough.
