In the HBO series Eastbound and Down’s final season, Kenny Powers met a worthy rival—his former teammate and host of a popular talk show, Guy Young.
Young began the season as a savior for the repressed inner animal residing in Kenny Powers. A chance encounter between the two while Kenny was working for a car rental agency led to the pair rekindling a long lost friendship.
With Kenny scoring major brownie points during a debauched night at the local strip club, through praise of Young’s post-baseball career as the host of "Sports Sesh," Guy invited Kenny to be a guest on his show. And thus, the second major comeback of Kenny’s career commenced.
After a slow start, Powers found his footing, displacing annoying co-host Dontel Benjamin in a legendary verbal smackdown.
But the new Powers and Young tag-team proved to be a short-lived partnership when competiveness and ego began to rip the pair apart.
As Kenny sought a larger role on "Sports Sesh," their competitive relationship boiled over into their charitable endeavors.
The relationship eventually became untenable as jealousy gave way to outright assault.
And assault gave way to sabotage.
After Young’s racist tirade, he lost his show, he lost AIDS, and he retreated to life as a recluse, wallowing in his own waste.
Powers, as he is known to do, became intoxicated with his resurrected fame and launched a reign of terror on the Sports Sesh team, ultimately destroying the show, before a Christmas revelation set him on a path toward redemption.
A repentant Kenny emerged and offered an olive branch to Guy. Given a fresh opportunity as the host of an "Oprah"-inspired talk show, Powers invited Guy on the show as his special guest in the premiere episode. He gave Young the opportunity to apologize to his offended fans, thus beginning his own comeback.
Powers kicked off the show with what would be his retirement monologue and promptly walked off the set, tossing the mic to Young wherein the audience could only assume that Guy embarked on a P.R. comeback that would make Robert Downey Jr. proud.
For going from hero to goat and back to hero, Guy Young is 2013’s Man Of The Year.
