A&V Stimuli

Breaking Bad Revisited / Season 1, Episode 6: “Crazy Handful of Nothin’”

2012-02-13T02:04:00.000-08:00

It's easy to say this iswhere the show really took off in my mind as appointment viewing. Sure there was some great episodes beforethis, but nothing pointed to the long term of this show. Yes, there’s a good season or two in thisconcept, but will ultimately be five seasons’ worth seemed less likely. And all of this is hinted to in the strikingteaser, as Walt lays out his desire to Jesse to be nothing more than a silentpartner in this restarted criminal enterprise, intercut with him walking out ofa burning building and head shaved, a sharp contrast to the man who’s layingout how he wants to stay in the shadows.

So far, Walt’s been good atkeeping secrets from people, albeit under a lot of half-truths. He takes his chemotherapy, he goes to cancersupport groups with his family, and keeps teaching high school chemistry likeeverything’s normal. Of course, he hasto explain why he’s able to pay the medical bills, why he disappears so ofteninstead of being with his family, and to his DEA brother-in-law why there are chemistrysupplies missing from his department. Ofcourse, all of this involves him driving out in an RV into the New Mexico desertto cook meth, but that visage is showing its cracks.

Jesse clues in on the fact Walthas cancer, and in a revealing character moment, knows that because he watchedhis aunt (the original owner of the house Jesse is currently living in) diefrom it. He may not like Walt, but Jesseunderstands why he would put himself through this and tries to help infinishing a batch of meth. Of course,the money is slim considering Jesse’s deals are hand-to-hand, not like themoney a supplier would offer like Krazy-8. This leads to Walt suggesting to find a newsupplier, a possibility I’m sure Jesse would be heavily against if it wasn’tfor Walt’s stubborn assertions for him to “grow some balls”. And in further reflection, its easy to seehow both of them regret that call.

This leads Jesse, via Skinny Pete,to the guy who has taken Krazy-8’s place in the supply racket: Tuco (played byRaymond Cruz), a methed out man who’s clearly one hit away from going on akilling spree. He goes as far as toignore paying Jesse up front for the meth, and when Jesse tries to end thedeal, gets beaten and sent to the hospital for his trouble. If Krazy-8 seemed ruthless, Tuco seems barrelinginto the crazy zone. I have to give somecredit for Cruz as Tuco here, because this is a role that could be so easilycartoonish, but just skirts that line into a territory of unease. Half of the time during that deal with Tucoand Jesse, you’re not sure if Tuco will let the deal go smoothly, or just takethe meth and kill Jesse outright.

Well, Walt does find out aboutwhat happened to Jesse (again, via Skinny Pete, since Jesse is knocked out onpainkillers), and decides he has to handle this himself. Mind you, a lot of what he does next isbrought on by his hair loss and his decision to shave his head, but also note thepoker scene at his house with the family, Hank and Marie. He bluffs his way into beating Hank at a handto the amazement of everyone, and for his meeting with Tuco, is putting on ashow to bluff his way into getting money for the meth and for Jesse’s hospitalstay. He’s at least smart enough to planahead when dealing with the unstable Tuco, and by that, meaning he brings in abag of fulminated mercury that blows out the windows of Tuco’s office.

It’s a ballsy move that gets Tucoto pay Walt what he wants, and agree to more cash up front sales. Tuco, in all his unbalanced behavior, sees agood product in what Walt’s selling, and keeping that relationship open. It’s a beautiful moment when afterwards, Waltheads back to his car, money in hand, and growls this primordial grunt that’salmost a sign of victory for him. Despitehis web of lies that he has to lead, in that confrontation with Tuco, he was inmore control than he ever was in his life. The criminal world he has tried to avoidentering has enticed him, and nothing good can come from that for anyone in hiscircle.

Some notes on the episode:

--This is actually a pretty tightepisode, written by series writer George Mastras and directed by Bronwen Hughes,a director who did Forces of Nature and Stander (the latter is more in tunewith fans of this show).

--Wonderful Chekhov’s Gun foreshadowingabout the fulminated mercury in the chemistry class, and then coming to work inWalt and Tuco’s first meeting.

--Poor school custodian Hugo. Helpful guy to Walt, and guess what hegets? Busted for a joint in his car, andblamed for stealing the chemistry equipment Walt stole.

--“Badass, Dad.” Yes Junior, Walt bald is pretty badass.

--It’s time lapse transitions andJesse selling crystal montages in bulk this episode. But at least they’re good.

--“’Hello sir, I know you don’tknow me, but would you be interested in a felony quantity of methapthemanine?’”

--“Two nuts in a ball sack, yo.”

--“You got one part of that wrong. This…is not meth.”

Some series-wide spoiler notes:

--Heisenberg, aka Walter White’scriminal alter-ego, appears for the first time.

--RIP Walter White’s hair. You will be missed.

--The first hospital trip forJesse. He busted his hospital cherry ina dramatic way, though.

--The bell is coming now. We can feel it on the horizon. Ding ding.

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 stars

Spartacus: Vengeance season review / Episode 3: “The Greater Good”

2012-02-12T22:47:00.000-08:00

The honest criticism I have aboutthe last two episodes of Spartacus:Venegance is that there was a lot of loose ends that were left behind from Blood and Sand that needed to be tiedback in, and seemed less likely to happen. Well, leave it to someone like Ashur to be the one tying these threadsback together as he does in “The Greater Good”, which is the season’s strongestepisode to date. As we saw last episode,Ashur retrieved Oenomaus from the pits as a gift to Glaber to help findSpartacus and his band of freed slaves. A smart move to curry favor after his escape from the house of Batiatus,but one with more intent than many players in this can comprehend.

For one thing, we discover (astheorized in my posts earlier) that Ashur did save Lucretia’s life and did meetwith her in the market in the last episode. Now that Oenomaus is imprisoned, Ashur tries to extract whatever informationhe has on Spartacus out of him, but instead finds silence. In the mass of villains hoping to destroySpartacus out of desire to have their status rise, the alliance between Ashurand Lucretia seems more terrifying, because Spartacus has taken something fromboth of them that isn’t their standing. While I like the idea of Glaber appearing as the big bad guy of theseason, that these two are manipulating him and everyone else to get there ontheir terms is some crafty villainy.

And the one thing both Lucretiaand Ashur have in common is the secrets they know about what happened in thehouse, among them is a bombshell that has been waiting to be dropped onOenomaus since Gods of the Arena: that Gannicus slept with his wife, and thatshe died accidentally in his arms. Asmuch as Ashur’s whipping and beating of his former Doctore seem to do nothingbut firm his resolve, the reveal of what his former friend did does loosenOenomaus’ lips. Those lips don’t revealSpartacus’ location, but does give a clue away: Crixus looks for Naevia, andwherever that goes, will lead Glaber to Spartacus. It’s a start, but with that and Ashur’sremoval of his arm branding via cutting skin off, he is a forced to be reckonedwith for the rest of the season.

Speaking of the search forNaevia, a routine freeing of slaves spills information on her whereabouts toAgron and Nasir (the slave formerly known as Tiberius), which gets relayed to everyoneelse as her being dead in the slave mines. Of course the truth is she is not dead, but alive in those very mines,but both men lie about that. Agron seesa big problem in the resources of this growing force being diverted to save oneperson instead of building those forces up. While it may hurt Crixus in the short term, the long run is what shouldbe seen to, and even Spartacus sees that, but comes to disagree with thatdecision being out of his hands.

What’s surprising is how quicklythat lie to Crixus is solved by Nasir simply confessing the truth (a change ofpace from many shows that hold onto lies like that longer than necessary),leading to Spartacus deciding to take Crixus, Nasir, Mira, and a group to themines for Naevia while Agron takes the rest to the slave ports to free morepeople for the cause. Spartacus gave uphis quest for revenge against Glaber to build the army up, but finds himselfhelping Crixus on his sngle-minded quest to find his love. Yes, Spartacus would be wise to do that tomaintain control of the Gauls in the group, but its still a mistake. Spartacus is a leader, but even leaders makebad calls, and this one is a big one.

The end of the episode involvesthe break in into the mines, and its pretty intense because of all the thingsthat go wrong. Mira’s attempt to seduceand ultimately killing the slave driver goes on longer than it should, leadingto Spartacus having the guards replaced with his own men. Then, Glaber’s soldiers show up (surprisinglysince they were supposed to be at the arena for fellow praetor Varinius games),and the fake guards are identified as such by the accompanying Ashur. Then, the group has to escape the twisty, cavernousmines with the recovered Naevia (Cynthia Addai-Robinson, replacing Lesley Ann-Brandtin the role, although that replacement was because the actor left, not fellill), which leads to Crixus & Naevia’s reunion being short-lived as Crixusis captured by Ashur.

It’s a striking end for Spartacusand his group as they are left trying to escape the mines, and now just lostthe person they went on this mission for. Interesting to note this all happensas Glaber upstages Varinius at his own games by revealing what he is doing to catchSpartacus, and the ensuing gladiator bloodbath intercut in with the action atthe mines. In both, we’re watching peoplestruggle to survive in situations in which it seems to have no way out. But we know someone will survive this fightto live, but as the end cuts shockingly to black, we know Crixus is going to beone of the casualties of all of this.

--So who’s predicting a unwillingreunion with Crixus and Lucretia in the future?

--“You favor clever strategy:fucking a man from behind.” No subtletyin that statement from Agron to Nasir. Actually surprised how well Agron has improved as a character sinceBlood and Sand, from his tough decision to lie about Naevia to his relationshipwith Nasir.

--Illthyia is clearly not happywith being a housewife, with her husband being away and Seppia’s needling abouthow pregnancy must be horrible. The lookboth her and Lucretia give to Seppia while she’s not looking would burn boneoff.

--Really liked the short conversationbetween Nasir and the slave girl from last episode. It actually explains a lot about thementality of the slaves, sex in the time period, and expands them intocharacters worth caring about.

--I actually need to rewatch theepisode to be sure I noticed all the actors replaced on the show since Bloodand Sand and the flashbacks to events of that season seem to be redone withtheir replacements. Pretty good work if evenI’m not sure they were.

--Some great production work onthe mines, making them look expansive while very claustrophobic. Not bad for a show harder critics harp on forbeing so green screen heavy.

--Spartacus' response to Mira's comment about Naevia's "death" being a kindness: “Kindness only to the onetaken.”

--“This is what you would offerme to gain favor? A statue that bleeds?”

--“Your will. My hands.”

--“I will give them pause to seeyou escape from grasp.”

Rating: 4½ out of 5 stars

The Walking Dead Season 2 review / Episode 8: “Nebraska”

2012-02-12T21:05:00.000-08:00

So here we are, two months after TheWalking Dead’s holiday hiatus, and we find ourselves back in the same shitstormthat ended the last episode, “Pretty Much Dead Already”. Shane’s hotheaded move to let loose thewalkers in Hershel’s barn loose to get shot goes off well, except for thediscovery of the now-zombified Sophia, who Rick has enough stones to shoot inthe head. So after all of that, now whatis there to do? Well, cleanup of allthose dead walkers, obviously, but handling the fallout of that scene, whichincludes some self-reflection, some concern, some drinking, and a slight bumpin all of those things.

As long as the search for Sophiatook this season, you can see its end has affected everyone in their ownway. Shane, the one guy who’s beenitching to end the search altogether, is now just upset that Herschel didn’ttell anyone about her being in the barn in the first place. Now its likely Herschel didn’t know anythingabout this, and the only other person who would is Otis (and Shane, of course,saw to his demise), so a lot of that blame would be unwarranted. But Shane has not been the sanest mindrecently, plus with Dale already onto what he did to Otis and Lori’s growingparanoia about him, he’s an unstable element both Dale and Lori realize needsto be handled soon.

While Andrea and T-Dog (the Shaneboosters of this epeisode) sort out the loved dead (Herschel’s family members& Sophia) from the wandering dead to be buried and burned (respectively), theother members of the group deal with this in their own way. Carol has buried her daughter in her own mind,so she doesn’t feel need to go to Sophia’s burial, and seems lost. Daryl is not comforting there, as he seems towithdraw into his own anger over not being able to save Sophia, which puts himout of commission to help anybody. AndCarl seems to be handling it better than everyone else by detaching himselffrom it, which for a child, is not a good sign, and Lori knows it. She talks to Rick about sticking around totalk to Carl, trying to keep what little of his childhood (and humanity)intact.

Rick has a bigger problem tohandle, and that’s with Herschel telling the group to leave his farm, and thenvanishing into the nearby town. So Rickand Glenn find Herschel at a old watering hole he used to go to before he had afamily, drinking himself numb. A bigpiece of this character’s arc is despite his troubled past, his attempts to bea good man, even when not killing his zombie family, he tried to be a hopefulperson, and in a fell swoop, had it all destroyed in front of him. A lot of that scene is between Rick andHerschel really coming to a tough conclusion about their destroyed hopes: thattheir own matters, and they need to believe there is hope, even when its clearthere isn’t any on the horizon.

This all leads into the big shiftin that scene, when two complete strangers, Dave and Tony, enter the bar andchat up the trio of Rick, Herschel, and Glenn. At first glance, these strangers seem normal (heavily armed strangers,but who isn’t in this universe?), but as the conversation goes on, it becomesclear something is not quite right about them. It’s a pretty tense scene because the danger isn’t outright spelled out,but its clear bringing these two back with them would not be wise. So Rick quickly shoots both men dead, eventhough the duo’s subtle hints that they aren’t alone may not be good for anyonelater on.

So, we leave the episode with twomore dead by Rick’s hands, a burning of dead bodies, the group’s more scatteredthan ever, and oh, Lori ends up in a car wreck while driving to find Rick. What saves this episode from being more ofthe same glacial paced episodes that have been making up this season is thatfinal scene in the bar with Tony and Dave. One of the things zombie movies like Dawn of the Dead illustrate is asbad as the undead are, people undeterred by law and order will be just asdangerous to the living. Up until now inthe series, that threat hasn’t poked its head out, and knowing the story of thebooks that inspire them, the walkers are clearly not the greater evil to worryabout.

--“What Happened to Sophia?”Theory This Week: Well, doesn’t really matter anymore, because she’s dead. I’m betting she’ll come back as an angel orsomething and lead the group to a safe haven, or something. And no, I didn’t just make a Battlestar Galactica joke becauseits composer Bear McCreary is the composer on this show. But if you want me to say it is, then I will.

--This episode was directed byClark Johnson, director on many movies and TV, like The Wire and The Shield (ofwhich I’m writing reviews of that series irregularly on this blog), and it’s a crisplypaced episode.

--I almost didn’t recognize Daveas being played by Michael Raymond-James of the shortlived series Terriers,which by the way, you can see the whole thing on Netflix Instant View. And you should, because its a helluva goodshow that ended too soon.

--I’m surprised with all thatgunfire killing the zombies last episode, that one of the zombies was stillalive. Although that led to another coolzombie kill, with Andrea lodging a pick ax into its face.

--Glenn gets off well in thisepisode when dealing with Maggie and Rick about the secrets of the last fewepisodes, so good for him.

--Good word of advice: whenconvincing people to take you to their camp, don’t piss on the wall while doingit.

--Did we just get hints by Daveabout um, well, you read the comics, so you know what I might be referring to.

--Good plan, Lori. Take your pregnant self out to find your hubby,and then run over a zombie AND roll over your car. Responsible parenting at its finest.

--At least Shane was sympathetictowards Carol after her plant destroying meltdown. He may be right, he may also be losing hismarbles, but he’s not all gone as a likable human being.

--Never leave zombie body partsbehind when you’re taking them to be burned.

--I liked the tune that ended theepisode. Have to look it up on iTuneslater on.

--“Your bitch went windowshopping. You want him, fetch himyourself.”

--“Why not try Nebraska. I hear its nice.”

--“There is no hope. And you know it now, like I do. Don’t you?”

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Justified Season 3 Review / Episode 4: “The Devil You Know”

2012-02-07T23:27:00.000-08:00

There’s a lot to be said when youthink about shows like The Wire when it comes to the themes of loyalty andstanding like in this episode, “The Devil You Know”, but it’s been at the heartof a lot of the big moves in this season. In the last episode, Quarles was willing to sacrifice a small player inFogle to Raylan’s lethal trigger finger because it was easier to than leavingthat loose end dangling around. Here,Quarles makes a move to get a piece of Boyd’s organization in Devil, thefidgety, irritable henchman, by offering him a better standing than the growingCrowder organization. Its unsaid but theproposition is clear, get rid of your boss and you can move up instanding. The problem is, Devil beingDevil, he can’t help but make it a costly decision.

But perhaps its best to get tothe big story of this episode first: the breakout of Dickie Bennett andunplanned breakout of Dewey Crowe by Ash, the security guard from last episodewho wanted Mags’ nest egg. A fight isstaged, which gets Dickie and (inadvertently) Dewey to be sprung from jail byAsh and his small group of criminals who want a piece of this fortune. This is not the best plan for many reasons:such as the fragile relationship of Dickie and Ash’s group; that Raylan haspieced together Dickie may want to contact Limehouse, making access to him nextto impossible; and Limehouse may not want to deliver that money to Dickie atall. There’s too many moving parts inthis operation for it to work, and as can be expected, all of them go sidewaysimmediately.

One thing that is clear about this wholescheme is that it’s a complicated plan being put into play by people who haven’tthought all that far ahead. Ash getscrippled by Raylan (who hits him with a car…TWICE), and the least competentpart of the team takes Dickie to where the money is supposed to be dropped off,Mags’ now ransacked store. You know thingswill not end well when at one point, Dickie’s captors can’t decide who shouldopen the case with the money, but as Dickie finally points out in frustration, “Oneof us NEEDS to open this thing”. Thosecaptors though are taken out by Limehouse and an associate, who managed tosneak through the Marshal roadblock to bring Dickie his money…all 46 thousanddollars of it. Instead of taking it,Dickie tries to play the hard route and wanting what he thinks he’s owed ($3million to his recollection), and rejects the money, leaving him to be bustedby Raylan. Dickie was never a brightbulb, and even with the fake cred of killing two people in self-defense now onhis belt, his arrogance and stupidity ultimately put him back in prison.

Devil is at least worse on the stupidity meterof this episode, only because he makes the mistake of putting money againstloyalty. Boyd’s earnings so far areslim, and don’t do much to dissuade Devil from giving up his mentor andboss. He brings Quarles’ offer to Johnny,a man who he thinks is susceptible to such an offer (Boyd did get him in a wheelchair by his actions in season one, after all). What Devil in hisignorance doesn’t see (and its pretty clear that we do see it) is that when youdecide between loyalty and money, loyalty won’t generally end with you gettingshot in the chest.

Of course Johnny does not turn onBoyd, and Boyd shoots Devil in the chest, but at least grants him mercy byshooting him in the head. Devil was notlong for the world the way it was, and you can’t help but wonder in Quarlesthought along the lines of what he put into play with Fogle last episode withapproaching him in the first place: if my pawn dies, solves one problem; if hedoes the job, that’s okay too. There areplayers and pawns in this season of Justified, and like my comparison to The Wire, you can be a pawn, butbeing a player requires more smarts than you might have. And pawns in this game, unlike players, are nothing but disposable.

--Nice to see someone bring insome more information on Rachel, even if that person is Elston Limehouse.

--And besides Rachel, no one elsefrom the Marshal’s office appears, let alone Winona or Eva. Considering how dense this episode was, itwould hard to fit them in, but hopefully this isn’t a trend for the remainderof the season.

--Dewey stumbling around in abodybag was hilarious. ”You gonna lethim roll around like that all day?”

--Speaking of Dewey, its kind of aweird place to leave him in this episode, all drugged up by the medic. Apparently Dewey’s meant for another plan themedic’s cooking up, and if you saw the teaser for the next episode, its not pretty.

--Loretta’s moving up in theworld since losing her surrogate mother and family. Babysitter and heroin dealer.

--Interesting to see why Arlowould make such an impression on Limehouse, and why Raylan would catch on tothe fact he was covering for someone.

--Sad to see Devil go, probablymore because the actor Kevin Rankin (Herc from Friday Night Lights) is on oneof those CBS procedurals. The one withsomeone who remembers stuff, or something. I know its not one of the CSI or NCIS’, so that’s good news.

--“Who stuck that needle in me?”

--“Or maybe he’s kicked so manywhite boys’ ass that it doesn’t make that much of an impression.”

--“Good news, you can livewithout a spleen.”

--“Shit. Goddamn if I don’t have to save DickieBennett’s life.”

--"Do you have to tell him everything he needs to do?"

--“This is a come-to-Jesus kindof meeting, Boyd.”

--“Close your eyes, son.”

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Breaking Bad Revisited / Season 1, Episode 5: “Gray Matter”

2012-02-06T03:02:00.000-08:00

This may be the slowest episodeof Breaking Bad’s first season, but that’s the equivalent of having a greathamburger, but complaining you’re missing cheese: its still goodtelevision. But after Walter White andJesse Pinkman went their separate ways after the events of the first threeepisodes, there had to be something that kept Walt going down the trajectory weknow he’ll have to go down. Jesse wasless certain to be hanging around, only because he seemed likely to pull out ofdealing meth after getting lucky with the whole Krazy-8 fiasco. When we see him in the opening, he’s cleanedup, suit and all, going to get a job in sales. Of course, considering his limited resume (“I’ve had years of experiencein sales.”), the job he’s going is not so much selling, but “advertising”,meaning standing outside the place in a costume promoting the place.

Its here Jesse runs into an oldbuddy Badger, the current guy in the costume he was unintentionally pitchinghimself to fill. Badger suggests duringa smoke break that he should get back into methmaking, and considering a man ofhis limited real-world experience, is a likely option. He takes Badger into the desert in the RV tocook, but he’s not as good as his former teacher/partner, and Jesse himself isuncertain of his skills. Oh the otherhand, he has picked up a bit of Walt’s perfectionist nature, almost destroyinga batch he feels is inferior. Badgerclaims its good, but Jesse knows it can be better, just like Walt’s batch was.

