The Rundown: Walton Goggins And ‘The Righteous Gemstones’ Have Given Us So Many Blessings

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.

ITEM NUMBER ONE – God bless everyone at this show

The Righteous Gemstones has been back on television for two weeks — three episodes, thanks to a two-part premiere — and it has already done more than most shows do in an entire season. There was the thing last week where the last 10 minutes of the second episode featured a very silly shoe-throwing fiasco followed immediately by a car chase that would fit into any big-budget action movie. There was a wildly explicit painting of Judy and BJ just hanging in the background of a scene that had to be seen to be believed. And there was also, at the beginning of this week’s episode… this.

I could give you all the facts here. I could flood you with background information about a Bible-themed luxury resort called Zion’s Landing and the backstory of why Gemstone in-law Baby Billy Freeman is there performing a poolside rendition of an old gospel song called “Payday” and all of it. And I will in a minute. But first, let’s all stop and appreciate the fact that we have a television show where Walton Goggins just pops up in a baby blue clam outfit to sing us a song. That’s not nothing.

But yes, we can dig in a little, too. With, to start, this chat at IndieWire with the show’s music supervisor Joseph Stephen where we learn more about what a delightful man Walton Goggins is.

“We had him do a variety of takes. One that was maybe a little more reserved, one that kind of went for it a little more. What we ended up going with was the middle of that road,” Stephens said. “But Walton is a consummate professional with all this stuff. All the vocal demands that we put on him for the show, he always comes very prepared, and he’s at the ready to do it however we propose. He came in and knocked it out. It’s all great and we don’t really need much after we get a few.”

And also this chat with Goggins himself, conducted by Uproxx’s own Jason Tabrys, where we learned… okay, this is just more of Walton Goggins being a wonderful man who is up for anything and loves heaping praise on costume designers.

Just the outfit itself made me feel like Elvis. It was extraordinary. What she did, stepping into those shoes was I think one of the greatest achievements I’ve seen on a show in a very long time. These are very big shoes to fill and she did it without a hitch. She stepped right in and the day that we were filming that episode they brought this clamshell out and I put it on, it went to places that I had no idea it was going to go.

Two things are worth noting here. Maybe three.

The first is that it’s just really cool. Think about Walton Goggins. Think about his career. He played a crooked cop in The Shield and a charismatic outlaw on Justified and had really created a cool little niche for himself as cable television’s primo charming villain. Then he just started doing comedy. He did Vice Principals, which was great, but now he’s taking it to another level completely. Look at how silly he’s being. He does this for us. For Danny McBride, too, but mostly for us. He’s a good man. Please do not forget this. Ever.

The second thing is that this is now at least the third time Danny McBride has made him sing. The most notable one is still the pickle-in-the-mouth “Misbehavin’” earworm from the first season of this show, but please do not ever forget when he whispered a little ditty called “Busted by Lee Russell.”

And okay, yes, the third thing: I really do need everyone to recognize that his character is currently trying to get a game show off the ground titled “Baby Billy’s Bible Bonkers” that is just a religious-themed ripoff of Family Feud, and that everyone on the show recognizes this and pluralizes Family Feud for no reason while talking about it. “Family Feuds.” It’s such a perfect and stupid little touch and it makes me very happy.

As does this screencap from the same episode.

We really are just very, very blessed.

ITEM NUMBER TWO – It’s the most wonderful time of the year

It brings me great pleasure to report exclusively that Henry Winkler is on his fishing trip. Maybe “exclusively” is a stretch. He kind of told everybody on Twitter earlier this week. I suppose this is closer to the opposite of an exclusive report, in that everyone in the world received the same information. Or at least everyone who follows Henry Winkler on Twitter. Which should be everyone in the world. The man is a treasure.

His fish pictures are my favorite, though. I had the opportunity to interview him a few years ago when he was out promoting Barry and I told him as much straight to his lovely face. I’m just going to go ahead and blockquote that exchange again, if only because, like… I don’t know. I try not to take it for granted that I have a job where I can tell Henry Winkler that I like his fish pictures. Here we go.

I have followed you on Twitter for years now. I consider you to be one of my favorite people on that website. You’re a lovely man, and you’re better at Twitter than most people I know. It seems like almost every summer you go on a fishing trip and you post these pictures of yourself with the fish.

Yes.

It is one of my favorite things that happens on Twitter, because, you know Twitter, it’s like a stream of “everyone’s miserable, everyone’s angry, everyone’s upset”… and then blammo, there’s Henry Winkler holding a fish. It makes me so happy.

