HEELS: A SINCERE LOVE LETTER TO THE SPORT OF WRESTLING

Heels is an American Television Drama about Two brothers who play out scripted wrestling matches as they war over their late father's wrestling promotion and vie for national attention in small town Georgia. The show was created by Michael Waldron, and premiered on the STARZ Network on August 15, 2021. It stars Stephen Amell, Alexander Ludwig, Alison Luff, Mary McCormack, Kelli Berglund, Allen Maldonado, ex-NFL football player, James Harrison and Chris Bauer.

The show currently has an impressive 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an even higher Audience Score of 96%. It also has a Metascore of 75 (based on only 18 critic reviews) on Metacritic, with a User Score of 8.0 (based on only 8 Ratings) and an 8.0/10 on IMDB (based on almost 8,000 reviews).

Let me start by admitting that I noticed this show on the STARZ app way back in 2021 when it premiered, but I purposely skipped over it in favor of watching, and even re-watching shows like Outlander, Black Sails and Power. But recently, I found myself perusing the STARZ app, looking for something I hadn’t seen yet, so I decided to take a flyer on this show, and I have to admit, I’m really glad I did.

I used to love the WWF when I was a kid. Wrestlers like Hulk Hogan, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Junk Yard Dog, Randy “Macho Man” Savage and Ric Flair were among my favorites. I stopped watching professional wrestling during my early teenage years, because I found out that it was fake, and I haven’t really paid much attention to it since. But this show really made me understand why the people who continue to be fans of the sport love it so much.

But, despite its name and the way it uses wrestling as a plot device, this show isn’t really about wrestling. Sure, the show does a great job of putting the brotherhood and comradery that it takes to perform in the ring front and center. And yes, it highlights the strength and athleticism that goes along with performing such fantastic feats physical theater. But this show, at its core, is about two brothers, very different in temperament, living in small town South Georgia, trying to move on in the aftermath of their father’s suicide.

The story is compelling. The writing is solid, with the plot moving seamlessly from point to point, helped along even further by pretty good casting and really good acting. As you watch the characters outside of the ring, you find that their actions impact who you root for inside the ring, which I think is something uniquely cool about this particular story. But the athleticism displayed by all of the actors involved here during the wrestling set pieces is the real treasure of this series. Watching the end product of the performers’ apparent hard work during their stunt training reminds you of what amazing athletes pro wrestlers are, especially since we all know that pro wrestling is fake. Despite that fact, in this screenwriter’s humble opinion, “Heels” is as real as it gets.

The show is currently available on the STARZ app, HULU, YouTube, YouTube TV and Sling TV (with subscription). You can also watch it by the episode on Vudu, Google Play Movies, and Apple TV ($1.99/Episode).