Walt is not really thinking aboutthat going into this episode, as he’s heading with Skyler to a birthday partyfor his old college chum Elliot and his wife Gretchen (who is clear is the girlWalt has a thing with in the flashback in “And The Bag’s In the River”). A good amount of backstory is laid out of howWalt was originally part of an organization with Elliot called Gray Matter, butfor some reason, left for teaching. It’salmost humiliating when someone asks Walt about that, and goes, “Whichuniversity?”, and seeing how Elliot has amassed so much wealth and fancypresents from rich friends, its hard not to sense some resentment. Walt even feels his present (“I thought noone was bringing presents.”) to Elliot is worthless, a package of ramen noodlesthey both lived on in college, but Elliot feels humbled by it.

Elliot actually asks Walt abouthis cancer and suggests giving him a job at the company to help pay for thebills to get treated (or just pay for the bills without the job part), becausehe feels he owes Walt. Walt, much toSkyler’s anxiety, declines, and with that and Walter Jr. getting busted fortrying to get someone to purchase beer for him and his friends, decides to havean intervention to get Walt into chemotherapy. Of course it goes only well for a while, with everyone there ondifferent approaches: Skyler being concerned about Walt not being there for hisson and soon to be born daughter, Marie who is comfortable with him making hisown decision about what to do, Junior who is just angry at him for giving up,and Hank whose bad sports analogies and snacking isn’t helping. And, it starts devolving into screamingbetween themselves, with Walt almost a spectator for this raw emotion.

And its his reaction that issurprising when he takes control of the intervention and lays out what he’sfeeling about all of this. “My entire life,I never felt like I had a say”, he says, and he knows if this handling thiscancer is his last thing he does alive, he wants to deal with it on his ownterms. This is a part of thestubbornness of him that drives him: that he’s someone else’s worker, and notcapable of deciding how his life should be. Its an effective scene, especially for someone who realizes that hedoesn’t want his family to remember his final days, stretched out into anuncertain time of long term care and cleaning up for him.

Afterwards, he does some soulsearching, and decides to follow Skyler’s wishes to get chemo, which he knowswill be a problem moneywise (which he tried to avoid by dying peacefully). So, what appears to be Gretchen reaching outto help Walt, he lies about needing Elliot’s money to her, and that hisinsurance will cover it. But, this leadsimmediately into where he goes at episode’s end: back to Jesse to ask him if hewants to start cooking meth again. He’swilling to refuse help from a friend (and from someone else who he has aconflicted past with) to maintain his independence, but decides willingly thatthe only way to pay for the cancer treatment is to go back into cooking.

Obviously Walt can’t be out ofthis world of crime for very long (or the show wouldn’t really be able to goon), and Jesse’s clean start has gone south, so both of them find themselvesback in the same spot they were at before they split up. The difference is both men are now emboldenedto do better work together, but then comes the issue of how long this willlast. With Walt’s treatment going toslowly weaken him, and with no real major dealer to sell to, there is a limitto how far that work can go. Walt’sdecision to placate Skyler and still on his own decide to make meth can only goso far without one factor bouncing into the other, and what will happen, willat least be a decision he’ll make for himself.

And now, some notes for thestarting out viewers:

--Nobel prize, crystallography expert,and now high school teacher and on the side meth maker. Walter White sure has ended up…um, somewhere inthe world.

--Elliot Schwartz and Walter White = Grey Matter. It does make sense. Ask your Jewish friends if you don’t know.

--It’s hilarious to see Mariebeing the one who backs Walt’s decision early on, especially in light her ownweird problem with stealing shoes.

--Some more time lapse montagesof meth cooking.

--Love that visual joke ofeveryone but Walt and Skyler at Elliot’s party being in brown or beige-esqueclothing. “I didn’t know beige was partof the dress code for this.”

--“I look like I’m wearing a promdress from 1985.”

--“You’re such a pussy.”

--“Wanna cook?”

Finally, some series notes for you fans:

--First appearance of Badger, clearly not the brightestbulb, even when it comes to sign twirling.

--Walt and Gretchen’s past hasbeen touched on since this episode, but in a way that hints a massive riftbetween those two lead to him leaving Grey Matter. What that is is still unexplained, but we gotone more season to fill in those details.

--That whole scene of Walttalking about being invalid because of those treatments takes on a deepermeaning when you factor in the conversation with Walt Jr. in season four abouthow his father died.

--Funyuns. A frequent food in the RV.

And in case you didn't see it online yet, there's a funny Breaking Bad RPG game parody video out from CollegeHumor. The series up to season four is spoiled, but its damn funny if you have seen it all. It's embedded below:

See more at CollegeHumor

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 stars

Spartacus: Vengeance season review / Episode 2: “A Place In This World”

2012-02-05T00:51:00.000-08:00

With the expansion of theSpartacus universe to outside the walls of the House of Batiatus, the issuegoing into Venegance is where do all these cogs in the story so far fit. With the almost on the nose title of “A PlaceIn This World”, this episode deals head on with those issues. You got Spartacus and his gang searchingvillas for Naevia, Glaber stuck in a house that seems to bring no one good fortune,and then there’s Oenomaus, who is without home or cause to fight for. His house is gone, his master is dead, he isfree, but couldn’t feel any more alone.

As could be suspected fromOenomaus’ answer to where he would go now, he ends up in the place where hebegan: the Pits, a place that viewers know so far is the worst place anygladiator could end up. There’s no gloryto found there, only the likelihood of a nasty death, and he seems to be justfine with that. He slaughters one enemy,and just wants to keep going with the next fighter, much to the shock of his handler(“And what of his opponent?” “Send himtoo.”). He has no illusions about whathe wants to do: fight until someone gets lucky enough to strike him down. Its in this cage we flashback to his paststarting in the Pits, bought by Titus, and raised to be a warrior, to speak hismind, but in the end, swearing undying allegiance to the house. But, what else could he do but that, barringhe was a slave with no way to get home? It’sa serious question brought up in this season, that freedom for some is a deathsentence for others.

Take the villa that Spartacus’men liberate in this episode, and the trouble with convincing the slaves to join theircause. Many of them don’t feel relievedto be liberated, but are now without a home, and forced to be something theyhave been told they can never be. It’s arelieving moment to realize Spartacus’ plans for freeing slaves is a upwardclimb, and will not come easy. Forinstance, there is one of the manservants, Tiberius, who is clearly of Syriandescent, but given a Roman name, who tries to attack Spartacus and instead ofbeing killed like Crixus suggests, is allowed to live and trained to fight. For awhile, it looks like Tiberius will justkeep trying to destroy the man who freed him from his indentured servitude, andeven appears to let some Roman scouts inside the villa to deal with therebels. Of course, he immediately pointsout his ruse to keep them away failed, and if he didn’t let them in to beeventually killed, they would have brought more soldiers. He even renounces his Roman name for his ownname, one that even he confesses he barely remembers. It’s the little victories this group needs,and Tiberius may be the first of many.

But within those victories liefailures, which is shown with Mira’s handling of a slave who decides to justshift masters to being the slave of one of Crixus’ Gaul allies. The slave pretty much accuses Mira of being aconcubine, a slave herself to Spartacus’ whims. Its hard not to see how that is perceived to be by Mira: she is fillinga hole that his dead wife used to be, and start seeing it’s a hole she may notbe able to fill at all. I don’t thinkSpartacus is just desperate for company, he’s desperate for someone to confidein, even if that time is fleeting. Hehas to maintain control of an unstable element in the Gauls and has to takecare of a growing band of people who want to be free. Mira came in at a time when he needed someoneto talk to and is appreciative of Mira for that, even if she is starting tohave doubts about that relationship.

And someone else who has doubtsrunning through her head is Illthyia, who I can’t stress how much her presencewas missed in Gods of the Arena (I doubt there was a way to squeeze her intothat story, but still). She has clingedto her status, but now she finds herself with child, in a house she wouldrather not be living in (would you want to live in a place where your most heinouscrimes were committed?), and feeling like an old maid in the eyes of youngernobles like Seppia. Of course, Seppiuspoints out one of those wrongs Illthyia did in her escape from Batiatus houselast season when Glaber requests his men to help search for Spartacus. She has helped put her and Glaber in thisposition, and like it or not, she’ll have to tough it out any way she’s ableto, like taking care of Lucretia (whose almost seen as a mythical figure byothers for surviving the massacre of Batiatus) and her bizarre idea to commit aritual sacrifice for help of the Gods.

And for all the performance Lucretiagives in sacrificing the goat and apathy Glaber and Illthyia see in it, itseems to produce a surprising result: the forcible extraction of Oenomaus fromthe Pits…by Ashur (Nick Tarabay). Asrough as these turn of events are, there is a subtle hint to something more goingon (one I alluded to in my notes last episode), when Ashur ran into Lucretia,passing her not in the market, and sharing a quick smile to each other upon thedelivering of Oenomaus. Lucretia couldnot have survived her wounds on her own, which means she may have had help inAshur. To what end is uncertain, but itseems to prove that freedom from slavery can make you to be the person you weremeant to be, even if that’s not necessarily a good thing.

--Did Ashur spend his free timebecoming a good knife thrower? Certainlygot the drop on Oenomaus at his weakest point, that’s for sure.

--Very good God of War Kratos inspired makeup for Oeonmaus in his Pit escapades.

--The interplay between Illthyia andLucretia is tense this season, seeing as how you aren’t sure how crazy Lucretiais and how unbalanced Illthyia is just being around someone who’s droppinghints to her “recovering memory”.

--And then there's that weird moment where Illthyia fantasizes of that time she (unknowingly) had sex with Spartacus. And we all know how that ended.

--I’m waiting for My Cock RagesOn to be covered by a heavy metal band. Maybe the Dropkick Murphys. There’sa thought.

--Mira is surprised she can kickass like the guys can. A good sign forthe slaves who seem to be unable to fight.

--I’m curious as to what willhappen because of that exchange between Agron and the former Tiberius.

--“God save me, I find myself inagreement with a Gaul.”

--“Finish me off! Put cock to ass!” Well, at least he’s specific about what hismanservant needs to do.

--“One must learn to kneel if oneis to rise.”

--“The Gods would rather piss onRome than whisper to her ear.”

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Justified Season 3 Review / Episode 3: “Harlan Roulette”

2012-02-01T19:25:00.000-08:00

The last two episodes ofJustified’s third season have really been laying out all the big playerslooking to fill the void in the crime world of Harlan County. While this episode does have a case forRaylan to solve (in this case, finding tweaker Wade Messer, who left himliterally hanging last season), it still plugs into the power play at large sofar. The fear going into this seasonthis year has been the large amount of players on the chessboard so far, andthis episode starts forging alliances to make things easier to follow. It’s a fight between an outsider (Quarles)and a good old boy (Boyd) for supremacy, and we’re brought a step closer tothat confrontation.

In Quarles’ case, his big powermove is to set up a drug factory/sell house in a mansion, where he has drugsmade, sold to the locals for peanuts, and sold out of town for far more thanthat. Quarles is an unusual presence inthe Justified universe, because he is clearly too confident and too calm aboutall the wheelings and dealings going on. Note that twisted scene where he takes Wynn Duffy on a tour of the emptymansion, laying out his plan, then talking to his son on the phone, pointingWynn Duffy to the restroom, who opens the wrong door to find a man tied up andgagged to a bed, and is pointed away by Quarles like nothing’s wrong. It’s a supremely darkly comic moment, andwell played by Neal McDonough who gives him this odd cockiness and assuredness ina still unexplained situation that can only be described as creepy (especiallywhen Wynn Duffy is weirded out by his discovery). Quarles reveals a lot about himself in thisepisode, explaining the inspiration for his derringer came from his daddymaking him see Taxi Driver a lot as a kid. If Quarles was inspired by Taxi Driver for a gun, his plan sounds it wasinspired by New Jack City.

Quarles has also been collectingsupplies, which leads to the whole Wade story, when Raylan finds a vehicle Wadestole, arrests the driver (who is promptly bailed out), and leads to pawnshopowner Fogel (played by Pruitt Taylor Vince), the employer of Wade and thedriver. Fogel offers the driver a wayout of punishment by making him play “Harlan Roulette’, which is pretty muchRussian Roulette with an extra pull of the trigger. The whole scene is pretty effective, with thestakes getting raised, the unloaded gun, and just Fogel’s sinister handling ofthings so they would play in his favor. Of course, this handling of his henchmen goes wrong in a royal way whenan attempt to use Wade to kill Raylan goes wrong almost immediately, leading toa standoff between Fogel and another henchman, leaving both shot (and rare thatRaylan really wasn’t involved in killing anybody, but was trying to defuse thesituation at hand).

The end of the episode alsomarked Raylan’s first meeting with Quarles, albeit because Raylan confrontedWynn in his work trailer (“You remember when I told you the next time wasn’tgoing to be a conversation? This is it.”). Raylan warns Wynn he knows it was him who putFogel up to the attempt on his life, and pretty much threatens to kill him ifhe tries again. Raylan wisely takes apicture of Quarles, who plays it off almost like a photo op. Quarles probably knows sooner or latersomeone will get wise to him being in Harlan, and plays it off like its noproblem. These two are measuring each other up, and seeing each as a big problem for their future plans in Harlan.

Although, Raylan may be one ofthe few obstacles in Quarles' path, with the other big one being Boyd Crowder andhis moves to build his organization. Thefirst big move is to forge an alliance with Limehouse, who offers to remove theweed he has (that Devil neglected to burn, against his orders) for a decentprofit. Boyd chides Devil for notburning the weed, because from his perspective, if someone under the radar likeLimehouse knew Boyd had that hidden weed, who’s to say the cops wouldn’t knoweventually? Devil is clearly anunpredictable element in the organization, even going as far to ask Boyd, “I’mjust wondering which Boyd Crowder I’m taking orders from?”

It’s a point made just after Boydand his wheelchair bound cousin Johnny (missing since his blowing up severalBennett thugs last season), force the owner of Johnny’s old tavern out to setup a base of operations. Boyd has beenthrough many things over the run of the show, and promptly points out to Devilthat he is a man who was a racist, was shot, almost died, found God, got manypeople killed, and now is trying to take control of his life by being who he isnow. It’s an uncertain answer from Boyd,but one that satisfies Devil for the moment, and is credible when delivered byWalton Goggins. He’s building ancriminal enterprise, and all he asks is loyalty.

Speaking of some of Boyd’searlier deeds, his plan to collect Mags’ riches from Limehouse is put on hold,primarily because one Dickie Bennett is still alive and in prison. But, that looks like a situation that maychange soon because of a crooked guard who allowed Boyd and Dickie’s exchangelast episode, and who wants in on the Bennett money. Of course, it won’t do Dickie any good togive the guard the information because, why would he? Sure the guard promised to make Dickie’s staya nightmare if he didn’t, but since he can’t get out of prison, why should hetell the guard anyway? It’s a theory(made even more likely if you accidentally saw the teaser for the nextepisode), but Dickie Bennett may be a wild card in this power struggle yet.

--No real sign of the marshal’soffice in this episode, and Winona does appear briefly, if only to show howRaylan seems to be getting continuously interrupted on his way to domestic life.

--“You boys play nice.”

--“You did just say ‘commode’, didn’t you?”

--“Maybe its justyour lucky day, son. Or not.”

--“Wynn? The otherdoor, pal.” I almost don’t want to knowwho’s the poor sap tied up to that bed.

--Quarles describes Raylan simply as, "The one with the hat."

--“Well, I set him up for Dickie Bennett and had him strungup in a tree. Does that count as afriend?”

--I almost want to know howshopping for Christmas trees helped Quarles gets a part or two for hisderringer.

--“The next bullet will be cominga lot faster.”

--"What about the ones that come back at you?"

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

THE SHIELD REVISITED / Season 2, Episode 9 & 10: “Co-Pilot” / “Coyotes”

2012-01-30T22:56:00.000-08:00

A&V Stimuli takes a look back at this critically acclaimed and ground breaking cop drama, with another of many semi-regular installments covering it from its first to its last episode.

Season 2, Episode 9: “Co-Pilot”

After wrapping up the Armadillostoryline last episode, it seemed odd that the following episode would be setfourteen months earlier (and BTW, it’s been fourteen months since the firstepisode happened? If I went through halfthe stuff that has happened in the last season and half of the show, I would’vegone into a sanitarium). I can onlyimagine how bizarre it was to watch “Co-Pilot”, since it seemed a prologue toall of what’s happened during the show so far didn’t seem necessary. After watching it, I’m not sure it stilldoes, but it’s not a waste of time either.

For one, we get to see the Striketeam being formed, in both people and what they will ultimately become. Vic and Shane are just working cases (and forone of the rare time in this show, wearing suits to work), when Vic getsAssistant Chief Gilroy (before he became “incarcerated Gilroy”) to pull a favorand get him in charge of a new Strike Team in Farmington, and with theassurance that he will produce results immediately. So when the newly formed team gets there eyeson a drug dealer taking over territory, and the normal methods of police workaren’t producing fast enough results, as Vic says, “I think we need ashortcut.” He swears this will be theonly time they’ll do this and he seems to believe that earnestly, but thenagain, we the audience know different.

This of course leads to severalbusts (including then alive Rondell from season one), and eventually usingConnie (still alive, and surprisingly cleaner looking than she’s ever been) totrick herself out to plant drugs in drug dealer Lionel’s house. This leads to a rather icky scene where Vicand Shane overhead via microphone Connie being raped (all in the background ofa carnival and vomiting clown) by Lionel, with Vic almost blowing the wholething by going (but ultimately prevented) to help her. They get Lionel, but get in David’scrosshairs as a result, which lead to Crowley (you know, before he was shot inthe face by Vic) being put into the Strike Team to keep eyes on them all forDavid. And we all know how bad that endsfor detective Crowley…

For the other partnerships,things don’t start off that badly. Dutchis pegged immediately as the rube of the new squad house (and what work it musthave taken to have it emptied like it was when the episode starts), arriveslate enough that he doesn’t get a choice of desks, let alone choice ofpartners. He’s put with Claudette andanother veteran detective on a kidnapping case involving Mexican kidnappers anda brutally raped Salvadorian girl who escaped her captors. They confront a negotiator the family hiredto get the girl back, and try to convince him to give them the kidnappers, butthanks to Dutch’s keen observation and empathy with Claudette as aninvestigator, get the negotiator to trap the kidnappers.

Danny and Julien go on the firstday of patrol together and things go well for them (excluding of course, thenaked, bloodied Salvadorian girl that they run into). Julien is a straight shooter who thinks he cando better than most of his peers, but like most green cops, doesn’t realize hehas to sometimes not do the right thing. Take a man Danny and Julien bring in for stealing groceries for hisfamily; groceries he wouldn’t have to steal if a punk in his apartment complexwasn’t stealing the man and other people’s food stamps. Danny deals with the food stamp stealer bybasically giving him a chance to stop and walk away without getting arrested bysimply leaving what he stole on his porch for them to pick up later. What could have been a dicey arrest turnsinto an deal that the thief agrees to and does immediately. Its not just a matter of arresting people,but just making sure things are even in uneven times.

What that story does is show howmuch police work in this show is about negotiation. Vic at the end of the episode can only lamentupon his slightly illegal escapade into busting Lionel, “That was pretty easy,wasn’t it?”. Vic may have been a goodcop once, but here might be the point where he decided he can start gettingaway with twisting the law a little bit more, but as a result, doing so becameless and less easy to do. In a way, thismirrors the complex and risky steps the Strike Team needed to get rid of Armadillo. Could they have done the same a yearearlier? Probably not, or at least, notas well.

By the end of the episode,everything is set up pretty much where the pilot started. All the relationships are set up and all theproblems are laid out, but we kind of know where its going to go, which cutsthe dramatic impact of the episode down dramatically. “Co-Pilot” is a nice diversion, but in theend, it’s a diversion we as viewers didn’t really need.

--Asst. Chief Gilroy before he became ex-Asst.Chief Gilroy.

--Odd seeing the Barn minus people.

--Funny blooper with one of thesoundguys appearing briefly in the Strike Team room. In the widescreen releases, not sure aboutthe fullscreen releases.

--Pretty good editing avodiingshowing the naughty bits of a bloody naked woman.

--Connie before she became deadConnie.

--Rondell before he became deadRondell.

--Funny meta moment with churchstuff being removed from the Strike Team room; the pilot was filmed in achurchbefore being moved into a set.

--Fucked up backstory behindDutch's ex-wife.

--"I hate to say this, but Ithink we need a shortcut." Surprising to see that much doubt in Vic when he says that.

--Don't remember Connie beingthis clean.

--Barfing clown during the stingoperation; random, but nice flavor to the scene.

--Another odd blooper with thecameraguy popping up during the sting op. The dangers of widescreen...

--Crowley before he became shotin the face Crowley.

--Interesting to note how wellCrowley and David know each other.

--"Credit'soverrated." Might be Claudette'smotto.

--Oh, the beginning of theunusable men's room.

--Dutch gets punked for the firsttime by Vic.

--Uh, yeah. Lem gets checked out unknowingly by Julien.

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 stars

Season 2, Episode 10: “Coyotes”

After the brief detour in “Co-Pilot”,“Coyotes” sets the end of this season into motion with a few big problems. One comes immediately when Lanie’s report on theBarn is leaked to the press, and it outright holds blame on David and Vic forits not-so-sterling reputation. Thisfragile alliance was strained as it was throughout the season, but both menfind themselves put into damage control. On David’s end, he’s brought into to talk to the chief of police, andhas to negotiate to keep his job, albeit for a while longer. Either way, the message the chief lays out ispretty clear: win or lose, once the primaries begin, he’s out. So David is left with little option but towin, because his career as a cop is going to get flushed anyway.

Vic has his own problem in thisepisode, and that’s in the sudden and bizarre appearance of his former boss,Gilroy (John Diehl). I say “sudden and bizarre”because he’s under house arrest for his land grab scheme last season, and thathe appears at Vic’s house, begging for help to get out of the country. This is suspicious enough, but with thiscoming on the heels of the Barn report, is even more so. Add to that, the newest addition to theStrike Team, Tavon (Brian White), who clearly is an outsider to the innercircle that the Strike Team is now. Sowhile Vic and Shane head off to handle Gilroy, this leaves Lem to work withTavon to bring down an illegal chop shop ring. While Tavon does not know anything about the team’s plans with theArmenian mob money train, he proves he’s not some completely by-the-bookaddition, playing a good game of “good cop, bad cop” (Tavon being the bad cop)to get the head of the ring. Tavon doesbend the rules enough to earn Lem’s respect, but the rest of the Team wouldrather keep him out of the money train plan. He can bend the law, but break the law is a whole other thing.

