Rennervations Season 1 Episode 1 recap: Chicago: Building a Mobile Music Bus

What do you get when you combine Hawkeye’s Jeremy Renner with life-changing goals and dreams? The Disney Plus original series Rennervations, reveals that magical combination starting off in the city of Chicago.

In season 1 episode 1, Chicago: Building a Mobile Music Bus, Renner decides to help the youth of Chicago, specifically through the program BASE, by taking a transport bus and transforming it into a space for them to write, play, and record music.

Rennervations Season 1 Episode 1 recap – The Task

Jeremy Renner narrates the first episode, providing both insight into the first project and the backstory as to why. Many might not know about Renner’s love of music.

In fact, his passion is so strong he even has a recording studio in his home. Renner’s other passion is building things.

Already you can see where this episode is going. By purchasing old and unused government and transportation vehicles, he hopes to give them new life, while also helping others.

His first task is to take a transport bus and transform it into a place where the kids of Chicago can go, to not only escape the harsh realities of the city, but also create music. The episode then jumps from Reno, Nevada where the bus will be reconstructed and Chicago, Illinois where the bus will be driven to.

The first episode does not shy away from how the gang and gun violence of Chicago is affecting the youth. Even going as far as mentioning how many friends most of the kids have lost due to such tragedies.

But thanks to BASE, these kids can use their time and skills towards music. This includes writing their own music, singing and playing instruments.

Rennervations Season 1 Episode 1 recap – The Build

Throughout the episode Renner introduces several important people to aid him in this project. This includes his team of hardworking, creative and unique individuals, who each have their own heartwarming and inspirational backstories.

Together, the very talented team will have only a few weeks to complete the task. The task, simply put, is to separate the bus into three parts: writing space, performing stage, and recording studio.

While this sounds very ambitious, the team is understandably concerned if this is possible, especially under the time constraints. For some, they’ve never worked on such a project before, even going as far as viewing Renner’s recording studio to understand what this task entails.

While the bus is under construction, Renner meets with several of the BASE kids, learns more about the program and how it’s been helping kids, checks out the plethora of new instruments and equipment needed for the bus and contacts his friend Vanessa Hudgens.

Rennervations Season 1 Episode 1 recap – The Reveal

While the guest star of the episode, Vanessa Hudgens doesn’t arrive until the reveal day, she does spend time with the kids and helps introduce the completed project. The BASE kids are overjoyed at the finished bus, that did meet all of Renner’s expectations!

It’s actually quite amazing to see the final transformation. There is no doubt that this bus will be a welcome addition to the BASE program and continue to change the lives of Chicago’s youth.

Rennervations Season 1 Episode 1 review

For an almost hour-long episode, it flowed fairly well and told not one, but multiple stories. It’s always fun to learn more about those actually building the bus, instead of them having a quick introduction.

It was equally fun to learn about BASE, as well as Jeremy Renner himself. He definitely peels back the layers of being ‘just an actor’ and you begin to see him in as more of an everyday, down to Earth person.

His passion and ideas are truly inspirational, and it will be fun to watch the rest of the season just to see what he comes up with next. Overall, between learning more about Renner, BASE, and construction, this was a well-done episode that will appeal to many audiences on the streaming platform.

What did you think of the Rennervations season 1 episode 1? Share your thoughts in the comments below, we’d love to read them!

You can watch Rennervations season 1 on Disney Plus.