The Rundown: A Loving Tribute To BJ From ‘The Righteous Gemstones’

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 – I would take a bullet for this man

The Righteous Gemstones has an embarrassment of riches on its hand. The cast is just stacked. Look at Walton Goggins chomp up scenery in the best way possible as Baby Billy Freeman. Watch Edi Patterson stomp around like the biggest grown brat you’ve ever seen as Judy Gemstone. See the weariness in John Goodman’s eyes as he plays Gemstone patriarch Eli and sighs so deeply the ground underneath him rumbles a bit. Sluggers straight through the lineup. Borderline unfair to other shows.

My favorite character on the show right now is BJ, though, Judy’s sweet and simple husband who does not swear or drink and is so pure straight down to his core that he’s practically translucent. I could type more words here to try to describe BJ’s aura, but I think this GIF of him at the dinner table swirling and sniffing a glass of milk like it’s an expensive Cabernet will do the job much better.

He’s a lovely man.

This got weird for him this week, though. For reasons that I will dance around a little bit in case you aren’t all caught up on this season (COME ON), BJ ended up in a nasty little street fight with a fully nude man that ended with screaming and nut-twisting and things really just getting as silly and dark as anything I’ve ever seen on television. It was honestly incredible. I don’t remember a single scene of television this year that made me laugh harder. Please go watch it. Or watch it again.

(I would love to drop in a screencap or a GIF here to drive it all home, but every good one I found featured full-frontal male nudity. Which is not a problem I had ever encountered before. First time for everything. I recommend reading the extensive breakdowns of the scene at Vulture and GQ for further research.)

The best part is that this isn’t even the first time BJ has been in a violent altercation of some kind. He also got tangled up with the cycle ninjas — fun phrase to type — last season and ended up with a throwing star in his head.

It’s just a really nice piece of character work all around, from the writing to the performance by Tim Baltz. Taking someone this sweet and dropping him into the Gemstone viper pit makes for consistent comedy. It’s honestly become my favorite aspect of the show, or at worst second behind “every single thing Baby Billy does and says, especially the thing where he tosses an unnecessary ‘now’ at the end of about 70 percent of his sentence,” which is pretty hard to top.

I want to know so much more about BJ. I want to know everything. Give me a full-on flashback episode about his youth. Show me the first date where he took Judy out. Let Tim Baltz play the teenage version of BJ and never explain why or how a 40-year-old man is strolling around a high school. We need — we deserve — the origin story of BJ using rollerblading to blow off steam, which he did this week before his big fight…

… but also did last season, too.

The man fascinates me. I hope he ends up taking over the whole church somehow. I hope he becomes president. But mostly, I just want him to be happy with his street skates and his glass of milk. That would be nice.

ITEM NUMBER TWO – No

I am very happy for people who enjoy Comic-Con. I am also very happy for people who enjoy cruises. Life is very short and nothing is guaranteed so you should do things you enjoy as often as possible. If these are your things, again, god bless. Both seem like miserable experiences to me, for reasons ranging from crowds to overexcited fantasy enthusiasts to being stranded out in the middle of the unforgiving ocean on a floating Petri dish filled with sweaty tourists and human waste. No thank you to either, in my book.

Especially no thank you to… oh dear god… both. At once. That’s right, people. There’s a Comic-Con cruise now.

San Diego Comic Convention, the parent company of the international comic convention, and Entertainment Cruise Productions — which has previously produced a Star Trek cruise experience — are teaming to launch Comic-Con: The Cruise. The full-ship charter will take fans from Tampa to the Mexican island Cozumel onboard Royal Caribbean’s Serenade of the Seas, with its first voyage set for Feb. 5-9, 2025.

I really must stress once again that I am thrilled for you if you saw all the words in that paragraph and got excited about it. But I must also really stress that this sounds like the type of thing an instructor at a culinary school would use as a threat to whip slacker aspiring chefs into shape. (“If you keep burning the cream sauce, Trevor, you’ll be flipping omelets on a Comic-Con cruise that sets sail from Tampa.”) I would pay you money not to go on it. I’ll give you $100 today if you promise I’ll never end up on it even by accident someday. Tell me who to make the check out to.

But again, happy for you.

Fans will be immersed in a one-of-a-kind experience dedicated to comics and popular arts. Fans will have the chance to interact with actors, creators, authors and more as part of a lineup of special events and activities, including talent-hosted tastings, trivia sessions and live demonstrations. There will also be theme night parties and cosplay events featuring party bands and DJs, competitive video and tabletop gaming, vendors, group panels and Q&A sessions, meet and greets, as well as autograph and photograph sessions.

I swear I am a nice person. I swear I am friendly and warm and good to animals. But if, maybe, when this sucker hits the ocean, things go sideways and we end up with phrases like “Comic-Con Poop Cruise” in headlines around the world, I need you all to know in no uncertain terms that I will laugh a little bit.

ITEM NUMBER THREE – It is almost Harley Quinn time

We’ve talked about the Harley Quinn animated series before. Kind of a lot, actually. Most recently in February when the show put out a fully deranged Valentine’s Day special that I loved very much. It’s a good show, a perfect little mix of funny and sweet and foul and stupid. I started watching it during the early stages of the COVID lockdown in 2020 and ripped through all the available episodes about three times through. It comes with my highest recommendation, which I hope carries extra weight after I just kind of wished a bobbing fecal hellscape on the Comic-Con cruise.

