Chad Powers: Is the Mask Still On?

What if hiding behind the mask was the real Russ Holliday — one even he didn't know existed?

Season two keeps roughly the same setup: Russ Holliday, hiding behind Chad Powers with the help of his accomplices Danny and Ricky, still dreams of playing for a team without anyone finding out who Chad really is — and that dream holds, though not without twists and surprises along the way. This time, though, his enemies aren't the press or the fans anymore, but his own teammate — less talented and less charismatic than him, both on the field and in everyday life — who's determined to find out who's really behind the disguise.

"We are going to figure it out. We always figure it out!" is the scene where Chad and Ricky finally confirm just how tight their bond really is — proof of a real connection, even though neither of them has fully opened up, or rather Russ, who's held back the full truth more than once.

Friendship and love both matter a lot in this show, but for me the real centerpiece stays "the mask" — being someone else in order to be yourself. Russ spends so much of this season in disguise, and we hear so little of his real voice, that you almost forget it's Glen Powell playing the part. He started out as someone hot-headed and impulsive; wearing the mask — and maybe the inability to just let loose — pushes the character toward being more thoughtful and strategic about his actions and their consequences.

At the same time, if the character started out running from his own personality (or who knows, his own fears), you can clearly see him trying to settle down and, for the first time, actually chase something. That arc comes into sharp focus when Ricky tells him in the finale, "You are not chasing, you are running away" — and suddenly we're looking at the season-one version of the character again.

Ricky, on the other hand, wants to come across as strong and incorruptible — and ends up contradicting herself by being the one who actually takes her mask off. Her emotional side wins out over the rational one, and she finally admits she's staying because of him, drawn to this enigmatic character without giving herself much of a rational explanation.

A light show, but a well-built one: there's no shortage of drama and suspense, and the ever-present mask reads as an allegory — that to truly be ourselves, we often have to step outside our own circle and be seen differently.
Final verdict: 7/10