The Rundown: Three (Kind Of) Simple Ways ‘The Mandalorian’ Can Replace Gina Carano

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

The wild thing about Gina Carson getting fired from The Mandalorian — or, like, not being brought back, if you prefer — for bad posts is that they weren’t even bad old posts. That’s something we’ve seen before and something that makes me a little uncomfortable because it kind of removes the motivation for a person to grow and get better, if we’re always going to hold them to the dumbest and worst things they’ve ever said. I don’t know. That’s an issue with a lot of gray areas in it and, thankfully, we don’t have to solve it today because that’s not what happened here. Gina Carson did not lose her job because someone pulled up bad posts from a decade ago. Gina Carano just kept posting and posting and posted herself right out of a gig, after what I have to assume were multiple warnings from high-ranking people at Disney. Everyone’s eyes were wide-open on this one.

You are all, as always, welcome to dive headlong into the lava-filled swimming pool of the political discourse surrounding all of this (which, I suppose, makes it more of a lava-filled moat than a lava-filled swimming pool), but I will not be joining you. That is, to put an extremely fine point on it, not what I am interested in or about in any substantial way. The solution to all of this is fewer bad posts, not more bad ones. But no one listens to me. If they did, golfers on the PGA Tour would all have NOS-powered carts and the winners would be determined by how fast they completed the round, regardless of the number of strokes it took. I am trying to help.

And so, with all of that in mind, let’s instead look at a few (kind of) simple ideas for what the show can do to replace her going forward, or at least explain her absence. I must stress that these are not very good ideas. But when has that ever stopped me before

FIRST OPTION — We straight-up Fresh Prince this sucker

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air famously — and controversially — just up and switched out Aunt Vivs between seasons three and four after various on-set issues that you are welcome to Google. This is one way to go, and one of the funnier ones because it requires the audience to just, like, accept that there’s a whole-ass new person playing the role of Cara Dune and none of the characters on the show are acknowledging it at all. It’s also fun because it opens up the “well then who should it be” discussion, and that is always a place where idiots like me thrive.

It should probably be someone who can handle themselves physically, just because Cara Dune is a warrior. Do we go with another Fast & Furious veteran like Michelle Rodriguez or Ronda Rousey Do we go with a John Wick veteran like Ruby Rose Do we listen to the fans and get Lucy Lawless involved Do we put in a call to Helen Mirren, just because it seems like Helen Mirren is having a lot of fun being an action star lately Yes, sure, Helen Mirren is a little older than Cara Dune, but I think I would like to see it and that is what is important here.

SECOND OPTION — The Poochie option