‘Stick’ Season 2 review: Rhea Seehorn helps Owen Wilson’s golf comedy find its swing

This article is based on Season 2 Episodes 1-7 of Stick.

Apple TV may have taken over from HBO as the streaming service known for quality television, but it hasn’t mastered every subgenre. While The Studio and Widow’s Bay are leading the way in comedy, Ted Lasso was once its biggest hit for critical reception and awards attention. The fish-out-of-water soccer series sparked Hollywood’s fascination with sports comedies, something Apple has struggled to replicate until now.

Season 1 of Stick introduced Owen Wilson as Pryce Cahill, a former professional golfer whose career derailed 20 years earlier when his son died of childhood cancer. After his marriage ended and he lost his job, Pryce bet on a 17-year-old golf prodigy, Santi (Peter Dager), giving him a new lease on life, even if it wasn’t enough to silence the question, “What if?”

Like many Apple TV series, Stick flew under audiences’ radar when it premiered in 2025. But the streamer kept its hopes of reviving the sports comedy alive by renewing the series for another season. And it’s a good thing.

Stick Season 2 undergoes a necessary revitalization.

Season 2 revitalizes the series, transforming it from the show your dad watches while you half-follow along to appease the man who raised you into a heartfelt journey of belonging. Its ensemble finds its footing across separate storylines, making Stick one of the streamer’s best and proving Apple has finally found its winning formula for the sports comedy.

Season 2 follows up on that all-important “What if?” question, splitting the cast between two interconnected storylines. As Santi chases his dream of becoming a professional golfer with Elena (Mariana Treviño) and Zero (Lilli Kay) by his side, Pryce’s former rival, Clark Ross (Timothy Olyphant), convinces him to launch an improbable comeback in the hope of becoming the oldest golfer ever to win the U.S. Open.

The two, along with Mitts (Marc Maron), embark on a road trip to meet Pryce’s former coach, Butch Lydecker (Rex Linn), whom they hope will help iron out the kinks and get Pryce back in shape. But the road back to his roots proves far harder than he imagined. It forces him to confront a past he’s let control his life for decades.

Season 2 taps into an audience it otherwise wouldn’t have reached.

Apple TV may have found a way to attract a whole new audience to Stick with the addition of Rhea Seehorn, fresh off an Emmy win for Pluribus. In the Vince Gilligan Apple TV sci-fi series, she plays Carol Sturka, a lesbian tasked with saving the world after a virus transforms the rest of humanity, including her late wife, into a peaceful hive mind that seeks to assimilate her through a lesbian entanglement with her chaperone, Zosia (Karolina Wydra).

Seehorn’s audience is both vocal and loyal, with the potential to give Stick the reach it deserves (just look at Apple’s marketing for The Studio with Kathryn Hahn), even if creator Jason Keller likely never imagined catering his golf series toward a potential queer audience.

If you’re waiting for Seehorn, you’ll have to wait until Episode 3 to meet her, but her entrance is worth it. She plays Amanda, Butch’s daughter and Pryce’s soon-to-be reluctant coach, who makes quite an impression as she arrives to the sound of Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’, with wind blowing through her hair in slow motion, leaving the three men speechless.

Owen Wilson and Rhea Seehorn share a tender chemistry.

Amanda is no-nonsense, calls Pryce out, and is exactly what he needs if he’s serious about proving himself. But she isn’t keen to be the one to get him there until he confronts why he’s honest with himself about why he wants to do this and what prevents him from showing up in big moments.

Seehorn and Wilson have a sweet chemistry, helped by the history their characters share. Having known Pryce since they were teenagers, Amanda sees straight through his excuses and recognizes what she calls the Boog. These self-destructive tendencies prevented him from reaching his potential.

Their playful competitiveness, especially during an arcade showdown and a game of strip golf, gives way to something more tender as their unresolved feelings resurface. Seehorn is especially captivating, revealing decades of hurt and affection through the smallest changes in her expression. What she does with her face, how it moves and crumbles in on itself to convey heartbreak and devastation, is nothing short of phenomenal.

Pryce’s comeback gives Season 2 its heart.

