You cannot review Thursday's mask on Wednesday. You can review the toy Hulu is restocking next to kickoff.

You cannot grade Thursday's binge on Wednesday morning. Chad Powers Season 2 does not exist yet as a finished object I can score. Hulu says all six episodes arrive September 3, 2026, a full-drop shift from Season 1's weekly schedule. Glen Powell is still Russ Holliday under the Chad mask. Perry Mattfeld is still Ricky. Steve Zahn is still Coach Hudson. I have not watched Season 2 because it is not out. What I can review is the toy Hulu is restocking into college football season: a prosthetics comedy that Season 1 proved could hold six episodes of charm and cringe, and a Season 2 marketing wave that tells you which parts of the toy got darker paint.

Season 1's public grades are the baseline SKU. Rotten Tomatoes currently lists the series around 60 percent Tomatometer from about 52 reviews, with an 84 percent Popcornmeter from 500-plus ratings. The critics consensus on the RT page reads like a sports pun on purpose: pairing Glen Powell's charms with a frequently off-putting role, Chad Powers throws comedic curveballs that often backfire but don't necessarily strike out entirely. Wikipedia's retrieval notes a 58 percent band from 48 reviews and a Metacritic weighted average of 53 from 26 critics, mixed or average. That is not Ted Lasso sunshine. That is a commercial suit with a visible limp and a loud audience who loved the limp.

You cannot review Thursday on Wednesday. You can review the mask they are restocking.

What the Season 1 notices kept confessing is Powell's willingness to be ugly. The premise, for anyone who missed the Eli Manning sketch DNA: disgraced quarterback Russ uses his makeup-artist father's tools, fake teeth, prosthetics, and a Southern twang to become Chad Powers, walk on at a struggling South Georgia Catfish program, and chase a second chance while the lie compounds. Frankie Rodriguez's Danny helps. Mattfeld's Ricky, daughter of Zahn's coach, becomes the moral and romantic weather system. The finale, "6th Quarter," per Collider's postmortem, refused the easy forgiveness arc and left Russ and Ricky in a blackmail knot that several writers flagged as darker Season 2 fuel. Powell himself told Collider the show operates on a pressure frequency most comedies do not get. That quote is the toy's warning label.

Season 2's marketing, as of the August trailer and the September 3 first-look wave, sells surveillance and uneasy alliance rather than reinvention. Hulu's synopsis, carried by The Hollywood Reporter and Decider: Chad is a field superstar whose odd off-field behavior has Coach Hudson and Gerry suspicious; the walls close in on Russ's lie; if Russ and Danny want Chad to survive the regular season and drag the Catfish toward the College Football Playoff, the only person who can help is the last person who wants to, Ricky. AV Club's trailer writeup notes Ricky and Chad working together so Zahn's coach does not learn the truth, with couple energy as a possible side effect. Deadline's casting adds Colin Woodell, Carey O'Donnell, and Nate Varrone as Season 2 guests. Gillian Jacobs is in the rumor weather. I am not inventing episode arcs. I am listing the stickers on the restock carton.

Form is the industrial confession that matters for Reviews even before the episodes land. Season 1 trained the audience on weekly chapters. Season 2 dumps six at once on the Thursday the real college football calendar is already loud. THR noted the 2026 college season started five days earlier and the NFL regular season starts six days after Chad returns. That is not a coincidence. That is a streamer putting a football mask comedy next to actual football and daring the algorithm to treat them as cousins. All-at-once also means the blackmail knot from the finale can burn through a single evening instead of a month of watercooler pacing. Reviews will find out Friday whether that helps the darker turn or flattens it.

Season 2 before the grades is not a score. It is a warehouse moving the mask next to kickoff.

Compare the shelf without forcing a marriage. When I wrote that they put the Lasso smile on a second-division women's team, the argument was sports comfort as a SKU. Chad Powers is the cracked-mirror version of that comfort: same field lights, uglier teeth, a lead who wants glory more than goodness. The audience score at 84 percent already told the warehouse which aisle was working even when critics stayed mixed. That split is the product. Civilians bought the mustache. Critics argued about whether the mustache was enough story.