Thank you.

Look at this guy.

Look how much fun he’s having.

Have you ever seen anything so pure?

GIVE HENRY WINKLER A TRAVEL SHOW

Beautiful. Lovely. Perfect. And if that’s all it was, if this was just a week of Henry Winkler breaking up the whining and doomsdaying on my Twitter feed with pictures of himself where he has a fish in his hands and a massive smile on his face, I mean, great. One of my favorite weeks of the whole year.

BUT

THEN

A TWIST

A CELEBRITY CAMEO

JIMMY KIMMEL IS FISHING WITH HENRY WINKLER IN IDAHO

I gasped when I saw this. Part of that is because, like, Henry Winkler is out here hosting celebrity fishing trips. But a bigger part of it is because this brings us one step closer to something else I talked to Henry Winkler about in that interview a few years ago.

Have you ever considered hosting a fishing show where you and another guest go out on the boat together, and it’s like a podcast, but it’s just a super-relaxing half-hour of you and another celebrity telling Hollywood stories while you’re fishing?

Well, let me tell you, I love that idea. I have never done that, but I love that.

My gift to you. If you ever want to do it, I would watch the hell out of that show.

Thank you so much, really.

Please. Please give me this. I’ve been very good.

I’ve been pretty good.

I’ve been good enough.

ITEM NUMBER THREE – Guys, let’s go stay in the Barbie house

Okay. Listen. I need you all to focus. As part of the promotional push for the new Barbie movie (which feels like it’s been going on for a calendar year now), a real-life Barbie dream house is available on AirBnB. It’s a whole thing. You can’t just, like, rent it, though. You have to win it in a drawing. Variety has all the details. You can click on that link and look at them if you want. I’m more interested in the actual AirBnB page for it, which someone wrote in character as Ken, who is pitching this all as his house.

Look at this.

I’ve decked out the place with a little more…well, me! I’m more than just beach! My cowboy stuff is great. And horses! Guitars, games and more. And of course, rollerblades, because I literally go nowhere without them. Now, guests can live it up Ken-style for a neon night in Barbie Land – six-pack not included.

– During your stay, you will have the opportunity to live in technicolor by:
– Taking a spin through my awesome wardrobe to find your best beach fit. Look out Barbie, I’ve got quite the closet too!
– Channeling your inner cowboy and learning a line dance or two on my outdoor disco dance floor or performing a sunset serenade on my guitar
– Challenging your fellow guests to a “beach off” with plenty of sunbathing and chillaxing by the infinity pool
– Taking home a piece of my Kendom with your very own set of yellow-and-pink Impala skates and surfboard

Hard to pinpoint what my favorite thing is here. It might be the casual use of “chillaxing.” It might be the sentence “I’m more than just beach,” which is fascinating and kind of sad and tells me more about Ken than 20,000 words of user-submitted Wikipedia rambling. It might be all of it.

I vote we all enter this contest. And if you win, you can take me. It won’t be weird. Just a couple strangers hanging out in a life-size neon pink house made for a children’s doll and redecorated for a special event by that doll’s smooth-groined boyfriend. It’ll be fun.

Come on.

Think about it.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR –“Somebody’s still got to wake up the next day and make beef”

Sometimes my brain does this thing where it latches onto a phrase or sentence and refuses to let it go. It’s almost always harmless and almost always annoying and it happened again this week while I was reading this interview with the man who runs Mr. Beef in Chicago, the sandwich shop that inspired The Bear, who is also a lifelong friend of the show’s creator. Which is nice. The story, I mean. Not the thing that’s stuck in my head.

Here’s the chunk of the interview in question, where he confesses he hasn’t watched the show at all yet and probably will never start.

Still, Zucchero hasn’t watched a single episode of “The Bear,” and probably won’t ever. It’s not for lack of interest or support — he just can’t afford to lose sight of the restaurant that’s been feeding Chicago for six decades, since his father acquired the original Mr. Beef in 1979.

“Somebody’s still got to wake up the next day and make beef,” Zucchero says. “The only thing I’ve ever known in my life is that restaurant.”

“Somebody’s still got to wake up the next day and make beef.”

“Somebody’s still got to wake up the next day and make beef.”

“Somebody’s still got to wake up the next day and make beef.”

“Somebody’s still got to wake up the next day and make beef.”

“Somebody’s still got to wake up the next day and make beef.”

“Somebody’s still got to wake up the next day and make beef.”

