I don't know anything about baseball, so I'm not sure what "eastbound and down" means (maybe a decrease in power, like "down the drain"?). But I'm going through Danny McBride's series before The Righteous Gemstones to check for parallels, particularly the treatment of LGBT people. Any homophobia? Any queerbaiting? So Eastbound and Down, Season 1, Episode 1.
The premise: a disgraced pro baseball player is forced to teach phys ed at his old high school. Um...you need a degree in education and a year of student teaching to do that.
Scene 1: Kenny (McBride) narrates: when he was 19, he changed the face of pro ball. We see him hitting a ball and thereby winning the series. This made him mega-famous, with endorsements, girls, a catch phrase ("You're fuckin' out!"), and magazine covers (including Playgirl: "Kenny Powers gets a woody.").
Montage of Kenny saying horrible bigoted things: "Jew York," "I thought the blacks were bad in New York, but they're nothing compared to the fags in San Francisco." Wouldn't he be fired instantly? Steroid allegations, anger management problems, becoming less competent at the game.
Scene 2 (Several shitty years later): Kenny in a big room, applying with others for a job as a substitute teacher. The guy behind him ridicules him on the phone, and then confronts him outside: "I'm Marcus Shank. You banged my stepsister in high school." Kenny punches him.
Scene 3: Kenny driving his pick-up truck through redneck country, while the sound track sings "I'm going down, down, down." At dinner with his brother Dustin (John Hawkes, top photo right) and his wife and kids, he talks about how they used to beat up "retard brothers" in the neighborhood. This guy needs a huge redemption arc.
Scene 4: Kenny and Dustin in the pool (shirtless, but not impressive). Dustin wants to know how long he'll be staying. "Four fucking years!" Later, Kenny curls up on his bed in the study and cries.
Scene 5: Kenny sits in his truck drinking beer, waiting for classes to begin at his old high school (Jeff Davis High!), thinking about how he's better than everyone else. "Suck my dick, world!" he exclaims. Why, exactly, is that an insult? I'm sure lots of guys would be happy to suck Danny McBride's dick. Is it homophobic, like "Suck a guy's dick! That's gay! Gross!"
Suddenly he sees his Love Interest talking to some students, and zeros in on her breasts. Love at first sight!
Scene 6: Inside the school, Kenny approaches April, who is talking about a student: "He drew a pentagram made of penises! My degree is in art, not psychology!" They hug, and Kenny comments "I'm going to have to change my pants." Translation: her hug made him cum.
He wants to rekindle their high school romance, but she's engaged to the fawning principal, Terence Cutler (Andy Daly). Kenny hates him immediately for being a dick, and for taking his girl. Well, you still have the big-boobed Love Interest.
Scene 7: Kenny meets his co-ed phys ed class, and fields questions about whether he was in jail and whether the steroids made his balls shrink.
Cut to lunch. Kenny joins the principal, April, and the others in the cafeteria. He meets drama teacher Mr. Nesbitt. Drama, huh -- maybe he's gay. And band leader Mr. Jankowski, who is all excited that they went to high school together, but Kenny doesn't remember him.
Scene 8: Back at Dustin's house, Kenny negotiates with a prostitute on the telephone and orders Dustin's wife around. He tries to strategize how to win April.
After an argument about something or other, he goes to bar to drink and watch baseball. A sleazy-looking blond lady makes vulgar innuendos as the bartender, Clegg (Ben Best), orders her out. She licks his face and leaves. One of Keefe's Satanist buds did that on The Righteous Gemstones. I still think it's gross.
Then Clegg, who knew him in high school, invites Kenny into his office for some blow. (He means cocaine, not a blow job). They bond, laugh, discuss how shitty their lives are, but don't have sex: Kenny stumbles back to his bed at Dustin's house.
Scene 9: At school, the Principal asks how Kenny likes teaching. He loves it. Good, because the coach he was subbing for died this morning. "How would you like to do this full time?"
"You want a smoothie?" The principal asks. "Naw, I'm straight." So a smoothie is a gay drink? Kelvin served them to his God Squad in Righteous Gemstones Season 2.
Scene 10: Kenny trying to decide if he wants the job. Of course he does, or it would be lousy story. Cut to the shower room, and Kenny's bare butt (not impressive). Wait - is he masturbating?
Then he sits in his truck, listening to his autobiography on tape and watching April and the Principal leave the school together.
Cut to Dustin and his wife in bed, sleeping (shirtless, not impressive). They are awakened by a loud thumping. Kenny is chucking beer cans against the wall. He explains: "The love of my life doesn't want to have sex with me because she's getting married to some smoothie-drinking fairy." Wait -- if the principal is gay, why would he want to marry April? I think Kenny is just using gay slurs as all-purpose insults. "Plus I got offered the teaching job full time."
Instead of settling, Kenny decides to get back on top, prove that he's better than everybody else,
Scene 11: Kenny bursts through a banner at the school, strutting, surrounded by hysterical Beatlemania-style girls (um...dude, those girls are underage). Boys cheer, too. He shakes his crotch at them. Ulp -- it's a fantasy. The kids are actually ignoring him.
As the principal exercises in a muscle shirt (no muscle)< Kenny commandeers the pa system to announce that he's discovered who he is: a man, an athlete, a lover, and a goddam champion." Band leader guy grins: hero worship or a crush?
Next he accepts the job, stops by April's class to point at her, high-five the janitors, and leaves the building, even though it's only first period.
Cut to Kenny jet-skiing with the sleazy blond woman from last night riding topless behind him (ugh!). She falls into the ocean. He splashes her. She yells "You piece of shit!"
Beefcake: I have never in my life seen so many unattractive men taking their clothes off, and I've been to a bath house in Palm Springs.
Gay Characters: I thought Stevie Janowski might be gay, but he appears to have a case of hero worship for Kenny. Later he gets married, and contemplates cheating 'because of all the attractive women" around.
Queerbaiting: Nope.
Homophobia: Kenny throws around homophobic slurs a lot, but he isn't targeting gay men so much as every man who doesn't meet his Neanderthal standards of masculinity. He probably wouldn't mind a masculine-presenting gay man. By the way, he's also horribly racist, sexist, and xenophobic.
Chekhov's Gun: I thought Marcus Shank, whom Kenny decked at the job fair, would become an ongoing antagonist, but we never hear from him again.
Kenny and Jesse: Both are brash, grandiose, with an inflated self image, but Jesse is not at all bigoted, and that seems to be Kenny's main thing. They both want more power, but Jesse's main concerns are conflicts with his dad, his wife, and his kids, while Kenny just wants to win the Girl of His Dreams. I did see a precursor of Kelvin and Jesse's relationship in Dustin's statement that the brothers used to be friends, but things changed.
My Grade: Characters like Kenny are definitely not my cup of tea.
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