Episode Guide, Recaps, Cast & Analysis
Chad Powers returns for Season 2 as Russ Holliday’s improbable second chance with the South Georgia Catfish becomes even harder to protect.
Chad Powers Series Hub: About the Series
Welcome to The FilmGordon’s Chad Powers Series Hub, your destination for Season 2 episode recaps, Season 1 coverage, cast information, and in-depth analysis of the Hulu sports comedy Chad Powers.
Inspired by the character originally created by Eli Manning during an undercover appearance at Penn State football tryouts, Chad Powers transforms the original concept into a story about reinvention, deception, ambition, and the extraordinary lengths one man will go to reclaim the game he loves.
At the center of the series is Russ Holliday, a talented quarterback whose career collapses after his behavior destroys his reputation. With conventional routes back to football closed, Russ creates an elaborate new identity, complete with facial prosthetics, a wig, altered mannerisms, and a new name: Chad Powers.
Season 1 transformed that desperate disguise into an unexpected second chance. Now, Season 2 raises the stakes. Chad has become a star for the South Georgia Catfish, but Russ’s increasingly difficult behavior off the field has Coach Hudson and Gerry asking questions. Ricky knows Chad’s true identity, leaving Russ and Danny dependent on the one person who has every reason to expose them.
The Chad Powers Series Hub follows that story through Season 2 while bringing together every FilmGordon recap, season guide, character feature, and analysis from across the series.
Quick Navigation
| Series Guide | Episode Coverage | Explore More |
|---|---|---|
| About the Series | Episode Guide | Cast & Characters |
| Season Overview | Latest Episodes | Explore Chad Powers |
| Themes & Analysis | TheFilmGordon | Where to Watch |
| FAQ | Season 1 | Explore FilmGordon |
The Chad Powers Series Hub follows Russ Holliday’s increasingly complicated double life while keeping Season 2 coverage and the complete Season 1 recap archive in one destination.
Latest Episodes of Chad Powers
Follow the latest episodes of Season 2 as Chad Powers returns to the field with the South Georgia Catfish. Russ may have survived Season 1, but keeping his secret becomes considerably more difficult when Ricky knows the truth and Coach Hudson and Gerry begin questioning Chad’s increasingly suspicious behavior.
Season 2 raises the stakes beyond simply keeping Chad’s disguise intact. Russ and Danny now need Ricky’s help if Chad is going to survive the regular season and lead the Catfish toward the College Football Playoff.
-
Chad Powers (Recap) | Ninth Quarter (S2 E3)
-
Chad Powers (Recap) | 8th Quarter (S2 E2)
-
Chad Powers (Recap) | Seventh Quarter (S2 E1)
-
Chad Powers (Recap) | Sixth Quarter (S1 E6)
-
Chad Powers (Recap) | 5th Quarter (S1 E5)
-
Chad Powers (Recap) | 4th Quarter (S1 E4)
-
Chad Powers (Recap) | 3rd Quarter (S1 E3)
-
Chad Powers (Recap) | 1st and 2nd Quarters (S1 E1-2)
Chad Powers Season 2 Episode Guide
The Chad Powers Series Hub follows Russ Holliday and the South Georgia Catfish through Season 2 as Chad’s success on the field collides with mounting suspicion away from it. With Ricky holding the truth about Russ’s identity, every game brings the Catfish closer to their championship ambitions and Russ closer to potentially losing everything his alter ego has built.
Episode 1 | “7th Quarter”
Season 2 picks up with Russ, Danny, and Ricky navigating their uneasy new alliance when Chad suffers an injury in the middle of a game. With Ricky now fully aware of Russ’s secret, keeping Chad Powers on the field requires the three of them to work together despite the distrust left behind by Season 1.
Episode 2 | “8th Quarter”
As the Catfish head into their bye week, Chad attempts something unexpectedly difficult: behaving like a normal college student. But a team house party and Coach Hudson’s growing suspicions create new opportunities for Russ’s carefully constructed identity to unravel.