In Claudette’s case this episode,she comes in with a shaken perspective on Vic, the Strike team, and David,causing her interactions with them in this episode to be nothing less thanvenomous. She knows they were involvedwith the Armadillo mess earlier in the season and murder in the Barn in “ScarTissue”, and is in a position that she can’t really prove it, but won’t letthem forget that she knows. She can bendthe rules like Tavon, but knows she’s working with people who have outright brokenand burned the law behind them. Still,she soldiers on, working with Dutch somewhat reluctantly on a breaking andentering that left an old woman dead. For a good portion of this episode, Claudette’s mind is not on the case,but still trying to dig up evidence on the Armadillo murder. Eventually, she gets back into her groove andfinds the robber, a drugged out transvestite (whose found in such a zonked outstate, you almost think they discovered a zombie in this drug den), and putsthe Armadillo case on the back burner. She has let go of the matter for now, but hasn’t forgotten it, as therather quiet terse exchange between her and Vic at the episode’s end suggests. If they were friends before, they definitelyaren’t now.

Danny and Julien’s case this weekis quaint by comparison, trying to help a very pregnant gangbanger who barelysurvived a beating. She’s not concernedfor the well-being of the kid (her boyfriend/baby daddy is not in the pictureanymore), and when Danny suggests her adopting the kid out of the blue, evenless so. Danny is in a bad place, withthe whole mad widow storyline and being held responsible for letting Armadillogetting killed in the cage, so it seems like a desperate move to hold onto somethingthat could be a good thing. She’s beengetting the shit end of things this season, and her life doesn’t get better bythe last few episodes.

Meanwhile, Vic and Shane aresetting up Gilroy’s escape to Mexico, and it becomes clear that Gilroy didn’tso much escape house arrest, as he was let go by Lanie to entrap Vic in acriminal act. They pull off a difficultescape out of that situation, but one that leaves Lanie without a case to standon (after all, if Gilroy was let go, without really a connection or Gilroy’swire evidence of Vic for his escape, any case would be circumstantial at best),and has her being shown the door by the department, who are revealed to be theone’s responsible for leaking her report. It’s another big theme of The Shield at play this episode withClaudette, Lanie, and even Danny: shit spills down, especially when it comes tocovering your ass. The higher-ups cantolerate some corruption when it comes to getting the job done, and areruthless when it comes to protecting themselves from the blowback.

The kick of this episode comes inGilroy’s supposed plan to escape to Mexico becoming a reality, with him gettinga small amount of cash out of the funds the Strike Team stole from Gilroy’ssafe deposit box. The rest went to ahitman, who will kill Gilroy if he’s discovered crossing back into the U.S.,pretty much damning Gilroy into exile. It’sa rough fate for Vic’s former boss and friend, but despite that, Gilroy leavesVic with one message, “I got greedy. Ilost everything. There's a lessonthere." That final dialogue fromGilroy is more than true, especially as the show ends this season and beginsanother season with those words coming back to haunt the Strike team.

--"I just don't like notliking my job."

--"He's my cousin. It'll screw up Christmas."

--"What about the hut, therice and the beans?" "That'swhen I wasn't really going."

--"You made me pay my ownhitman?"

--Aw, can't Vic and Claudettemake up? Yeah, probably not.

--Directed by Davis Guggenheim, aregular TV director now known more for his documentaries An Inconvenient Truthand Waiting for Superman.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Breaking Bad Revisited / Season 1, Episode 4: “Cancer Man”

2012-01-30T02:00:00.000-08:00

After the tension of the firstthree episodes, “Cancer Man” served as a bit of a respite in this short firstseason. It was an episode that took timeto focus on both Walt and Jesse’s home life, or complete chaos resembling ahome life. Both cancer-ridden teacherand former meth making student have just finished getting rid of two drugdealers (and in each cases, went badly), and have went their separate ways. In a way, it made sense, seeing as how theymade a decent amount of cash, at least enough for Walt to not leave his familycompletely penniless. And consideringtheir luck with Crazy-8 and Emilio, it seemed best not to tempt fate again.

Jesse has some of drug buddiesSkinny Pete and Combo visit, who besides noting the weird hole in the hallwayof the house, are there to kick back and relax. He of course, joins them in smoking some of the Walter White producedmeth, and in a creepy hallucination filled haze, flees his house and ends up athis parents’ home. His parents are hesitantto let him stay with them for awhile, and are paranoid enough to try to limithis time with his younger brother Jacob. You get the impression Jesse wasn’t too far off from being Jacob at hisage before drugs took over his life; both are smart individuals, but Jesse isthe one who’s went down a bad path. Jesse has had a tough childhood (by some fault his, and by some, hisparents inability to intervene), so it comes with some surprise when he seesthe love that Jacob gets and feels resentful about it, Jacob tells him how muchthey care for him.

As such, it comes with somesurprise that Jesse gets booted out for having a joint in his room, a jointthat was actually Jacob’s. Instead ofproclaiming his innocence, knowing his little brother will get his parents’disdain and disappointment, takes the hit. He destroys the joint in front of Jacob almost as a warning to not endup like him. Jesse is a flawed kid (asmost people hitting their 20’s would be), but he does something in taking thefall for Jacob that shows that he cares enough to not see that happen to hisbrother. It’s a nice reminder that forall the dim decisions Jesse has made in the episodes previously, he has a goodenough heart to care, and unfortunately, to injure easily.

Walt, on the other end of thisepisode, is still in a bit of shock from the Crazy-8 killing. Jesse gives Walt’s end to him (which is adecent amount of money), and in a rather awkward way, tries to talk to hisformer teacher/partner. Walt shoots thatdown, and considering his mental state, is probably not desperate to confess toanybody about what happened between them. He did as teased by the previous episode’s finale, did confess to Skylersomething important: his cancer. Thisconversation is brought up to Hank and Marie during a barbeque at Walt’s house,and immediately, they and Skyler start pushing Walt to get some consultation onwhat to do. Walt is not feeling comfortablewith any of that, and considering how much just one of these consultations eatsthrough his ill gotten gains, means his spoils will go dry quickly.

Then there’s the question if Walteven wants to survive at all, with this haunted look on him whenever he sees acop car nearby, almost taunting him with the death of Crazy-8 by his hands. Of course, there is no punishment for whatWalt has done, except internally. Andhis dead man walking routine is certainly not making things easier at the Whitehousehold, with a pregnant Skyler an emotional trainwreck, and Walt Jr. beingsullen. Both however, are angry at Waltfor avoiding chemotherapy, but blame it on him being stubborn. Actually, it is that and being a bitfatalistic.

Look at how the last scene of theepisode came about: earlier, Walt gets cut off to a parking space at the bank bya sport-car driving jerk, who for the purposes of this article, we’ll call KENWINS (yep, its his license plate). So,at the end, when Walt is driving by his lonesome and spots Ken’s car at a gasstation, gets even by rigging the car to start burning. He’s lucky no one really spots him doing this(even Ken, who’s too busy yaking into his Bluetooth headphone), but it’s a momentof satisfaction for Walt, albeit a fleeting one. He has taken some kind of action, for betteror for worse (in a further analysis, likely for worse), but whether it leads tohim trying to fight to keep living is a question yet to be answered here.

As I said, this episode was reallya chance to learn more about Walt and Jesse, and really serve as down timebefore the season picked up. Its odd tonote a small thing about both Walt and Jesse that this episode starts to pointout something in the fabric of the series: both of them really have a strainedrelationship with their parents. Jesseand his parents’ relationship gets nasty as the series progressed, and Waltbarely mentions (let alone, us as an audience witness)anything about hisparents at all. Of course, both of themhave witnessed loved ones die (as we discover throughout the series) at anearly age, and its affected them in different ways. When Junior complains to his dad to stopcomplaining if he doesn’t want to go on, you see Walt react in a way that makesyou think he may just go through with his cancer therapy, if only because hesees something of himself in Junior’s statement. He can roll over and die, or fight and keepgoing, which watching the whole of the series, is a tragic decision that hasyet to reveal itself.

And now, some episode notes:

--Guys still want to get “tuggies” by Shania Twain? OK, I can see that.

--As revealed in the opening DEAbriefing, yep, Crazy-8 was a snitch. AndWalter White’s crystal was found. And sowas the school’s missing gas mask. Ohboy.

--Nice little reveal of Jesse’sunflattering sketch of Walt being on the back of his Walter White created highschool chemistry test. By the way, hegot an “F’ on that.

--Nice nod to the Tampico baby crib.

--Who didn’t get a slight grin when Walt set that assholeKen’s car on fire?

--“Icebreaker? Isn’tthat the name of a breath mint?”

--“Nah, I think the house is settling.”

--“Then why don’t you just fucking die already?”

Finally, some series notes:

--Skinny Pete and Combo appear for the first time. Oh, Combo, you are missed.

--The first time Walt starts using the nooks and crannies ofthe house to hide money. Of course,using the air vent may not have been such a good plan.

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 stars

Spartacus: Vengeance season review / Episode 1: “Fugitivus”

2012-01-27T20:18:00.000-08:00

WARNING: There are spoilers to be found.

The makers of Starz’ Spartacusshow have had a rocky two years getting to what is ultimately the second season,subtitled Vengeance. Right around theend of season one (Blood and Sand), its lead Andy Whitfield was diagnosednon-Hodgkins’ lymphoma and in order to allow him to recover, a short prequel seriesGods of the Arena was released in the absence. As many reading this know, Whitfield sadly passed away before filmingbegun on Vengeance, but was around long enough to pass the role onto Liam McIntyre. Its hard to replace the lead on any show, butSpartacus had a bigger problem: it had a lead character that couldn’t really bedead at this point in the series’ run, and having another actor replace someoneelse who filled the loinclothed slave-turned-rebel leader’s shoes is a diceyproposition at best. Watching the firstepisode “Fugitivus” allayed a lot of those concerns very quickly, almost beinga non-issue by the episode’s striking end.

When we meet up with Spartacusand his gang of escaped slaves, it’s been weeks since the house of Batiatus fell,and Roman noble Seppius (Tom Hobbs) has been sending mercenaries out to huntthem down, and as evidenced by the stylish opening, end up getting cut toribbons. Spartacus is in that ambush,and decides to use one of the bodies to send a message to now Praetor ClaudiusGlaber (Craig Parker), the man who put him and his now dead wife into slavery. It’s only Glaber’s name he scrawls on thedead man, but the message is pretty clear: come and get me. His Roman superiors are none too happy withhis handling of Spartacus, and order him back to Capua to kill thisrebellion. This is not something hewants to do, with his scheming wife Ilithyia (Viva Bianca) now pregnant and someonewho definitely doesn’t want to go back there, and with his political status injeopardy, has no choice but to go.

Spartacus and his band aren’t exactlydoing well themselves, living in the underground sewers of Capua, and barelygetting by on the food found, mainly by the Gaul ex-slaves who follow Crixus(Manu Bennett). The group is forced to makea pretty big decision when news of Glaber coming with a legion of soldiershits: stay and fight or leave to the mountains to grow their army. Both Spartacus and Crixus have a big debateover what to do, with both men on different agendas: Spartacus to kill Glaber,and Crixus to find his love Naevia. Considering the two very rarely see eye to eye, there is a real issue atstake here: kill the rebellion by killing Glaber or kill the rebellion huntinga slave who may already be gone.

Its not that Spartacus is completelyhellbent and blind to the needs of the group he’s the de facto leader of, as hedoes spends time contemplating with his new girl Mira (Katrina Law) and helpinghis the widow of his friend Varro, Aurelia, get out of Roman territory with herson. He’s aware that he could losecontrol of his forces without Crixus, so he volunteers himself to help find alead on Naevia’s whereabouts. This leadsto the big centerpiece of the episode, a whorehouse (filled to the brim with morethan your share of pay cable nudity) escapade that turns all kinds of bloody,but pays off with a start to finding Naevia. Of course, Spartacus won’t leave until Glaber’s dead, which leads him togo off to kill Glaber on his own.

Its surprising to see the verycontained last season expand with many different factions in play. In the case of Seppius, its proving himselfand handling his sister Seppia (Hanna Mangan Lawrence), in a relationship thatjust tows the line at being incest-y. For Glaber, its to improve his standing by destroying Spartacus, and forthe time being, set up shop in the former house of Batiatus. Its here that another big reveal is made:Batiatus’ wife Lucretia (Lucy Lawless) survived her stabbing from last season(unfortunately, her love child with Crixus didn’t), and despite Ilithyiawanting her dead, she’s kept alive as an example against Spartacus’uprising. How she managed to stay alive andhidden these many weeks is a bit of a stretch (and for a house we last leftwith dozens of bodies, it’s body-less now, so people at least went through theplace and still didn’t find Lucretia), but with Lawless’ performance of someonewho may be completely gone (or not), it’s a welcome one to see that Glaber’shouse will have its own kind of internal strife.

Glaber makes a public speech,which would be a perfect opportunity to strike for Spartacus, but that goessouth when its discovered Aurelia has been captured, marked with the sign of “fugitive”(on her head), and it turns into a rescue when Crixus and some men arrive toretrieve Spartacus and Aurelia. Glaberescapes, Aurelia dies in transit, and Spartacus finally agrees to head to themountains to build his forces to fight Glaber. As tempting and as shocking it would be to take Glaber out of thepicture, its good to see a big goal laid out for the season for Spartacus toaccomplish. And with the next move tofree Naevia from whatever nobleman has her, that resolution won’t come forawhile.

If anything in the absence between seasons,the show has improved in its opening episodes. The first episode of Blood and Sand was too much style over substance,but if anything the opening episodes of Spartacus’ seasons since have been solidstarts for the series. For a show thatis known for many gladiatorial fights, its kind of humorous to see that the onehere is brief, and for the spectators watching it, seems boring. The show has to stretch out, and its attemptto snap loose of its Gladiator-esque roots appears to be working so far. If anything can be leveled as to somethingmissing, is several characters throughout appear briefly (such as the in-hidingformer Doctore of Batiatus, Oenomaus, played by Peter Mensah, but does so in apretty badass fight scene) or not at all (the back-stabbing Ashur). But, we got a whole season (and another onedue to an early renewal) to see how all of this comes into play. But if this episode is any indication, itsgoing to get extra bloody in Capua before its over.

--For the future, I’ll bereviewing the season and post on future episodes around the following Sunday(give or take). This got done a bitearly due to Starz posting the episode to view online early to build up forthis week’s premiere. And like thispost, there will be spoilers to the episode, so don’t complain.

--Maybe its just me, but I thinkI agree with Aurelia here with her forbidding with her last breath Spartacus tofind her son, even if she was beaten, marked, and bleeding to death. That guy leaves dead bodies behind likepeople leave used tissues.

--Almost forgot to mention Agron,the still alive brother of the gladiator brothers from Blood and Sand is stillalive, and quite blood hungry.

--I love that just for a moment,there’s the possibility that Lucretia is a figment of Ilthyia’s stressed out mind. It calls to mind Battlestar Galactica for asecond, another show Lawless has graced.

--Speaking of Lucretia, who stitched up her gut wound? Hmmm...

--If you’re not a fan ofspeed-ramping, the opening scene will likely piss you off.

--John Hannah’s appearance on theshow as Batiatus is missed, or maybe I just miss him screaming, “Jupiter’s cock!”. Yeah, that’s probably it.

--That tiered whorehouse fight isawesome. I did say that, right?

--“Agron, I believe he’s dead.”

--“It seems Naevia is not here toattend to you.”

--“You are not dead. You still draw breath.” And then comes out the intestines.

--“I am not Doctore. Not anymore.”

--“You had me at ‘whores’.”

--"Place ear to chest, and you will find it absent sound."

--“We will face the hordes ofRome again, and the gods shall weep for their suffering.”

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 stars

Justified Season 3 Review / Episode 2: “Cut Ties”

2012-01-27T00:18:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in the post oflast week’s season premiere, Justified’s opening salvo is a lot of setup. What I may have not been clear about isdespite that, there’s usually a pretty interesting one-episode plot to take usthrough, despite the long running storylines going on in this show’s universe. In this case, a good amount of focus in thisepisode is on Art (Nick Searcy), and what kind of lawman he really is. We know he’s not too happy to have RaylanGivens in his squad, with his way of ending most of his cases in bullets andblood. And with the Winona stealingmoney subplot from last season further tarnishing the view of his subordinate,its interesting to see some parallels starting to pop up between both men.

During the opening teaser, Arttalks to Bill Nichols, an overseer of the Witness Protection Program and almostdescribes his having Raylan as penance for his past transgressions (which startto become a bit clearer is this episode). Art and Nichols are old school lawmen who are a bit past the myth ofthem being lawman cowboys, and just content to deal with the now. In Nichols case, he later on gets shot andkilled by a hitman, Mr. Poe, in WitSec who wants to sell info on protectedwitnesses to get back into the Boston mob, and Art’s office is put onprotecting the witnesses and finding Nichols’ killer. Into this, also comes help in the AssistantDirector of the Marshals, Goodall (played by Carla Gugino, who breathed lifeinto another Elmore Leonard TV adaptation, Karen Sisco), who has some tawdryhistory with Raylan.

While Raylan and Goodall seek outwho might have wanted Nichols’ information stolen (which is not really a hugepart of the episode), the majority of the plot is with Art as he inadvertentlyinterviews Mr. Poe about who was the triggerman. Thanks to some subtle noticing of clues, andnot so subtle noticing of Mr. Poe’s GPS navigator, takes Poe captive, and underthe possibility the people under Nichols’ watch are compromised, goes to workon him in some pretty rough ways. Artpegs Poe as a sniveling weasel, and puts the fear of God into him aboutrevealing who he sold the information to (“If you don’t tell me, I’ll take yourgun and fire some bullets into the wall, and then I’ll take my gun and shoot somebullets into your face.”), but what makes that threat even more terrifying isthat you believe for a second Art would do that. He seems to be a straight shooter, but thatscene gives more perspective on how he can deal with the troubles caused by aman liked Raylan Givens.

Of course, it turns out one ofthe protected witness, one under protection of Rachel (Erica Tazel), is aboutto be hit, and both parties of Art and Raylan/Goodall get there in time to helpRachel stop the hitmen. While this plotdoesn’t really play into Quarles’ big plans for Harlan (at least that can beseen, and is absent from this episode altogether), it does lay down some groundworkfor some future conflict down the road. There’s some spark/tension between Goodall and Raylan that hints to thefact they had a fling while Raylan was divorced from Winona, and with thereveal of Art’s darker nature (something not really visible in the lastArt-centric episode, “Blaze of Glory” from season 2), there’s some great thingsmined out of this. Of course, that’s alljust another piece of the episode…

The other thing comes from Boyd’splan to get to Dickie in prison getting shafted by Raylan, who gets the assaultcharges dropped and a release for Boyd by the next day. This speeds up Boyd’s plan radically by himgetting himself put in solitary next to Dickie, and then bribing a guard to getinto Dickie’s cell. What you think willbe a brutal act of vengeance turns out to be Boyd forcing Dickie to revealwhere the missing money from Dickie’s mom Mags Bennett has been hidden. It’s a strange twist that, while keeps Dickiein the land of the living (and Jeremy Davies in the land of Justified), seems abit strange when he has the opportunity to get payback for Ava’s shooting. Nevertheless, Dickie being all bluster and no fury,gives up that he doesn’t have the money, but knows who’s holding it.

And that brings us to the last revealof the episode, in the man whose supposedly holding Mags’ money, the drug bossElston Limehouse (another well known actor from Boomtown, Mykelti Williamson), who's anotherheavy in the crime world of Harlan County. His introduction is creepy enough, in an old slaughterhouse, dealingwith a failing subordinate of his by offering to square things with him byeither promising never to betray his trust again, or get his hand burned bylye. As Limehouse quietly lays out theoptions and consequences of what he’s offering, you see an interesting bad guybeing added to the show who shares many of the down-home punishment that Magsdished out last season, but also seems a real imposing threat towards Boydshould they eventually meet. Whether allthese different adversaries is a thing of quantity over quality seems unlikelyseeing how the show has juggled its villains so far, but its still a bit earlyto tell if its one or the other. Eitherway, there is some great set up in this episode for some more blood to bespilled in Harlan.

--Here we go: despite the rumors(and the fact that using Karen Sisco in this show brings up a rights problem) Goodallis NOT Karen Sisco, even though both are played by Gugino, and both are badasswomen. That’s enough for me.

--Did Tyler Durden steal that initiation tactic fromLimehouse?

--Poe’s played by Frank JohnHughes, another noticeable character actor from shows like Brotherhood and 24, among many others.

--A piece of information that youmay have missed during this packed episode: the Marshals are aware Arnett hasnot so much disappeared as he was killed in his office. Chalk up that to an almost convincingclean-up.

--Not much Winona, and even less of Ava in this episode.

--“And if you still don’t (tell me), then I’m gonna getmean.”

--“Well, Raylan, I’m a man whose sleeping with his brother’swidow and murderess, so I can only offer so much advice.”

--“We used to have a saying, ‘You have the right to remainsilent, as long as you can stand the pain.’”

--“Now can I assume from your face that you’re choosing doornumber two?”

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Justified Season 3 Review / Episode 1: “The Gunfighter”

2012-01-25T19:20:00.000-08:00

When you think about it, its beena shitty couple months for Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant)leading up to season 3 of Justified. Hegets shipped out of Miami back to his home state of Kentucky as punishment forgunning down a triggerman, has to contend with his old friend Boyd Crowder(Walton Goggins), his ex-wife Winona (Natalie Zea), and numerous illicit familyties. And where does that all endup? Well, a confrontation with Boyd’sfather Bo (who ends up dead), another with a crime boss from Miami (that is atleast a stalemate), Winona shacking up with him and getting pregnant (not tomention getting in trouble with his boss Art for protecting her in an illegalact), not to mention a feud between his family and the criminal Bennett clanthat ended with many Bennetts dead and one of the few family members Raylanactually respected dead. And ALL of thatcomes before him being shot accidentally in the gut.

And the recovery from thatshooting is where we come back to the world of Justified’s Harlan County, whereits been three weeks since, and Raylan’s still not quite himself. He can’t shoot like he used to, he’s spendinghis time at the marshal’s office doing office work, and he spends his timedebating moving out of his hotel room into a house for him and Winona’ssoon-to-be family. And considering howtumultuous the last two seasons have been, I’m sure there’s a part of him thatenjoys the fact he’s not having to be involved in shootouts. Of course, that respite gets crushed by theevents that occur through this episode.

