Owen Wilson’s Golf Comeback Comes With Baggage
A mentor’s comeback is exciting until you remember who was supposed to be getting the help. That is the promising complication in season two of Stick, arriving on Apple TV with two episodes on November 4. Owen Wilson’s Pryce Cahill is stepping back into competitive golf while Santi, played by Peter Dager, pursues a professional career of his own.
The first season’s setup gave Pryce a gifted teenager to believe in after his own career and marriage had fallen apart. The new season gives that relationship a much less comfortable question: can you support someone else’s future while trying to reclaim your own?
Apple’s season outline has Pryce attempting to become the oldest golfer to win a major, encouraged by an old rival. Meanwhile, Santi is discovering what happens when talent starts coming with expectations. Both have a decent claim on our sympathy, which should make this less comfortable than cheering one man toward a trophy.
The comeback is the part I am wary of. A mentor who needs to be the main attraction can swallow a story whole. Pryce might miss the competition; he might miss having people look at him. A comedy has plenty to work with in a man trying to tell the difference.
Santi needs space to want something that inconveniences Pryce. If every success merely confirms his mentor’s wisdom, the younger player becomes an accessory to the older man’s recovery. An argument after a bad round could be more revealing than the round itself.
That is why the new setup earns a place on the watchlist for fans of messy sports partnerships. It gives the pair something to disagree about even when both are doing well. The episodes still have to make that friction funny.
Newcomers should begin Stick with season one. Returning viewers can take the November 4 opening pair together, with further episodes arriving weekly through December 30. The golf can wait until you have a stake in the people playing it.