Episode 3 | “9th Quarter”
After a difficult road game, bad weather strands the Catfish at an Arkansas airport. With the team stuck together and nowhere to escape, an already challenging trip becomes another test for Chad as Russ tries to keep his secret intact under increasingly uncomfortable circumstances.
Episode 4 | “10th Quarter”
Russ takes his deception to another level when the Catfish homecoming banquet requires Chad Powers to produce a father. To make his fictional backstory more convincing, Russ recruits his real dad to pose as Howard Powers, turning a family reunion into another dangerous performance where one mistake could expose everything.
Read the Recap →
Episode 5 | “11th Quarter”
With the Catfish closing in on their postseason ambitions, Gerry makes a shocking discovery that threatens both Chad’s secret identity and the team’s season. What began as Russ’s improbable second chance now faces one of its greatest threats as the truth moves dangerously close to the surface.
Read the Recap →
Episode 6 | “12th Quarter” | Season Finale
Everything comes down to one final game as Chad and the South Georgia Catfish must defeat Texas to reach the College Football Playoff. But Gerry has plans of his own, putting Russ’s secret, the Catfish’s season, and everything Chad Powers has built on a collision course in the Season 2 finale.
Read the Recap →
Chad Powers Season 1 Episode Guide
Revisit Season 1 through the Chad Powers Series Hub, following Russ Holliday’s transformation into Chad Powers as a desperate attempt to return to football becomes an unexpected second chance with the South Georgia Catfish.
Episode 6 | “6th Quarter”
Ricky finally discovers that Chad Powers is Russ Holliday, putting his second chance with the Catfish in jeopardy. After considering walking away, Russ returns for the team’s biggest game, only to face an ultimatum from Ricky that could bring his elaborate deception crashing down.
Episode 5 | “5th Quarter”
With the undefeated Catfish attracting national attention, Russ struggles with the pressure of living two lives. A chance encounter creates an unexpected complication when he discovers the woman he met at a bar is Coach Hudson’s wife, setting the stage for a revelation with potentially devastating consequences.
Episode 4 | “4th Quarter”
A problem with Chad’s facial prosthetics sends Russ and Danny scrambling to protect his secret before curfew. Their chaotic night leads from a search for adhesive to a hospital visit and a desperate race back to the team hotel, while Ricky’s encounter with Russ brings her dangerously close to uncovering the truth.
Episode 3 | “3rd Quarter”
Chad finally gets his opportunity when Gerry’s injury forces Coach Hudson to put him into the game. With the Catfish struggling, Chad trusts Ricky’s strategy over the coaches’ original plan, delivering his first touchdown and helping lead the team to a dramatic victory.
Episode 2 | “2nd Quarter”
Russ begins navigating life with the Catfish while competing with Gerry for the starting quarterback job. A team gathering puts his disguise at risk, and despite his efforts to prove himself, Coach Hudson makes a decision that leaves Chad fighting for his opportunity.
Episode 1 | “1st Quarter”
Eight years after a disastrous championship game destroys his reputation, former star quarterback Russ Holliday devises an outrageous plan to get back onto the field. Armed with prosthetics, a wig, and help from Danny, Russ reinvents himself as Chad Powers and tries out for the South Georgia Catfish.
Chad Powers Season Overviews
Season 2 | The Secret Gets Harder to Protect
Season 2 begins with Chad Powers in a very different position from the anonymous walk-on who arrived at South Georgia.
He’s now a star.
That success creates a new problem for Russ Holliday. The better Chad performs, the more attention he attracts, and the harder it becomes to keep the man underneath the disguise hidden.
Coach Hudson and Gerry are increasingly suspicious of Chad’s behavior, while Ricky enters the season already knowing the truth. That fundamentally changes the balance of Russ’s double life. Instead of simply avoiding discovery, Russ and Danny may need Ricky’s cooperation to keep Chad on the field.
With the Catfish chasing a place in the College Football Playoff, Season 2 pushes the central contradiction of Chad Powers into new territory: Russ has finally created the football life he wanted, but maintaining it may require trusting someone he spent an entire season deceiving.
