Stick (Apple TV+) Review: Understated, Soulful Sports Comedy
In Apple TV+'s new series, Stick, Owen Wilson plays an ex-pro-golfer who finds himself coaching a young golf phenom.
Sometimes I’ll choose to watch a show because I like the actors. Sometimes I choose it because some aspect of the story echoes something that I have gone through. Sometimes I choose it because I trust the studio producing it. With Apple TV+’s new series Stick, from showrunner Jason Keller and starring Owen Wilson, it was a bit of all of these.
Pryce Cahill (Owen Wilson) has been struggling. He has just signed divorce papers, ending his marriage to Amber-Linn (Judy Greer). With that, he also needs to move out of their house, which she intends to sell. He is a salesperson at a golf shop, upselling mediocre golfers into more expensive clubs. At night, he goes to the bar where he and his friend Mitts (Marc Maron) hustle other patrons by bringing up Pryce’s past as a professional golfer and his fall from fame.
But one day, when Pryce stops by the local driving range, he spots a young man making shots that seem impossible. He strikes up a conversation with Santiago “Santi” Wheeler (Peter Dager) and suggests that he could be a contender. Santi blows him off, but Pryce not only tracks him down but also goes to visit Santi’s mother, Elena (Mariana Treviño). Elena explains that Santi learned to golf from his father, but the more pressure his dad put on him, the more he began to hate the sport. When it was clear that Santi was no longer interested, his father left.
Eventually, Pryce convinces Santi and Elena that Santi can win an amateur tour. The three of them set out on the road with Mitts in an RV, each of them hoping to find some kind of purpose. Along the way, they meet Zero (Lilli Kay), a gender-fluid server who loses their job when they pour a beer on a handsy golfer. Because Zero has lost their job and there is chemistry between them and Santi, they join the road trip, hoping to encourage Santi during his competition.
The various pairings throughout the show were well done, but my favorite was the one between Zero and Mitts. They have a fascinating dynamic that has the most satisfying evolution throughout the 10 episodes, and seeing how they influence one another is really sweet. Kay and Maron click in a way that is unexpected and attention-catching.
Dager is solid as Santi, balancing the cockiness of being an exceptional golfer with the pressure that accompanies that kind of skill. He also does a great job as a kid on the precipice of adulthood, where you can see the man that he will become, combined with the child that he still is. The writers strike that balance well, and Dager delivers it with his performance.
The heart of Stick lies in Owen Wilson’s performance. As mentioned previously, this show doesn’t rely on huge emotional outpourings, but on more subtle moments of acceptance, which work well with Wilson’s overall style. His character experiences a significant loss, and the way that Wilson portrays that loss is beautiful and touching without falling into a sentimentalism that could be off-putting.
What was interesting about Stick to me was that while the series includes a number of fairly explosive and emotionally charged plot lines, they didn’t play out the way that I expected. Rather than huge reactions, the show resolves these various powder-keg moments in a more subtle and understated manner.
It’s hard for me not to compare Stick to another popular Apple TV+ sports show that I wrote a whole book about, Ted Lasso, because there are several similarities. Both Ted and Pryce experienced a loss that profoundly shaped the course of their lives. Both find that a divorce has set them on a new path. Both shows include a young phenom with an overbearing, abusive father.
But where all of these are massive emotional beats in Ted Lasso, in Stick, they are handled with a much lighter touch. Yes, it is essential for Pryce to acknowledge the loss of his son, but it is a gentle process that lasts through the run of the show. The abusive parent isn’t one who will scream and hit, but rather someone whose love is dependent on the performance of the child athlete, pulling away when that performance doesn’t meet the expectations. The divorce serves as the catalyst for the adventure, but it has been a long time in the making.
The subtleties may make Stick a bit less engaging than a show like Ted Lasso or Shrinking, but it also sets it apart. We have those shows, and I love them. But there are multiple ways to react to big events in your life, and Stick approaches them with a heart and humor that will no doubt resonate with an audience differently. And that difference is good.
Rating: 4/5
The first three episodes of Stick drop on Apple TV+ on June 4, with episodes being released weekly through July 23.