Young Rock 1x04-1x06 Recap and Review

 

So where does the story of Young Rock go in its fourth installment, “Check your head”? It checks in on Dwayne Johnson in 1990 as he started playing football for Miami University. The story is told from the point of view of the future presidential candidate being interviewed by a famous sportscaster as the Rock tells us how he suffered a major setback in his early football years that served as a defining experience for him. Dwayne was riding the victory of being a football star high as he was buying his parents a fancy new TV and carrying himself with class at parties but all that changed when he sustained an injury to his shoulder during a game. That injury put him out of the game for the whole season but everybody assured him that “injury is part of the game”, and that if he hit rehab hard and went to every meeting he would come back next season better than ever. So Dwayne did what he knew best and hit rehab hard and while he got better physically it was a totally different story mentally. He lost interest in the game when he wasn’t part of the game so he withdrew from attending the meetings and dropped the ball on his classes as well. So he spent all his time watching TV and eating junk food. Eventually he hit rock bottom when he ditched finals and went back home after realizing his fame and sense of identity as a football star was quickly fading. So going back home made him feel good and helped him to forget about his troubles at Miami University but he retreated to his same laying around and eating junk food tactics as before. Finally at the urging of his mother, his father, Rocky, took him to the gym and told him if he really wanted to give up he'd succeeded by laying around and he can get him some truck driving shifts.. Dwayne, realizing he didn’t want to give up decided he would “keep fighting.” The driving theme of this episode was that no matter how bad things get in life you have to keep persevering and that story told from the inspirational point of view of the Rock is a great perspective. 

 

 

“Don’t go breaking my heart”, the fifth installment of Young Rock rewinds the timeline to 1987 Pennsylvania with the storyline following up on the consequences of Dwayne punching the living daylights out of the kid who teased him and called wrestling “fake” if you recall from several episodes back. While his stunt may have impressed his girlfriend Karen the school had quite the opposite reaction as it suspended him for a week much to the dismay of his mother. His mother furious with him, Dwayne ignores her parenting and instead hangs out with his best friend to buy a nice present for Karen. However his mother with her husband Rocky out of town and out of reach seeks advice from her eccentric mentor, her self-involved rich client who she cleans for and gains the self-resolve to discipline Dwayne on her own rather than wait for her husband to take care of things. Dwayne, not thrilled with his mother laying down the law goes along with her parenting but things only get worse when she finds out that Dwayne has been stealing clothes and an item from her boss, her mentor. However things do work out as his mother gets through to him and gets him to see his self-absorbed interests and actions in wanting to be cool by pretending to be rich has consequences and the two form a bond that hadn’t been their as of late. So the pattern continues of life lessons being learned by Dwayne in this series which continues on into the sixth installment of Young Rock, “My day with Andre.”

Now, “My day with Andre”, is another one of those flashback episodes to 1982 with a 10-year old version of the Rock which I find not to be as interesting as the 15-year old and 18-year old versions of the Rock but these episodes still have a thematic punch to theme nonetheless. This episode sees Dwayne desperately wanting to see the newest movie out, E.T. which is a film I still have not seen to this day. The problem is that both his parents are busy with his mother auditioning for a singing gig and his father caught up in his usual business schmoozing. His grandmother runs a wrestling meeting and Dwayne wanting to get out of it gets Andre the giant to take him to the E.T. movie to the agreement of his father and grandmother. However once they are in the car Dwayne finds out that Andre doesn’t like the movies and they are going to spend the day differently. So Andre takes Dwayne to the park to feed birds and teaches him that life is full of different perspectives and Dwayne learning this about life helps Andre who confesses he actually does like the movies but he is too big for people to see the movie behind him that maybe that he isn’t too big but rather that the world is too small for Andre. Andre is delighted to be able to see the wisdom of a child come to his realization and juxtaposed to a subplot in the episode of a wrestling drama testing family loyalties between his grandmother and father the episode rests on the theme of differing perspectives as the future Presidential candidate The Rock of 2032 announces his Vice President, a female General who he has had disagreements with in the past but is confident his VP will be able to help him see the different sides of issues in the country in his realization of the presidency. So 6 episodes into the Young Rock, the youthful adventures of Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson seem to have proven to be strong impactful comedic thematic tales that double as comfort food and inspirational stories to be reflected upon.