Stick Season 1 Review: Owen Wilson Drives a Heartfelt, Flawed Dramedy

The arrival of “Stick Season 1” on the scene signals another entry into the resurgent field of sports-adjacent dramedies, a genre perennially drawn to narratives of fallen heroes and unlikely comebacks. At its center is Pryce Cahill, embodied by Owen Wilson, whose casting itself suggests a certain brand of laid-back charm masking deeper anxieties. Pryce is a former golfing luminary, a man whose professional trajectory didn’t just falter; it spectacularly combusted on a public stage some two decades prior.

We meet him in a state of prolonged inertia in Fort Wayne, Indiana. His days are a cycle of working an unfulfilling job at a sporting goods store, navigating the awkward detritus of a failed marriage with his ex-wife Amber-Linn, and resorting to minor league hustles at local bars alongside his enduring friend and former caddy, Mitts.

It’s from this nadir that the series engineers its primary narrative thrust: an encounter with a young, unheralded golf prodigy, offering Pryce a fragile, perhaps illusory, shot at reclaiming a measure of purpose and mending some part of his fractured self. The stage is set for a story that promises to navigate the familiar contours of hope and human failing, with anticipated swings between comedic scenarios and moments of earnest emotional exploration.

The Setup – Broken Dreams and a Beacon of Talent

The narrative architecture of “Stick” initially dedicates itself to meticulously outlining the contours of Pryce Cahill’s stagnation. His backstory is standard fare for the genre: a professional golfer whose career didn’t just end but detonated spectacularly in a public forum two decades past, a moment that continues to shadow his present. We find him in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a landscape of diminished ambitions.

His recent job loss from a local sporting goods store is compounded by a living situation that speaks volumes—he’s an unwelcome fixture in the home once shared with his soon-to-be-ex-wife, Amber-Linn, a role Judy Greer inhabits with a familiar air of well-intentioned exasperation.

For income, Pryce relies on ingenuity of a less reputable kind, partnering with his friend and erstwhile caddy, the dryly cynical Mitts, played by Marc Maron, to fleece unsuspecting bar patrons with golf-based hustles. This establishes Pryce not as a fallen idol yearning for glory, but as a man treading water, perhaps one hustle away from going under.

Into this carefully constructed stasis enters Santiago “Santi” Wheeler (Peter Dager), the series’ catalyst. Santi is presented as a 17-year-old golf prodigy, whose introversion is inversely proportional to his innate skill, which he hones furtively at a local driving range. Pryce’s discovery of Santi has the quality of a narrative deus ex machina, the timely arrival of talent so prodigious it might just pull Pryce from his personal mire.

The subsequent act of “forging an alliance” follows a predictable, if functional, path. Pryce extends the offer of mentorship, a proposition met with understandable skepticism from Santi’s protective mother, Elena (Mariana Treviño). The narrative employs a rather direct mechanism to overcome this obstacle – a sizable check from Pryce, a gesture that cuts through emotional complexities with financial pragmatism.

This act cements the core group – Pryce, Santi, Elena, and Mitts – and sets them on a quintessential American road trip, the RV becoming their mobile incubator for the unfolding drama. The script doesn’t stop there, later adding Zero (Lilli Kay), a gender-queer, liberal young adult encountered en route, to this traveling troupe, further diversifying the interpersonal dynamics and potential sources of conflict and connection, particularly with Santi.

Character Dynamics and Performances – The Heart of the Show

The narrative vitality of “Stick” rests significantly on its central performances, particularly that of Owen Wilson as Pryce Cahill. Wilson operates well within his established screen persona – the affable, almost reflexively charming individual whose laid-back demeanor often papers over a well of carefully guarded sorrow.

The script furnishes Pryce with substantial internal struggles: the remnants of a dissolved marriage, the quiet echoes of a profound family loss that transcends his golfing flameout, and the general malaise of a life unmoored. His journey towards redemption is intrinsically linked to his evolving mentorship of Santi; their dynamic, a blend of sweet connection and predictable friction, forms the series’ intended emotional spine, aiming for that familiar arc of mutual growth.

Peter Dager, as the young golf prodigy Santi Wheeler, shoulders the responsibility of embodying both prodigious talent and adolescent turmoil. Dager navigates Santi’s difficult balancing act – the inherent confidence of his skill set against the crushing weight of external expectations and internal anxieties.

The character is crafted to be on the precipice of adulthood, his emotional responses often swinging with a volatility that speaks to this transitional phase, further complicated by the lingering impact of an absent father whose love was seemingly conditional on athletic success.

The supporting ensemble provides a varied tapestry of contributions, with mixed results in their narrative integration. Marc Maron’s Mitts offers a reliable stream of sarcastic commentary and steadfast loyalty, his trademark dry wit a welcome counterpoint; a particular scene involving Mitts and a recalcitrant RV bed provides a moment of genuine levity. Mariana Treviño infuses Elena, Santi’s mother, with a robust, protective energy and an outspokenness that frequently enlivens proceedings, though a subplot involving her aspirations in the helium business feels somewhat untethered from the primary narrative drive.

Lilli Kay’s Zero, introduced as a gender-fluid confidant for Santi and a voice for contemporary social perspectives, presents a more complex case. The character is scripted with an array of attributes and pronouncements—critiques of meat consumption, discussions around pronouns—that occasionally feel more like a checklist of generational signifiers than organic character traits.

While their interactions, especially the generational sparring with Mitts, can be engaging, the writing sometimes leans into caricature, potentially diluting Zero’s impact. Judy Greer’s Amber-Linn, Pryce’s ex-wife, appears in a capacity that primarily serves to illuminate Pryce’s past and current relational incapacities. Her character risks adhering to familiar “ex-wife” tropes, though Greer imbues her with a sincerity that suggests a deeper history of shared pain and weary understanding.

