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 will vary, as will the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest. The important thing is that it’s Friday and we are here to have some fun.
ITEM NUMBER ONE — All Scoot everything
The new season of True Detective kicked off earlier this week with a two-episode, two-hour premiere. So far, we’ve seen creepy dolls and missing kids and overhead shots of the region and multiple timelines and hard-drinking cops who have demons and a lot of other things we saw in the first season. Mahershala Ali is there and he’s great, as usual. Stephen Dorff is there and he’s pretty good, too. We’ve been over all of this, though. Right now, there are other pressing matters to get to. Like, for example, the fact that Scoot McNairy has popped up in yet another big fancy prestige drama.
You know Scoot. You should know him if you don’t. He’s a terrific actor with a really terrific mustache who has a habit of showing up on really great television shows. His most notable project is probably Halt and Catch Fire, in which he played a brilliant but troubled computer programmer named Gordon and if you are one of the 25 people in America who watched this show you are probably sniffling and starting to cry right now. Gordooooo, the light, whyyyyyyy, etc. etc. etc.
(If you have not seen Halt and Catch Fire, please consider addressing this, if only to get me to stop badgering you about it. It’s a beautiful show. You can skip the first season and dig through the plot on Wikipedia if you’re pressed for time.)
Once that show ended, my guy started showing up everywhere. Wanna see him take his mustache to the Wild West? No problem, he was in Godless with Jeff Daniels and Sam Waterston. Wanna watch a show and spend the whole time like “Jesus Mighty, why does this narrator sound so familiar? It’s killing me. Come on”? Great news, that was him in the most recent season of Narcos and he’ll be back — face and all this time! — for the next go-round. Wanna see a woman named Nikki Swango murder him by pushing an air conditioner out of a window and onto his head a few floors below? I mean, that’s a weird request, but yup, it happened in Fargo.
And now he’s in True Detective, too, as the father of the missing children I mentioned earlier. I hope he keeps this up, this dropping in once or twice a year on shows I watch once. Let him play an assassin on Killing Eve. Cast him as an FBI agent on Better Call Saul or a sleazy network executive on Succession. Hell, slip him into the final season of Game of Thrones without telling anyone. Just let him be the Night King now. That guy could use a mustache anyway.
There’s only one thing that could throw a wrench in this plan of mine: Scoot has a role in Tarantino’s upcoming Manson movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and if that works out well enough he might go all Tinseltown on us. He’ll be too busy to show up in all my favorite shows, like the Forrest Gump of Peak TV. It would be great for him but truly devastating for me.
ITEM NUMBER TWO — John Wick killed someone with a dang book
Well, guess what. It’s time to talk about the trailer for John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, a movie that I want coursing through my veins immediately, a movie that features Asia Kate Dillon from Billions and Jason Mantzoukas from every comedy you like as assassins, a movie that is quickly approaching Mission: Impossible levels of excess punctuation in its title. (A colon and a dash? In this economy? Sheesh.)
But first, let’s glance again at the description.
Legendary hitman John Wick must fight his way out of New York when a $14 million contract on his life makes him the target of the world’s top assassins.
Hell yes. Also, I love that the number they set is $14 million. It’s almost, like, charming, right? They could have been ridiculous about it and had someone shout “$250 million for John Wick’s Head!” But no, $14 million. That doesn’t even get you one year of Bismack Biyombo. Hey, speaking of very large NBA players…
JOHN WICK KILLED — OR APPEARED TO KILL — CLIPPERS CENTER BOBAN MARJANOVIC WITH A BOOK
Man, that is great. Imagine getting killed with a book. I mean, it’s one thing to get killed with a pencil, as John Wick has done to numerous people on numerous occasions. At least pencils are sharp. But a book to the throat? No thanks. No thank you at all. But that’s not all…
“Boss, I have bad news. John Wick killed Kyle.”
“Ah, dammit. Did he shoot him?”
“No, he was out of bullets.”
“What then? Pencil?”
“No.”
“Book?”
“No.”
“Okay, I give up.”
“He threw the empty gun at him, sir.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Yeah.”
I am extremely here for John Wick killing goons via unconventional methods. At another point in the trailer, we get a live action version of that paparazzi shot of him killing a motorcycle assassin while riding a horse. That’s something I would talk about more, right now, if not for this…
Let me tell you this. Very few things are worth marching through the damn desert in a black suit. Very few. So few that I can’t think of any right now other than to meet Assassin Halle Berry and her pair of Assassin Dogs in a last-ditch attempt to save my hide from the world’s greediest assassins, which is what my beloved Jonathan Wick appears to be doing here.
Oh, I’m sorry. Did I say “Assassin Dogs”? That feels like something that requires documentable evidence. Well, here you go.