What I am not doing is pretending the trailer is a review. Trailers lie. Mustaches lie harder. The broken-mask first look Hulu circulated, the one THR called especially creepy, tells you the show wants the uncanny leftover from Season 1's finale to stay in the thumbnail. None of that tells you if episode four sags. None of that tells you if Ricky's reluctant partnership becomes a real dramatic engine or a sitcom lever. The honest Wednesday sentence is narrower: the toy being restocked is the same SKU Season 1 sold, with a full-drop schedule, playoff language on the box, and a darkness the finale already promised.

Creator industrial notes for the carton. Powell and Michael Waldron co-created the series from the Eli's Places / Omaha Productions sketch world. Season 2 keeps Eli Manning, Peyton Manning, Jamie Horowitz, and the ESPN executive cluster in the EP block, with Powell and Dan Cohen under Barnstorm, Waldron and Adam Fasullo for Anomaly, Luvh Rakhe alongside. 20th Television makes it for Hulu. That is a lot of football DNA for a comedy about lying with glue. Reviews can later argue whether the DNA became drama or stayed sketch. Today it is a data point about how seriously Disney is taking the Catfish.

Calendar honesty for the Reviews desk. Netflix can drop a Guy Ritchie crime suit on the same Thursday week. Apple can stack finales and features around the same September hinge. Chad Powers is not competing with those toys on genre. It is competing on attention during the first loud football fortnight of the American fall. Hulu's answer is to stop dripping episodes and to hand you the whole mask at once. That is either confidence or fear of midweek churn. The grades after Thursday will decide which.

Recommendation, labeled correctly. Rewatch Season 1 this week if you never did and you want the baseline before Thursday's binge. Expect roughly 60/53 critic math and much warmer civilians: Powell-led, tone-uneven, finale meaner than the posters. Watch Season 2 on September 3 if the trailer's alliance-and-suspicion pitch sounds like the same cringe you already bought, and if a six-episode dump fits the football weekend brain. Wait for the Friday notices if you were in the Metacritic mixed camp and need someone else to confirm the long lie still plays when the episodes arrive in a stack. I will not invent a Season 2 score. I will invent nothing about episode quality. I will say the restock is real, the cast list is intact, the schedule changed on purpose, and the mask still looks like Glen Powell going full Glen Powell with glue.

Press photography does the rest of the Wednesday work. Daniel Delgado Jr.'s Disney stills put Chad in cracked plastic with orange headphones and Catfish colors like a mascot that learned how to blackmail. Other galleries circulate Zahn in coach mode, Mattfeld in the ethical blast radius, Rodriguez as the friend who knows too much. That is not criticism. That is merchandising of tone. Reviews on a premiere eve is allowed to grade the tone being sold. The tone being sold is less fish-out-of-water goof and more pressure cooker with a mustache.

One last boundary. I am not scoring Gillian Jacobs from a rumor, Woodell's Catfish alum energy from a casting announcement, or Zahn's medical-scare aftermath from a synopsis clause. Supporting turns require episodes. What I will say is that Hulu stacked recognizable campus friction around the central lie the way a toy line stacks chase figures around a deluxe vehicle. The vehicle is still Russ under Chad. The deluxe packaging is playoff stakes plus a binge button.

September 2 TV Reviews position. Chad Powers Season 2 premieres September 3, 2026, six episodes, all at once, Hulu in the US and Disney+ internationally. Season 1 stands near 60 percent RT and 53 Metacritic, consensus: Powell charm in an off-putting role, curveballs that often backfire, not a strikeout. Trailer and THR synopsis sell suspicion, Ricky as reluctant co-conspirator, Catfish playoff dream. I have not watched Season 2. You cannot review Thursday on Wednesday. You can review the mask. Hulu is restocking it next to kickoff.