Stream It Or Nah: Peacock's 'Mr. Throwback' Starring Adam Pally and Steph Curry

By Dustin Rowles | TV | August 14, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | August 14, 2024 |

Mr. Throwback was so heavily promoted during the Olympics on Peacock that if you left the room after the Closing Ceremonies without turning off the television, you might have found yourself autoplayed into the series—even if you’d already watched it in its entirety (as happened to me). That’s not necessarily a bad thing. There’s been a real dearth of comedy this year (so much so that The Bear is somehow our best representative), and Mr. Throwback is a very welcome return to comedies intentionally designed to elicit laughter.

Mr. Throwback comes from David Caspe (Happy Endings) and Daniel and Matthew Libman (also of Happy Endings, as well as other shows like How I Met Your Father). It stars Adam Pally (again, Happy Endings), Ego Nwodim (SNL), and NBA legend Steph Curry, who plays himself.

Pally plays Danny Grossman, Curry’s childhood best friend who was also the best player on Curry’s junior high basketball team, coached by Danny’s father, Mitch (Tracy Letts, who is low-key the funniest character in the series). Mitch, however, lied to everyone — including Danny — and said Danny was a 12-year-old when he was actually 14, a scandal that essentially ruined both Mitch and Danny’s lives.

Twenty-five years later, Danny is a divorced dad working at a sports memorabilia shop and $90,000 in debt to the mob. To pay off the debt, he turns to the only person he knows with that much money: his old friend Steph Curry, from whom he is estranged. Danny ends up telling a lie — that his daughter has a terminal illness — and Steph and his high-powered assistant, Kimberly (Nwodim), decide to throw a charity basketball game to raise money for Danny’s daughter. One lie builds on top of another, and before he knows it, Danny has involved his daughter and his ex-wife (Ayden Mayeri) in the deception. Danny essentially finds himself repeating the mistake of his father, who is also trying to reconcile with him.

That’s the premise, which doesn’t exactly scream HILARIOUS, but it’s surprisingly fertile ground for a solid comedy. Pally is Pally — always great — and Nwodim is every bit as good as one might expect. Letts and Mayeri are the scene stealers, while Curry is unsurprisingly great at playing a version of himself as a goofy athlete blinded to reality by his fame and wealth. He’s fun; the whole thing is. It’s the same brand of comedy that made Happy Endings work.

Granted, the stakes for a laugh-out-loud comedy were a little high, and the premise can be stressful because we all know that there’s only one way it ends — confessing to Steph Curry — but without spoiling anything, let me just say that the stress is unwarranted.