The main thrust of the episode isDixie Mafia man Emmitt Arnett’s plan to get out of a land deal gone bad bypaying his bosses off, namely by having his henchman Flecther Nix robbing andkilling clients on the low. This leavesArnett with two problems, among them his partner Wynn Duffy (another supportingplayer in the Justified universe) and the representative of his bosses, aDetroit fixer named Robert Quarles (whose name isn’t even uttered in theepisode, but is in the press notes, so its mentioned here if just to be lessconfusing), played by Neal McDonough. Wynn isn’t happy Nix is in play like this (also because he’s a federalfugitive, which would get the Marshals attention, and also because, well, Nixis a grade-a sociopath), and Quarles seems to want Arnett to pay up, althoughwe discover that’s not the real reason for being in Harlan. If Mags Bennett and her kin were the bigantagonists of last season, this season seems to be about a multitude ofadversaries grasping for power in the vacuum of the Bennetts’ downfall.

Among the other adversaries inplay, there’s Boyd Crowder, whose building up a criminal empire from theBennetts’ remnants. That appears to takea slight detour when talking to Raylan early on about getting Dickie Bennett (JeremyDavies) out of custody to deal with him (Dickie did injure his current sleepingbuddy Ava), and Raylan flat out says no (“You want me to hand a man over tokill him like a pig I borrowed from you?”). This scuffle ends with Boyd and Raylan fighting in the Marshal’s office,and Boyd getting shipped off to prison, which we discover is part of his plan,because among his cellmates is Dickie. Where this will go is anyone’s guess, but revenge for Ava doesn’t seemlike the big reason for this self-incarceration yet.

While Boyd is in prison, Ava(still recovering from her injuries) is his voice outside, and considering shehas to corral Raylan’s crotchety father Arlo and ill-tempered right man Devil,that’s a lot of work. The stripping ofthe Bennetts’ weed factories have gone bad, and probably with no help of Devilfeeling like he was the swinging dick of the Crowder organization, and not Ava,who has been told by Boyd to destroy the remaining weed since the failed sale. Ava is a matriarchal person in a patriarchalcriminal society, although after Ava knocks Devil out with a frying pan to theface for disobeying her (and by proxy, Boyd’s order), that balance of powerseems to be shifting in an interesting place for her this season.

The Arnett storyline takes asurprising turn when due to Quarles’ manipulation, the Marshals learn about ameeting with Arnett and Nix, which turns out to be a wild goose chase. Of course, this is all to put Arnett out ofplay (and subsequently killed by Quarles), get Quarles set up in Harlan as abig player in this season’s events, and sends Nix out to deal with Raylan. Of course, following the theme of Raylanbeing off his groove, did not see the file fellow marshal Tim (Jacob Pitts)about Nix, which is probably why he didn’t notice Nix in an elevator rideearlier in the episode, but is aware of him when Nix shows up in Raylan’sroom. The main catch of Nix is to play agame to reach for a gun in the middle of a table to eve the odds, even thoughNix fixes those odds in his favor (his nickname is “Icepick” for a reason). The first time we see it in the robbery, it’sa pretty shocking scene, but going into the scene, there’s still the tension ofan off Raylan facing a man like this, while Winona is forced to watch. How Raylan escapes getting killed by Nix israther simple, yet surprisingly slick since it doesn’t require him being fastenough to pick up a gun. I almost thinkthe episode should have been entitled “How Raylan Got His Groove Back”.

If anything about this seasonopener seems off, its that there’s a lot of elements at play that aren’tclashing with each other yet, unlike the last season’s opening salvo. It’s like a game of connect the dots butthere’s no clear path how one will affect the other. You have Raylan in a period of transition,Boyd building up control of crime in Harlan, and forces outside looking to takecontrol, and really, “The Gunfighter” is a lot of setup within the Arnett plotof the episode. But it’s a promisingsetup, and considering all of the things in play (and by next week’s teaser,yet to be revealed players), it’s a good start for a season of Justified.

--Nix is played by Quinn (DesmondHarrington) from Dexter, and is one creepy dude here. He even kills the pizza delivery guy. Rough.

--A good amount of Boomtown (oneof EP Graham Yost’s previous shows, and worth tracking down on DVD, IMHO)regulars are popping up this season, like McDonough and (slight spoiler)Mykelti WIlliamson as another player in the criminal world of Kentucky. Justified has been a great home for some greatcharacter actors over the last two seasons, and this season looks no different.

--Considering the tension betweenArt and Raylan late last season, its kind of nice to see both men are stillable to talk comfortably with each other.

--I will suggest the name “FelixGivens” isn’t the best name choice for Raylan and Winona’s child.

--The nitwitted Dewey Crowe isalso in the prison with Dickie and Boyd. This can’t be good.

--RIP Arnett. He popped up enough in the show to make hisdeath seem worth mentioning.

--“I assume you know why I’m notgonna pay for that pizza.”

--“Boyd, I’ve been to Mexico, andI don’t think you’d like it.”

--“Of course I had to dothat. Otherwise I wouldn’t have doneit.”

--“Do you know who I am now?”

--“Sorry about your tablecloth.”

--“Nice hat.”

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Breaking Bad Revisited / Season 1, Episode 3: “And The Bag’s In The River”

2012-01-22T15:50:00.000-08:00

Something tells me when WalterWhite started this insane scheme to cook meth to get enough to support hisfamily after he died from the cancer that was ravaging him, the one thing hedidn’t think would happen was he would have to kill someone. He already did that in the pilot with themustard gassing of Emilio, although that he could likely pass off asself-defense. Emilio’s cousin, Crazy-8did survive the gassing though, and now is hooked to a pole by a bike lockacross his neck, with Walt being the chosen one to put him out of hismisery. Walt has been dodging this sincethe previous episode (and Jesse’s shitty handling of Emilio’s “chemicaldisincorporation”/ ending up as sludge on the floor of Jesse’s house did get aslight respite from that job), and that’s where the majority of “And The Bag’sIn The River” leaves us with.

After mopping up and flushingEmilio’s remains (a gnarly job if there ever was one), Jesse decides to smokesome crystal to take the edge off (after all, his place now has a hole burnedthrough it). Walt continues to tend to Crazy-8 by cleaning his piss bucket, whoflat out says he knows who Walt is, thanks inadvertently to Jesse wanting tokeep breathing during the events of the pilot. Walt confronts Jesse, which leads to Jesse leaving the house, saying hewon’t come back until Walt does what he’s been putting off: getting rid of theman in the basement. It is Walter’smess, and he has to clean it up, but that means physically killing Crazy-8, and that’s not something Walt wants todo.

Like I said, the majority of thisepisode is Walt finding ways to avoid what he knows he’ll have to do. And the longer he waits, the longer it seemsto be eating away at his life. Skyleradmits over the phone she discovered he left the car wash job weeks ago, andplus her encounter with Jesse and Walt’s odd behavior last episode, don’t makethe White home a good place to be heading home to right now. And that long night is where we spend therest of the episode, alone in a house with a chained up drug dealer who Waltneeds to deal with.

In the meanwhile, Skyler is stillrattled by Walt’s odd behavior of late, so much so she tries to talk to Marie(although she fails to hide that she’s talking about Walt) about herconcerns. But, Marie reads this as notabout Walt, but about Walt, Jr. falling into the wrong crowd. This leads to Hank taking Junior on a “scaredstraight” drive (and talking to a meth addict hooker who afterwards, goes up tothe hotel room Jesse is laying low in!), which is awkward to say the least. Marie is not an innocent herself when itcomes to doing bad things, especially when she slyly steals a pair of fancy shoes(and way too easily for it to be just the first time she’s done it), but evenshe doesn’t have to do what Walt is having to face doing.

Walt is a rational man, butunfortunately to a fault, and even his reasoning isn’t working in his favorhere. He puts together a “do or don’tkill him” list, which comes down in the “do” part as “killing is wrong”, it’sagainst my religious upbringing”, and a multitude of excuses that gets lesscohesive as it goes. The “don’t” part isone point and pretty clear: “if you don’t, he will kill you and your family”. And its that need to be convinced not to killhim that leads to the centerpiece of the episode: an entire act where Walttries to bond with Crazy-8.

After collapsing briefly in frontof Crazy-8 while giving him a sandwich, Walter later returns to talk to him,and through this conversation, learn a lot about Crazy-8, among other things,that Crazy-8 obviously isn’t his real name. It’s Domingo, and he’s the son of a family owned local superstorebusiness, who in the need to prove himself, went into the drug trade with hiscousin Emilio. Both men seem to bond,but as Domingo admits he can’t guarantee Walt will suffer his wrath if he’s letgo. It’s a reveal that shows despiteboth men’s reveals about themselves, it doesn’t change what will probably endup happening.

When I mentioned Walt’s reasoning,that part of him leads to his discovery of a missing piece of plate from hiscollapse earlier, almost to his anger. He needed to be convinced he should let Domingo go, and now he has proofthat it will end with Walt dead. Thisall culminates with Walt having to choke Domingo to death with the pole andbike lock, and revealing that Domingo was planning to kill Walt with the brokenplate piece (even stabbing Walt in the leg with it during the struggle). It’s a brutal and messy scene as could be expectedfor such a thing, and surprising moreso for not letting Walt off the hook forwhat he has to do. Its pretty early inthe series’ run, and to let its main character be involved in such an act thatearly showed some serious stones for not wimping out at the last minute.

The next day when Jesse returnsto his house, he discovers the RV cleaned thoroughly, the basement empty saveone bike lock, and Walt and Crazy-8/Domingo gone. That the episode (let alone the series tothis point) has never explained what happened after Crazy-8’s death is a creepyfootnote for the series going forward. Did Walt dissolve Crazy-8 too and spend all night cleaning up? I keep thinking of that really good Sopranosepisode where Tony and Christopher spend half of it disposing of one person,and realize how opposite this resolution of this episode of Breaking Bad is,but still as effective. We know Walt didsomething in the time between the murder and when we see him parked on that highwayoverpass, but it seems unimportant as the result: Walt is shaken by it. So much so that Walt returns home and says heneeds to tell Skyler something important. Of course, we fans know what that is, but that uncertainty of thatclimax is enough to propel us out of the Crazy-8/Emilio encounter and into uncertainterritory going into the rest of the season.

And now, some notes for newbies:

--Besides this and the last twoepisodes being written by series creator Vince Gilligan, the last two episodesare directed by Adam Bernstein, a regular director for the show and a veterandirector on many TV shows.

--The titles of the last two eps combinedare a quote from the classic Sweet Smell of Success, all about anothercutthroat industry: the media. AlthoughI doubt Burt Lancaster has ever dissolved bodies before, even with his acidtongue.

--Wonderful clean-up / slash Walt flashback to open theepisode.

--Strange that Jesse rememberssomething as specific as Walt once teaching about carbon dioxide by makinggrape soda in one of his classes.

--Quite comical and pathetic howboth Walt and Jesse fight over a bag of meth that isn’t even a part of theactual argument.

--“There’s got to be more to a human being than that.”

--“My arches happen to be extremely arch-y.”

--“Coin flip is sacred.”

--“Shit, I left my root beer.”

--“You people used to beconquistadors, for Christ’s sake.”

--“There’s something I have totell you.”

--“He’ll kill your entire familyif you let him go”. Yes, Domingoprobably would.

--Oh yeah, apparently Hank had asnitch in Crazy-8’s organization. Well,better he explain that next episode…

Now for some spoilery-series widenotes for you vets:

--First discovery of Marie’s,ahem, problem.

--Wendy the meth hooker appearsfor the first time. Great, now I gotthat song from that montage in season 3 stuck in my head.

--First appearance of Gretchen,albeit at this point, we don’t know from the flashback who she is, but do knowboth her and Walt know each other very well.

--Clean RV. Might be the only time on this show that happens.

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 stars

Breaking Bad Revisited / Season 1, Episode 2: “The Cat’s In The Bag”

2012-01-15T16:45:00.000-08:00

The thing about doing theseRevisited posts is there’s a bizarre sense of melancholia in them. Things were simpler back then; Walt, Jesse,and pretty much everyone in their radar wasn’t injured by the mayhem causedover four seasons; and for the most part, Walt wasn’t a calculated killer. Of course the problem with the melancholia isnot that my thoughts are, “You remember when things were simpler?” but morealong the lines of, “You remember when Walt and Jesse had to dissolve a bodyand keep someone else locked up with a bike chain?” Simpler times.

After this episode’s briefopening to remind us, yes Walt had dirty sex with his wife at the end of thepilot, we cut back half a day earlier when he was in a RV with two, excuse me,one dead body and one person who didn’t quite die. After a brief pow-wow (and prevention of saidnot quite dead Krazy-8’s escape from the RV) the next day, the two of themfigure out that Krazy-8 needs to be killed, while his cousin Emilio has to beput through “chemical disincorporation”, i.e., dissolved in acid. Jesse gets saddled with the “chemicaldisincorporation” part of the plan, while Walt has to kill Krazy-8. As the episode keeps going, both reach severeobstacles to those goals.

Walt has killed another manbefore, let alone someone he failed in mustard gassing, and is now strapped toa bike chain and a pole in Jesse’s basement. A lot of his time in this episode is trying to figure his way out ofkilling Krazy-8, even positing reasoning with him as a business man (Jesse:“Hey, if we let you go, you promise not to kill us and our entire families?”).His plan for the time being is to toss the chained up drug dealer some water, asandwich, toilet paper, a bucket, and some hand soap. Its a short-term solution for a long-termproblem, one not made better by the fact he spends the rest of his time tryingto roll and light a joint (a rather funny piece of physical humor initself). He could deal with cooking methin an RV in the New Mexico desert, but murder (somewhat cold-blooded, somewhatself-defensive) is another thing entirely. Like I said earlier on, simpler times.

Jesse’s goal gets messy(literally) due to Walt’s sloppy handling of things with Krazy-8 and everythingelse. Certainly it doesn’t help thatJesse isn’t too hot on melting a man down to gunk, but even more so when heforegoes the plastic bins Walt suggests for the hydrochloric acid, and startsmelting him down in a bathtub. Thisleads to probably one of the nastiest scenes TV has ever put into view, whenWalt discovers Jesse’s blunder too late, only to witness the floor above fallout along with the meaty red remains of Emilio into the hallway. Despite it being as stomach churning as itis, its also a surprisingly hilarious moment, if only because the comedy oferrors that had preceded it was bound to end in a horrible way, but I doubtmany viewers predicted it would be splattered all over Jesse’s floorboard.

And keep in mind, this does noteven include a growingly suspicious Skyler, who was already curious about herhusband’s trip through her back door (to coin a phrase), and after reversedialing a call Walt had with an “AT&T Rep” who was Jesse, confronts himabout the matter (during a sonogram appointment, no less) gets shot down quietlyby a still toked over Walt, who claims he bought pot from Jesse (A funny linefrom Walt later on when asked why he said that: “It seemed better than saying Iwas cooking meth and that I killed a man.”). Things don’t get made any better by her visiting Jesse’s home while inthe middle of moving Emilio’s body out of the RV, and threatening to sick herDEA agent brother in law Hank on him if he sold pot to her husband again. She just misses the fact there’s a wrapped updead body next to her by about ten feet, probably because of her awkwardhandling with Jesse (“I’m Skyler White, yo. My husband is Walter White, yo.”). There’s a lot of big misses of disaster in this episode, but that Skyleris aware of Jesse and Walt meeting up, is one issue that isn’t going awayeasily.

“The Cat’s In the Bag” does ahard thing for second episodes to do, which is not just be a recap of the pilotepisode’s themes and story, but still continue the story naturally. Instead of wrapping the pilot episode’sevents up into a bow and moving on, it’s clear the creative team of the showwants to milk the possibilities of this duo’s handling of what happensafterwards. By the end of the episode,Skyler knows something’s wrong with Walt, Walt still has to deal with Krazy-8,Emilio is now oozed over Jesse’s floor, and that doesn’t include the gas maskthey left behind in the desert, now discovered by kids. And to believe, THIS was all simpler times inthe Breaking Bad universe.

And now, some non-show spoilery notes:

--No Hank and Marie in this episode, and strangely, notmissed in this case.

--Lots of naked Bryan Cranston in this episode, andsurprisingly, less scary than with tightie-whities.

--Love how unconcerned the Native-American bulldozer worker seemsabout the plight of the men and their RV.

--Funny note about Krazy-8: he was supposed to die in thepilot, but was kept alive for this string of episodes, even though surviving amustard gassing seems not that pleasant of a death to escape.

--The Krazy-8 escape slash running into a tree was so darklyfunny.

--Love reading his myspace, ahem, I mean mySHOUT page andhis bio page, like education: J.P. Wynne High School, Devry University systemsmanagement…The STREETS, YO!

--Oh man, melted Emilio is gonna be hard to get out of thefloorboards, let alone fix the hole the floor above them.

--“Oh shit.”

--“Yo, yo, yo, 1, 4,8, 3, to the 3, to the 6, to the 9, representing the ABQ. What up, beeyotch?”

--“Is this going to be on themurder?”

--“The hell is a MILF?”

--“What, you don’t like thecrust?”

-“I don’t suppose you could buytwo bins?”

--“Hey man, we flipped acoin. We flipped a coin!”

--“So right now, what I need isfor you to climb down out of my ass. Canyou do that? Will you do that for me,honey? Will you please, just this once,get off my ass?”

--“Oh, thank you for thisopportunity. I always dreamt of, youknow, melting bodies.”

--“Well, hydrochloric acid won’teat through plastic. It will, however,burn through metal, rock, glass, ceramic. So there’s that.”

And to finish, some spoilers forthe rest of the series:

--Good to see Walt and Jessefinally got the body dissolving thing down after this blunder.

--Sigh, I still miss the RV.

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 stars

Breaking Bad Revisited / Season 1, Episode 1: “Breaking Bad”

2012-01-08T14:01:00.000-08:00

WARNING: Some minorspoilers, albeit vague ones for the series so far. You were warned.

“Best-case scenario, with chemo, I’ll live maybe anothercouple of years. It’s just, you’ve gotmustard on your (coat)…”

When realizing how far thecharacter of Walter White has gone in the four seasons since, that minor bit ofdialogue from Breaking Bad’s incredible pilot episode explains a lot about thecharacter. On one hand, it’s a darklyhumorous moment in an otherwise grim prognosis for the show’s main character,and on the other, explains the way Walter White deflects certain realities fromhis view. As the series would progress,those realities would grow from the handling of a medical diagnosis to murderon a (as of now) massive scale. Buthere, none of the four seasons of mayhem and disaster have occurred yet, but inretrospect, probably was inevitable.

The whole structure of thisopening episode (written and directed by series creator and X-Files veteranVince Gilligan) works its way backwards to explain how school chemistry teacherWalter White ended up in the New Mexico desert, with three unconscious bodiesin a motor home full of drug making gear, and of course, minus his pants. The image of a man clad in white underpantsand a gas mask driving through the desert is bizarre enough, but when you startseeing how he ended up there, you realize how unusual it really is. Walter White starts out this story seeminglike a normal human being: family man, teacher, and an oddly milquetoastlife. Of course, he’s almost asupporting player at his own surprise birthday party, his sex life involveshandjobs while his wife Skyler negotiates eBay bids, and working at a car washon the side, where his students mock him. It’s at his car wash job that he falls ill and gets diagnosed withcancer, but in what would later seem to be a thing Walter White does well, hidethis information from his family. That’swhen Walter utters that quote above, and deals with it like most grown adultswould: get pissed and leave his car wash job, sullenly sit by his pool, and thanksto a ride along with his brother-in-law Hank, finds a perfect partner in formerstudent/“Cap’n Cook” meth maker Jesse Pinkman to help him cook enough meth tosupport his family before he dies. Perfectly normal.

What the episode shows is howseemingly inept Walter White is at the business end of meth making, but howbrilliant he is at chemistry (enough to attempt a mustard gas escape, atleast). He’s also very persistent inwhat his goals are, enough to extort Jesse’s help with his meth making and evencashing out his life savings to get an RV to do the work. He’s obsessive with his craft, stripping downto not ruin his regular clothes while cooking, wanting to make quality productas opposed to Jesse’s idea of putting in chili pepper as a gimmick, but he hasno clue how to handle drug dealers like Krazy-8 and his cousin Emilio. That being said, Jesse is no better with thecousins either, leading them to Walt’s RV meth lab in the desert. Both Walt and Jesse are not the brightestbulbs in a criminal world that seems to be filled with more professional menthan them.

As mild-mannered Walt appears inthe early stages of the pilot (excluding the teaser of him running around thedesert with a gun and no pants), there are enough hints as to how much crap is seepingto the surface. Look at his reaction tothe teenagers mocking Walt Jr. at the clothes shop. While leaving the shop only to return andintimidate the boys seems like the reaction of a man who’s staring at death’sdoor, now in retrospect it’s the signs of Walt’s biggest issue: marginalization. He needs to feel in control of things, needsto protect his family, and needs to feel superior. The cancer didn’t so much create the man wesee in later seasons, but unleashed the demon slumbering within.

With Jesse, his ambitions arelike most men are in their early 20’s: make money, get laid, and gettingwasted. Its almost sad watching Jesseafter four seasons of watching his life going completely to shit to see someonein the pilot who seemed to be better off before meeting Walter White. He’s coerced into to helping Walt with hismeth making scheme, but slowly and surely starts learning how to be better atmaking meth because of Walt. Like manygreat teachers, he’s slowly learning his craft, but doing so with a lot of painattached.

The pilot also introduces Hankand Marie, Walt’s in-laws, although their contribution this early in the seriesis to remind the viewers how close trouble could be, especially when yourbrother inadvertently introduced you to your new business partner. The supporting cast is fleshed out enough inthese early episodes, but like many shows finding their footing, their growthwill take some time. What stands outabout the pilot is how uncertain things are left by the end: there’s a RV withtwo (not quite) dead bodies full of chemical equipment in the desert, Waltcelebrates by having sex with his wife, and we’re not sure how one lead intothe other. But for fans, we all knowthere’s more to what happened in that desert.

