TV this weekend: Eastbound and Down

Kenny Powers (Danny McBride, second from right) may have been a a major-league baseball star pitcher, but this new comedy from HBO is about what happens "several shitty years later," when, after a long, downhill slope, Powers quits the game and moves in with his brother's family (pictured above, along with the band teacher, far left) in their hometown and starts substitute teaching at the local middle school. As Powers explains his fall from grace: "Sometimes when you bring the thunder, you get lost in the storm."

Powers is a richly weird character: From his incredible hair (some combination of perm and mullet) to the dreamcatcher affixed to the rearview mirror of his pickup, he's a cliché of a washed-up athlete cliché. Sure, it's been done in a billion Will Ferrell movies, but it's Danny McBride, and he's just golden. Plus there are some gems in the cast backing him up—I'm particularly fond of the principal-slash-Kenny-Powers-superfan played by Andrew Daly (offering Powers a job, he begins nervously: "Look, I know you're a free agent, but I was just wondering if, just maybe,  you'd like to come to this team full time. I'd love to add you to the permanent roster.") and the stoner bartender friend played by Ben Best (catching up on the intervening years over just an incredible number of lines of coke, the bartender explains: "That was basically college for me, just fuckin' tourin with Widespread across the U.S....I'll burn you some shit—just the choice nugs, though." Powers's brilliant, earnest reply: "I would like that. I like CDs.")

My only qualm is that I don't know exactly how sustainable the series will be in the long run. As the TV equivalent of a "pretty good" Will Ferrell movie, EB & D may run its course pretty quickly for some viewers. But to those people, Kenny Powers would say, "You're fucking out."

Eastbound & Down premieres on Sunday at 9:30pm on HBO, right after Flight of the Conchords.