Thematic Undercurrents and Tonal Balance

At its core, “Stick” is engineered around the resonant, if familiar, theme of second chances. Pryce’s endeavor to shepherd Santi towards golfing success is transparently framed as a vehicle for his own redemption, an attempt to recalibrate a life derailed by past failures and profound personal grief.

Parallel to this, Santi’s journey represents a more nascent quest: the opportunity to leverage an extraordinary gift into a viable future, while simultaneously navigating the thorny path of self-definition against a backdrop of parental abandonment. Even ancillary characters like Elena, with her flickering entrepreneurial ambitions, or Mitts, content in his supportive cynicism, and Zero, seeking connection and a platform for their ideals, orbit this central notion of finding or reclaiming purpose.

The series delves into the characters’ past traumas with a notable, and often commendable, degree of understatement. Pryce’s deep-seated pain, stemming from the loss of his son—a tragedy that arguably dwarfs his professional collapse and colours his divorce—is revealed gradually, handled with a gentleness that sidesteps overt sentimentality.

Similarly, Santi’s difficulties with trust and his volatile temperament are logically rooted in the pressures and abandonment linked to his father. The narrative’s preference for these quieter acknowledgments of emotional burdens, rather than grand, cathartic outpourings, distinguishes its approach, though it occasionally risks underplaying the dramatic potential.

Tonally, the series aspires to a delicate equilibrium between lighthearted comedy and earnest drama. Humorous moments often arise from the situational absurdities of the group’s road-trip life—Pryce’s inexplicable attachment to a unicorn floatie serves as a recurring visual gag—and the dry interjections of characters like Mitts. There’s an undeniable sincerity to the show’s emotional aspirations, a warm-heartedness that underpins its exploration of flawed individuals striving for connection.

However, this pursuit of an emotional sweet spot sometimes tips into predictable melodrama. The narrative rhythm, particularly the recurring pattern of conflict between Pryce and Santi followed by their inevitable reconciliation by episode’s end, while offering a certain comforting structure, can also blunt the dramatic edge, making some emotional beats feel more manufactured than earned.

The Game of Golf and Narrative Structure

Within “Stick,” the sport of golf serves as more than a mere scenic backdrop; it is the ostensible engine of the plot, a crucible for tension, and a fairly straightforward metaphor for life’s unpredictable trajectories and the pursuit of precision amidst chaos.

The depiction of the amateur golf circuit provides the necessary competitive framework, highlighting the pressures that can forge or fracture talent. For characters like Pryce and Santi, the green becomes a space for connection, conflict, and potential catharsis, their shared endeavor on the links acting as the primary catalyst for their respective arcs.

The series adopts a classic road trip framework, a narrative convention well-suited to throwing disparate personalities together and theoretically fostering their evolution. However, the storytelling rhythm across its ten episodes is not always consistent, with certain stretches feeling more like a leisurely drive than a purposeful journey. A discernible gravitational pull towards Pryce Cahill’s internal world and his redemption quest is evident.

While this centering provides a clear focal point, it frequently results in other narrative threads, particularly those concerning the supporting cast like Elena or even Mitts beyond his role as Pryce’s sounding board, feeling less developed, their individual aspirations sometimes treated as little more than narrative cul-de-sacs.

The series readily employs familiar sports story elements—the gifted underdog, the flawed mentor—which, while offering a comforting familiarity, rarely deviate into surprising territory. External golfing antagonists appear as needed, fulfilling their plot function without adding substantial complexity.

Visually, the series maintains a competent, if unremarkable, aesthetic. The auditory landscape, however, sometimes leans on rather direct musical cues and on-the-nose needle drops, a common shorthand to telegraph emotional states that a more confident narrative might trust its audience to discern independently.

Lasting Impressions and Future Horizons

Despite a reliance on fairly conventional narrative pathways, “Stick” manages to cultivate moments of genuine emotional connection, largely propelled by the core dynamic between Pryce and Santi. Their journey, with its earnest exploration of mentorship and mutual mending, is likely what will resonate most with viewers seeking a character-driven story. The series capably delivers a “feel-good” experience, achieving a measure of satisfaction through its commitment to a warm-hearted, if somewhat risk-averse, storytelling approach.

The primary strength of the series lies in Owen Wilson’s lived-in portrayal of a man seeking a mulligan on life, and in Peter Dager’s compelling depiction of emergent talent. The exploration of redemption, however familiar, is handled with a sincerity that often lands. Looking ahead, should the series continue, the most fertile ground for development involves a more dedicated excavation of its supporting characters—Mitts, Elena, Zero, and Amber-Linn all possess untapped narrative potential.

A more consistent tonal command and a willingness to occasionally deviate from predictable emotional cadences could also serve the series well. As it stands, “Stick” carves out its particular niche within the sports dramedy landscape by championing a gentler, more understated emotional core, even if it sometimes sacrifices narrative daring in the process.

Stick is an upcoming sports comedy television series set to premiere on Apple TV+ on June 4, 2025.

Full Credits

Directors: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris, Jaffar Mahmood, David Dobkin, MJ Delaney, John Hamburg

Writers: Jason Keller, Christopher Moynihan, Esti Giordani, Bill Callahan, Kate Fodor, Bryan Johnson, Jimy Shah

Producers and Executive Producers: Jason Keller, Owen Wilson, Ben Silverman, Howard T. Owens, Rodney Ferrell, Guymon Casady, Lee Eisenberg, Natalie Sandy, Christopher Moynihan, Bill Callahan, Valerie Faris, Jonathan Dayton, Jaffar Mahmood

Cast: Owen Wilson, Peter Dager, Lilli Kay, Mariana Treviño, Marc Maron, Judy Greer, Timothy Olyphant