The Five Spot: Good For Manny Jacinto

Also this week: Hot dogs, Barbenheimer II, and cat-related dance news

The Five Spot is a weekly Friday roundup where I rank and riff on my five favorite things from the week. Most of the entries will be about film and TV, but there might also be ones about weird local news or sandwiches I ate or anything else, really. The whole thing is an exclusive for paid subscribers, so if you want to read the top four entries, you can do that by upgrading…

Off we go.

FIVE: I love to see My Guys thrive

Star Wars dorks were all fired up this week. That collection of words is not something one should consider shocking because Star Wars dorks — I do say this with love, lord knows I am a dork about other things — are fired up about something most weeks. They were fired up about two things this week, actually, although one of them was a culture war tantrum by a loud subset of hyper-online cornballs that I have no interest in discussing here or anywhere. Especially not when the other thing, the one I’m about to mention right now, is so much fun: Star Wars fans all over the internet are just massively horny for Manny Jacinto.

Context will help, at least the minimal amount I can provide. There is a new Star Wars show currently streaming on Disney Plus. It is called The Acolyte. Google tells me this is the basic summary: “A former Padawan reunites with her Jedi Master to investigate a series of crimes but discovers the forces they confront are more sinister than they ever anticipated.” Which, you know, cool. I love it when sinister forces are confronted. Reviews are all over the map, in part due to the aforementioned exhausting culture war stuff, but in the most recent episode, something happened that unified the audience: Manny Jacinto took his shirt off.

I am not kidding about people being extremely fired up about this. Go search his name on any social media platform. I recommend starting with TikTok. There are dozens and dozens of videos where people post a screenshot or short video of the scene and then do the modern-day equivalent of fanning themselves like a flustered Southern belle. And who could blame them? The man is a dreamboat, which I state objectively. Look at that jawline. You could open a can of tuna with it if you needed or just wanted to.

And, honestly, good. Good for Manny Jacinto, man. He has been one of My Guys — the collection of actors who appeared in scene-stealing supporting roles on shows I like and whose careers I now root for like professional athletes, with other examples including Anthony Carrigan (NoHo Hank from Barry) and Sam Richardson (dating back to his role as Richard Splett on Veep) — ever since I first saw him as sweetheart Jacksonville dirtbag Jason Mendoza on The Good Place. Yes, this is where I post a GIF of him throwing a Molotov cocktail at a boat. Yes, it is still funny to me that the subtitles say “[indistinct yells]” even though he is very clearly shouting the last name of former Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles.

Manny Jacinto is awesome. He’s been awesome for a while now. I know that. Anyone who watched The Good Place knows that. I want to see him in more things. Most things. As many things as he wants to be, really. And if popping up shirtless on a Jedi-adjacent television show and getting a huge chunk of the internet all sweaty helps raise his profile and make his career goals — and my goals for his career, which include but are not limited to “a starring role in a television series where he wears a trenchcoat and investigates a new silly heist every season” — more attainable, then great.

We celebrate victories wherever we get them.

FOUR: Hollywood is trying to Barbenheimer again