#WASHED Director Jerod Couch Turned a 'Quarter Life Crisis' Into Emmy Nominated Series

Dallas writer and director Jerod Couch went from the start of a promising career at ESPN and the Texas Rangers to his lowest point in a short amount of time. He was still old enough to do something about it. He calls it his "quarter life crisis." 

If this sounds familiar to you, you're not alone. Millennials even have a term for it: "washed." The word comes from basketball great LeBron James, who once responded to a Twitter post from the L.A. Lakers announcing that he became the first Laker to score three straight triple-doubles in 32 years with the hashtag "#WashedKing."

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Even someone at one of the few peaks of personal achievement still feels a need to do better. Couch relates to this idea, even if his career path took him down a road to unemployment and driving a Lyft for extra cash.

"You're too young to just be a dreamer but not too young to achieve those adolescent dreams you had," he says.

Rather than work his way back up the ladder on someone else's terms, Couch decided to make his own destiny by launching his own TV dramedy, #WASHED, a deep, smart show about 30-somethings wrestling with where they are and where they thought they should be when they were younger.

The web series found a spot on Amazon Prime where it released two seasons, the most recent of which is competing for a national Daytime Emmy.

"I'm elated," Couch says about the Emmy nod. "I don't do it for the accolades but damn, it's nice to be recognized."

Couch's project has grown to create a cast and crew of 30 people, some of whom are working on a set for the first time.

The first season uses Dallas as a backdrop and another character cast. The show garnered two regional Emmys and an impressive audience for a grassroots television project that utilizes regional talent, including Dallas actor and rapper Byron Hardy, aka B.Hardy, and San Antonio's Nadirah Shakir.

SOURCE: Dallas Observer