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Kenny Powers is back - and this time, he's bringing his kid....
HBO / 311 Minutes / 2012 / Unrated / Street Date: December 4, 2012
Eastbound and Down's hero Kenny Powers is a full-tilt scuzzbag, but on this Complete Third Season compilation, he's not only a scuzzbag - he's a daddy scuzzbag. The good news is that after having been in exile for a while, Kenny is back playing American baseball - in lovely Myrtle Beach, South Carolina - but the bad news is that he is forced to do so while tending to a one-year-old.
See, Kenny was sure that his long-belated reunion with his lady April (Katy Mixon) was going to stick, but after one fun night, she's gone, leaving Kenny sole guardian of little Toby. Throw in the usual cast of characters as babysitters and child-rearing advice-givers - Jason Sudeikis, Lily Tomlin, even Don Johnson! - and Eastbound and Down has its season arc pretty much nailed down.
Danny McBride still wows as the orchestrator of this white trash baseball lollapalooza - the fact that this show hangs on to at least mild cohesion is astonishing - but some of this season's direction seems forced and needlessly grandiose. The Complete Second Season seemed to make things up as it went along whereas this go-round defaults to funny-baby sitcom cliche. But when it works, it works like gangbusters: Eastbound and Down may be running on fumes in this third season, but it's got just enough to keep us coming back for more.