Timothy Olyphant Is Having So Much Fun Right Now

From Men's Health

The following story contains light spoilers for The Mandalorian Season 2, Episode 1, "The Marshal."

• Timothy Olyphant shows up in the Season 2 debut of The Mandalorian, "The Marshal."

• He plays Cobb Vanth, who is a Tatooine Marshal/Sheriff—and he's wearing Boba Fett's armor.

• Olyphant, who's played quirky sheriff/marshal-types in Deadwood, Justified, Fargo, and now The Mandalorian, is the kind of actor who makes everything he's in better. And we want more.

Not too long ago, one of those viral tweets was making the rounds, looking for nominations of actors who were "clearly having an incredible time in a movie." The original tweet itself offered up Oscar Isaac in Alex Garland's Ex Machina, a perfectly valid and somewhat inarguable answer. But, alas, it's not the correct answer. The correct answer, as anyone who's seen The Mandalorian's Season 2 debut episode, "The Marhsal," can correctly tell you, is Timothy Olyphant. Because as anyone who has ever seen Timothy Olyphant in anything could tell you, Timothy Olyphant is always having fun. Always. The man is walking charisma, and it's clear in each and every role that he's having just as much fun acting as audiences are watching.

In The Mandalorian, he shows up with some built in goodwill. First off, he shows up literally wearing Boba Fett's armor. That's a start. But when he takes his helmet off and we see that familiar face? A face audiences already know they love from familiar law enforcement roles in Justified and Deadwood reveals that charming smile and we immediately go from wanting Mando to get in an old fashioned gunfight to hoping they can both just get along.

Olyphant's character here is Cobb Vanth, who first appeared in the book Aftermath by Chuck Wendig. Olyphant is a Sheriff/Marshal of sorts in Mos Pelgo, wearing the Boba Fett armor—while unfamiliar with what it actually is—after getting it from Jawas to protect his small village. While this character clearly could have been played as an antagonist (something that Olyphant can also do very well, as he's shown in The Girl Next Door and Live Free or Die Hard), he flashes that million-dollar smile and its clear that we're going to want to side with the charisma here.

The Mandalorian isn't the only show making use of Olyphant's undeniable charm right now; he's also currently appearing on Season 4 of FX's anthology hit Fargo as Deafy Wickware, who is, you guessed it: a U.S. Marshal hunting for fugitives.

Except he's not a boring 'Marshal hunting for fugitives.' Deafy is a Mormon, astute, and almost always chomping on some carrot sticks. He's grounded in ways that Fargo characters sometimes aren't—it can sometimes be one of the zaniest shows on TV—but it's Olyphant's quiet, unspoken zaniness that works like so few others. Olyphant's quirky style fits so perfectly in the Fargo world that it's a little surprising that it's taken it four seasons for him to find a role.

The fact that Olyphant is so seemingly embracing his own "type" as a quirky Marshal/Sheriff is lost on exactly no one, as Twitter is already seeing lots of reactions to his latest turn.

Even though Vanth gave up his armor to Mando at the end of the episode, we're hoping that Olyphant manages to turn up again in Season 2 (Boba Fett himself might have some questions). The way the first season of The Mandalorian worked, it's a little tough to tell if the recurring guest stars could show up again—characters like Carl Weathers' Greef Karga, Gina Carano's Cara Dune, and Giancarlo Esposito's Moff Gideon all had multiple appearances, but Bill Burr's Mayfeld was a one-off character (at least for now).

Time will tell—but we're always going to say more Timothy Olyphant is better than less Timothy Olyphant.

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