The second season of this HBO comedy sees Kenny Powers running from reality and ending up in Mexico where he is yet again living as a big man, albeit this time in the world of cockfighting. His hunt for a man called Edwardo Sanchez is his main reason for supposedly being there but at the same time he continues to work on his motivational self-help book. An arrival from the US and a return to the baseball field change everything though (well, everything apart from his character).
Although the location has changed, the nature of the show hasn't and there are still plenty of laughs to be had from the total lack of self-awareness the main character has. The smallest bit of good fortune is immediately taken for granted and milked to the limit. It isn't enough to be in the baseball team, he has to be the all-crushing star of the team – the irony of which of course being that this attitude is the main reason he doesn't have the success and life he wants. And this is where this show and I don't see eye to eye, because personally I would like it to do more with this irony and with the character but it doesn't seem to want to.
It didn't stop me enjoying most of the season though because Powers being an unjustified ***hole is funny due to the way it is delivered and just how excessive it all is. I mean McBride has done this character a lot (it gave him his break in Foot Fist Way) but he is good at it and he really does carry off the arrogance. However, as with that film and as with the first season, I am still left looking for more and I felt it more in this season because it did feel a little bit like the script was just looking for ways to "do" more of the same rather than going inward and cleverer. The introduction of Powers' estranged father felt like a missed opportunity where really it should have been funny and clever to see the roots of Kenny in this equally ridiculous man. However because the show doesn't allow the cracks to ever show in the character, it limits what it can do on this level to be almost nothing. I hate repeating myself but compare it to a very similar character in Alan Partridge and, while that show was not perfect, the character was much, much better because Partridge was a much realer monster. His journey and fate was like Powers but we were allowed to see his internal embarrassment and anger come through at times and the character was much much better for it. With Powers, as funny as he is, you have pretty much seen the full range if you watch a couple of example scenes.
This is a shame though because the show is funny and everyone in it is pretty good. I like McBride's performance and he really hammers it home, while Little's Stevie is funny again in a rather one-note way. The supporting cast this time includes Peña, Diaz and several famous faces doing small but enjoyable turns. In the end season two is essentially as good as the first season albeit that the excesses of the character have to be elevated to keep things moving because there is this lack of depth to the comedy that I keep hoping they can address. I'll return for a third season if it came but at some point it has to get smarter, not just louder.
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