Not many pilots set up aninteresting universe like Breaking Bad does, if only because the majority ofpilots deal with setting up boundaries within a recognizable genre, like copshows and science-fiction. Where theBreaking Bad pilot succeeds is in that off kilter feel of what’s happening, andwhat could happen. We’re not in familiarterritory like a big city along the lines of New York or L.A., but in NewMexico, an already foreign place to many viewers. It also helps the visuals for the pilot weredone by ace cinematographer John Toll (Braveheart, The Thin Red Line), whichset the tone for the look of the series quite well.

If anything can be taken fromthis opener is that things don’t go the way we think they will. Walt and Jesse’s plan to work with thecousins goes bad, Walt’s plan to get killed by what he thinks is the copsbackfires, and he still has to deal with the fact that Skyler (let alone anyoneelse in his immediate family) has not clued into his activities yet. By the time the first episode ends, you’renot sure where any of this is going, but do know its not to a good place. How true that thought is.

Some notes for the fans:

--Aw, I miss the RV.

--I’m no expert on meth and methusers, but do users really prefer their crystal flavored with chilipepper?

--Funny watching the versions onAMC compared to the ones available on DVD, with a lot more bleeped outprofanities and less topless women in the former.

--Hey, it’s Walter White, withhair! And with a job! Man, those were the days.

--“I said “fuck you”, and youreyebrows!”

--“’Sage’? Do you work at the fucking Pottery Barn?”

--“At this rate, in 50 or 60years, you’ll be rich.”

--“Do I look like a skater?”

--“’Cow house’?” “Yeah, where the cows live.”

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 stars

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL review

2011-12-23T20:10:00.000-08:00

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOSTPROTOCOL

Starring: Tom Cruise, JeremyRenner, Paula Patton, Simon Pegg

Directed by: Brad Bird

Running time: 132 mins.

Rated PG-13 for violence andbrief language

I’m sure the prospect of anotherMission: Impossible movie was far from many filmgoers minds. The series was one that never trulyconsistent in terms of directors (Brian de Palma to John Woo to J.J. Abrams) andfor a team based movie, always seemed to fall back on its star Tom Cruise to dothe heavy lifting. While worthwhilecriticisms, Mission: Impossible 3 certainly made a good attempt to be as team-orientedas the show it originated from, and even poked fun at its Tom Crusie’s EthanHunt and his propensity to get involved in insane acts of daring-do. A lot of this can be attributed to thecreative team behind it: director J.J Abrams and his camp of talent, who cuttheir teeth with daring TV and ensemble pieces like Alias and Lost.

While Abrams stayed away from thedirector’s chair for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, he remained as a producer,leaving the director’s chair to an unusual choice: Brad Bird. Bird was known more for his animation work onthe early years of The Simpsons, to great animated films like The Iron Giant,The Incredibles, and Ratatouille, but not for live-action big budget action fare. It’s a different muscle to work on ananimated film for several years than with actors on location for severalmonths. But, whatever trepidations aboutsuch a choice turned out to be moot, as this fourth installment in the seriesis easily the best so far.

The movie starts off with a bangwith an IMF operation gone awry, leading to another IMF job to break out EthanHunt from a Russian jail (why he’s there in the first place is a story that getsdoled out slowly throughout the film). While that goes off with a few hitches, he finds out the reason for hisbreakout involves the hunt for a target known only as Cobalt (Michael Nyqvist)and that he may be close to getting his hands on launch codes for Russiannuclear missiles in order to kick start Armageddon. The IMF go on another mission to discover Cobalt’sidentity by breaking into the Kremiln, which goes horribly wrong, leading to aninternational incident and leaving the entire IMF disavowed. Ethan and his team, made up tough girl JaneCarter (Paula Patton), gadget expert Benji (Simon Pegg, one of the onlyholdouts from the last film), and field analyst with a secret Brandt (JeremyRenner), are set up with a cache of materials with one goal: find Cobalt andstop him, while at the same time, avoid being captured by the numerous forceswho want the remaining IMF members stopped.

It’s a pretty simple setup and onsome level, a pretty slim plot, but its handled in such an expert manner youdon’t notice the seams until after the film is over. The film is constantly moving from set piece toanother, leaving little down time or low ebbs in the storytelling. Going from Russia, to a walk outsidethe world’s tallest building, to India for the gripping climax, the film does apretty delicate balancing act of keeping its story moving while also keepingits heroes and their plights interesting to watch. One of the plot elements that was wisely carriedover from the previous installment was the team’s bad luck of having something gowrong, leaving them to improvise a way out. Take the centerpiece action scene at Burj Khalifa tower forexample: what seems like a simple double-bluff during an money exchange for theweapons codes turns into Ethan dangling 130 stories outside the hotel, swingingfrom one end to the other (and a good amount of it is real, a rarity in a CGIworld and gut wrencher for audiences afraid of heights). It’s a sequence that gets incredibly complex,but still easy to follow, culminating in a foot (and eventually car) chasethrough a peasoup thick sandstorm.

If anything, Bird has brought tothis movie is a great sense of visual humor and storytelling that explains morethan the dialogue heavy scenes do. Theopening break out at the Russian prison gets laughs because of the interplaybetween Benji and the escaping Ethan, which is done without either person ableto speak to one another. Little sightgags, like a paper replicator and a malfunctioning gadget that reappears later,add a lot of humor to some tension riddled scenes. Even the gadgets are never completelyexplained, but enough is shown of them that you can piece together what they doand what happens when they don’t work. There’sa visual coherence to the action that is paramount to the film’s success, especiallyin the film’s climax, involving stopping a nuclear missile, a fight in atelecom station, and a brutal showdown in a multi-level car park. Its hard not to get sucked in to the stakesraised and paid off in these big sequences.

The only negatives that can beargued in this movie is that the villain Cobalt is pretty paper-thin as aworthwhile opponent. Its not so much theactor as it is the role written, a character whose motivations are prettyludicrous and so base that they are barely clear, making Cobalt probably theweakest villain the series has ever had. Even Brandt’s big secret about his past is kind of underwhelming, evenmore so when you see how it plays into Ethan’s backstory in the film. Plus, for a movie about agents who are forcedto go underground and under the radar, they seem to get around pretty easilyfrom location to location. Its hard tofault the performers for any flaws in the story, with every one bringing theira-game to this movie, and even with the brief appearances of Josh Holloway(Lost) as a IMF agent, Tom Wilkinson as Ethan’s boss, and some cameos fromcharacters from the previous films which I will not spoil, its more the scriptthat falls short than they do.

Despite those minor complaints,Ghost Protocol is a pretty taut action movie, with some great setpieces andsome pretty funny moments. The oddchoice of Brad Bird as director paid off in one of the best action movies ofthis year, and a welcome jolt to a winter that seemed to be lacking in enjoyablemovies. Where the series could go (or ifit will go further, with or without Cruise) is anyone’s guess, but the idea of another movie with theIMF has never seemed to be this welcome in a very long time.

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 stars

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (2011) review

2011-12-22T00:23:00.000-08:00

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO(2011)

Starring: Daniel Craig, RooneyMara, Christopher Plummer

Directed by: David Fincher

Running time: 158 mins.

Rated R for graphic violence,language, nudity, sexual content, and rape

Like the unusual visage of antisocialcomputer expert/punkette Lisbeth Salander, this English adaptation of the SteigLarsson novel is slinky and scary at the same time. An unlikely successful novel here in the U.S.,this marks the second time the story has been adapted for the screen (thenative Swedish version was one of my 10 best movies last year), and whenannounced for a big budget Hollywood version, obvious skepticism lit uponline. Even with the talent of DavidFincher at the helm and Steven Zaillian writing the script, the criticalthought was this a remake of an already good film for people who hate readingsubtitles. However, the movie does manageto be a good remake that has enough going for it to be an interesting retreadof territory already run through.

The story itself is really about twocharacters: journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) and Lisbeth (RooneyMara), both who are brought together by the case of a murder occurring on theisland of the wealthy Vanger family nearly 40 years ago. The Vanger patriarch, Henrik (ChristopherPlummer), has been tortured with the mystery of what happened to his nieceHarriet for decades, and suspects one of his own kin is responsible. Into this comes Mikael, who is hired by Henrikto write his biography; unofficially, he’s to find the guilty party behindHarriet’s vanishing. The family itselfis not the most stable group, even with the majority of them living on the sameisland, and plus the Nazi connections of several of them doesn’t exactly helpnarrow the list down.

Into this comes Lisbeth, whoalready knows Mikael very well, writing the background check on him for Henrik,based on her own (sometimes illegal) investigative methods. Both Mikael and Lisbeth have their owncheckered pasts: Mikael, who is ducking a libel suit from a shady businesstycoon; and Lisbeth, whose past is relatively unknown (unless of course, you’veread the books), but is a ward of the state, staying under the radar andavoiding the growing creepy advances of her new state custodian. The first third of the film is parallelstorytelling of both of them off on their own respective quests before actuallyphysically meeting each other. WhenMikael brings Lisbeth on to help his investigation, its revealed Harriet’s fateis tied to a horrifying string of murders from the period, and things get diceyas both of them start a bizarre relationship and find themselves under threatfrom the unknown killer.

The story (and the movie itself)is very much a pulpy piece of entertainment, with some pretty grim and nastystuff that is pretty hard to shake. Withoutspoiling too much, Lisbeth’s trouble with the custodian takes an icky turn thatis sure to unsettle audiences going in blind to this material, but as bad asthat is, Lisbeth’s handling afterwards is just as intense, if not perversely rewardingin its comeuppance. Lisbeth is a characterwho is very intelligent and emotionally challenged, but when threatened, islethal in her handling of her opposition. A lot of credit here goes to Mara, who plays the tattooed, pierced, almostalien looking Lisbeth as a soul who can’t open up easily to anyone, and withMikael, you start to see little embers of happiness come from this damagedwoman. It’s a tough role to play (andthen there’s the role done by Noomi Rapace for the Swedish version, which ispretty amazing in itself), but here, the performance by Mara is differentenough than you’re not spending your time comparing and contrasting both versionsof Lisbeth. They are differentinterpretations, and they both work in their own way.

Craig’s Mikael is not asarresting as Lisbeth is, but that’s only because his role is meant to be asflashy and memorable. He still has afamily, a career (albeit tarnished as it is), friends, the married associate heoccasionally sleeps with (played by Robin Wright, one of the many recognizablepeople populating this film), and only when the killer starts to threaten hislife do you really feel he’s in serious danger. If any complaint can be made about Craig’s performance, is that hisaccent tends to not be consistent (for a movie set in Sweden, with non-Swedishactors as leads, its surprising to see at least the attempt is made to staywith Swedish accents, and even the region’s typography). It’s a slight complaint, especially from a consistentlysolid group of performances, such as the leads, and other unmentioned actorslike Stellan Skarsgard as Henrik’s step-nephew, Yorick van Wageningen as Lisbeth’screepy custodian Bjurman, and Joely Richardson as an estranged family member,among many others.

Its funny that for such a visualdirector like Fincher that he dials back the style back dramatically (save forthe title sequence, which plays like a James Bond title sequence whose parentsare H.R. Giger and a leather fetishist), and focuses on telling a concisenarrative that has a lot of ground to cover in its two and a half hour runningtime. The long stretches of Mikael assemblingclues into a clearer picture of Harriet and what she did the day she vanishedis as propulsive as anything more stylized in Fincher’s oeuvre. In fact, one of the few mistakes the moviemakes is that the story wasn’t streamlined by screenwriter Zaillian. A common mistake that both versions of thisstory seem to share is a climax that lasts quite a while cleaning up plotpoints after the final confrontation, like the final fate of Harriet and theresolution of Mikael’s troublesd. On theother hand, this version has a more substantial climax, an emotionalcliffhanger that is meant to lead into future installments (a possibility ifthis film is successful).

From a technical level, thismovie is slightly more impressive than the film its remaking. Made with many Fincher crew veterans (likesound editor Ren Klyce and cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth, for instance), theatmosphere of the snowbound Vanger island and the cityscapes where Lisbethdwells are well drawn. Even the placewhere Mikael meets up with the true evil of this story is so well designed andeerie, despite barring an odd resemblance to something out of a Saw movie,although I doubt Jigsaw would ever considered using Enya as a soundtrack tomurder. Speaking of music, the scorefrom Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is propulsive enough without being too showy( an issue I had only once in their previous award-winning collaboration withFincher, The Social Network), and shows the duo’s collaboration is one to lookforward with whatever movie they end up scoring next.

The film reminds me of the weirdcompare/contrast that happened with Let the Right One In and Let Me In,especially in the case of a likely unnecessary remake of a already good foreignfilm. Is this version of Dragon Tattooreally necessary? Probably not. But, its good enough to at least be equal toit as opposed to paling in the original’s wake. Its too early to say if the other books in this series will be adaptedas well, but with the dark subject matter of this movie (ritualistic murders,rape, and mutilation are subjects that clearly are not the most audienceinviting out there), the fine performances and solid direction, a return visitto this world would be a welcome treat, even with the cuts and bruises alongthe way.

Rating: 3 ½ stars

The Walking Dead Season 2 review / Episode 7: “Pretty Much Dead Already”

2011-11-27T22:20:00.001-08:00

WARNING: It goes without saying, but there are spoilers here.

Hope has been a hard thing to holdon to for the main characters of The Walking Dead. For every step forward, they seem to beheading two steps back. They go to theCDC, and learn how little chances they have in their world going back to way itwas. They make their way to FortBenning, and end up getting split up thanks to a zombie herd. But one hope arose when they discoverHerschel’s farm, seemingly isolated from the madness, and yet, that hope hassoured with the discovery of dead locked inside Herschel’s barn.

So it comes with no surprise thatwhen Glenn drops the bombshell about the barn to everyone in the group, thatreaction is shock and varying degrees of concern. The biggest concern comes from Shane, a guywho has been waiting for a light to the fuse of his jumbled mindset, and getsit when he immediately suggests killing the barn zombies, against Herschel’swishes. Rick knows how big of a problemthat would be with his negotiations with Herschel to stay, and steers him awayfrom that, albeit temporarily. Shane hasbeen on a bad path for awhile, and with Otis to die and later, Lori’sconversation with him about her pregnancy, he is teetering far into dangerousterritory.

Dale spots this in Shane, andstarts trying to lean Andrea away from his influence. But, seeing as how his behavior towards hersince the CDC has been annoying to her at best, she takes his advice with agrain of salt. Even with his attempt tohide the guns and Shane’s eventual confrontation with him on said guns, hefails at that, unable to do what might be the best thing, which is to killhim. He’s flat out accused of being toosoft (Shane does a lot of calling people “soft” and “weak” in this episode),and when forced to kill Shane, he flinches and doesn’t. That Shane doesn’t kill Dale is surprisingenough, but their relationship isn’t going to recover from something like thatanytime soon.

Rick is at least trying tomaintain a semblance of order by trying to reason with Herschel about leaving,but Herschel’s hope is that these zombies locked in his barn can be made wholeagain, and its clearly confusing his needs with what he should do. Maggie calls her father on this when heclaims there are other farms they can go to, by just saying, “Those farms areburned out, and swarming with walkers.” She has ventured out and seen the cold reality of things, a reality Herschelrefuses to accept. But he at least triesto accept things by leading Rick on a trip to find and bring zombies to hisbarn. Herschel cannot accept killingzombies, while Rick has had to do so without any chance to reflect. Both men are broken, but try to make a freshstart, which ends up going down the toilet as Shane (now heavily armed) seesRick and Herschel reappearing with the imprisoned zombies.

Shane shoots one of the zombiesin front of Herschel to just to prove his point about them being a threat,which leads to him letting the barn zombies loose to be cut down by him,Andrea, T-Dog, Daryl, and (reluctantly at first) Glenn. It’s a pretty nasty and well-edited scene,one that feels more like a massacre than a simple putting these dead out oftheir misery. The grim punchline of allof this is after it seems all of the barn zombies are dead, the long-missing Sophiawalks out, now one of the undead. Evenafter Shane’s blustering, even he can’t do what Rick ultimately does, which isto put zombie Sophia down.

So, we now reach the halfwaypoint in the season and find Rick’s (and by extension Daryl’s) quest to findSophia has ended with a cold end, one that her mother Carol has witnessed inall its horrible glory. Herschel is neartraumatized, everyone is rattled, and we leave he show until February on thatbleak note, a note that really hadn’t that much impact since the first season. It seems the group really is starting tosplinter dramatically, and whether or not it will be at Herschel’s farm anymoreis anyone’s guess. Hope is hard to holdon to, and now, the group has taken another two big steps back.

--Some nice interplay betweenGlenn and Maggie here, in which that relationship at least seems to be workingout well as we leave this episode. Hey,he asks her if he can join in the zombie slaughter before doing it.

--Daryl and Carol seem to be theother relationship that is working well. They are both victims of abuse, and seem to understand each otherwell. Let’s see how that goes now thatthe one person who brought them closer is dead.

--Wow, Glenn. You didn’teven ease them into that reveal about the barn. “Hey everybody, I just want to say how much I’ve enjoyed my time withyou guys, and I hope you have the same feeling about me. Oh, and there’s walkers locked in the barn.”

--Well, that news about Lori’s pregnancyclearly didn’t go well, with Shane pretty much claiming the kid as his(although, he may be right), and being rejected. And with Shane connecting more with Carl, thiscannot end well.

--So I’m sure the question thatwill plague some of you during this holiday break is: how exactly did Sophiaend up in the barn? I have a bad feelingHerschel may have some of the answers.

--I wonder if Herschel really bothered to learn the name of "that Asian boy", or as his way of detachment, just refused to?

--“I was being dropped into thatwell like I was in Portal. Portal’s avideo game.”

--“Hey, zombie bait!”

--“Dale, you got a hat I canborrow?”

--“This world, the way it is now,this is where you belong.”

--Well, that’s the end of my WalkingDead reviews until February. Thanks for visiting,and I hope you’ve enjoyed (relatively) the ride so far. Until that time, destroy the brain and theywill die. That’s how it works in themovies. And they don't lie.

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 stars

The Walking Dead Season 2 review / Episode 6: “Secrets”

2011-11-20T21:09:00.001-08:00

A secret is only as good as theperson who’s keeping it. And keeping itwell doesn’t mean that it starts to rub off on you. Take Glenn in “Secrets” for instance: notonly is he not telling anyone about Lori’s pregnancy, he now has to hide thatthe group’s host has zombies locked in his barn. Of course, he admits he’s not good at lies,and literally drops both of those secrets in Dale’s lap without mucheffort. A lot of lies have been toldthis season, and a good amount of them are bubbling to the surface.

Glenn has been an errand boy formost of his life (he did deliver pizzas before everything went to shit, youknow), and probably a bit too earnest for his own good. So he spends most of the episode dealing withall these things he can’t tell anyone, and then when they start comingout. Maggie’s pissed off because he toldDale about the barn, and a bit more so when discovering Lori has asked him toget morning after pills. Despite most ofher blow up with Lori and Glenn being fueled by a zombie attack at the pharmacy,she wisely points out that he doesn’t have to be just “zombie bait” wheneverthe group needs something. It’s not thathe’s a heel, but it’s that he cares about them, and for Maggie, it’s the fearof losing someone she’s becoming attached to.

Dale takes the information aboutthe barn and confronts Herschel about it, only to be warned not by a threat,but by Herschel revealing who they are: the dead family and friends heobliquely mentioned in previous episodes. He wants to treat them like their patients who have suffered a plague,waiting for a cure to bring them all back. It’s a sentimental thought, albeit slightly delusional to believe that,as Dale suggests. All these charactershave been dealing with a grim reality, and Herschel’s way has been to seal offthat reality by treating the dead as patients who can get well.

In the case of Carl, that realityis being a kid having to grow up in such a life. It’s one thing for Rick and Lori to questionthat existence while their son hanged on death’s door earlier this season, butanother to see how a child deals with it. In Carl’s case, it’s to learn how to use a gun to protect the peoplearound him. It’s a thought that concernsLori to no end (and considering what she’s not telling anyone probably isn’tadding to a clear focus) and Rick grudgingly agrees to let Shane teach Carl.

Andrea has been in a bad placesince her sister Amy died, and finally starts to become someone who can dealwith the insanity around her. She’sspent the season being disconcerted with Dale over preventing her suicideattempt, trying to be more than just a housewife like Lori is humorouslyaccused of being at one point by Carl. Of course, she’s hit her share of bumps along the way (besidesaccidentally grazing Daryl), and even gets irritated as Shane presses her to bebetter during a session of target practice when he drops Amy’s name into thelesson. When the two head into a zombieinfested suburb to find Sophia and have to fight off walkers to get to theirride home, she seems to have crossed the line between wanting to protect andjust doing it. And that display evenends with her sleeping with Shane in the car, a development that is a newwrinkle never seen in the books, and will be interesting to see where that endsup.

Shane has been holding a bigsecret over his head (mainly Otis’ demise), and seems to have buried it, evenwith Dale pointing out his suspicions to Shane directly (and Dale’s probablynot just doing that because Shane and Andrea clearly hooked up). Both Dale and Andrea point out in the episodethat for a man who was itching to go at the beginning of the season, he has settledin to protecting these people. Ofcourse, his need to protect others is starting to get blurrier, especially whenShane offhandedly threatens Dale (“If you think I could hurt the people I love,imagine what I’ll do to someone I don’t even like.”). How will that go when and if Shane learnsabout Lori’s pregnancy?

This all brings up the climaxwhere Rick discovers what Lori has been hiding, and we discover what he knows:that she and Shane were together while he was believed to be dead. She stops her own attempt to end herpregnancy, because unlike everyone else, she has to now contend with bringing achild into the world, and can’t go through with ending that child’s chance atlife. We don’t get a cliffhanger toleave the episode on, but instead see a married couple whose life together hasbeen wrecked by circumstance and the things they haven’t told each other, nowleft with those lies and truths laid out on the table. It’s a uncertain place to leave them on, anddoes makes things harder, seeing as Herschel is starting to be less accommodatingto these people.

But there’s still some big liesstill hanging over everyone before the mid-season ender, like the fact onlyGlenn and Dale are the only people in the group know about the barn, that Shaneleft Otis to die, that Rick hasn’t told Shane about what he knows about hisfriend and his wife hooking up, and that Rick and Herschel’s agreement may befor naught, leaving to the group being kicked out back into the world beyondthe isolation and quiet of the farm. Notall of them are likely to be answered next episode, but it will be interesting tosee what will happen when they do.

