by Jeff Alan, Contributing Writer
Stick isApple TV+’s attempt at recapturing lightning in a bottle post-Ted Lasso, but it’s to diminishing results. The new series follows a washed-up professional golfer named Pryce Cahill (Owen Wilson), also known as “Stick” in the golf world. Pryce used to be the best of the best, but after choking at a tournament many years ago, he has fallen from grace and has become lost to his fame. He now works at a golf shop tricking beginners into buying absurdly expensive gear, and separately cons random bar patrons out of their money with his friend and partner Mitts (Marc Maron). Additionally, he’s a golf coach at a driving range, all while his longtime wife is putting pressure on him to make their divorce final. While at the driving range one day, Pryce sees a young teenager, Santi (Peter Dager), hitting ball after ball with immeasurable distance and accuracy. Pryce believes that Santi could be the next golf prodigy, and urges Santi and his mother Elena (Mariana Treviño) to let him coach Santi, so that Santi can pursue his desire to play golf professionally.
The series is continuing the work that Apple has been trying to do since the Ted Lasso’s Season Three finale: to create a quick-witted comedy series with immense talent. They are making great strides with Shrinking, and now want to capture the same energy with Stick. But unfortunately, it just doesn’t live up to the level of its predecessors.
The subject matter of golf is a little less enticing than something like football (or soccer, as us yankees call it), but the show has moments that make the sport shine, like when Pryce finds out about Santi’s golf skills and tests his limits in their first outing. But as fun as those moments are, the show starts to lose its fun when it turns its focus to other topics.
Santi is presented as a forefront character, but he is one of the most unlikable characters I’ve ever seen in a TV series. He’s introduced as an angsty teenager who, at the slightest inconvenience, just gives up and leaves the situation he’s in. He’s your typical teenager: He has a snotty attitude, doesn’t listen to people, and is impulsive. It’s so difficult to connect with a character who acts like this so often, especially in the infancy stages of a first season. Santi has no sense of responsibility, and that definitely drives his likability down.
Elena becomes very involved in the story, often questioning Pryce and Mitts’ methods. A connection between Elena and Mitts is pushed a lot more as the show goes on, but it’s far less interesting. Another character that comes into the fray of this group is Zero (Lilli Kay), a nonbinary drifter-type who Santi and Elena meet while at their first tournament, and who Santi starts to grow a real attachment towards. She comes in and distracts Santi for a large portion of the show, to the point where Pryce has to use his own methods of conning to appeal to Zero to get Santi to listen to her. It’s honestly not the fault of Zero, but it only makes Santi less likable. But Zero does unfortunately bring my interest in the show down as well, as she’s almost as angsty as Santi in certain stretches of the middle episodes.
If there’s something that this show does well, it’s the emotional moments. We about learn bits of Pryce’s past life, like his failing marriage and the important factors that led to that, and that’s what the show is best at focusing on when it’s hitting a stride. Those deeper emotional moments are the lifeline of what makes Apple’s other hit comedies great. But Stick doesn’t give us more of that. Outside of the emotional beats, there are some more fun sequences and scenes toward the later end of the season — like a whole episode designed around a con where every character has a moment to shine — but the bad part is you have to sit through all the uninteresting fodder that comes before it.
When Stick is good, it’s fun. But more often than not, I find myself rather bored and wishing I was watching another sports-centric show, or just anything else at all. Wilson is a shining light, Maron is always a welcome addition to anything I put on, and as a recent golf player, I find the golf-centered talk fascinating, but the other characters just drag the show down. I can’t promise I will be a weekly viewer when it returns.
Rating: Didn’t Like It
Stick is currently streaming on Apple TV+
You can read more from Jeff Alan, and follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd