No matter how depraved it got—and it got more depraved than anything else on television—Danny McBride and Jody Hill’s landmark series Eastbound and Down was funniest when it stuck to its roots: McBride (as Kenny Powers) railing against authority. Take the scene where McBride’s washed-up ex-baseball player, coked to the gills, teaches his middle-school students to play “Thunderdome” while the principal (Andy Daly) politely disapproves. It’s simple, but it works better than the show’s more baroque set-pieces. Of course, there’s no authority more arbitrary or ineffectual than school principals, so it’s wonderful news that McBride and Hill’s next collaboration, Vice Principals, is entirely set in that petty, petty world.
McBride and Justified’s Walton Goggins will play dueling vice-principals competing to run a high school. Judging from the trailer, Goggins fits in perfectly with the show’s aesthetic, a wonderland of sweater vests, bow ties, and bitterly unrealized dreams. HBO has bought two 9-episode seasons of Vice Principals, which begins airing this July.