--A piece of news overdue tobring up: the show’s coming back for a third season. Its news I’m reservedly optimistic about. The reason is because things have been movinga natch too slow, but not enough to make it boring. I almost think they should try to take a cuefrom Battlestar Galactica and have the occasional one-off tales that are stilllinked into the narrative of the show. But speaking as someone who hasn’t seen the remainder of this season, I couldbe just suggesting something the writers have been planning, but whoknows. It’s all speculation.

--“What Happened to Sophia?”Theory This Week: they’re harvesting her eggs. Who is? Them! Why? Um, I don’t know. But they are…forsome reason…

--An opening this week that isn’ta flashback or flash-forward, but a quick glimpse as to how the zombies in thebarn are being kept alive: basically one of Herschel’s own breaking the legs ofchickens and throwing them into the barn to be eaten.

--Some creepy FX, with the “laststand” house and its hills of dead zombies, and dead rotting people.

--And what about the lop-headed zombiein the pharmacy? Yikes.

--Funny to see Lori being notripping into Glenn about revealing her pregnancy to Dale. See fans, she’s not bitchy all the time.

--You may have noticed I haven’tmentioned Daryl this episode, because he’s still on bed rest after grazed inthe head and stabbed in the gut.

--Speaking of Daryl, he’s more ofa man than me during that awkward “sorry I shot you because I wanted to prove Iwas a big girl” apology from Andrea. Atleast he jokingly threatens to let her know to finish him off if she does itagain. At least I think it’s jokingly.

--Thank you, T-Dog. Tell that guy to use the sights on thegun. Forget that “gangsta shit”.

--“You’re old. You know things.”

--“Are you trying to buy me offwith fruit?” “No. There’s jerky too.”

--“Everything is food for something else.” Well said, Carl.

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 stars

The Walking Dead Season 2 review / Episode 5: “Chupacabra”

2011-11-13T23:14:00.001-08:00

I always knew going into seasontwo of The Walking Dead that a lot of things were going to be worked on thatdidn’t gel in season one, among them Daryl and his crazy older brotherMerle. Daryl was always one of the moreinteresting characters in the show (and oddly, a character who is not in thecomics), and since season one, has been one of the harder to put down in termsof character. His reasons for hangingaround this group that left Merle (trainwreck of a human being that he is)behind on the top of a building in a zombie infested city have been hazy atbest, but in “Chupacabra”, finally start to be explored in this Daryl-centricepisode. You even get the return of Merle,albeit in a hallucinatory fashion.

After an interesting flashback tothe days during the mass exodus from Atlanta with Shane, Lori, Carl, Carol,Sophia, and Carol’s abusive asshole husband, we get set up for another daysearching for the STILL missing Sophia. I keep reminding myself in this season, it’s been about four days sinceSophia vanished, and by now, the prospects of her even being alive inunlikely. Shane spells it out to Rick as“simple math” that she’s probably dead. Rick has been feeling guilty about a lot of things, even Sophia’sdisappearance, but is still human enough to try to find her, dead oralive. Shane’s growing detachment fromeveryone isn’t helping things either, only making things even more frayedbetween his best friend Rick and Lori, who calls him on using his “simple math ofsurvival” as an excuse.

On the matter of excuses, the main players ofthis episode are making a lot of them, like Daryl. After taking a nasty fall and getting impaledby one of his arrow, he spends the majority of “Chupacabra” just trying tosurvive, whether it is climbing up a hill, fighting off two zombies, or hallucinatingMerle. Everything but the latter turnsout to be easy in comparison, with “head-Merle” (yeah, I’m co-opting aBattlestar Galactica reference here) proving to be the little devil gnawing onhis back, forcing him to deal with his own guilt of leaving Merle behind. The relationship between both of them wasnever a pretty one in its earliest iteration, and even more complex and creepyhere. Michael Rooker dials down thelunatic state we first met him in, and gives us a clue as to how likely calmand sinister he probably is when lucid.

Speaking of a bad turn goingworse, Daryl manages to survive (albeit after taking advice from head-Merleabout tending his wound) only to end up being grazed in the head accidentallyby a rifle carrying Andrea (which only emphasizes why she might not be ready tostart shooting at anything). Althoughwith the tragicomic punchline to his day, he does find Sophia’s doll, and getsa bit of appreciation from Carol. Thescenes with Daryl and Carol have been a surprise this season so far, showing aconnection between both of them, as two people who know a lot of living undersomeone’s abusive thumb.

In the case of Herschel, thingsare falling out of his grasp. With oneof his horses being taken by Daryl, his daughter’s connection to Glenn, and oneof his own running off as part of the search party for Sophia, he is notcontrol of things with the group now camped out on his farm. Even with the group getting together to makea dinner for their host, you get a feeling Herschel is trying to see thesepeople out the door as fast as he politely can. Of course, that could be about the the barnopposite them that no one has ventured into…

…except for Glenn, who lets Maggie know toolate that he’ll meet up with her to make out there. That proves to be a problem, once hediscovers a locked barn full of zombies. Its another nod to the comics (one I predicted would happen last episode)that shows there’s more going on that just a host reluctant to keep manyhouseguests. Why they’re there is aquestion that’s too tantalizing to leave hanging for very long, even with thepace the show has so far.

--Interesting the flash-forwards andflash-backwards that have opened the show as of late. I’m sure they’re there to hear explain thecharacters more thoroughly than the forward narrative is, and also, watchinghelicopters napalm an darkness covered Atlanta was pretty nice.

--“You believe in a blood-suckingdog?”

--Man, Glenn gets the short endof the stick this week. Maggie barely wants to talk to him, Lori evenless so, Dale isn’t any more encouraging, and when he’s about to score againwith Maggie, the make out ground is a zombie infested barn. At least he’s learning to play the guitar,though.

--My theory on what happened toSophia? The Others have her and areexperimenting on her, for…some…reason? Actually, she’s probably dead. Good thing she shows up n flashback to remind everyone why these peoplehaven’t moved on to Fort Benning yet.

--Nice to see Daryl is stillthinking about grub, i.e., a squirrel.

--“Why don’t you pull that arrowout, dummy?”

--Glenn, when Dale tells you yourtheory is a bad one, take him at his word. Please.

--I don’t think Daryl and Andreaare going to be sharing many nighttime walks any time soon.

--“Don’t worry yourself aboutit. We’ve all at one point wanted toshoot Daryl.”

--“I’m amazed you all havesurvived this long.” Sometimes, we allagree, Herschel.

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 stars

The Walking Dead Season 2 review / Episode 4: “Cherokee Rose”

2011-11-06T21:24:00.000-08:00

After the (somewhat) surprisingend of “Save the Last One”, “Cherokee Rose” starts out on a quiet note, withOtis’ funeral. Shane is asked to speak onwhat happened, which is tough, seeing as how Shane is directly responsible forOtis becoming zombie chow. He spins itas a noble sacrifice that saved both Shane and ultimately Carl, but Shane andwe the audience know the truth of what he’s talking about. He regrets what happened, but he’s dealing withit better than many people would, which is both reassuring and disturbing. As he mentions to Andrea later on aboutshooting people, “its all about throwing a switch” and turning off youremotions, but now Shane’s a step closer to just ignoring the switch at all.

There’s no big threat hangingover “Cherokee Rose”, leaving this episode more of a breather for thecharacters as they all find respite at Herschel’s farm. But as with many things in this universe, weknow this is a temporary thing; a pit stop in a journey that may turn out to befruitless. Even the seemingly collectedHerschel tells Rick that they all should probably be on their way after findingSophia (yes, she’s still missing). Herschelhas managed to squirrel out a quiet existence without these people posting campin his farm, now he has a wounded boy in his house and a dead in-law as result.

Rick needs a respite as well,with Carl finally recovering and the group finally back together after spendingmost of the season apart. He lies toCarl about Sophia being okay, which Herschel counsels him about his patriarchalduties by revealing a bit about his past as an abused kid who only came backafter his abusive father died. Afterwards,Rick tries to confess to Carl, only to find Lori and him know he was telling awhite lie, and are okay with it. Rightnow Rick needs someone to talk to about his doubts and concerns, and Herschelfills out that role nicely, even though there’s little we know about the farmitself.

Speaking of the farm, a randomsearch of other wells on the property reveals a bloated zombie inside one ofthem, and needing to save the water (although considering how long its been inthere, I doubt a water filtration system that can get rid of the taste of azombie bathing in well water), try to remove the zombie out withoutcontaminating the well. Of course, thisgoes bad with Glenn almost getting chomped on while trying to lasso the zombie,then said zombie splitting in two and dropping its guts into the well (probablythe nastiest zombie death on this show in a while). It was a plan that was never going to go well,but shows how much this group wants to try to bring back some form ofcivilization and fail miserably. Shane’sshowing Andrea how to use a gun, Dale and T-Dog discover the well zombie, Darylsearches for Sophia on his own only to bring back a “cherokee rose” flower(hence the name of the title), Carol spends her time cleaning the RV whilewaiting for news about her daughter. Even in their quiet moments alone to reflect,they are still dealing with zombies and what they have done to their lives.

Glenn gets a lot of work in thisepisode, besides the aforementioned zombie wrangling. He gets sent on a supply run with Maggie, andclumsily steps into having sex with her. It’s a sweet scene that shows two people who hook up for the simplereason that there’s a lack of options in terms of sleeping partners, and bothfind each other interesting enough for a “quickie” (even though both may bethinking of more than a one-night, ahem, one afternoon in an abandoned pharmacystand). Relationships are hard in thistime, and even starting one seems like one doomed to more obvious disaster.

And on the matter ofrelationships, Rick and Lori’s relationship may have hit a fork in the roadwhen Lori discovers she’s pregnant. Ofcourse the question to ask is whose the father: Rick or Shane? I’m sure this is a questioned that will beanswered soon, but it does solve a big question lingering over the show since theend of season one: Dr. Jenner probably didn’t mention Lori’s pregnancy to Rick,so what did he say? There’s a lot of bigsecrets hanging over our cast of characters this season, and sooner or later,one of them is bound to get out in the open. The past has a bad way of doing that.

--So, T-Dog has definitely improvedas a character this season. He even getsto brain a zombie in his melon.

--And yes, Daryl still has theMost Improved Character in Walking Dead MVP award locked, and looks to beholding onto that award for the next episode.

--Oh hey, there’s a barn atHerschel’s farm. And Herschel quietlytells Rick not to look around there. Um,why? If you’ve read the comic, you maythink you know the answer to that, but I’ll wait and see on this one…

--So, there STILL looking forSophia in the next episode. Sophia mightbecome the Walt of The Walking Dead if the creators aren’t careful.

--I’m surprised NO ONE except Glenn commented on Shane’s newhaircut. Doesn’t that strike anyone as abit weird?

--Glenn, a hot woman wants tohave sex with you. Generally that’s thepoint when you stop talking. Who knewhiding the fact you were getting a pregnancy test for another woman could leadto that? Still, I will say for the guyswho watch the show: Glenn, good job.

--Great bloated zombie in the well, and the payoff is justnasty.

--“Hello, farmer’sdaughter.”

--“That beats the point of it being discreet, Glenn.”

--“Looks like we got a swimmer.”

--“Good thing we didn’t doanything stupid like shoot it.”

Rating:3 ½ out of 5 stars

The Walking Dead Season 2 review / Episode 3: “Save The Last One”

2011-10-30T22:02:00.000-07:00

Its all a matter ofperspective. Every action we make is basedon our perspective of things around us, and less it seems like that, the less it’sa believable action. Throughout “SaveThe Last One”, the group questions a lot of their lives in this zombie infestedworld, and all while several lives hang in the balance. They are in a situation none of them everexpected to be in, and their reactions to that situation is starting to affectthem.

Take Lori’s need to be assured byRick that Carl wouldn’t be better off dead as opposed to living the rest of hislife under the fear of being a zombie, let alone food for one. It’s a legit concern that’s been in the showsince last season’s finale, but really shines here as something that plaguesall these characters. Its one thing tolose a loved one, but knowing they might come back to devour you is somethingno one wants to accept, but they have to. Rick can only reassure her by explaining Carl’s response to the deer inthe season premiere that life is worth living, despite all of the hell them andCarl may have to look forward to.

Andrea almost ended her life, anddespite Dale guilt-tripping her away from the abyss, has still kept onliving. When Andrea and Daryl gosearching for Sophia out in the dark, they stumble upon a failed suicide byhanging, now just a zombie strung up “like a piñata”, gnawed on by otherzombies. Our plans for an easy way outare never easy, and that hanging zombie shows how badly they can end. When Andrea gets back, Dale tries toreconcile with Andrea, but like most things in this uncertain landscape, that remainsto be seen.

Even someone like Glenn has hisdoubts about things, and when he gets to the farm and starts talking to Maggie,he finds someone at his age who has to deal with the loss of friends and familytoo. Glenn has been underused in theseason so far, but his short scenes here are wonderful. He’s probably the most optimistic (if it canbe called that in the Walking Dead universe) character here, but sees in Maggiesomeone else whose struggling to stay sane. It’s quite touching to see him ask Maggie about who she lost in all ofthis, especially when Shane returns from his expedition to get the supplies tosave Carl, minus Otis.

Shane has accepted the situationaround him, but unlike the pause of his friend Rick to commit to hard decisions,by the end of this episode shows how far he’s willing to go. We follow him and Otis throughout the wholeepisode, trying to escape, injured and slowed down, and always a corner awayfrom being swamped by the undead. So itcomes as a slight surprise when Shane comes back to the farm without Otis, butwith the supplies that save Carl’s life. As an audience member, it’s clear something else has happened ratherthan Shane’s claim that Otis stayed behind to help Shane escape.

What becomes clear as a twitchyand nervous Shane starts shaving his head in a bathroom is that he wounded Otisand left him to die as zombie bait. Shane has always been about the greater good, and his decision tosacrifice an unwilling Otis is certainly a complex one. If he didn’t do it, they both would havedied; if he did, he could get the supplies that Carl needed to survive. On the other hand, Herschel’s family has lostanother member to the walkers, and Shane is wracked with another person he leftbehind to die. In Rick’s case, it wasnot of Shane’s own will; with Otis, it was done willingly to save someone else.

In a world where hard choices aremade, Shane has made a pretty hard one, and where he may have to make more ofthem, runs the risk of those choices becoming easier to make. How can you make these choices withoutlosing a bit of the humanity inside you? And in Shane’s case, how long is it before he just makes those callswithout any reflection or hindsight to what he’s done? Like I said, its all about perspective.

--So um, Sophia is probably stillalive, right? We’ve been waiting threeweeks, but show wise, has been two days since her vanishing. Looks like some progress might be made innext week’s episode.

--Merle and his venereal diseasegets mentioned! Hey, Merle and yourclap!

--Good thing Lori remembersJacqui enough to want to tell her something, even though she’s dead.

--Loved the bookend of theepisode starting and ending with the scene of Shane shaving his head, whichseemed weird at the beginning, but later seen as Shane’s reaction to losing apatch of hair to Otis.

--Some great character moments inthis episode, from Daryl’s reveal of his childhood to Dale’s need to ask Andreafor forgiveness.

--Found that story about a young Shanestealing a school principal’s car, upon further thought, comes close torevealing what Shane was probably going to do to poor Otis.

--R.I.P. poor Otis. A nice guy like you shouldn’t have gone outlike that, even if you did accidentally shoot a kid.

--Interesting to consider Otislasted a LOT longer than Shane did in the comics. A nice diversion for readers who are watchingthe show.

--“Got bit, fever hit, world’s gone to shit, might as wellquit.” Might be the quote that best sumsup this episode.

--“Not much of an answer. Waste of a good arrow.”

--“Should I ring the bell?”

--“That boy’s clapjust saved your life.” “I’m trying hardnot to think about that.”

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The Walking Dead Season 2 review / Episode 2: “Bloodletting”

2011-10-30T18:00:00.000-07:00

When considering how piecedtogether “What Lies Ahead” was from two or less episodes of material, it’sinteresting to consider how much “Bloodletting” works as a second episode asopposed to what would have been a third episode. Being three episodes in, this would haveseemed a bit late in building momentum, now it seems just right to fuel thebeginning of the season. A lot of thelast episode was the group really wandering and splintering, but it felt likean episode that had one act more than it needed to have. With the introduction of a new group ofcharacters into the mix, the story has started moving in an interestingdirection.

Coming off of last episode’sshooting of Carl (and yes, it was accidental), it was unusual to see aflashback to Lori and Carl’s reaction to Rick’s shooting prior to the zombieoutbreak. An odd cold open to theepisode, only mirrored later on when Rick reaches a farm to treat Carl’sinjury, unable to inform Lori of what has happened to their son. Here at the farm, we meet Herschel, the headof the farm and working on treating Carl; Otis, the inadvertent shooter ofCarl; and Maggie, Herschel’s daughter, among others. Being major characters in the book, theirintroductions in the show are interesting enough to wonder what may be the sameand what might be different between both mediums.

This episode certainly showed alot of promise in that connection by using Carl’s injury leading to the farm inthe book to run the same way in the show. We don’t know everything about what’s been going on in that farm yet,save for an audience curiosity about how such a place has remained untouched bythe zombies (let alone the herd of zombies that plagued the last episode). But matters are complex enough without goinginto those details right now, with Carl needing to be operated on to remove thefragments of bullets inside of him (and leading to that unsettling scene ofCarl screaming in pain as Herschel pulls out one of the bullet fragments). The splintered group is being brought backtogether, but to another kid being lost in this zombie-filled world remains tobe seen.

Its hard not to feel for Rickduring this episode, being strained with the search for Sophia, the shooting ofCarl, and the need to contact his wife to let her know what has happened,despite being benched to give blood to his son. Shane is the surprise here, being the only real person who can talk downRick from leaving Carl’s side. Shane wasone of the characters who got the short shrift in the first season, but despitehis ethical and moral confusion, and even despite planning to leave the group,stays around to help his friend, even going as far as to head to a abandoned refugecenter to find supplies to save Carl.

Stability right now is whatneeded with this group, as seen with Dale and T-Dog’s discussion back at the RV. But then again, it doesn’t help that T-Dog isrunning a fever and possibly suffering a blood infection from his arm woundlast episode. So the group is comingback together to regroup at the farm, Shane and Otis find themselves trapped ina high school with zombies, and Carl may end up dead through all of this. Not a bad way to leave us by the end of the episode.

If I can offer one complaintabout the season premiere that this episode corrected, was that the main storyfinally felt like we were moving somewhere, even if that destination was stillunknown. Save the amazing zombie hordescene from “What Lies Ahead”, the previous episode seemed less cohesive (ofcourse, that may be more due to behind-the-scenes things than anything else) interms of tension. With the ticking clockof Carl’s shooting and his only hope being trapped by zombies, this episodeimproves upon the season premiere dramatically.

--So how’s the death pool for ‘olTheodore Douglas, ahem, I’m sorry, T-Dog? I think Carl’s got better odds of pulling through than T-Dog does atthis point.

--Interesting conversation withHerschel (longtime character actor Scott Wilson) and Rick about the zombieplague. With the exception of the vague CDCdiscussions from last season, its always interesting to see a discussion abouthow all of this happened. The booksthemselves haven’t revealed a explanation to any of this either, but its goodto see the show bring up its own conclusions as to what has happened. Maybe its nature, maybe it’s a bioweapon gonewrong, or to quote Day of the Dead, “Maybe God wanted to show us he was stillthe big boss man”.

--Lori sure gets a lot of shitonline, even though I thought this episode helped peer into her owndysfunctions. Plus, her kid got shot andmay likely die…by accident, no less. Itshard not to be angry in that case.

--Not sure anything zombierelated where a walker is maimed by a woman riding a horse and swinging a bat,but nice to see here (even though Daryl has to finish the job with hiscrossbow).

--Hey, Merle got mentioned! Hey, mention of Merle!

--Am I hallucinating what’s inDaryl’s bag of drugs, or did he make a trip to New Mexico to pick up some bluecrystal meth, if you know what I mean? If he did, that may be one of the strangest cross-show promotions I’veever seen.

--“Shut up.”

Rating: 3 ½ out of 4 stars

The Walking Dead Season 2 review / Episode 1: “What Lies Ahead”

2011-10-17T20:38:00.000-07:00

After a shaky opening seasonnearly ten months ago, the TV incarnation of The Walking Dead has returned,albeit with some backstage drama which remains murky at best. Its certainly not relieving when seeing theepisode itself is credited to two writers (creator Robert Kirkman and ArdethBey, whose…well, let IMDb solve that mystery for you) and two directors (ErnestDickerson and Gwyneth Horder-Payton, both who did episodes separately forseason 1). Despite all the turmoil ofseries developer Frank Darabont’s firing/departure/whatever it’s being viewedas (let’s just say he’s not gone corporeal yet), the second season openerdoesn’t so much open with a bang, but with a non-zombie-like slow crawl. Considering the time the show’s been off theair, a little breathing room is welcome, and its not all “reintroducingeverybody to the audience” time by a longshot either.

In the worse kind of situation,hope can be a lifeline in a sea of uncertainty or an anchor that weighs youdown. When we open on “What Lies Ahead”,Rick is spelling out his plans via radio to Morgan about the group making itsway to Fort Bening to find shelter. Rickhopes that things will turn out better than the events that occurred at theAtlanta CDC in last season’s finale. Ofcourse, he’s also hoping that someone is listening to him on the other end ofthe radio he’s using, but as with the Fort Bening plan, that lifeline couldeasily be the group’s anchor.

We don’t see that plan come topass yet, if only because the freeway there is blocked by a small sea of cars(abandoned or just littered with bodies), and its going to take a while to getthe small convoy reversed to a new path. While most of the group wanders out into the landscape of cars to gathersupplies, a large herd of zombies stumbles into their path, leading to theepisode’s centerpiece sequence as the survivors hide under cars as the walkerspass through. It’s a long and unnervingsequence, but leads to one of the kids in the group, Sophia, running away froma walker chasing her, with Rick running to save her. While he kills the walkers with some oldfashioned skull crushing, Sophia vanishes without a trace. The group sends out a search party to findher, and come up with nothing. They killzombies in the area, and through some gutting, find no sign of her beingdevoured. Even with no likelihood offinding the missing girl, they continue with the search, as hopeless as itseems.

