Owen Wilson Carries ‘Stick’ With Breezy Dad Humor

Alci Rengifo

Owen Wilson has always been such a welcoming presence onscreen that you can hardly ever imagine the guy having a dark side. One can almost feel the writers of Apple TV+’s “Stick” taking it as a challenge to write a character for Owen that carries genuine pain beneath the friendly veneer. This is one of the streamer’s breezier offerings, using sports again as a vehicle for oddball humor that can then slide into dramatic territory. The sport of choice is golf, a game the outsider may identify with relaxation and even elitism. Creator Jason Keller is smart in crafting “Stick” like a real sports show, full of insider language and crowd-pleasing energy.

Wilson plays Pryce “Stick” Cahill, a former professional golfer still readily recognized by fans of the sport. He was close to real glory when a public meltdown brought him crashing down. Sixteen years later and Pryce mostly lives off selling overpriced equipment to the gullible while carting around with his caddy, Mitts (Marc Maron). Harder times are on the horizon due to an expensive, ongoing divorce from current wife Amber-Linn (Judy Greer). At the club where he caters to amateurs, Pryce catches sight of a talented new prospect, Santi (Peter Dager), a trespassing 17-year-old. Suddenly, the golfer decides to take Santi under his wing, after convincing the young man’s mother, Elena (Mariana Treviño), who requires quite the down payment. So begins a journey through training and tournaments that forces Pryce to confront his own demons.

“Stick” is a feel-good hybrid of the comedic joy of “Ted Lasso” and the prominent Apple TV feature of lead characters full of painful baggage. Wilson makes Pryce engaging, even compelling, by playing to the strengths of both sides. He can be goofy and charming, apologizing for losing his temper to Amber-Linn’s new workplace boyfriend. Home alone, he watches old family home videos that subtly reveal a painful event from the past which provides the real answers for why the marriage crumbled. This is not some cocky athlete who fell from grace, but a person with inner kindness who hates himself for always blowing it at the wrong moment. Yet, somehow he seems to be able to withstand Amber-Linn’s painful darts of truth that she throws at him, particularly in a biting scene when she bails him out of jail.

Then there’s the classic sports story angle of the older mentor taking on a new protégé. That’s the storyline that provides the breezier side of “Stick.” Never does the writing forget to build good characters even during the typical moments where Pryce tries to get Santi into a more disciplined, focused mode or prep him for tournaments. Plenty of golf lingo is thrown around, but like the medical terminology in “The Pitt,” you don’t need to be an expert to go with the flow. Santi has the cliché teenage rebellion flourishes tempered with genuine insecurities, and a believable love interest in Zero (Lilli Kay), a Gen Z’er with fluid pronouns. They also symbolize the generation gap with someone like Pryce, who seems to need a translator at times for what Zero is saying. It’s Wilson doing “dad comedy” with dysfunctional joy.

The secret weapon in “Stick” is certainly Santi’s mother, played with such great scrappy energy by Mariana Treviño. Elena deeply cares for Santi and knows he has talent, while like any parent, wants to watch his back. She has her own dreams and one can sense the genuine frustration when she takes her first check from Pryce to a banker treating her like a fool who can’t possibly know how the market works. Clear romantic potential courses beneath the surface when she interacts with Pryce, though the writing never follows some immediate, cliché route by making us believe that we just have to fall in love. “Stick” then becomes a stronger show by making us care about watching the characters instead of waiting for expected twists. Pryce calls himself a “fuck up” and Wilson turns him into a lovable one for a show that eases its painful moments with genuine warmth.

“Stick” begins streaming June 4 with new episodes premiering Wednesdays on Apple TV+.