Bob Odenkirk Stars in Another Promising AMC Show | TV/Streaming

Odenkirk is completely solid as a professor at a small school named Railton. Once a profitable creator however not fairly profitable sufficient to be a family identify, he clearly had loftier aspirations. Like many school professors, he didn’t fairly get the Pulitzer he hoped for when he began his profession. And he appears to be at that time the place he’s nearly able to take it out on everybody round him. In the present’s wonderful opening scene, Hank is confronted by a pupil who argues that the professor has been phoning it in for weeks, permitting friends to offer suggestions and barely listening himself. We know he’s not mistaken as a result of we heard Hank going over his grocery checklist in his head whereas the child was studying. We additionally know Hank’s not precisely mistaken when he argues that the child isn’t going to win a Pulitzer himself. Why? Well, he goes to Railton. And we heard the story too.

The revolution towards Hank solely begins right here. The pupil calls for an apology, and Hank begins to query his function not simply in school however in life. While the writing right here flirts with commentary on “cancel tradition,” it properly would not lean into that hot-button potential, not less than not at the start. A number of Hank’s disaster appears spurned on by his well-known father’s current retirement. Hank has all the time existed in an enormous shadow. Is this his probability to search out the sunshine? Or discover one thing new altogether? The confrontation with the coed spins “Lucky Hank” off into some fairly acquainted narrative territory—we’ve got seen so many tales of insecure mental males over time—however creators Paul Lieberstein (Toby from “The Office”) and Aaron Zelman (“Damages”), working from a guide by the nice Richard Russo, encompass Hank with some attention-grabbing personalities, and Odenkirk finds a method to make what may have been a egocentric prick appear value saving.

Said personalities embody Mireille Enos (“The Killing”) as his spouse Lily, Diedrich Bader as his pal Tony, and an array of acquainted faces as fellow lecturers, together with Cedric Yarbrough and Suzanne Cryer. The present will clearly spin off into the lives of Hank’s colleagues, corresponding to when Yarbrough and Cryer’s characters get right into a spat over his loud automobile within the second episode. The concept that the folks instructing our youngsters are petty and vindictive will not be a brand new one, and there are occasions when “Lucky Hank” is a little bit too acquainted, however Odenkirk navigates the well-trod path with sufficient wit and knowledge to carry the present collectively. When Hank complains about how his physician was most likely a B- pupil, he doesn’t actually pause to query if the identical dynamic isn’t unfolding at Railton—in spite of everything, those that can’t do it as a profession, educate it.