That’s why I’m so excited that the new season drops next week. There’s a trailer for it up there, one that also gives you a little refresher on the events that led up to this season. That’s useful. There really are a lot of shows. It’s okay if you don’t remember all of them. Lord knows I do not.

I’m looking forward to seeing what everybody gets up to this time around, from Harley working with the Bat Dorks to Poison Ivy working with the Legion of Doom, but I’m mostly looking forward to seeing what the show’s big dumb sweet version of Bane does. I love that guy. They took one of the most self-serious and monosyllabic characters out there and turned him into a lovable goof. Yes, this is where I — once again — post the GIF of a supersized and super-horny Bane crumbling Gotham’s skyscrapers with pelvic thrusts.

Again, it’s a good show. Just unbelievably silly. You deserve one of those every now and then.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR – Dudes, let’s go see Dogstar

DUDES

BUDDIES

DUDES

DOGSTAR IS GETTING BACK TOGETHER

“We are so excited to re-introduce Dogstar with our new single ‘Everything Turns Around,’” said the band in a statement. “It feels like a fun summer song to us. It has an uplifting message and a positive vibe that hopefully makes your day a little bit lighter. It’s one of our favorite songs to play live and can’t wait to share it on our upcoming tour.”

You remember Dogstar, yes? The rock band that John Wick star Keanu Reeves plays bass guitar for? The one with an objectively cool name? (Dogstar!) Well, either way, here they are. Back again. With a new single and a new album and a new tour. It’s all happening.

And it’s… cool. It’s pretty cool! People busted on Keanu for it when the band first started bouncing around a million years ago, but I don’t know if that’s fair. I think it kind of rules that one of our biggest movie stars of the last quarter century just plays bass in a rock band sometimes. He doesn’t even sing lead. This isn’t some sad passion project where an actor wants to prove they’re also a singer-songwriter. Keanu just wants to stand off to the side and jam with his dudes. Again, that’s pretty cool!

In addition to their upcoming album, which will mark their first since 2000, the band will also be hitting the road for a special tour.

DUDES

GUYS

BUDDIES

LET’S GO SEE DOGSTAR

I’M BARELY KIDDING

GOOD FOR KEANU

ITEM NUMBER FIVE – Frank Fartzone

Two things are worth noting here:

• I, as regular readers of this column know, love a good fake name, anything from, like, to choose two of my favorite examples, Percy Billions to Brenda Sacramento to anything else silly enough to make me chuckle
• I am, at heart, 11 years old

This is why I’ve gotten such joy out of a new-ish Twitter account — or at least new-ish to me — called Actual Names that scours the database of census reports to pluck out the funniest and most juvenile names throughout history. It’s also why I have been giggling about this one for almost a full week now.

Frank Fartzone

Frank Fartzone

Frank Fartzone

I don’t think I will ever get over this one. I’ve sung it to the tune of the AutoZone jingle. Sometimes I add an “-ie” to the first name to make it Frankie Fartzone. That’s really fun. It sounds like something someone would call a buddy who is suffering from digestive issues after a gassy meal. (“OH, FRANKIE FARTZONE OVER HERE.”) I’m laughing out loud as I type this right now.

Two additional notes in closing:

• No one tell me if this is fake because I do not care
• I have a law degree

Thank you.

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 [email protected] (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 Paul:

[Brian Grubb voice] TWO THINGS:

— Nice work on the Mission Impossible rankings. I think they’re pretty close to the way my own line up, maybe with Fallout down a few spots and Mission Impossible III up closer to the top half. As long as we can agree Ghost Protes is at the top, we can make this work

— Which Muppet would fit the most seamlessly into Ethan Hunt’s team?

[me voice] TWO THINGS

— Thank you, Paul, both for the kind words and for giving me a good excuse to link to it again. My family needs the clicks to live.

— So the answer to your question is Fozzie Bear (long history of being a useful sidekick, comic relief, etc.) but please also note that Animal would be a delightful Mission: Impossible villain, if only for the chaos of it all. Close your eyes right now and picture him flying a helicopter over… let’s say Mount Rushmore. I’m suddenly mad I can’t have this in real life.

Dammit.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To New Jersey!

A group of young men stole an entire tray of crumb cake from Colonial Bakery in Lavallette. The incident happened after midnight Sunday.

CAKE HEIST

The owners told News 12 New Jersey the thieves were identified within a few hours. Within a day, the owners say they were in contact with the people who pulled off the theft and made a deal with them. The owners want the thieves to pay the cost of the cake and post an apology video. The owners say if the thieves do this, they won’t press charges.

Well, this is pretty neat. Cake shop owners filing it under the Writ of Boys Will Be Boys and chalking it up as a lesson learned. I can dig it. It would be really funny if the owners demanded the apology video be in the form of a song or something, with choreography, just to add a little embarrassment to it to deter future pastry thieves, but maybe that’s a bit much. I’m not sure where the Constitution comes down on karaoke as a punishment for a crime. The Founding Fathers were suspiciously silent on that one.

The bakery also posted a poll to its page asking folks what to do with the thieves. More than 600 people voted on options from filing a police report to making them eat a whole pan of cake each in one setting.

This is just a wonderful little piece of business. And I suspect it’s getting them enough free publicity to offset the losses in pilfered pastries. I like this story a lot.

The owners told News 12 that they tried to make light of the situation but at the same time also settle this between the thieves and themselves without having police involved. They also want to show the thieves that to small businesses, this is no joke.

This is another reason to try to be cool about stuff. Things often work themselves out when you do. Good lesson to file away.

I really want a crumb cake now.