As easy as it may be for some tocut their losses and run, it does become harder to do that to a scared littlegirl than someone like Merle Dixon from season 1. Its surprising later on in a scene the nextday with Dale and T-Dog, that Dale reveals the repairs to the RV are already done,but he has purposely not told anyone that. He knows that the group would be quicker to let the search for Sophia endif their transportation was ready to go. Like Rick, Dale’s trying to keep this emotionally wrecked group fromfalling apart, but even that attempt is not really working.

Take Andrea, for instance. She’s lost her parents, her sister, and bylast season’s finale, was content to die in the self-destructing CDC facility. The problem was Dale refused to let her go,and forced her to leave, by threatening to stay with her in the facility whenit blew. “I wanted to leave this worldand you robbed me of that.” Andrea confesses to Dale. She wanted to die on her own, but not takeDale with her. And what does she havenow? A suspicious Dale who does what hecan to keep her away from a gun (“What, you think I’m gonna take that gun atthe first chance and shoot myself right there?”), and during the zombie herdsequence, forced to stab a zombie through its eyesocket with a screwdriverwhile inside the RV. So when sheoverhears Shane’s plans to leave the group and make out on his own, she triesto get him to take her. Anything to feellike she’s in control of how she lives or dies.

Shane has been in a bad placesince Rick came back, and even moreso when realizing how messed up hisrelationship with Lori and Carl has become. It’s a relationship in the comic book that was quickly wrapped up in theearly issues, but here is stretched out to dramatic effect. He wants to distance himself from Lori, Carland Rick, but finds himself being drawn back, despite his faults andmistakes. Lori is as much a guilty partyin this for sleeping with Shane after the zombie apocalypse happened, but isnot willing to see Shane run off, even if it only complicates things withRick. She is conflicted, but despitethat, is still willing to stand up for Rick when she feels Andrea and Carol (Sophia’smother) are holding Rick to blame for Sophia’s disappearance.

This was not a happy family whenthe show started, but in this episode seems more fragmented than ever. A good amount of people aren’t afraid to cutand run, while the remainders try to keep them all together. When one of the search parties stumbles upona church with zombies (quickly dispatched), Rick takes a minute to just ask Godfor help. He is hanging on to hope, buthe’s starting to get drowned by the reality of things. “Just a sign…any’ll do.”, he asks, and withthe climactic scene, gets an unfortunate answer with Carl being shot in theside as they stumble onto a deer.

All in all, it was a decent startto a season that is slowly fixing the problems that season 1’s few episodes amplified:mainly its characters. Not that theperformances were bad, but you could feel the writers were feeling their way throughwith what they wanted to do with the characters. Things couldn’t be helped by the fact theyhad nearly 90-plus issues of material to compare and contrast against. Even with series creator Robert Kirkman amongthe writing staff, there’s at least an attempt to make the show stand out fromthe book, which is welcome. If anything,the series has seemed to start its sophomore season on the right foot (butconsidering the Frankenstein nature of this episode’s assembly, its more amiracle it’s a coherent episode at all), and while it may not completely getpast the faults of its early episodes, what’s on display here gives some hopefor the long term of the series.

A lot of big plot points arestill left open, such as the fate of Sophia, who (accidentally more than likelysince the shot killed the deer) wounded Carl, and what awaits at FortBening. And that doesn’t count Thethreads of Dr. Jenner’s confession to Rick, and the whereabouts of Merle Dixon (I'm sure Daryl would like to know). But we got a whole season to figure out those things, especially when you more pressing matters to worry about, like zombies.

--Since this episode wasseemingly constructed out of two episodes, it does brings one to wonder whatthat truncated episode was really going to be about. The first 16 minutes seem like what was leftof the original opening episode, and everything from the zombie herd to the endfeels like what would have been the second episode. But likely we fans may not completely knowthe answers to this, so until then, its anyone’s guess. I prefer to think of the first 15 minutes asa prologue, and the rest as the opening episode. It’s less of a pain on my head, I guess.

--Norman Reedus is now in themain credits, and earns it bigtime here. Besides saving T-Dog from death, using dead bodies for cover, andgutting zombies, hes a good addition to the series.

--I’m not sure the zombie logic completelyworks during the freeway scene. Soburying yourself in dead bodies and hiding under cars helps avoid being zombiechow? And Andrea gets a good amount ofzombie blood on her. Admittedly thegroup has been playing it safe with contact with zombies, so a lot of this isbeing learned on the fly. But someground rules would help too.

--Geez, Sophia, couldn’t you waita few minutes before running off to wherever you are now?

--Great zombie work as always byKNB effects. That zombie with the veilwas creepy as all hell.

--“Do you know if we were runningout of water?”

--“Pantomine.”

Rating: 31/2 out of 5 stars

Breaking Bad Season 4 review / Episode 13: “Face Off”

2011-10-09T23:14:00.000-07:00

WARNING: if you haven't seen this episode, clearly you should come back and read this later, because here there be spoilers.

Hol. Ly. Fuck.

I believe that phrase issomething that many fans (myself included) uttered while watching “Face Off”, aseason ender that capped off a rather amazing season of television. As much as season three is loved, it did geta bit spotty early on, but once things got rolling with the Cousins’ hit onHank in “One Minute”, the show was running on all wheels. Season four started off incredibly well andseemed to hit the ground running ever since. One major reason is that twisted chess game of life and death betweenWalter White and Gus Fring, a game that seemed to end in a particularly nastyway here.

For the whole season, its beenpain watching Walt being outsmarted by Gus time and time again. Gus clamped down on Walt after the wholebusiness with Gale, and made it so Walt could barely get within an inch of him. He even went as far as to recruit Jesse intohis inner circle, turning the dysfunctional partners against one another. And for a while after the duo had a majorfalling out, Walt was looking like a dead man walking and Jesse seemed more andmore unlikely to toss out a life preserver. But even a man as controlled as Gus is not superhuman, and since wipingout the Cartel back in “Salud”, he has been getting sloppy.

Nothing shows Gus’ weaknessesmore than letting Hector live on after rubbing in his victory of killing hisentire family. Hector was a loose end,and one that only became apparent to Walt after Saul revealed Jesse saw Gus’meetings with Hector. Instead of killingHector off, Gus let him live knowing he was powerless (a reversal of where bothmen stood twenty years ago). So it was afailure of Gus’ part to realize that would make Hector a man who would stop atnothing to get revenge like Hector did to Gus all those years back. All it took was the right person to make it happenand, just like Gus’ meth enterprise got Gus close enough to kill the Cartel, hefound the right person in Walter White.

Walt seeked help from Jesse,hoping to find a place to get rid of Gus without any trouble from Gus’minions. Jesse takes a while to drop hisknowledge of Hector, and only because thanks to his suggesting Brock waspoisoned with ricin, gets picked up and questioned by the cops. Its only because Walt pays off Saul’ssecretary (you know, “Honey Tits”) that gets Saul out from hiding to talk to Jesseand reveals Hector as a possible ally. As the episode progresses, Hector goes and talks (if that what thecommunication method between him and his nurse) to the DEA, and hands themnothing. The key is that Hector’s goingto the DEA was a ploy to bring Gus to him, and into Walter’s trap.

After Walt’s failure with the carbomb last episode, it should’ve been obvious that the bomb would come back intoplay sooner or later, and besides the darkly funny teaser of Walt carrying itthrough the hospital (“Did you expect me to just leave it on his car?”), I’msure not many predicted until too late that it would be strapped to Hector justas Gus and Tyrus came to pay him a final visit. Hector finally looks Gus in the eye, just long enough to hit his bellattached to Walt’s bomb, and blowing him, Tyrus and Gus up. As shocking as that was, the fake out of Guswalking out of the destroyed room only to reveal a good portion of his skullgone was a grim and absurd punchline to the end of Gus Fring (save for thepossible flashback or two before the show is over).

Speaking of ends, a lot of housecleaning is done in this episode (considering as last minute the final seasonrenewal was, I wouldn’t be shocked if the creators went into this episodefeeling they needed some kind of conclusion just in case, but its just a guess)besides the end of Gus. After Jesse issnatched up outside the police station by Gus’ thugs and pretty much locked inthe superlab to work indefinitely, its another big chess move that Walt killsJesse’s captors (with the same snub-nose first seen in “Thirty Eight Snub”),and both Walt and Jesse proceed to torch the superlab. Gus is dead, the superlab is in flames, andWalt’s real and surrogate family are safe. For the first time in a long time, Walt is a man in charge of things.

Even with such a brilliant checkmate moveWalt pulls on Gus, the cruel epilogue of all of this is when Jesse finds outGus didn’t poison Brock, but instead Brock had ingested a berry from a commonplant…one that just happens to be on Walt’s pool deck. Now its not directly said Walt may have goneas far as to poison a little boy just to get Jesse to help him kill Gus, butthe hint from that final shot is hard not to shake. If anything, Walt has committed some grade-Asociopathic acts to kill Gus already by blowing up a hospice room with threepeople inside, torched a underground meth superlab, put his family in jeopardythey could see, and poisoning a kid would just be the nasty cherry to thisrevenge cake.

As good as this payoff to theseason has been, it does make one wonder what is going to happen now that the show's going intoits fifth and final season. Gus is gone,the superlab is gone, Jesse and Walt are tenuously simpatico again, and Hank’stheories about the now dead owner of Los Pollos Hermanos have been provenright. But there’s still some huge looseends unaccounted for, such as: will Walt now continue being a meth maker nowthat he has cut links to the criminal empire he has been under for the last twoseasons? Will Walter White facerepercussions from whatever’s left of the Cartel, or maybe a job offer to bigto refuse? Will Ted’s possible demisecome back to bite Skyler in the ass (let alone when she hears about whathappened to Ted)? Will Jesse learn thatWalt was the architect of Brock’s poisoning, let alone the death of hisprevious girlfriend Jane? Will Hankfinally let go of Heisenberg, or will Walt find some way to screw that uptoo? Will Marie still be obsessed withthe color purple? And what about Mike,whose probably still recovering from being shot in Mexico do when hearing hisboss is dead? The possible answers inorder are likely: Nope; hopefully for the Cartel’s sake, no; Yep; Sadly forboth of them, yes; odds point to yes at first, then eventually to no; dear God,I hope not; and, it won’t be pretty.

Walt has truly crossed the linebetween being a desperate family man who would think twice about committing aviolent act to a man who has gone to horrible lengths to protect himself withoutblinking an eye to it. When he quietlyproclaims to Skyler, “I won”, its not a proclamation of reassurance, but ofcold hard fact. He has killed a greatadversary in Gus Fring, but in the process, made himself almostirredeemable. And knowing this asopposed to a cliffhanger like last season is just a terrifying a prospect asanything for Breaking Bad’s final season.

--Things you learn from theBreaking Bad Insider Podcast: the idea of Hector’s bell being the trigger for abomb existed as early as season three, but came to reality here; KNB effectsand CG animators conspired to put together the skull-deprived Gus; VinceGilligan’s mom appears as Walt’s next door neighbor/possible victim for Cartelthugs; the guitar song that plays over the end of the superlab was done by a duo of 14 year old Spanish guitar prodigies.

--Turns out the theory of Saul being involvedin Brock’s poisoning may not have been correct. Now it seems Walt could have taken the ricin cigarette (BTW, where isthat cigarette now?), and Jesse may not have been completely wrong in peggingWalt the culprit for the poisoning in the first place.

--So, uh, unless Gus returns as amindless vegetable (only so far you can go as a villain with half your skull and brain missing) in season 5, RIP Gus Fring. RIP Hector, you evil, mute bastard. And RIP Tyrus, we kinda knew ye.

--Strangely enough, the reactionto the fire alarm at the Laundromat seems far more realistic to me thancomplete panic, but I base that on experience.

--Like I mentioned earlier, thisepisode like the last one was directed (and written here) by creator VinceGilligan. Based on that, I almost view “EndTimes” and “Face Off” as a two parter, since both have nearly no time passingbetween both of them, so for all the buildup of “End Times” gets paid off wellin this episode.

--Oh, what a great running gagwith Tio Hector’s nurse translating Hector's insults to Hank. A surprisingly funny episode in retrospect, knowing the stakes.

--Great music cues here too, letalone the eerie score from Dave Porter.

--Love the fact Walt goes out of Saul's office the same way he came in: through a hole in a plate glass door.

--“You brought a bomb into ahospital?”

--“I think I saw it onHouse.” Was it connected to lupus iswhat I want to know.

--“Now I’m thinking 25.”

--“If I ever get anal polyps, Iknow what to name them.”

--"Well, I hope you got plenty of air fresheners."

--“Honey, “dea” is not a word.”

--“At least he didn’t go and shithimself like last time. Guess that’sprogress.”

--"Last chance to look at me, Hector."

--“I won.”

--Well, that’s it for the season4 reviews. Barring a possible season reviewin the next two weeks (but don’t hold me to that), I’ll be doing (with luck)reviews of next season around summer or fall of 2012. In the meantime, I’ll be going back withreviews of the series from the beginning starting in about two weeks, with anepisode a week, give or take, until next season. Until then, hope you’ve enjoyed this seasonof Breaking Bad, and remember to always be “the one who knocks”.

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 stars

Breaking Bad Season 4 review / Episode 12: “End Times”

2011-10-03T13:38:00.000-07:00

I find the next to last episodeof a season almost as important as the season finale itself. With all the many plot points a series canbuild up over a season, paying them off can often be a problem. If anything about Breaking Bad seemscommendable is that rarely will those payoffs ever not be shocking. Last episode ended with Walt laughing hishead off in desperation, Hank possibly about to be killed by Gus, and Walter’sfamily now in real danger. So here weare on the next to last episode of this season, “End Times”, and it all startsboiling down to the conflict between Walter White and Gustavo Kring, but evenmore surprisingly, the collateral damage they are starting to inflict.

Look at how Walter has nowresigned himself to being a dead man walking, despite Skyler’s pleas to go toHank’s house to stay in protective custody with their children. He spends the majority of the episode prettymuch locked at his house, waiting for the inevitable wrath of Gus to rain downon him. His family is now at Hank’shouse, surrounded by DEA agents, and just unsure of what’s going tohappen. It’s surprising that the onlyperson unfazed by all of this (let alone Walt not coming) is Hank himself, theman who should be concerned about all this.

Hank has been making a lot of theright calls this season, and knows that the only reason he has gotten a threaton his life is because he’s close to nailing Gus. He does manage to get his ex-partner/friendSteve to search the laundry warehouse where the superlab is under, althoughthat search turns out to be fruitless (save for Hank now obsessively scanningthe photos Steve took of the place). ButMarie and Walt Jr. are just concerned for Hank and the seemingly absent Walt,while Skyler is just trying to be reassuring that nothing’s going wrong. Of course, she and we know that is notremotely the case.

For the whole season, Gus hasbeen trying to find a way to get rid of Walt, primarily through getting Jesse’sapproval to do so. But even with Hank’sDEA buddies looking around above the giant superlab he’s currently working(with some or no help from Tyrus) and obviously Walt gone missing, he stillwon’t let his former teacher go (“He’s a dick, but I can’t.”). Jesse is almost in a reverse position from Waltfrom last season, now bargaining to save his partner’s life with a man whocould care less as long as his product is being made on time. So when Gus offhandedly mentions “appropriatemeasures” will be taken on Walt, you don’t expect that result to fall onJesse’s doorstep.

And by the way, as much as Iexpected Walt’s ricin laced cigarette would come into play before the seasonwas over, who really thought until that reveal that it would happen to beAndrea’s son Brock who would be a victim of this? He’s not dead by episode’s end (although comatoseisn’t preferable either for a mother whose lost a brother and may lose her sonto Gus Fring), but Brock has become not only a wedge between Jesse and Andrea,but the catalyst for Jesse to confront Walter. Jesse blames Walter for poisoning Brock (a theory that may be theflimsiest part of the episode, but considering Jesse’s emotional state, seemsvery likely to be seen that way), and goes as far as to take Walt’s gun andthreaten to kill him. Walt manages, evenin his fatalistic frame of mind, to convince Jesse that Gus is the likelyculprit behind Brock’s poisoning, and being used as Gus’ instrument to killhim. So now both men have teamed up tokill Gus, a proposition that’s easier said than done.

It would help that Gus needs Jesse to keep cookingand that he has let some of his guard down since killing his enemies in theCartel, but that can only get you so far. So when Jesse refuses Tyrus’ orders to go back to the superlab to workand instead stays at the hospital, little do we know that there’s a extramotivation to Jesse’s refusal: to get Gus to show up at the hospital so thatWalt can plant a bomb on his car. It’sweird to see how much Walt’s chemistry skills have developed from somethinglike nerve gassing, dissolving dead bodies, poisoning, to now flat out acts ofterrorism. Gus does show up to talk toJesse, assuring him he’ll have some time to watch after Brock, and also impliessince he’s connected to the hospital, Brock’s life may be in his hands. It’s a fiendish move on Gus’ part to holdJesse emotionally hostage like that, but one that is meant to keep his now topcook doing what he does.

All of this leads to that tensefinal sequence where Walt oversees from a building away, Gus and his menapproaching the now bomb-attached car in the hospital parking garage. As much as no one would want to believe Guswill get killed this season, the possibility that it would happen at this pointseemed really likely here. But Gus isnot completely oblivious to what may really be going on with Jesse or Walt, andstops before reaching his car. Whetheror not Gus suspected something was wrong with Jesse other than his concern forBrock is up for debate, but Gus is anything if cautious, especially whenrealizing his car is in an empty garage level and a desperate genius chemistlike Walter White is still unaccounted for. It’s a tense minute as Walt can only watch his plan to blow Gus up gopear shaped when Gus leaves the parking garage, leaving the car behind.

So, here we are with Gus likelyaware Walt may be moving to kill him with or without Jesse’s help, Walt’sfamily and Hank still under watch temporarily by the DEA, and maybe the lasteasy opportunity to kill Gus has fizzled out. If you think about it, no one really got what they wanted in thisepisode. Hank’s theory about thesuperlab has fallen on deaf ears, Gus didn’t really turn Jesse over to him, andWalt still has the threat of Gus Kring on his family to worry about. Where the season finale will go is notcertain, but the payoffs and setups here are certainly going to make it aninteresting end to what has been a really great season of television.

--Things you learn from theBreaking Bad Insider Podcast: the gun twirling that Walt does on the patiotable was a special effect rig; Aaron Paul had an hilarious encounter with afan where he wasn’t even recognized until someone pointed out who he was; thehospital where the episode takes place was abandoned, and may be refurbished todo that again before filming can start on season five.

--Now here’s an interesting topicto discuss before the season finale: did Gus really poison Brock to get toJesse? It seems unlikely, knowing thatJesse might suspect Gus was involved eventually in that scheme. Here’s another theory that came up over themessage boards that may have some merit: Brock’s poisoning may have somethingto do with Saul Goodman. If Gus didn’tknow about the ricin cigarette (and that seems less unlikely in retrospect),the only other person who would have a clue as to its existence is Saul. He does get Huell to pat down Jesse themorning the cigarette goes missing, and who would benefit more from getting ridof Walt besides Gus than Saul would (certainly would make his life lessstressful)? However, this seems astretch too, if only because Saul hasn’t attempted to kill anyone intentionallybefore. Unintentionally maybe, but that’sanother topic there.

--Ted Beneke’s fate is still inthe air, but to be fair, if he is or is not dead, he’s sure to be a big looseend going into the final season.

--How good was Steve in thisepisode when he tricked the laundry warehouse owner into letting him search theplace?

--The gun muzzle mark of Walt’shead after forcing Jesse to aim the gun at his head. A creepy note in a intense scene.

--Team S.C.I.E.N.C.E is back,baby!

--Lot of Chekhov’s objectsstarting to come into play, with the ricin cigarette getting paid off, andpossibly by next episode, Walt’s untraceable snub nosed pistol.

--This marks creator VinceGilligan’s third episode behind the director’s chair after last season’schilling finale. Plus, he will also bedirecting the season finale this year.

--I got a weird theory: GustavoKring is psychic. Vince Gilligan didwork on The X-Files, so to be fair, I wouldn’t be shocked if that was the bigreveal of the season finale. I’mkidding! Sort of…

--Walt goes psycho laughing again. It’s always creepy when someone startsbelieving their life is an absurd cosmic joke, and certainly Walter White has reasonto laugh.

--“If we just had one shred ofevidence.” “Isn’t that what you get paidto get?”

--“Uh, because it’s not NaziGermany.”

--“You will start a new batchwhen you are ready to return…next week.”

--"It’s ricin, like ‘rice’.”

--“Honey Tits. It’s meant to be endearing.”

--“Think I got his attention.”

--“The boy was poisoned.”

--“There’s got to be another way.” “There isn’t. There was, but now there isn’t.”

--“I’ve lived under the threat ofdeath for a year now, and because of that, I’ve made choices, and I aloneshould suffer the consequences of those choices. And those consequences…they’re coming. No more prolonging the inevitable.”

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Breaking Bad Season 4 review / Episode 11: “Crawl Space”

2011-09-25T23:05:00.000-07:00

A theme that Breaking Bad hasexcelled at illustrating is this: There is what we plan, then what eventuallyhappens, and rarely are both ever similar. Walter White took up a life of crime to support his family before hedied, but instead he lives and has involved his family indirectly in hisactivities. Jesse wanted to make somemoney by selling meth, but has now become a participant in a criminal empire andclaimed several lives. Skyler wanted tohelp someone she thought needed help, and that just got exponentiallyworse. Gus wanted to get rid of theprogressively unbalanced Walter White, but knows if he does, he may lose one ofthe few people he relies on to keep the operation going. What we want is never what we get, andnearing the end of this season, all of those consequences are finally boilingover.

Walter White has spent themajority of the season with his blinders on to the events around him, and spentit focusing on how to keep Gus from killing him. The joke of it all is the one person who hasdone that wasn’t Walt, but Jesse. Jesseis loyal to Walt and to Gus, and is smart enough to use his growing influenceto ensure Walt lives on, but when Walt comes to see him after he comes backfrom Mexico, wants nothing to do with him. Jesse has seemingly recovered from his freefall and started to rebuildhis life (hey, his girlfriend Andrea and her son are playing video games at hishouse), but wants nothing to do with the toxic Walt.

