What I’m Watching: Eastbound and Down

Eastbound and Down: Season 4, Episode 5 “Chapter 26” (B+)

It’s hard to know how to feel about Kenny right now. At this point, he’s actually doing very well for himself, earning plenty of money and even working on his strained relationship with his brother and his family. Guy telling him that he can’t afford his own jetpack and that he needs to back off being so centric on his show was equally important in what it revealed about Guy and Kenny. While Guy is worried about being upstaged, Kenny is worried about not upstaging someone else enough. Getting April a bag filled with lots of nice things was a great start to working towards happiness in their marriage, but pulling $100 bills out of everywhere was a clear sign that he doesn’t actually understand what the problem is. Not showing up for therapy was a bad move, and seeing Kenny wearing his own jetpack and having a blast indicates exactly the kind of singular happiness that he wants right now. The self-destructive impulse to ignore advice given to him by both Guy and Stevie and to cut into Guy’s routine is nothing new for Kenny, and victory may be its own reward, but at the expense of other things. This was actually a very good episode for the usually depraved Stevie, who indicated just how pleased he is with his life. His marriage and sex life has never been better, and as he said so eloquently, playing second fiddle isn’t so bad. And Kenny’s theoretical restaurant chain T and T seems like it may just take off, and Stevie is exactly the right person to be helping him create it.