I’m fine.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE – I do not think I would enjoy puking hot sauce

Jennifer Lawrence was on Hot Ones last week. You might have heard about this, or at least maybe you saw one of the many screencaps people made of her melting down into a puddle after eating the spiciest of the wings. It was a good time. It is always impressive to me that Jennifer Lawrence remains this charming and likable despite being both beautiful and talented. That’s a tricky dance, in a few ways. One is that people are jealous and crappy and love knocking others down. Another is that people who are very beautiful and very talented do not always develop what you and I would call “a personality,” only because they do not have to. It’s cool that she’s like this. Jennifer Lawrence is a pretty good egg.

She was fun on the show, too, even though her mouth and body did not appear to be having fun. Look at what she said to Andy Cohen about the whole thing earlier this week.

“I passionately threw up after. Violently,” she told host Andy Cohen. “I made it upstairs to my suite. My holding suite.”

“We shot at the Four Seasons downstairs,” she said. “My stomach gave me, like, eight minutes to get upstairs and then she…. She…” Lawrence let out a surprised guffaw, seemingly impressed at her stomach’s aggressive reaction to ingesting so much hot sauce.

Okay, quick story…

Back when I was in college, I dared a buddy of mine to drink a whole bottle of A1 Bold & Spicy Steak Sauce. He said no. I offered him one dollar. He said no again. I offered him two dollars. He said yes. This is the free market at work. It is also a good explanation of what college is. It is a few things.

Anyway, maybe 10 minutes later he ran off to the bathroom and threw up and came back with the following report: “It felt like I puked a lightning bolt.”

The point of this story is that, as of today, I suspect Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence can relate.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at brian.grubb@uproxx.com (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From David:

About an hour ago I was checking the weather and everyone was talking about the air quality from the Canadian wildfire and I stopped reading for a second and suddenly thought “Smog Alert would be a good fake name.”

I feel like this is something I should tell you.

This is absolutely something you should tell me. I can see this person in my head very clearly right now. Little pointy goatee, stubby cigar in his mouth, huge sunglasses, the whole deal. Kind of like a Street Fighter character but more wiry than jacked. Absolutely a member of a team of mercenaries that parachutes into dangerous situations under the cover of night.

He’s a loose cannon but he gets results.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To Pennsylvania!

Those at Kutztown University this summer found themselves receiving a bizarre alert: an “aggressive” cow was loose in the borough and on the nearby campus.

AGGRESSIVE COW

In an alert titled “Avoid North Campus: Aggressive Cow – DO NOT APPROACH,” KUPD said the cow seemed scared and unfamiliar with its surroundings.

“All should stay away from cow. The animal is not safe to approach,” the alert said.

Okay, here’s what I need you all to know about Pennsylvania, the state I have lived in for my entire life: It is weird. Just fantastically strange. Because at its east and west ends it has cities that share very little in common (Pittsburgh: steel town, factories, more of a Midwest city in spirit; Philadelphia: East coast I-95 city, maniacs, lunatics, proud of it, Go Birds, etc.), but just about the whole area in between is rural farm country. I say this with love because I grew up out there. So you can have, say, reports about dirtbike races on the streets of Philadelphia after an Eagles win right next to stories about, well, yeah, aggressive cows terrorizing a college campus.

In summary, Pennsylvania is a land of contrasts.

The department sent a follow-up email shortly before 9 p.m. Sunday, saying the cow was last seen in Fleetwood, and though it had not yet been secured, it was no longer a threat to the Kutztown campus.

Well, phew. I’m glad to hear that all of this was settl-…

Officials said an “aggressive cow” that was first spotted around town and on campus Sunday has returned.

AGGRESSIVE COW II

YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE SAFE

YOU MADE A BIG… MISTEAK

At one point, Kutztown University Police had the cow in their sights in the area of Lytle Hall, but the animal ran into a field by the school’s water tower and went back into the surrounding woods.

I love this guy. I have this image in my head of the campus cops bumbling and slipping and falling as the cow runs circles around them. I honestly think I would watch a live feed of this for hours at a time. It would be my favorite show.

University officials want to get the word out that the cow is still around, still considered aggressive and to warn students and residents not to approach the animal if spotted.

A crew has been out checking the area Wednesday morning but there have been no sightings of the cow yet today.

COW CREW

COMING TO CBS THIS FALL

STARRING… OH… LET’S SAY WALTON GOGGINS AND HENRY WINKLER

LOOK AT THAT

FULL CIRCLE

WE DID IT