*Light spoilers ahead.
What’s fun about “Brothers,” the new Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson show on Apple TV? Well, a lot.
It has Holland Taylor playing “Ma Mac” and wearing either a lot of bronzer or hastily applied self-tanner. She knows how to wield a gun and a motorcycle. You get doppelgängers of McConaughey and Harrelson’s real-life families, a peek into what a McConaughey run for governor might look like, and enough Central Texas references to keep you fed for weeks.
But if you’re looking for prestige television, the kind that can pull you away from your phone games while watching, this probably isn’t it. It’s a goofy, easy watch — a show my dad would call “chewing gum” AKA just something to have on.
The show premiered on Apple TV on Wednesday with two episodes. Six more episodes will be released weekly. The show boasts in the opening credits that it’s based on “a true rumor” that McConaughey and Harrelson may be related. McConaughey’s mother once told her son she knew Harrelson’s father around the time the actor was conceived. This is the basis of the show. But there’s a key difference in the made-for-TV version: Taylor tells Harrelson, who has so far kept the possible family relation a secret from McConaughey.
“Maybe it’s not a total coinkydink that you and Matthew are always scrapping like brothers,” Taylor’s character says.
The pair of actors are playing themselves in the show and at several times when watching you might wonder if they just asked a camera to follow them around in their daily lives. I am assuming a lot of their actual friendship is portrayed in the show — Harrelson is a little bit of a hippie who lives his life in a loosey-goosey kind of way. Next to McConaughey’s more structured self, it does bring out a few laughs.
I did like that the show alluded to some real Harrelson family history. Harrelson in the show says his father, Clive V. Harrelson, was in prison his whole life. That’s not far from the truth. Harrelson’s real father, Charles Harrelson, was found guilty of assassinating a federal judge in San Antonio in 1982.
The show also pokes fun at its characters — shots and mentions of Lincolns, the vehicles McConaughey has long done commercials for, abound. (Never forget this “Saturday Night Live” spoof of the very serious ads.)
As for the local references, you’ll hear McConaughey say something about going to Whisler’s, so you know he’s really an Austin local, of course. Mentions of Lockhart, including a fictional bar called the Saddle Saloon, are included.
The second episode has McConaughey taking his oldest son on his first deer hunt. I found the whole storyline to be a bit clunky. McConaughey keeps calling the event “the hunt” and I don’t know if I’m just being annoying, but in my whole life I have never heard my Texas-born father call going deer hunting “the hunt.” It felt like a parody of Texans, despite McConaughey and Harrelson being Texans themselves. (Maybe I’m being dramatic! Please watch and let me know if you agree!)
My favorite part of the first episode is when Joe Rogan is mentioned by a TMZ reporter driving McConaughey and Harrelson. Maybe Rogan will run for governor, Harrelson says. That’s when McConaughey hits us with what might be a wink to his future:
“Texans want a real Texan in the mansion,” he said.
McConaughey played with running for Texas governor a few years ago. Is “Brothers” just a vehicle to make that happen? I’ll be tuning in for the next six weeks to find out!
