Walton Goggins’ Most Classic TV Role Is in This Ruthless 2-Season HBO Series

Walton Goggins is known for playing some of the darkest characters on television, but he’s never been an actor who risks repeating himself. Even if they could all be broadly described as antiheroes, everyone from the corrupt cop Shane in The Shield to the enigmatic “Ghoul” in Fallout is a very different character. However, Goggins has never played a nastier, more repulsive role than Lee Russell in the short-lived HBO dark comedy Vice Principals. It’s rare for a comedy show to be so punishing, mean-spirited, and crushingly hilarious at the same time, but Goggins proved that he was one of Danny McBride's most valuable collaborators with their first onscreen team-up.

While it initially seemed like another one of McBride’s raunchy comedies, Vice Principals is staged as a political thriller set in the administration of a California high school where privileged students have no respect for their teachers. Goggins stars as the slimy vice principal of curriculum, Lee Russell, who is blindsided after the school board names Dr. Belinda Brown (Kimberly Hébert Gregory) as the new principal, passing him over for a promotion. McBride, who also created the series with his longtime creative partner Jody Hill, co-stars as Neal Gamby, the vice principal of discipline who'd been expecting the same gig. Russell and Gamby may have completely different goals in mind for their presumed reigns as principal, but they can agree that Brown being in control is the worst possible option. Vice Principals impressively uses the spite of two selfish, cruel characters as its premise, but sinks to even new lows over the course of its short run.

Walton Goggins' Lee Russell Is Unredeemable in 'Vice Principals'

Goggins certainly excelled when he reunited with McBride later for The Righteous Gemstones, but Vice Principals is unlike any other comedy in HBO’s history. While even McBride’s Kenny Powers in Eastbound and Down had some endearing qualities, everything that Russell and Gamby do is completely despicable, making it an endurance test to watch them get into trouble. The brilliance of Vice Principals is that it peels back the way public education has been lionized and shows how the deeply corrupt infrastructure has allowed all sorts of malicious characters to advance to positions of authority. Even if Russell and Gamby don’t ever try to redeem themselves, viewers’ anger is directed more at the incompetence of a school system that would ever allow these two to have any authority.

Although the series wouldn't be successful without the excellent chemistry between its two stars, Goggins is given a slightly more challenging role than McBride. Gamby may feel nearly sociopathic in the way that he tries to keep the students in line, but he’s granted some sympathy because he is a father who feels like a loser in his children's eyes, and wants to do something to earn their respect. Conversely, Russell is a character who seems to have no affinity for either education or children and is guilty of being an inattentive husband. The Season 2 episode “A Compassionate Man,” directed by the great David Gordon Green, takes a hard look at Russell’s personal conduct and why he has found it impossible to form friendships. While Gamby is at least truthful and willing to stand up for his beliefs, Russell is willing to change his tune based on whoever’s approval he is trying to achieve.

HBO's ‘Vice Principals’ Is as Dark as Comedies Can Get

There’s nothing more important in comedy than escalation, and Vice Principals turns its characters’ malicious activities into downright criminality. The comedy derives from the fact that Russell is not fully prepared to go down the dark path he’s headed toward, as he doesn’t have the willpower to accept losing any of his privileges. The most brilliant decision made in Season 2 was to essentially give Gamby and Russell what they wanted, thus proving how meaningless their initial goals were. It’s after they are forced to share authority that Russell and Gamby begin to conspire against each other because they cannot bear to consider actually working together.

Although it certainly doesn’t have the scale of other HBO projects, Vice Principals may be one of the most ambitious shows of the past decade because it was unafraid to explore taboo subjects and cross the lines of good taste. To Goggins’ credit, he finds something human and identifiable in the rage that Russell feels towards a world that he thinks has been unfair to him, even if that never makes him sympathetic. It's a brave, demanding performance that requires Goggins to do a tremendous amount of physical comedy where he is the butt of the joke, and forces him to deliver some of the most ridiculous lines imaginable without ever breaking. Vice Principals isn't always easy to watch, but for those willing to stomach its intensity, Goggins delivers an acting masterclass.