How Chad Powers Season 2 Makes the Disguise the Story, Not the Joke
Glen Powell’s Russ Holliday keeps the Chad Powers disguise going in season two. Learn which characters already know the truth, how the show turns the mask into the central drama, and what the season changes about its leading man.
Chad Powers, the Disney+ sports comedy starring Glen Powell, could have coasted on the same joke forever: a disgraced quarterback hides behind prosthetics and a fake accent to win back a football career. According to The Guardian’s review of season two, the show instead starts asking serious questions about its own premise.
Powell plays Russ Holliday, once a hotshot college quarterback who blew his big chance during a televised game eight years earlier. With whiskers, teeth, hair and a nose that does not always cooperate, Russ transforms into Chad Powers, a southern oddball who becomes the new star of the team. The danger is never far away. One slip and the school could send him home.
Who Already Knows the Truth
The second season does not start with a clean slate. Two people are already in on the secret. Team mascot Danny, played by Frankie Rodriguez, recognized Russ on day one but chose to help because the scheme gave his theatrical side an outlet. Assistant coach Erika, known around the team as Ricky and played by Perry Mattfeld, also knows. Her season-one romance with Chad went cold when the old selfish Russ reappeared, especially after Russ slept with Ricky’s stepmother in a Tesla Cybertruck.
The review places another threat on the bench. Gerry, a displaced quarterback played by Colton Ryan, wants to bring Chad down and does so with increasingly manic behavior. The review compares him to Louis Litt from Suits: an antagonist who seems dangerous on the surface but has a soft streak at heart.
A Mask Inside the Mask
The second season leans into the mask idea more earnestly. If everyone wears a persona at work and in relationships, the show asks, which version of Chad is the real one? Since Chad’s words and actions are all Russ’s, the split stops being purely comic. The review highlights a scene where Chad, temporarily missing his nose, has to wear a solid plastic mask during a heart-to-heart with Ricky. That forces Powell to act only through his eyes. The review says he makes it work, but the character comes alive most when the disguise comes off and Russ faces the world directly. His face, the review argues, carries both matinee-idol polish and boyish vulnerability, and the season uses it to show that Russ is not genuinely awful. He is just lost.
None of the introspection turns Chad Powers into an outright drama. The Guardian describes the series as a sweet sports comedy full of charming doofuses, but notes that the added seriousness gives the show a chance of lasting longer than its premise suggests. The real question of the season, by that account, is not just who will figure out the disguise. It is what happens to Russ when the mask stops protecting him.