Season 1 | The Reinvention of Russ Holliday
Season 1 begins with a ridiculous but irresistible proposition: What if a disgraced quarterback could become someone else?
For Russ Holliday, Chad Powers initially represents an escape hatch.
His reputation has closed the doors that his talent once opened, leaving Russ desperate enough to construct an entirely new person to get another opportunity. The disguise may be artificial, but the second chance it provides quickly becomes very real.
Once Chad joins the Catfish, Russ discovers that maintaining the identity requires more than prosthetics and a wig. He must earn the trust of teammates who know nothing about his past, respond to coaches who judge him solely on what he does now, and navigate relationships that become increasingly genuine even though they began with a lie.
Russ Holliday created Chad Powers to play football again. By the end of Season 1, however, the identity has given him something far more complicated: a life worth protecting.
Cast & Characters
Main Characters
- Glen Powell as Russ Holliday / Chad Powers
A talented but disgraced quarterback whose transformation into Chad Powers gives him another opportunity to play college football. By Season 2, Chad has become a star for the Catfish, making Russ’s secret considerably harder to contain. - Perry Mattfeld as Ricky Hudson
Coach Hudson’s daughter and a member of the Catfish coaching staff. After discovering Chad’s true identity, Ricky enters Season 2 holding the secret that could determine Russ’s future. - Steve Zahn as Coach Jake Hudson
Head coach of the South Georgia Catfish. Chad’s success has transformed his football program, but the quarterback’s unusual behavior increasingly gives Hudson reason to question the player behind the victories. - Frankie A. Rodriguez as Danny
Russ’s accomplice and essential partner in maintaining the Chad Powers identity. As suspicion grows in Season 2, Danny remains one of the few people Russ can completely trust. - Quentin Plair as Coach Byrd
A member of the South Georgia coaching staff navigating the Catfish’s rise and the increasingly intense expectations surrounding the team. - Wynn Everett as Tricia Yeager
A powerful figure around the Catfish program whose influence adds another layer to the pressures surrounding the team’s success.
Who Is Chad Powers?
Chad Powers is the fictional identity Russ Holliday creates to disguise himself and return to college football without being recognized.
But Chad has gradually become much more than a costume.
Where Russ carries the baggage of his reputation and previous mistakes, Chad entered the Catfish program without history. His teammates and coaches judged him by what he contributed to their team rather than what Russ Holliday had done years earlier.
Season 2 complicates that transformation further. Chad is no longer simply Russ’s disguise. He is a successful quarterback with teammates depending on him, coaches building around him, and a football program with legitimate postseason ambitions.
The Chad Powers Series Hub explores the increasingly blurry line separating Russ Holliday from the identity he created.
Themes & Analysis
Reinvention and Second Chances
At its core, Chad Powers is a story about reinvention.
Russ doesn’t merely want another opportunity to play quarterback. He wants to escape the consequences attached to his own name.
Becoming Chad allows him to experience something Russ Holliday can no longer have: a first impression.
The comedy comes from the absurdity of the disguise, but the emotional story comes from what Russ chooses to do with that opportunity.
Identity and Deception
Every relationship Chad forms contains a fundamental contradiction.
His teammates and coaches may genuinely care about him, but the person they believe they know doesn’t technically exist.
As those relationships deepen, the consequences of eventually revealing the truth become more serious. Russ isn’t simply protecting his football career. He’s protecting connections that Chad Powers created but Russ Holliday has come to value.
Football as Redemption
Football is more than the setting for Russ’s transformation.
It’s the reason Chad Powers exists.
Russ believes returning to the field can restore something he lost when his career collapsed. Yet Season 1 gradually suggests that redemption cannot simply be measured in touchdowns, victories, or another opportunity to play quarterback.
The real question is whether Russ can become worthy of the second chance he created for himself.
The Person Behind the Costume
The show’s central irony is that Russ may become more authentic while pretending to be someone else.
Chad’s appearance is fabricated. His background is fabricated. Even many of his mannerisms are part of the performance.
But the loyalty, determination, and vulnerability that begin emerging through Chad may be more genuine than the personality Russ displayed before his downfall.
