The Rundown: Just Put Walton Goggins In Your TV Show

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.

HEY

HEY

DID YOU HEAR WALTON GOGGINS IS GOING TO BE IN THE NEW SEASON OF THE WHITE LOTUS

I HOPE SO

I MEAN, YOU JUST DID IF YOU HADN’T

THAT IS GREAT

GOGGINS IS GREAT

HE’S GOING TO BE SO GOOD ON THAT SHOW

PARKER POSEY IS IN THE NEW SEASON TOO

I HOPE THEY PLAY HUSBAND AND WIFE

MOSTLY I AM JUST GLAD THAT WALTON GOGGINS IS ON ANOTHER SHOW

HE SHOULD BE ON EVERY SHOW

HE’S SO GOOD

DANNY MCBRIDE IS TRYING

DANNY PUT HIM IN VICE PRINCIPALS AND THEM IN THE RIGHTEOUS GEMSTONES

HE LET WALTON SING

LOOK AT WALTON SING

MORE SHOWS COULD USE THAT

ALL OF THEM, MAYBE

PUT HIM IN THE NEXT SEASON OF FARGO

OR ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING

OR ANYTHING

JUST PUT HIM IN THE SHOW

REMEMBER HOW GOOD HE WAS IN THE SHIELD

REMEMBER HOW GOOD HE WAS IN JUSTIFIED

OF COURSE YOU DO

HEY

REMEMBER THE TIME SOMEONE LET ME INTERVIEW HIM

REMEMBER HIS ANSWER TO MY STUPID DAIRY QUEEN QUESTION

MAYBE NOT

MAYBE ONLY I DO

BUT HERE IT IS

In season four of Justified, before things all start going sideways, Boyd develops this plan to get out of crime and go legit. And his plan involves opening a Dairy Queen franchise. Do you think Boyd Crowder would have been a successful Dairy Queen franchise owner

I think he would have been a very successful Dairy Queen franchise owner, very successful. And that episode in particular, it’s very … All of this shit is very personal to me. I’m a poor kid from Georgia. We’re divided on a lot of things in this country. The one thing that a lot of us aren’t divided on is poverty. And for me, Boyd Crowder was what I wanted to say about rural America and my version of it. And that for him, there was a glass ceiling, and he couldn’t break it. And all he ever wanted was that, was the ability to escape a life that he came from, and to be somebody, and to be respected in a different way, and not through fear and intimidation.

With my story, I participated in kind of all of it. And I said, “We got to say this, man.” Because there was a dude in my hometown whose dad had four Dairy Queen franchises, and he made it. He was a success. And so, to answer your question, as fastidious as Boyd Crowder was, and as great of a compartmentalizer as he was… yeah, I think you would have seen Dairy Queens popping up in places that you never anticipated.

MAKE THAT SHOW

WALTON GOGGINS AS A RUTHLESS DAIRY QUEEN OWNER

I AM NOT JOKING

DO IT AFTER THE WHITE LOTUS

AND AFTER THE FARGO SEASON I WANT NOW

OR MAYBE MAKE THAT HIS ROLE IN FARGO

MURDEROUS DQ FRANCHISE OWNER

PUTTING HIS ENEMIES INTO THE BLIZZARD MACHINE MAYBE

DOING THE MINNESOTA ACCENT

I DON’T KNOW

I CAN BE FLEXIBLE

A LITTLE

AS LONG AS GOGGINS IS IN THE SHOW

EVERY SHOW

PUT HIM IN THERE

ALL OF YOU

LISTEN TO ME

THANK YOU

What we have here is another one of those situations where two things can be true at the same time…

The first thing is that awards are dumb, especially when they’re handed out for art. You can’t apply an objective signifier of merit to something that subjective. It just doesn’t work. At least with sports you can look at statistics to help back up your argument. But with television shows or movies or music it just… doesn’t work. What you end up with is a combination of groupthink and a popularity contest and, yes, this is my way of pointing out how silly it is that Better Call Saul — and Rhea Seehorn, specifically — never won an Emmy in its entire run. It’s so stupid it should make me angry but it’s also too stupid to waste energy getting angry about. Rhea Seehorn doesn’t need a trophy to signify how awesome she was as Kim Wexler on that show. She just… was, whether some doofs in a room thought so or not.

