The Beauty Of The ‘Eastbound & Down’ Finale

Series finales are tough to navigate. Any story is hard to conclude, but it becomes especially difficult when ending a television show that has run for multiple seasons. The series finale is meant to be a capstone, an endpoint that leaves things off on a certain note, for better or worse. A lot of shows have made many controversial decisions in their quest to be unique, edgy, or to provide audiences with an unexpected finale. But few have been as satisfying and open-ended at the same time as Eastbound & Down.

The show is about a Major League Baseball pitcher named Kenny Powers played by Danny McBride. This man is arrogant and misogynistic to an absurd degree. But he exudes such confidence that sometimes people rally around him. After being forced out of the majors, the show chronicles his haphazard attempts to get back to the big leagues. He does this all through narration that he says is part of his memoir. This trope continues all the way to the series finale, which has Kenny growing old in a remote location after the ridiculous death of his wife. In the episode’s closing moments, it is revealed that Kenny was writing this closing chapter of his life from his office years earlier, where his wife is very much alive.

For a show full of immature and controversial jokes, this ending was surprisingly beautiful and poignant. It revealed that the ending in the series finale wasn’t Kenny’s true ending. He was just making it up. But the point at which Kenny’s real life diverged from his imaginary one is never explained. It could have been when his wife ultimately died in the story or it could have been years earlier. Or it could have been completely made up entirely. The entire show could have been nothing more than a fantasy that someone named Kenny Powers was writing for fun. This is never explained nor does it have to be. It leaves it open for the viewer to decide on their own, which is a beauty very few series finale can capture.

Eastbound & Down is now streaming on Max.