The disguise hides Russ Holliday while simultaneously revealing who he might become.
Trust and Consequences
The longer Russ maintains his secret, the greater the eventual consequences become.
Every friendship creates another person who has been deceived. Every victory gives him more to lose. Every person who becomes suspicious brings the truth closer to the surface.
That ticking clock gives Chad Powers tension beneath its comedy.
Russ may be able to fool everyone for a while.
He cannot control how they will react when they discover why.
Explore the Chad Powers Universe
Go beyond the recaps with features exploring the characters, football culture, relationships, and unlikely origins behind Chad Powers.
The Origin of Chad Powers
Before becoming the centerpiece of a television series, Chad Powers originated with former NFL quarterback Eli Manning, whose undercover transformation during a football tryout provided the inspiration for the character.
The series takes that comic premise and asks a much bigger question: What happens when someone actually tries to build an entirely new life behind the disguise?
Russ Holliday vs. Chad Powers
Russ and Chad occupy the same body but increasingly represent two very different versions of one person.
Russ carries history.
Chad represents possibility.
Exploring the distance between those identities provides the series with a character story that extends far beyond its football premise.
Coach Ricky and Russ Holliday
Coach Ricky’s growing interest in Russ introduces one of Season 1’s most complicated relationships.
She knows Chad as a player but encounters Russ without realizing the two men are the same person. As curiosity becomes investigation, Ricky threatens to uncover the very secret responsible for bringing them into each other’s lives.
The Catfish
The struggling football program gives Russ something he desperately needs: somewhere to belong.
But the Catfish also raise the stakes of his deception. The more invested Russ becomes in his teammates and their success, the harder it becomes to dismiss his disguise as merely a scheme to resurrect his career.
Where to Watch Chad Powers
Chad Powers Seasons 1 and 2 are available to stream on Hulu in the United States.
Season 2 premiered September 3, 2026.
Availability may vary internationally.
Watch the Chad Powers Trailer
Watch the official Chad Powers Season 2 trailer as Russ Holliday returns to the South Georgia Catfish with his secret increasingly difficult to protect and the team’s postseason ambitions raising the stakes.
Chad Powers Frequently Asked Questions
What is Chad Powers about?
Chad Powers follows disgraced quarterback Russ Holliday, who disguises himself as the eccentric Chad Powers to earn another opportunity to play college football with the South Georgia Catfish.
Who plays Chad Powers?
Glen Powell plays both Russ Holliday and his disguised alter ego, Chad Powers.
Is Chad Powers based on a true story?
The television series is fictional, but Chad Powers was inspired by former NFL quarterback Eli Manning’s undercover football tryout character.
Is there a Chad Powers Season 2?
Yes. Chad Powers returned for Season 2 on September 3, 2026.
What is Chad Powers Season 2 about?
Season 2 finds Chad established as a star for the South Georgia Catfish, but his unusual behavior has Coach Hudson and Gerry increasingly suspicious. Ricky knows that Chad is really Russ Holliday, forcing Russ and Danny to seek her help as the Catfish pursue a place in the College Football Playoff.
Does Ricky know Chad Powers is Russ Holliday?
Yes. Ricky discovered Chad’s true identity during the Season 1 finale and enters Season 2 knowing that Chad Powers is actually Russ Holliday.
How many episodes are in Chad Powers Season 2?
Season 2 consists of six episodes, bringing Chad Powers to 12 episodes across its first two seasons.
How many episodes are in Chad Powers Season 1?
Season 1 consists of six episodes, all covered in The FilmGordon’s Season 1 episode guide.
Where can I watch Chad Powers?
Chad Powers Seasons 1 and 2 are available to stream on Hulu in the United States.
Where can I find Chad Powers episode recaps?
The Chad Powers Series Hub collects The FilmGordon’s Season 2 episode recaps, complete Season 1 archive, season guides, character coverage, analysis, and continuing features in one destination.
Explore More on The FilmGordon
Continue exploring The FilmGordon’s television coverage with complete series hubs, episode recaps, previews, character guides, and Beyond the Episode analysis.
Explore More TV Recaps →