I am pretty excited about this movie.
ITEM NUMBER THREE — Thrones Thrones Thrones
Speaking of things people are pretty excited about, the final season of Game of Thrones is bearing down on us like… uh… like… I’m sorry. I’m rusty at my Game of Thrones metaphors. It’s been a long time since the previous season ended. Last thing I remember is a huge ice dragon breathing blue laserflames in the general direction of The Wall. It’ll come back to me.
The first teaser for the final season premiered on Sunday and, in the aftermath, a few tweets like this popped up across my timeline.
https://twitter.com/betmybookie/status/1084840815162286081
Now, I’m not much of a gambling man. I don’t have the nerves. But I am a rascal. And the first thing my rascal brain went to was this: What if Benioff and Weiss, the show’s top bananas, see these odds and quick reshoot a slapped-together ending that puts Cersei on the throne, but only after they drop like $50 million on her through intermediaries and shell companies?
That would be great. For a bunch of reasons. It would ruin the show, sure. That’s not ideal. But the ensuing chaos… my god. So many enraged people. And then when the scandal gets uncovered and it’s a front page story on every newspaper and website in the world? I could curl up into a ball and live in that situation. The world would be on fire around me and I’d be inside my little rascal cove, just giggling and giggling. I’m sure this is healthy.
ITEM NUMBER FOUR — Pierogies are a supremely underrated food
Pierogies rule and it’s upsetting to me that we don’t all realize this. Maybe this is a very Pennsylvania opinion. I don’t care. People need to know. There’s nothing wrong with pierogies. Nothing. Unless you are considering calories and saturated fat, which is generally a good thing but is absolutely not a counterargument I will entertain here.
Pierogies are mashed potatoes and cheese shoved into pasta and then either deep fried or sautéed in butter. More burger-type restaurants should serve them as side dishes. Especially the fried version. I know there are fryers back there. That’s how you make the fries and onion rings. Toss some pierogies in there, my dudes.
ITEM NUMBER FIVE — Heeeyyyy Matthew Rhys is Perry Mason now
From Deadline:
Emmy-winning former The Americans star Matthew Rhys has been tapped for the lead in Perry Mason, HBO’s limited series from Team Downey. Rhys will play the classic character in the reboot, which tracks the unorthodox investigator/defense attorney’s origin story. […]
Rhys, who also will produce, is Perry Mason at a time in his life when he is living check-to-check as a low-rent private investigator. Mason is haunted by his wartime experiences in France and is suffering the effects of a broken marriage.
Well, this will do just fine, thanks. I don’t even have that annoying little “uggghhh another reboot, just make new shows” voice yammering in the back of my head as I read it. I guess there are two reasons for this. One, Matthew Rhys is the best, whether he’s playing the always sad Philip Jennings on The Americans or appearing in all of his bearded, goofy true self on The Wine Show. Let’s put Scoot McNairy in this show and declare it my birthday.
And two, it gets us one step closer to my dream of a Columbo reboot starring Jake Johnson. Baby steps, people.
AND NOW, THE NEWS
Hippo heist!
From the BBC:
An “extremely heavy” bronze hippo has been stolen from a luxury garden ornament business.
The three-quarter tonne beast, described as “hugely distinctive” by police, was taken from the Chilstone showgarden near Tunbridge Wells.Officers think the 2m (6ft 7in) sculpture may have been lifted onto the back of a truck by “mechanical means”.
Oh my god. More. Tell me more.
“It is clear those responsible would have needed a large vehicle such as a flatbed truck and may have also needed to lift it by mechanical means.
“It is a hugely distinctive object and it is unlikely the offenders will find it that easy to sell on as scrap or to a collector.”
God, this is wonderful. Not that these people had their giant bronze hippo stolen. That’s bad. But the fact that at least three people acquired some sort of mechanism to steal a huge bronze hippo with no apparent endgame. This… these had to be drunk guys, right? This feels like an extremely drunk guy thing to do.
“Ay, Nigel. Let’s go steal the fuggin hippo.”
“Which one?”
“The huge bugger. The metal one.”
“But how?”
“Ahhhh we’ll figure it out.”
“Fuggin A. Let’s call Brent. He has a truck.”
“Hell yeah.”
“Hell yeah.”
“Fuggin A.”
CUT TO: The next morning. The three idiots wake up scattered across their living room, surrounded by beers can, with a huge bronze hippo just sitting in the middle of the room where the coffee table used to be.
“Ahhh shit. Nigel. Nigel. Wake up.”
“Why? It’s too early for your nonsen-… oh no.”
“Where did it…?”
“How did we even…?”
“Fuggin A.”
“Fuggin A.”
