Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Healing Powers of Dude’ on Netflix, a Sitcom About a Kid With Social Anxiety and the Dog Who Helps Him

The Healing Powers of Dude is Netflix’s new family-friendly comedy series, but it hopes to do more than just make us laugh. Sure, as sitcoms do, it assembles a variety of awkward-cute young actors and tosses a moppet-dog into the mix for maximum appeal. But its protagonist is a boy with social anxiety disorder who needs the eccentric pup to navigate the challenges of attending middle school. The series may be among the first of its kind, depicting the travails of a young person with such a clearly defined mental illness; but it remains to be seen whether the premise is a thoughtful depiction or just a facade for yet another joke factory.

THE HEALING POWERS OF DUDE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Wearing a worried and anxious expression, Noah Ferriss (Jace Chapman) stares through a car window.

The Gist: What’s Noah looking at under furrowed brow? Roosevelt Middle School. It’s bustling, and he’s sweating it. He has social anxiety disorder. For two years, he was home-schooled. Now he’s facing his fears, steadying himself for — gulp — interaction. With strangers. Dad (Tom Everett Scott) is a little bit goofy. Mom (Larisa Oleynik) is a little bit worried. Younger sister Embry (Laurel Emory) is more than a little bit sarcastic. But at the end of the day, all are supportive.

Noah almost makes it to the door. Amara (Sophie Kim) lightly chastises him for standing shellshocked in front of the handicap-access door button, and not allowing her wheelchair through. He doesn’t take it lightly, though: Time to go home! And maybe, Mom says, it’s time to take his doctor’s advice and get an emotional support dog. Enter Dude, a smallish orangish thing with white spots, fur tufts here and there and a nose constantly in its crotch. Oh, and a running internal monologue, a la Garfield or Look Who’s Talking, voiced by Steve Zahn. (Of course, only other dogs can hear his “thoughts.”) Flash back to Dude’s recent past, where we see him fail spectacularly as a service dog, get downgraded to emotional support status and be the object of a cretinous sheepdog’s cruel taunts.

Dude goes to school with Noah, and, surprise, it backfires. Think about it: Adorable dog + anxious boy + school full of kids = school full of kids drawn to cute dog and freaking out anxious boy. Noah envisions his stressful moments as horror movie scenarios, and this one manifests as a zombie attack. Maybe home-schooling wasn’t so bad after all?

The situation slowly, painstakingly, gets better, and he lands a couple pals before he knows it. Amara might be a bit terse, but when she learns about Noah’s disorder, she empathizes. Simon (Mauricio Lara) is loud and overbearing, but kind and supportive. When bullies corner Simon, Dude comes to the rescue, first stupefying the antagonizers with his sovereign cuteness, then soaking their Reeboks with a ripe urine stream. Noah navigates the perplexities of persnickety Principal Meyers (Peter Benson) who, when we meet him, is wearing three different plaids — just on his torso! — and unleashes an anxiety-inducing 53 rules for kids with support dogs, a level of old-ironsides insensitivity on par with Richard Spencer taking the microphone at an LGBTQ rally. But Noah eventually makes it to homeroom, silly little doofus Dude at his side. Next stop, the world!

Our Take: The Healing Powers of Dude aims to do a bit of everything: Be glossy and broadly appealing, but use the single-camera concept to sand off a bit of the varnish before it becomes an exercise in Disney Channel-esque superficial frivolity. It needs to present Noah’s daily challenges with earnest credibility, and it does so reasonably well within the parameters of family-TV formula. It introduces attractive characters with potential for complexity. I appreciated how Noah’s parents stress-eat cheez balls as they stake out the school, worried about their son. It’s a dumb gag, sure, but there’s a kernel of truth to it. (It’s hard not to love a script that has a Wacky Dad who’s so deranged, he believes Adam Sandler movie The Cobbler is “a classic.”)

It’s also difficult not to empathize for a kid in the clutches of a catch-22 in which the very thing he needs to ease the transition will inevitably draw the attention he dreads. The show, created by Erica Spates and Sam Littenberg-Weisberg, handles the subject matter with a mostly featherweight touch, but deploys just enough complexity to neatly sidestep tasteless exploitation. Whether it’ll fully commit to portraying social anxiety disorder realistically remains to be seen; the opening episode commits itself to establishing the premise and tone, and it doesn’t seem likely to depict anything too gritty or dark.

But. You may have audibly groaned a couple paragraphs ago, upon reading the phrase “internal monologue.” It’s what any reasonable person would do. The gimmick, which feels shoehorned in, demands frequent video and audio cutaways to the dog, with seriously mixed results: The show clearly wants to give CUTE PUPPIE as much screen time as possible, and who besides serial killers would argue with that? But it also significantly disrupts narrative flow. Cut this forced, corny stuff from the script, and the episode would be crisp, snappy and more comedically and dramatically effective.

Sex and Skin: None, although Dude licks himself with unsettling vigor.

Parting Shot: Boy and dog stare at different indeterminate spots past the camera. Dog: confident(ish). Boy: Nervous(ish).

Sleeper Star: Sophie Kim plays a small, but important role in the series — her character shows Noah how someone with a disability can successfully navigate school. Additionally, the actress has a form of muscular distrophy, which is positive representation for young viewers.

Most Pilot-y Line: Mom: “We knew this morning wouldn’t be a walk in the park.” Embry: “To be fair, he’s also afraid of walks in the park.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Healing Powers of Dude has a lot of upside: Representation, good characters, potentially challenging subject matter and a light touch. The talking-dog shtick and occasional lowbrow gag aren’t dealbreakers.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream The Healing Powers of Dude on Netflix