‘Brothers’ Premiere Recap: Are Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson Really Brothers?
Warning: This recap contains major spoilers for Brothers Episodes 1 and 2.
Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson have spent years joking about the possibility that their real-life friendship could come with an unexpected family connection. Apple TV’s Brothers wastes very little time turning that rumor into the foundation for its new comedy.
The series finds McConaughey and Harrelson playing fictionalized versions of themselves, and the two-episode premiere throws their families together before dropping a secret that could completely change how Matthew sees his father, his best friend and maybe even himself.
Woody Heads to Austin
The premiere begins with Woody at home in California trying and mostly failing to deal with a family crisis. His daughter Olive has ended her engagement and is understandably devastated, while Woody seems much more comfortable escaping the emotional situation than actually dealing with it.
His solution is to head to Austin to visit Matthew, but there is just one problem. Woody’s wife is not exactly thrilled by the idea of him running away by himself, so his getaway quickly turns into a family trip with everyone piling into the bus and heading for Texas.
Over at the McConaughey home, Matthew has problems of his own. His late father Big Mac’s football number is being retired by his former high school, and Matthew has been tasked with delivering a speech at the ceremony.
Matthew desperately wants to get it right, but finding the right words about the father he idolized is proving difficult. Then Woody arrives, which is not exactly the recipe for peace and quiet. Matthew initially tries to stay focused, but Woody eventually convinces him to get out of the house. Their night quickly becomes an adventure involving an Uber Pool, an unexpected ride with a TMZ reporter and, eventually, a rodeo.
Somewhere along the way, Woody’s plan actually works. Matthew finally gets out of his head and finishes the speech he has been struggling to write, but Woody cannot leave well enough alone and convinces Matthew to live out a dream and ride a bull. Matthew does it, while Woody is left responsible for protecting the phone containing the speech. That goes about as well as you would expect because the phone gets stomped and destroyed, taking Matthew’s completed speech with it. Matthew is furious, and the two end the night fighting. What started as Woody trying to help has now completely blown up in both of their faces.
Ma Mac Drops a Family Bombshell
Woody returns to Matthew’s home ready to pack up his family and leave, but a conversation with Matthew’s mother changes everything. Ma Mac reveals that she knew Woody’s father, Clive Harrelson, and suggests their relationship may have been much more than casual.
Woody quickly realizes what she is implying. If Ma Mac and Clive were together around the right time, there is a very real possibility that Clive could be Matthew’s biological father, which would mean Matthew and Woody might actually be brothers. Meanwhile, Matthew manages to deliver an emotional speech honoring Big Mac without the words he lost on his phone. The experience gives him some clarity about what he wants to do next, and when he returns home, he apologizes to Woody before dropping news of his own.
Matthew wants to run for governor of Texas, and he asks Woody and his family to stay and help with the campaign. Woody agrees, but considering what Ma Mac just told him, he decides this probably is not the perfect moment to tell Matthew that the man inspiring his political ambitions might not actually be his biological father. Whew, talk about timing. Woody now has a massive family secret on his hands at the exact moment Matthew is preparing to put his entire life under a political microscope.
Episode 2 Sends Woody Looking for Answers
Episode 2, “The Hunt,” picks up with Woody unable to let Ma Mac’s revelation go. When he tries to get more information from her, however, she is suddenly much less forthcoming about what happened between her and Clive.
That only makes Woody more curious, and he starts looking into his father’s past on his own. Meanwhile, Matthew is focused on a McConaughey family tradition involving his 16-year-old son Wyatt. Wyatt is old enough for a father-son deer hunt, and Matthew is determined to carry on the tradition with him. Woody, unsurprisingly, has some feelings about the whole thing and does not exactly keep them to himself.
The differences between the two men are pushed to the forefront when Woody tries to interfere with the hunt and prevent Wyatt from killing a deer. In one of the episode’s best bits of irony, Woody winds up accidentally killing a deer himself.
Yes, after all that protesting, Woody becomes the one responsible for the deer’s death. He is horrified by what happened and even delivers a eulogy for the animal, while everyone around him is forced to participate in yet another uniquely Woody Harrelson experience. It is ridiculous, but it also plays perfectly into what Brothers is doing with these exaggerated versions of its two stars. Their personalities are pushed just far enough to make the situations absurd without completely losing the friendship at the center of the series.
Woody’s Search for Clive Gets Dangerous
The much bigger development comes when Woody starts asking questions about his father at the Saddle Saloon, a bar Clive used to frequent. Woody is hoping someone there can give him information about Clive and Ma Mac, but digging into his father’s past turns out to be a lot more dangerous than expected.
His questions eventually lead to Woody being set up, attacked and held at gunpoint by men with an old grievance against Clive. Whatever Clive did decades ago clearly left behind unfinished business, and now Woody has walked directly into it.
Luckily for him, Ma Mac comes to the rescue, but her involvement immediately raises even more questions. She clearly knows enough about Clive’s past to understand exactly what Woody has gotten himself into.
Instead of finally explaining everything, Ma Mac warns Woody that continuing to investigate his father is only going to cause more trouble. Girl, you cannot tell Woody Harrelson that he might secretly be Matthew McConaughey’s brother and then expect that man to stop asking questions.
Are Matthew and Woody Really Brothers?
By the end of Episode 2, Brothers still has not definitively answered its biggest question. Ma Mac’s story certainly makes it possible that Clive could be Matthew’s biological father, but she is not willing to give Woody the full story just yet. Her determination to keep Woody from digging into Clive’s past only makes the mystery more interesting. Whatever happened between Ma Mac and Clive appears to be more complicated than one old romance, and Woody is clearly not going to leave it alone.
The timing also could not be worse for Matthew. He is preparing to launch a campaign for governor inspired partly by the father he has spent his life looking up to, while Woody is secretly investigating information that could completely rewrite Matthew’s family history.
Brothers could have easily leaned entirely on the novelty of seeing McConaughey and Harrelson play versions of themselves, but the first two episodes give the comedy an actual story to build around. Their friendship remains the attraction, while the paternity mystery gives us a reason to come back and see just how messy this is going to get.
Because chile, there is no way this secret is staying buried forever. With Woody already digging and Ma Mac clearly hiding more than she wants to admit, Brothers has set itself up for a very messy family reveal.
New episodes of Brothers stream Wednesdays on Apple TV.
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