'The Healing Powers of Dude' is a miss as viewers find Netflix show superficial and unrealistically feel-good
Netflix’s latest family comedy ‘The Healing Powers of Dude’ revolves around an 11-year-old called Noah (Jace Chapman) who suffers from social anxiety. Noah’s life becomes more challenging when he decides to move out of homeschooling and enrolls in a public middle school.
Visions of zombies or sinking into the floor follow Noah as he tries to deal with high-stress scenarios. But he has a friend along with him. His emotional support dog named Dude (Steve Zahn).
Dude is a seemingly lovable mutt with a short attention span and a distracting obsession with treats. This unlikely pair, over the span of eight episodes, find ways to overcome their differences and work together, and somehow survive the nerve-wracking experience that is middle school.
While the show aims to be inclusive, compassionate and fun, it hasn’t received the best of reviews. Not just in terms of the writing, but also its performances.
For example, Zaly Emerith (@ZalyRCL3) on Twitter, writes: “Just saw the first episode of 'The Healing Powers of Dude'... It's a TV show about an eleven-year-old kid with social anxiety... Some people act really bad which makes me want to stop seeing it, but it may be a good show to know a common but not really known mental disorder.”
On the SocialAnxiety subreddit, the show did not fare any better. Reddit user Skyesdow wrote, “Yeah, I really dislike how they're trying to shove down our throats the idea that social anxiety will solve itself, or that other people will solve it,” to which user _ad-meliora_ responded, “Yeah, it looks a bit like ‘extrovert adopts you, forces you into social situations and your social anxiety just disappears in a matter of three weeks’.”
Another user suffering_inside wrote on the same thread, “This is obviously meant to be a 'happy' show. I don't need to see some kid with surface-level social anxiety have everything just fall in his lap while I reminisce about how those things never happened to me and what did/didn't happen instead.”
The user further added, “It doesn't even look like they'll explore his struggles in any meaningful way other than to use it for comedic value, to wrap up the show in a nice little bow, or emphasize the anxiety the first time he encounters a particular situation, call him cured, and brush over it or flat out forget about it any subsequent time he encounters it.”
While user Bakabakumbaka called out the show’s central premise: “Parents getting their kid an emotional support dog thus the guy gets x10,000% more attention than he would have otherwise. Seems logical.”
On Rotten Tomatoes, Mariah R, who claims to be a retired service dog handler, expressed disapproval over the show’s portrayal of Dude. Mariah, who gave the show one-and-a-half stars out of five, wrote: “This show may confuse people more than ever before about the differences between Service Dogs and ESA's (Emotional Support Animals). The dog ‘Dude’ is a service dog school drop out that follows the main character around with zero training and causing havoc.”
Mariah added, “Although my kid found this show to be cute I just don't know how to feel about it. ‘Dude’ sits in chairs at restaurants and has access to school grounds, pees on people and poops on sidewalks (I guess this was a joke). All around this could have been a unique and enlightening show but did not work for me.”
But it wasn’t all bad. Twitter user Brina (@FuyuDerPilz) praised the show and wrote, “Just finished The Healing Powers of Dude on Netflix and ahh it's such a cute lil series I LOVE IT.”
Miz K on Rotten Tomatoes wrote, “Great Family Show! Thank you, Netflix for taking on social anxiety and making it relatable. I loved the casting; it is both inclusive and diverse with such talented actors/actresses. I also loved how you showed a great emotional support dog (which does not require any special training but is there for comfort), family, and friends can change the quality of someone's life. I binged watched and can't wait for Season 2.”
‘The Healing Powers of Dude’ is available for viewing on Netflix.