[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Stick Season 1, Episodes 1-3.]
Stick has arrived, and the Apple TV+ series delivers plenty of humor and heart in its first three installments, which debuted together on the streamer.
Stuck in a rut, washed-up pro golfer turned mentor Pryce Cahill (Owen Wilson) has found himself working as a salesman at the local golf shop. However, he finds hope for the future when he sees teen Santi (Peter Dager) hit a ball with the skill of a once-in-a-lifetime talent. Audiences soon learn that Pryce is living in a messy home alone, and his ex Amber-Linn (Judy Greer) is pleading with him to get out of the formerly shared abode so she can sell it.
As a man who has been living off of his sales commissions and grifts with pal Mitts (Marc Maron), Pryce latches onto the idea of training Santi as his next move. But does it have a deeper meaning? In the final moments of the first episode, we see Pryce watching old home videos of himself and Amber-Linn that include a child.
Apple TV+
It’s implied that the pair lost a young son, but the specifics aren’t exactly clear. Could part of Pryce’s drive to coach this young kid have something to do with him wanting to get past his lingering trauma? “I didn’t really see it as Pryce thinking that he’s got to move on,” Wilson tells TV Insider. “I think that that’s probably been his problem is that he doesn’t see that he needs to move on.”
Initially, Wilson says Pryce sees Santi’s talent as a mutually beneficial opportunity. “Pryce still is very attuned to opportunities, and this looks like the best one in a long time… I don’t think he’s thinking that he’s got to move on, that he’s got to do it to help this kid,” Wilson continues. “I think a lot of times, the mind kind of winks at the hand, and so you’re not quite aware why you’re doing things, and… over the course of the show, he probably gets a little bit more insight into what’s driving him and what’s stopping him.”
While Pryce hits the road with Mitts, Santi, and Santi’s mom Elena (Mariana Treviño) in the second episode, Pryce also hits a bit of a snag with Santi as he struggles to communicate with the teen in an effective way. As viewers discover, young Santi was a golfer on the rise, but he quit the game to spite his father, so when Pryce’s approach begins to mirror those qualities, it proves to be a hurdle for the duo.
As viewers continue on this journey with the characters, we couldn’t help but ask series creator Jason Keller if there was any particular inspiration behind the premise of the show. “The sort of origin point of the story was the character of Pryce, and thinking about my own father,” Keller reveals. “My dad [Ron Keller] was a professional baseball player back in the mid to late ’60s and reached a very high level, decided to walk away from the game of baseball and pursue a business career.”
While Keller says his father found success in that field, he adds, “I was always fascinated growing up with what that would have been like for him to have been very good at a sport — by all accounts, he would have been a very good baseball player had he stayed playing baseball — but he chose a different path. And so that was always an interesting thing for me growing up.”
Pryce’s path is a little different, of course — since he was a golfer whose career was disrupted — but through training Santi, will he get a taste of what he could have had? Only time will tell. Tune in to follow along as Pryce and Santi continue to collaborate, and let us know what you think of the first few episodes in the comments section below.
Stick, Wednesdays, Apple TV+
This story originally appeared on TV Insider
