Heels premieres Sunday, Aug. 15 on Starz.
Stephen Amell’s first big post-Arrow project is a love letter to one of the actor’s favorite entertainment mediums: professional wrestling. Amell, who’s actually wrestled two huge, high-profile matches (one for WWE and the other for a pre-AEW gathering/merging of promotions), brings a harsh (but welcome) earnestness to this portrayal of the business, Heels, which is the best representation and dramatization of wrestling to hit the screen yet.
That’s not to say it’s perfect, or that Heels’ premiere episode, “Kayfabe,” isn’t without its bumps, but it’s able to operate both as a fascinating facsimile for wrestling fans and also a keen insider-y look behind the business, beyond the curtain, for viewers who may not know how things in this particular industry work. Look, it’s always a challenge to make a show or film about a wholly different storytelling mechanism. We’ve seen many shows and movies about people making TV shows or putting on plays or writing music that are about the actual artistic process of a totally different creative expression. Even TV sketch comedy has gone the route of both 30 Rock and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.
Fortunately, since it didn’t work out well for Studio 60, Amell’s project benefits from heavy-handedness. Wrestling, unlike the other aforementioned mediums, is a strange beast to capture. It’s hard to describe, in words, to the non-initiated. Even just taking someone to a show doesn’t give them the full breadth of this magical, complex box of mayhem and athleticism. People who know little to nothing about it think it’s the complete opposite of what it is.
So Amell — along with creator Michael Waldron (Rick & Morty, Loki) and showrunner Mike O’Malley (actor: Glee; Yes, Dear; Snowpiercer) — displaying this wild universe in a way that’s easily accessible, while also providing enough soapy (in a good way) family drama and character conflict to keep the serialized TV series engine afloat, is a wonderful trick. Also, to the benefit of die-hard wrestling nerds like me, Heels explores some of the fun inner-workings of having to serve a hundred different masters when telling a wrestling story (the story itself, the business and putting asses in seats, the actual talent involved, the actual moral fiber of that talent, the competition, etc).
Heels benefits from heavy-handedness.
One thing that stands out, but may possibly go unnoticed by those unaware of modern wrestling, is that Heels feels, possibly by design, “out of time.” It’s clearly set in the now, or close-ish, as there’s YouTube and smartphones, but the overall story itself feels hugely yesteryear — like ’70s, ’80s, or mid-’90s. It resembles a time when there were way more small wrestling promotions with traditional booking styles and an all-male roster (yes, no women’s wresting in this show’s league). There’s also a nearby Floridian competitor that’s meant to evoke mid/late-’90s Extreme Championship Wrestling.
Part of this loving look-back vibe is so this particular story can be told, as it doesn’t quite work solidly in 2021, and another, presumedly, is as a nod to the era Amell grew up with. Also, narratively, it fits that the DWL — the Duffy Wrestling League — is a stubborn holdout against progress, since it saddles up to Amell’s Jack Spade and that character’s rigid obstinance.
Amell and Vikings’ Alexander Ludwig play brothers Jack and Ace Spade, respectively. Sons of a wrestling legend, Tom Spade, Jack inherited his father’s small-potatoes Duffy, Georgia wrestling promotion while younger brother Ace, a high school football hero and loose cannon, got left in the lurch. Both currently wrestle for DWL while Jack operates as its owner, sole booker (writer/plotter) and top villain (“heel”). Ace, despite his real-life disposition (which leans toward cocky and mean) is the hero set to dethrone Jack for the top championship. Meanwhile, Ace is being scouted by an “up north” (this show’s acknowledgement of WWE) recruiter Wild Bill (True Blood’s Chris Bauer) and wants to win DWL’s top prize before he takes off for greener pastures.
This is where family and art clash, as Jack must figure out how to book this match. Does he win or does he give the fans what they want (for the hero to win, though tradition states you lose on your way out the door)? Also, does he reward someone like Ace, who can’t even act nice in public to keep up his faux hero persona? Ace argues that wrestling should be fun while Jack fires back with “but not at the expense of being good.” Two different views of wrestling — wish-fulfillment vs. slow-burn storytelling that requires patience — from two different performers representing varying degrees of bitterness and resentment. It’s a tremendous merging of the worlds, wrestling, and family (none of this works without the family dynamic, really), and it might have been the only good way to expose, dramatically, the craft of the sport.
“Kayfabe” is a nice jumping off point for this new series, though it also works on its own as a mini-movie, telling the one story. The ending is a corker, landing as both a swerve to build off of and also its own sort of exhibitive exclamation point. Basically, the hallmark of a good pilot. The supporting cast is strong — from Mary McCormack’s droll and reliable DWL manager to Kelli Berglund’s “secret mind for business” valet Crystal — though one character, played by Trey Tucker, feels the most like an expositional insert, as he’s a rookie who the other wrestlers get to explain the ins and outs of the business to (thereby explaining it to us). But it’s mostly forgivable, since wrestling is a tough nut to crack.
Meanwhile Amell, in proverbial hog heaven, invisibly aided and advised by his good friends in the wrestling industry, is out there doing his own mat work, making Jack Spade look like a devilish showman and giving us a character who’s nearly as obsessed as Oliver Queen. And it makes for a hell of a match.