• Network: HBO
  • Series Premiere Date: Feb 15, 2009
  • Season #: 1 , 2 , 3
Metascore
62 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 16 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 16
  2. Negative: 3 out of 16
  1. Reviewed by: Ken Tucker
    91
    What lifts Eastbound & Down away from mere crudball humor is McBride's ongoing love affair with the lower middle class.
  2. 90
    Working something of a miracle, Danny McBride, who plays Kenny and is one of the creative talents behind the show premiering tomorrow on HBO--the most recklessly funny comedy of the year--makes us kind of like Kenny Powers.
  3. 88
    If you thought "Tropic Thunder" was the funniest movie of the year and that everything Will Ferrell touches makes you laugh until you squirt Diet Pepsi out of your nose, then you will love Eastbound & Down.
  4. 80
    McBride is comfortable improvising, and in Eastbound there's a lot of pleasurable tension in watching Kenny create difficult situations with his poor judgment and get out of them with his escape artist's quick brain.
  5. What further elevates the half-hour is the deadpan, deer-in-the-headlights fashion in which his co-stars orbit around McBride, who seems instinctively to understand that being a delirious bastard means never having to say you're sorry.
  6. 75
    Powers, the central character in the strangely compelling new HBO series Eastbound & Down is a down-on-his-luck pitcher whose glory days in the Major League are well behind him.
  7. I generally don't place myself in that crowd [viewers who think there's nothing funnier than an overweight guy with a jock-strap tan line], being more "Elf" than "Old School," but McBride's Powers exudes a Mitch Williams-meets-John Kruk vibe that's hard to resist, and, hey, I laughed more than once.
  8. The humor in Eastbound is a far cry from the cerebral comedy currently en vogue on shows like "The Office" and "30 Rock," but that doesn't mean Eastbound can't do sly humor that falls left of center.
  9. I can't say the pilot struck me as especially funny, but there are good things and talented people in it, and it looks good.
  10. Reviewed by: James Poniewozik
    58
    Eastbound & Down, is a funny show if you don't expect too much.
  11. Eastbound & Down feels static.
  12. 40
    Drugs. Pratfalls. Bodily excretions. Sexual crudity. Shock-jock ethnic humor. Four-letter words flying like lead in a matineee Western. Character development and story? Not so much.
  13. Maybe McBride has more pitches in his arsenal than he's shown so far, but the repertoire on display in Eastbound & Down feels too limited for a long stint on HBO's mound.
  14. Reviewed by: Brian Lowry
    30
    Even with the promise of a Ferrell cameo in future episodes, it's a tired premise--a more profane version of the kind of low-swinging sitcom that could easily have wound up on TBS.
  15. 30
    HBO's new series Eastbound & Down falls into the grating category of totally obnoxious dude comedies.
  16. It seems like a middling Fox series with a monotonous glut of obscenities and some nudity tossed in to make it pay-cable worthy.
User Score

Universal acclaim- based on 165 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 62 out of 67
  2. Negative: 4 out of 67
  1. Funny, completely inappropriate, and insane, it's for a specific audience, the kind who doesn't mind vulgar humor, I personally found it funny but I can see other being turned of by the sheer obnoxiousness of it, still if your looking for something vulgarly funny this is for you, all in all a good show and I'm looking forward to watching the other two seasons. Full Review »
  2. Maybe it doesn't work out so well between the pilot and episode 4, but's still goddamn funny. I can't imagine another Tv show on that's as profanely hilarious as this. Full Review »
  3. The best crude sports fan humor put together in my time. Slapshot for hockey is a given, but now Danny McBride gives Charlie Sheen a run for his money!!! My favorite HBO comedy yet. Full Review »