Billy Bob Thornton has been cast as Lorne Malvo in FX’s Fargo miniseries, a character The Hollywood Reporter compares to Steve Buscemi’s Carl Showalter in the original film. FX’s plot and characters don’t hail from the 1996 Coen brothers masterpiece, save, thankfully, for that trademark “Minnesota nice.” Fargo marks Thornton’s first regular TV gig since the ’90s, when he starred in Hearts Afire and The Outsiders, but I’ll always remember him from a guest stint on Catdog.

• More FX casting news, this time from American Horror Story: Coven: Amanda Breckenridge, the alter ego of Frances Conroy’s creepy housekeeper in Season 1, returns; Kathy Bates is set to play the real 1830s serial killer Madame LaLaurie, and Angela Bassett stars as a voodoo queen.
• Jack White’s ex-wife Karen Elson has issued a restraining order against him for “harassing emails and text messages” that mostly seem to stem from his intense hatred of the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach.
• From the vault: Sting and Robert Downey Jr. dueting at Sting’s birthday party in 2011. MC White People, take it away.
• “Blurred Lines” with #Thicke, Jimmy Fallon, the Roots and toddler instruments (including a banana).
• Countdown to the a-POP-calypse.
• A new freeze-a-face Real Housewife of Beverly Hills makes her debut at LAX.
• Now we write blind items about ourselves. Come on out, mister anonymous, the water’s warm in here!
• Your addiction to exfoliation is destroying the planet. This is the worst news.
• Kanye West remixed The Canyons trailer.
• “You’re not on The Simpsons, go fuck yourself.” —James Deen
• All hashtags are not created equal.
• Simon Cowell on the endless X Factor makeovers: “I had this impatience to get on to Season 3 so I could do what I wanted to do.” And I’m going to have to link to this, just for the photo.
• Guard your dick doodles.
• Global warming’s gonna make you mad.
• Male feminist quits mean Internet.
• It’s always snubby.
• “Some people are dancing, some people start singing, there’s a ballerina, there’s Jay’s encounter with Marina that’s a whole other part of performance-art history … it’s all over the place, but from beginning to end, it’s pretty fabulous. Jay did an incredibly shamanistic job of keeping that energy going, and when I show the video to friends and glance over at them while they’re watching, they’ve got a smile plastered on their faces the whole time.” —on the making of Jay Z’s “Picasso Baby”