TV « In Which I Went To Space And Came Back And Nobody Gives A Shit »
Monday, March 30, 2009 at 11:07AM 
I'm So Glad You Came Over
by ELEANOR MORROW
Eastbound & Down
creators, Ben Best, Jody Hill & Danny McBride
When I was about seven I spent a good portion of my days with a younger girl who lived in my apartment complex named Emily. She became the embodier of my darker plans. She was fearsome in her desire to win my approval, because I was a year older than her, and she would endure any humiliation if she thought it likely to please me.
Thinking back on those days, I feel the exuberant joy of being worshipped. This is something like what keeps former MLB star Kenny Powers plugging along. When he's at his most depraved, his most conceited, he still manages to win the admiration of others.
Returning to his hometown after an MLB career that had many furloughs, Powers is offered the position of physical education instructor at the local high school. That Kenny has no such accreditation and shouldn't be in a room with a minor is no matter for Principal Cutler, who ultimately will relinquish his fiancee to the washed up racist.
April is Kenny's long-lost paramour, and when Eastbound & Down begins, she seems about as interested in him as a bunny rabbit in a bear trap. Kenny's not the most appealing option, but he is more of a man than Principal Cutler will ever be. The look in April's eyes as she diets down to please one of them two imbeciles hasn't been on television since those first sad moments of Three's Company.
Kenny's a desperate man, but another teacher soons volunteers to be his assistant. Stevie is more pathetic than Kenny, a mentality that it is hard to believe exists. His directorial debut of Kenny's comeback video is screened every place Kenny wants to be worshipped by more than just a chronic masturbator.
Executive produced by Will Ferrell's poolboys, Eastbound & Down is pretty much a full-length comedic movie stretched over a six episode cable TV arc. Hating a character usually works a lot better in a movie than a television show, which depends on the repeated empathy towards a character to trigger more than one viewing.
Kenny's dickiness is backed up by a certain vulnerability, and that's probably what April finds attractive. Hell, Basil Fawlty got a lot of ass, why not Kenny Powers?
Deadwood alum John Hawkes as Kenny's brother Dustin and his blond wife put up the obnoxious uncle of their children out of a Christian duty to the less fortunate. Soon Dustin's mouthing off to his construction clients and the kids are developing a deep appreciation for the highest forms of pornography. Really, Eastbound & Down is a morality play. It suggests when and where it is appropriate to treat people like an asshole, and it displays the consequences of positive and negative behavior.
In the series' climactic scene, Kenny Powers throws a 100 mph fastball and knocks out the eye of Reggie Macworthy (Craig Robinson), his chief rival at a promotional event for Ashley Schaeffer BMW. Ferrell's Schaeffer is in the background after the gruesome feat, waving around a baseball bat at no one in particular. No matter how ridiculous or gross we are as we run over other people, the assholes will always be haunted by what it is they've done.
Eleanor Morrow is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Manhattan, and she tumbls here.
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