But that brings up to the second thing, which is that… I’m still bummed she doesn’t have an Emmy. Not because she needs one to validate her performance. More because, like, 20 years from now, when everyone has forgotten who she lost to and most of the plot points of the wonderful show she was on, it would be nice for her to have it on a shelf when company comes over just so they can be like “Wait… you have an Emmy” That would be cool. That’s all. Rhea deserves that. Just because other people find value in that. Aaaaand now I’m mad again. Dammit.

Luckily, she has a better perspective on this than I do, as she explained to The AV Club a few years ago.

Of course, the awards are not supposed to be everything. They’re not always a meritocracy. People who are great don’t always get them, or people you didn’t think were great do. I’ve never seen anybody nominated in my category and thought, “That’s ridiculous!” The snub thing is weird because who were you replacing if you were snubbed, right There’s just a lot of great work out there. You do get hopeful. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I wondered what it would be like to get nominated. And then the press, critics, and fans start also saying they’re waiting for the 7 a.m. announcement on nomination day. Then you don’t get it, so you just say, “Okay, guess I’ll go back to making my oatmeal now.” So you sort of let it go. It became a dance of being afraid of being hopeful, but the letters of love for my performances that were coming in without even getting nominated felt amazing. I was overjoyed this year, but I was touched by the outpouring of other people being so excited.

I still think she should have some trophies. I will make her one if it will help.

Ayyyyyy here’s some cool news: Shane Black, the writer-director behind Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and The Nice Guys, has a new movie in the works based on one of the Parker books by Donald Westlake. It’s called Play Dirty and it’s set to star Mark Wahlberg and LaKeith Stanfield and, presumably, a wise-cracking teen and/or lady, just because that’s what Shane Black does. Here’s the description.

An adaptation of Donald E. Westlake’s Parker novels, the feature stars Wahlberg as the hardened professional thief who is, naturally, double-crossed and left for dead. His hunt for revenge, however, brings with it a shot at the biggest heist of his career. But, per the studio, even with the help of his partner, an actor-slash-con artist named Grofield, he’ll still need to outsmart a South American dictator, the New York mob and the world’s richest man if he hopes to stay alive.

Great. Grand. Lovely. Just three little notes…

— I wish he were making another Nice Guys movie instead, only because I loved that goofy little box office bomb

— I wish he were adapting Westlake’s Dortmunder novels instead of this Parker one, only because those are sillier and more fun and seem like something he could have a blast with

— The last time Parker was adapted for the big screen was in a 2013 movie starring Jason Statham and Jennifer Lopez and, I’m sorry, Mark Wahlberg simply cannot compete with Statham in a cowboy hat.

That said… I’ll still see it.

I have yet to see the new Mean Girls musical. I suspect I’ll see it eventually. I loved the original and I think Tina Fey is a genius and I like things that are fun, even if I am not a big musical guy, generally. But I really do not see how the film itself can top the press tour its star, Renee Rapp, is currently conducting, simply from an entertainment standpoint.

Rapp plays Regina George in the film — reprising her role from the stage production — and she appears to be bringing all of that energy to the publicity events for it. Go click around and examine. Here’s a nice little roundup to get you started.

Seriously, look at this. Look at her taking up valuable studio time meant for plugging a big-budget musical remake of a beloved film to instead take a flamethrower to some tour bus driver named Buddy who was mean to her friends.

Look at her proudly declaring herself ageist in an interview with Andy Cohen that went off the rails so fast it makes you wonder if it was ever on them to begin with.