Walton Gogginshas become one of the biggest TV stars in the world in recent years, but only true fans have seen deep-cut shows likeVice PrincipalsandThe Unicorn. Over the past couple of years, the double whammy of playingpost-apocalyptic gunslinger The Ghoul inFalloutand miserable curmudgeon Rick inThe White Lotushas made Goggins more famous than ever.
The actor first came onto most people’s radars when he played the nefarious Boyd Crowder, one ofthe most iconic TV villains of all time, opposite Timothy Olyphant’s lovable, wisecracking U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens in the FX neo-western dramaJustified. But he’d been a jobbing actor for years before that, and he’s been in some great hidden gems since then.
Everyone knowsGoggins’ work fromJustified,Fallout, andThe White Lotus— not to mention his performances on the big screen in movies likePredators,Tomb Raider,The Hateful Eight, andAnt-Man and the Wasp— but only real fans have seen his performances in lesser-known (but still great) TV shows likeThe Shield,The Righteous Gemstones, andI’m a Virgo.
5Vice Principals
Lee Russell
Goggins proved to be the perfect comedic partner for Danny McBride when the duo teamed up for the deliciously dark HBO comedyVice Principals. Goggins and McBride play Lee Russell and Neal Gamby, respectively, a pair of high school vice principals who can’t stand each other. When they’re both passed over for the top job, they reluctantly team up to sabotage their new boss.
Russell is a hilarious foil for Gamby, because they’re both deeply flawed, but in different ways. They can see each other’s flaws — and love calling them out — but they can’t see their own flaws. Gamby is holding onto a lot of anger and resentment following his divorce, and Russell is too two-faced and manipulative to make a real human connection.
When we first meet Russell, he’s unbearably smarmy. He sucks up to his superiors while badmouthing them behind their backs. His marriage to his wife is built on lies and deceit, and he doesn’t even seem happy with her. But as the series goes on, Goggins peels back the layers to show that Russell’s duplicitousness is actually a messed-up defense mechanism.
McBride and his co-creator Jody Hill conceivedVice Principalsas a limited series. They needed two seasons of nine episodes each to tell their story in full, and HBO gave it to them. It’s a tight, contained story that doesn’t feel an episode too long as it charts the evolution of its central duo into better friends and better people.
4The Unicorn
Wade Felton
Most of Goggins’ most beloved TV roles are in gritty dramas. Even the comedies he’s in tend to be on cable or streaming, with a pitch-black sense of humor. But in 2019, he starred in a typical network sitcom for CBS. Goggins plays Wade Felton, the recently widowed father of two daughters trying to put his life back together following his wife’s death.
The Unicornwas canceled after two seasons (possibly because its title made it sound like a fantasy series, not a comedic exploration of grief), but it remains an underrated gem. The series is endearingly warm, heartfelt, and feel-good; it finds an unexpected humor in the subject of sudden loss; and above all, it’s a great showcase for Goggins’ range.
3I’m A Virgo
Jay Whittle / The Hero
Activist Boots Riley burst onto the filmmaking scene with one of the most fiercely original debut features of the 21st century.Sorry to Bother Youused a twisty, surreal,Twilight Zone-style sci-fi narrative to make the case for workers’ rights in an incisive satirical takedown of capitalism.His sophomore effort,I’m a Virgo, was an equally gonzo streaming series.
I’m a Virgotakes place in a magical realist world. The lead character is a 19-year-old who’s 13 feet tall. His friend has superspeed, so she experiences the world in slow motion. Goggins has a small but crucial guest role as Jay Whittle, a billionaire who performs duties as a local superhero, known simply as “The Hero.”
Our gigantic protagonist, Cootie, finds that there’s a big difference between the idealized version of The Hero he read about in comic books and the violent, out-of-control version who knocked him out, chained him up, and dragged him through the streets. This subplot is a sharp deconstruction of superhero narratives in the vein ofWatchmenandThe Boys.
2The Righteous Gemstones
Uncle Baby Billy Freeman
After Goggins built a strong working relationship with McBride and his crew onVice Principals, they brought him back to play the scene-stealing role ofUncle Baby Billyin their next show,The Righteous Gemstones.The Righteous Gemstonesrevolves around a family of degenerate televangelists who don’t practice what they preach and are only in it for the money.
Baby Billy is a distant Gemstone uncle who was a beloved child star in his younger days and still holds onto his famed nickname as an elderly man. Although he inspired faith and love as part of a Gospel song-and-dance duo with his sister, Billy has grown up to be a pathological liar and coke fiend who abandons everyone who loves him.
Billy’s only connection to the larger Gemstone clan was through his late sister, who married into the Gemstones. Now that she’s gone, he’s forced to reckon with his complicated relationship with the rest of the family whenever he shows up with his tail between his legs to ask for money. It takes him a while, but he gradually becomes a better man.
The genius ofThe Righteous Gemstonesis that it doesn’t make fun of religion or people’s religious beliefs; it makes fun of the unscrupulous fatcats who exploit those beliefs and institutions for profit. Goggins steals the show every time his recurring character pops up, but the series as a whole is one of the best comedies of the past decade.
1The Shield
Detective Shane Vendrell
The role that first put Goggins on the map was Detective Shane Vendrell inFX’s groundbreaking police proceduralThe Shield. Going back to early classics likeDragnetandHill Street Blues, cop shows had traditionally presented a very black-and-white morality, blindly depicting police officers as the good guys and the suspects they were chasing as the bad guys.
But following the Rampart police corruption scandal, Shawn Ryan didn’t feel that was an accurate representation of the long arm of the law anymore. So, he created a crime procedural where the supposed protagonists are crooked cops. Vic Mackey and his unit beat perps and steal money from crime scenes. In the very first episode, they kill an internal affairs investigator.
Shane is Vic’s right-hand man and most trusted confidant, but their friendship hits a few rough patches over the course of the series. ThroughoutThe Shield’s seven seasons, Shane has various disagreements with his cohorts on the Strike Team; he gets married and starts a family, which changes everything; and he exhibits brazen bigotry, which can be difficult to watch.
The Shieldisn’t often included in conversations about the Golden Age of Television alongside classic antihero dramas likeBreaking Bad,The Sopranos, andThe Wire, but it deserves to be.Walton Gogginsgives one of the finest performances of his career as Shane, and without that early role, he might not have gone on to have the impressive career he has today.