After decades of wondering what might have been, Pryce is terrified of discovering his potential was never as great as everyone believed. It’s easier for him to live with the possibility of greatness than to risk proving otherwise. Wilson delivers an affecting performance as a man who is choking on his own fear. He mourns the future he never had, even as a record-breaking round at a pro-am charity event reignites his ambitions.

Amanda brings the biggest change, though, sending him to a high-performance mindset specialist played by Sasha Alexander to help him confront what’s held him back. If he works out what – or better yet whom – is important to him along the way, then Stick will tick all the right boxes in terms of delivering humor, heart, romance, and found family as a comedy.

The season also delivers an unexpected level of poignancy through Pryce’s reunion with Butch. Bruce has Alzheimer’s and struggles to recognize anyone close to him beyond Amanda, as the disease has robbed him of much of his memory.

An unexpected Better Call Saul reunion.

His fleeting moments of lucidity are among the season’s most devastating scenes, particularly when he reassures Pryce that he’s always been proud of him, and still is, only to forget who he is moments later. Linn reunites with his Better Call Saul co-star Seehorn to deliver a heartbreaking performance that gives Pryce’s journey emotional weight far beyond his ambitions on the golf course.

Olyphant is also a delight to watch, bringing a chaotic yet humorous energy to Clark. Clark’s unwavering confidence in Pryce’s comeback is matched only by his determination to conceal something consequential of his own.

His dynamic with Maron’s Mitts delivers some of the season’s funniest moments, while the latter’s relationship with Elena offers an underdeveloped look at love and insecurity. Their unlikely friendship is a highlight and helps the series find humor even when its characters confront their shortcomings.

Stick struggles to balance its storylines in Season 2.

Splitting the ensemble between its two central storylines has its drawbacks. While Pryce’s comeback provides the strongest material, Santi’s move into professional golf after he finishes third at the Founders Invitational struggles to maintain the same momentum.

His growing frustration as sponsorship commitments and tournaments he’s unprepared for overwhelm him offers a compelling look at the pressures of professional sports and capitalism, especially as Jeremy Pierce (John Higgins) gradually pushes Elena and Zero out of his inner circle. Despite the storyline’s potential to explore ambition and burnout in young athletes tested by early success, it fails to match the humor or emotional pull of Pryce’s road to the U.S. Open, leaving you eager to return to Wilson, Seehorn, Maron, and Olyphant.

The two golfers share an interesting parallel. But with critics given only seven episodes, there is no guarantee this will culminate in anything special. Where Pryce has spent decades regretting a career that ended too soon, Santi rushes into his before he’s prepared. He’s eager to earn money and make a name for himself. Both have let golf define their self-worth. One is terrified of discovering his limitations and the other suffocating under expectations. It’s a shame Wilson and Dager have so few scenes together in Season 2.

The characters deal with their own personal hang-ups.

Stick Season 2 also keeps Elena and Mitts apart to their detriment in a C-plot that feels like a randomized, unwarranted attempt to cause drama. The two clashed throughout Season 1 but found the connection they’d reluctantly been looking for in each other. They take a step forward in their relationship and agree to move in together.

But their plans unravel when Elena remains in LA to play mom-ager to Santi. Neither calls the other. Elena feels she can’t, and Mitts is paralyzed by inadequacy after experiencing a newfound fear of aging, triggered by Butch’s deterioration. Treviño and Maron are fun together, so it’s a shame that Stick forgoes that fact in favor of separating them for the story’s sake.

The bottom line.

Despite its uneven storylines, Stick Season 2 returns with a renewed sense of purpose, finding its greatest strengths not in the golf itself but in the platonic and romantic relationships that develop because of and around it. Wilson and Seehorn are a winning combination, adding warmth and vulnerability to a season that confronts regret and the fear of starting over. What once may have felt like an attempt to replicate Ted Lasso’s success has finally found its own identity, making Stick one of Apple TV’s most heartfelt and rewarding comedies. If you weren’t already watching, it’s time to catch up.

Stick Season 2 is streaming on Apple TV. Watch the trailer below. 

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Images courtesy of Apple TV+.