Unlike Walt, Jesse has had adeeper perspective into his employer than Walt could even realize. Put this into perspective: knowing Gus’ planto poison the cartel, and from what we see in the opening teaser, has gone tothe trouble a long time ago to prepare a makeshift hospital to treat Gus, Mike,Jesse, or all of them if things went wrong (note the blood packs listed for allof them). Yes the doctors treat Gusbefore Mike, but they know who’s the bigger priority to take care of (even ifJesse doesn’t think that way). Even with pulling off Gus’ master plan, Jessestill won’t relent in protecting Walt. As Walt says later on, “No matter how much you want to, you can’t killme, because you know if you do, Jesse won’t cook for you.” He’s a master planner, but he’s not perfect.

Think about how bad Gus plan topoison Don Eladio and the Cartel last episode could have gone if it didn’t gooff the way it did (although it has physically weakened Gus and put Mike in a Gus-operatedMexican recovery room for the foreseeable future, so the plan didn’t quite gooff without a hitch). But it did, and Gushas become emboldened by his victory. Hetaunts Tio Hector with the deaths of Don Eladio, the Cartel capos, and Hector’sfamily, and takes a visible pleasure in doing so. Now that Gus has succeeded in his decadeslong plan to kill his former partners, what does he have left to hide? Gus has shed a lot of the layers of mysteryand control he has maintained over the season, and if he’s likely to make amistake that could end with his demise, its probably now. That mistake may be how he deals with HankSchrader, as he tells Walt flat out if he interferes with his plans to dealwith Hank, Walt’s family is dead. Nowits questionable whether Gus means that or is just bluffing to get through thetunnelvision of Walt, but knowing he can’t kill Walt (“Not right now”) isn’t leavinghim with many choices.

Look at how bad the lack ofchoices has been for Skyler these last few episodes. She tries to help Ted out of his taxproblems, and even after playing the “husband’s illegal gambling winnings”card, still won’t get him to play ball (“Why are you not grasping what I’mtelling you?”). Even after Ted tries togive her back the money, which Skyler misinterprets (or not) as Ted asking formore money (“OK, I didn’t mean to say it like that”), she gets Saul to send twoof his associates (probably some of the best additions to the show this season)to go as far as to force him to sign out a check to be mailed to the IRS. But, Ted being the clueless twit he is, triesto run, trips and slams headfirst into a cabinet. Whether he’s dead or not isn’t completelyclear (even when Saul recounts what happened), but Ted’s possible death isn’tthe way Skyler wanted her plan to go. And with the fact neither Skyler nor Walt know about this can only be acherry on the overstuffed sundae of trouble at the moment.

Walt has tried to keep blinderson to a lot of people, but with the more people who get let into his situation,the more complex the lies really are becoming. When Hank decides to visit the laundry warehouse where the superlab is,Walt can only impede him by crashing his Aztek with both of them in it. Hank is only temporarily impeded, as hementions that he’ll be getting his own “gimpmobile” within a week, and with Gus’threat (whatever his solution may be), leads Walt to try to try the escape planmentioned way back in “Bullet Points” of getting his family into hiding andHank protected by having the DEA anonymously warned. Of course, the money he needs to pull thisoff is gone, used by Skyler to help Ted.

Like many episode climaxes thisseason on Breaking Bad, this one is a doozy: Walt in his home’s crawlspace discoveringwhat Skyler has done, the money is gone, Hank may be killed by Gus, his familymay be killed for what’s about to happen, and the only likely way out is now unreachable. So its with some surprise to see a more manicthan ever Walt laughing hysterically, knowing how unbelievably fuckedeverything is now. He’s aware of the bigcosmic joke that is happening to him, and can only in desperation, laugh at thespectre of death hanging over him and his family. As likely as it will be Walt will find a wayout of this mess by the last two episodes of the season, there is thehorrifying feeling that, like many of his and the many other plans the show hashad over the years, it won’t go without a hitch.

--What a great final shot as wepull up from Walt’s crawlspace tomb. Usuallyyou save that kind of shot for a season ender, but ends the episode on aperfect note of “now what?”.

--Things you learn from theBreaking Bad Insider Podcast: because of the nature of recording the podcastsbefore the episode airing, sometimes the actors aren’t completely up to date onthe events of the show, save for their scenes; the Aztek may not be around forthe remainder of the season; the ambient music from series composer Dave Porterthat ends the episode was meant to drown out all the sound by the final shot,and had to also be within a certain legal level of sound that networks specifycan’t be broken.

--Maybe its for the best Mike won’tbe around for what’s coming these last episodes of the season.

--I almost dread and almost wantan end of an episode to start disappointing me. This can’t be good for my nerves.

--Comedians Bill Burr and LavellCrawford as Saul Goodman’s “A-Team” was one of the few funny bits in anotherwise intense episode. Hey, how ‘boutSaul Goodman’s “A-Team” for a spinoff, and if they’re interested, I amavailable for a writing position. What,no?

--ANyone want to take bets if Saul's "disappearer" associate will pop up before this season, let alone the series, is over? At least we'll know if he really has a vaccuum cleaning service or not.

--Man if that Aztek could tellstories, it would be about its multitude of collisions.

--Holy crap that was a greatcloud passing during that confrontation with Walt and Gus. If that was a special effect, I’d beshocked. Then again, this is a show thatconvinced me two people were hit with an Aztek, so…

--Tyrus is certainly keeping busyin Mike’s absence.

--“This is the guy that pays mysalary.”

--“I kinda liked the plane.”

--“Will you look at me now,Hector?”

--“Wow, I feel real sorry foryour taste buds.”

--“Huell, you happy?”

--“We wait here for a few daysuntil the check clears, have some beers, watch some football, unless you don’thave cable. Then that would really suck.”

--“Does the laundry have to bedirty?”

--“It was an act of God. You can’t anticipate an act of God.” "At least the check's in the mail."

--“You are done.”

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 stars

DRIVE review

2011-09-23T20:36:00.000-07:00

DRIVE

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Albert Brooks

Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn

Running time: 100 mins.

Rated R for graphic violence, language, and nudity

We open Drive on a simple mission statement from the main character of theDriver (Ryan Gosling): you pay him to be a getaway driver, he’s yours for fiveminutes while you do the job, and he gets you out. Nothing else, no going in to help you, nocarrying a gun, no killing people. Simple, clean, and as the beginning shows, very effective. Of course, life and movies never play the “fairand clean” route very well, so its no surprise that those rules get tested,bent and broken before long. But, itsdone with a sheen and coolness most so called “cool” action movies have to manufactureand often fail at. Drive is all about sleekness among the bloody chaos.

If director Nicolas Winding Refn (ThePusher films, Bronson, Valhalla Rising)hadn’t seen such 80’s cool minimalist gems like Thief and To Live and Die inL.A. before helming Drive, itwould be surprising since it feels like a cinematic cousin to those movies. It follows the same pattern of many noirmovies: loner does crimes, gets emotionally involved with others, and badthings happen. And like many of the goodnoir movies, it works here perfectly because it doesn’t stress itself out overexplaining every single thing. We knowabout as much about the Driver’s past by the end as we did when we started, andit doesn’t really matter.

The Driver is a man who livesthrough his work, either through his nighttime criminal activities, hispart-time work as a Hollywood stuntman, or through working on cars for autoshop owner Shannon (Bryan Cranston). Even when finishing a job, he doesn’t spend much time in his apartment,but just driving around Los Angeles. Hehas little to no connections or friends, so its surprising to see him connectwith next door neighbor/single mother Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her sonBenicio (Kaden Leos). There’s a quietunspoken bond there, which gets tested by Irene’s returning ex-con husbandStandard (Oscar Isaac) and his need to protect his family from men he paid toprotect him while he was in prison.

So of course, the Driver getsinvolved with Standard’s plight, and on the radar of crime boss partners BernieRose (Albert Brooks) and Nino (Ron Perlman). A caper to help Standard goes awry, and gets messier as the film goeson, forcing Driver to get himself and his neighbors out of the sticky situationthey’ve been trust into. The Driver hasa routine that gets constantly tested by a calculated, but lethal Bernie and aninflamed, but headstrong Nino, whose actions only push the Driver farther into dangerousterritory. Driving a car is easy, butdealing with criminals is anything but.

As with many of the minimalist noir-ishmovies I’ve referenced, the performances are as complex as they need to be, butimpressive nevertheless. Gosling managesto give this very sparse character a sense of quiet control, that when pressedinto a do-or-die scenario, explodes with a viciousness than tends to end with alot of blood. The real surprise here isBrooks as Bernie, who by no means is TheSimpsons’ Hank Scorpio without the humor. He is evil, but a calm and quiet evil that lures you in just long enougho be stabbed to death. It’s a goodperformance, as is the works from the other male leads.

The one part that falters a bit,and by no means is a fault of the performers, is that the female characters feela bit underwhelming. They aren’t windowdressing by any means, but Mulligan and caper moll Blanche (played by ChristinaHendricks, making a brief appearance here) are pieces in the puzzle to motivatethe male characters into action, as is the case in many noir movies of its type. And that action tends to get nasty (and asbad as one character’s shocking demise seems, its nowhere near as bad as someof the vicious deaths that occur later on) and quite bloody. Credit goes soundwise that for all the mutedambience in many of the dialogue scenes, it only dramatically amplifies theviolence that crashes into the film.

It’s also a credit to the filmthat it doesn’t devolve into a bloated action-fest, but when it shifts into thebig setpieces involving cars and other implements of pain, its as kinetic asany film that has been out this year. You don’t feel like this is a movie relying on CG and choppy editing tomake up for a clumsy action scene, but is clear of its geography and investedin what happens next. If you went intothis movie expecting something along the lines of “The Fast and The Furious with that guy from The Notebook”, first thing: this is not that movie. And also: if you did think that, you need psychiatrichelp, which you will gain more out of than watching this movie.

Drive is an art house thriller that just feels like it was a crime thrillersupplanted from the early 1980’s (even with the Giorgio Moroder-inspired workof Cliff Martinez and the moody techno that follows the opening credits) anddropped into the present day. The carwork feels real, the violence is unflinching, and the style of this movie is aswell sculpted as the cars the Driver is behind the wheel of. The movie stays on as long as it needs to,and just like movies such as Thief, ends on an uncertain fate. It’s a lean, mean machine that is by no meansa great movie, but certainly one of the best ones 2011 has produced to date.

Rating: 3 ½ stars

Extra thing: for those of you whohave seen the movie and wondered what the hell was playing during that 80’stinged opening credits sequence, well, you’re welcome.

Breaking Bad Season 4 review / Episode 10: “Salud”

2011-09-19T18:33:00.000-07:00

Appearance is everything for thecharacters of Breaking Bad, and “Salud” shows a good amount of those characterspretending to be more than what they are. After last episode’s brutal scuffle that seem to destroy any alliancebetween Walt and Jesse, we find Jesse having to pretend to be a master chemistas him, Gus, and Mike end up flying into Mexico to help the Cartel mass produceWalt’s crystal meth. As good as Jessewas in copying Walt’s formula to junkies who could barely tell the difference, it’sa different game when producing for criminals who will likely not forgive second-ratework. Jesse has to man up to stay alivein this truly foreign territory (or at least channel a lot of Walter White’sstubbornness), which makes him a valuable commodity for the Cartel.

Jesse’s situation is faringbetter (if you can believe that) than Walt, who has not only missed Walt Jr.’sbirthday, but seems to be sleeping in a haze of painkillers and booze. That he can barely muster the will to put onpants (yep, the tighty whities are back) to greet Junior, who has gone to seehim, says volumes about how far Walt is circling the drain. It’s a weird and upsetting thing to see Waltbreak down and cry in front of Junior, ashamed of his actions. Of course, when Walt mumbles “That’s good,Jesse” when talking to Junior about the PT Cruiser Skyler got him for his 16^thbirthday (now father and son have something obvious in common: driving in vehiclesno one produces anymore), it shows there’s more floating on his mind that just flakingon Junior’s birthday.

So when Walt comes to the nextday, his glasses fixed by Junior, who has slept on his father’s couch, he starts that long talk about his father to explainhimself. We all have our own distinctmemories that define our opinion of our parents, and often they are just asconfused and jumbled as we are. As muchas we like to think we know about our mother and father, the truth is rarely asclear. Walt describes his only memory ofhis Dad as a man hospitalized with the final stages of Huntington’s Disease,being six years old, and being terrified of him. He doesn’t want Junior to remember his fatheras the destroyed man he saw last night, but mind you, this is from a man who isstill hiding his criminal life from his son.

And its surprising to see Juniorreally do something wonderful by accepting that flaw of his father’s. Junior has been floating in and out of thisseason, but RJ Mitte really impressed by showing Junior is becoming more of aman by telling Walt, “The bad way to remember you would be like you’ve beenthis past year.” At least Junior saw areal side of his father besides all the bizarre behavior of the last fourseasons, and it didn’t let Walt off the hook for his mistakes. Junior does care for Walt, but has a deeperunderstanding about his father than he had before as just the patriarch whoknows everything.

Skyler is also a parent who doesn’tknow everything, and like a good mother, tries to protect her loved ones, evenif one of them is a fuck-up like Ted Beneke. Going as far as to set up an imaginary relative who has left enoughmoney to pay off Ted’s IRS debts and getting Saul to sell the whole thing, shethinks her problems are taken care of. She of course, doesn’t count on Ted’s blinders to reality being aproblem when discovering he’s bought a new Mercedes and is planning to get hiscompany working again. So whenconfronting Ted about his attempts to avoid paying the IRS what they want, shejust cannot grasp how much a problem helping Ted cook his accounting has been,and how he is almost refusing to believe the IRS will be a problem for her…um,I mean him. This all leads to Skyleracting out of frustration and inadvertently revealing she’s the one who triedto bail him out of his IRS troubles. Itsbad enough to help Ted once, but involving him in her criminal exploits is onlygoing to go badly.

Although as bad as Ted’s futuremay seem to be, its got nothing on the Cartel massacre that ends thisepisode. After Jesse gets told theCartel wants to keep him in Mexico to cook the blue meth, he’sclearly notinterested in that, but Mike reassures him obliquely, “Either we’re all goinghome, or none of us are.” What Mikemeant was the present Gus brings Don Eladio (Steven Bauer again!) at hisMexican villa: a bottle of special tequila. It should’ve been weird that Gus takes a few pills before giving out thedrink, but when he stops Jesse from taking a shot, it should’ve been clearsomething was amiss. Of course what it wasthat Gus went to the bathroom to vomit, and Don Eladio and his capos died ofpoisoning (excluding Gaff, the Cartel henchman from all season, gettinggarroted by Mike).

Gus has been pretending to helpthe Cartel and that the death of his friend Max in that same villa all thoseyears ago didn’t matter, but instead delivered a nasty payback to Don Eladioand his men. But, like many plans onBreaking Bad, that plan goes a bit pear-shaped quickly. Jesse ends up killing a Cartel goon (and witha lot less stress than killing Gale, I might add), Gus is weak from the poisonstill in him, Mike has been wounded by gunfire, and all of them tearing ass outof the villa. It’s a almost operatic inits sense of chaos (and the many bikini-clad women fleeing in fear helps too),a credit to the creative team as a major plot point of the season seems to havebeen taken out (but that’s still a bit early to tell).

We’re about to enter the home stretch of theseason, and its all up for grabs. TheCartel is in shambles, Walt is just as bad, Skyler is digging a bigger hole toget out of the hole she’s in, Jesse is in way deep in with Gus and Mike, andthe lives of those two are likely hanging by a thread. While I discount the possibility Gus and/orMike will end up dead next episode, I am reminded that this show is not abovedoing that. And with Walter’s fate hangingin the air (if Jesse is almost as good as a meth cook as Walt is, how long willit be until Gus decides to get rid of Walt?), he’s the wildcard that in thismadness that could shift everything.

--I would like to say the “girlsin string bikini cam” is not an original concept. See Michael Bay’s output for examples.

--Fun things you learn from theBreaking Bad insider podcast: The spiky cap of that tequila bottle was created,and did scratch up guest star Steven Bauer’s hand quite a bit; the tequila wascreated, probably because no tequila maker wanted to be linked to a masspoisoning of Cartel members; the airplane landing happened in the same place alot of the show big exterior shots have happened, which was just outside thestudios where they film.; and like many listeners and fans, want to seeGiancarlo Esposito pop up on the podcast, but scheduling, like most things, isa bitch.

--As much as I started figuringout what was going on with Gus’ poisoning scheme, I honestly didn’t see coming Miketaking a bullet in the chest during the escape.

--Walt was really in a weak andwounded state this week (with his bedsheet sticking to his gaping head wound),and if there isn’t something worse than an angry Walter White this season, it’sa wounded Walter White.

--Hank and Marie are absentiathis week, although next week looks to have Hank further pursuing Gus (if he’sstill alive by next episode, that is).

--Hey, it’s Morris (Carlo Rota)from 24 as the Cartel lead chemist!

--How disappointed/amazed didJesse seem when hearing his meth was 96% pure, but still short of Walt’s 99%formula? Not that it mattered to theCartel boys, but Jesse is still in Walt’s shadow.

--Never sell your kid on a carthat has a CD changer and enough room to carpool. And let alone a used, discontinued car.

--On further reflection, I’mstill shocked the poisoning plan went off the way it did. What would’ve happened in Don Eladio didn’tshare his tequila with the other capos in his villa? And what if Gus wasn’t allowed to use thebathroom to vomit up the poison in him? Isuppose we all should be thankful that despite the messy end, it could’vegotten real bloody.

--I’m even more shocked a planwith poison on this show has actually gone off.

--“You and I don’t wear the samerose-colored glasses where Johnny Fabulous is concerned.”

--“How do you think you got that$600,000?”

--“It’s in those barrels that aremarked with a bee.”

--“I speak English.” “So then you know what ‘asshole’ means,right?”

--“Take what you can carry, andleave in peace. Or fight me and die!”

--“At least you were real, youknow?”

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Breaking Bad Season 4 review / Episode 9: “Bug”

2011-09-12T15:01:00.000-07:00

Its funny to contemplate how therelationship between Walt and Jesse has evolved from a tenuous alliance to thebreaking point hit in this episode. Inthe beginning, Walt pretty much extorted Jesse’s help to get into the drugtrade, but as the seasons progressed, the duo has gone through some nasty speedbumps (including a massive one that surprisingly didn’t get dropped in themiddle of their closing argument) that have kept them loyal to each other. Of course, throughout this season, Jesse’sloyalties have been split between Walt and Gus, and the problem with trying tokeep two sociopathic friends like that sated is, well, you can’t do that forvery long. “Bug” may have seen thatloyalty for Jesse shift in a bad way.

Jesse, unlike Walt this season,has been aware of some massive rumblings in Gus’ criminal empire (namely withthe Cartel), but never as close as this episode shows, with the ambush of the chemicaltruck. He stands motionless as one ofGus’ cronies takes one in the head via a sniper bullet (he’s not quite overkilling a man in cold blood yet), and only avoids getting the next shot thanks toMike’s last-second intervention. Thatand watching Gus walk unfazed towards the sniper fire (which thankfully wasexplained why he didn’t get shot later on by Mike: “They won’t kill him. They need him alive.”) doesn’t do much forhis mental health. But at least hisopinion appears to be valued, even with Gus inviting him to dinner to discussbusiness matters. Gus brings up anunusual business proposal: since the Cartel will continue interfering with thebusiness, he has to concede something to them, and that is a cook who will showthe chemists in Mexico how to cook the blue meth. He decides to send Jesse instead of Walt,which leaves Jesse to contemplate how he can do that without help from the manwho perfected the blue meth: Mr. Walter White.

Its been surprising to see theone man in the duo of Walt and Jesse that has actually been acting rationallyis now Jesse. He’s almost emulated hisestranged partner in crime when describing to Mike the downsides of having Hankkilled, but unlike Walt, is not so much concerned what happens to Hank, butwhat it will do to business (“Mr. White will get more apeshit than before. Lot of things to consider.”). He’s becoming very professional in hishandlings with Gus and his men, but even more disparate with Walt. He clearly wants to help his mentor, but Waltis not in the right mind to see that.

It also doesn’t help when Walttakes a cue from Hank’s GPS tracker ploy last episode, and plants a tracker onJesse’s car (although Hank’s plan only reveals that Gus’ car only goes to homeand work). Walt is not seeing the forestfrom the trees when it comes to current events, and his behavior in the lastfew episodes has been of a man searching for higher ground in a shit situation. His call to Mike to warn them about Hank’spossible visit to the supply warehouse with the secret meth superlab is largelyignored, his getting Tyrus removed from Hank-watching gets a stern warning, andhis protégé has been lying about getting the ricin plot to poison Gus. Where Walt should be using subtlety, he istrying to solve his problems with a sledgehammer.

Unlike Walt, Skyler seems to bethriving and showing some smarts of her own this week. Besides charging some false receipts for thecar wash, Ted Beneke shows up for the first time this season, and things aren’tgoing well for him. Well, you rememberthose accounting books that Skyler cooked way back in season 2 to keep Ted fromfacing bankruptcy? Well, it turns out tohave been for naught, as hes being investigated by the IRS and goes to Skylerfor help. Of course the real reason shewould help him here is because she knows she’ll be investigated if the IRSturns up something, and it does look suspicious for the accountant of ainvestigated company to be connected to a car wash that is laundering drugmoney.

This leads to probably aaward-worthy performance from Skyler as she appears at Ted’s meeting with theIRS all dolled up and acting dumber than a pile of bricks (“When I input everything into the Quicken, nothingflashed red so that’s gotta mean it’s okay right?”). It’s a ploy mean to buy Ted sometime to sell things to repay the IRS, but Ted looks like he’s down to his lastcent already. Meanwhile, Skyler issitting (or standing above the crawlspace, that is) several hundred thousanddollars that will likely not go missed by Walt right now. Skyler is cleaning up not only Walt’s mess,but now may be planning to do the same for Ted as well.

Walt has blinders on to a lot ofthings this episode: Gus’ war with the Cartel, Skyler’s business involvementwith Ted, Hank’s growing persistent investigation of Gus, and the one thingthat crumbles by the episode’s end, his relationship with Jesse. He’s largely ignored Jesse’s mental stateafter Gale’s death, and spends the majority of his time needling Jesse aboutgetting around to poisoning Gus. So whenJesse talks about Gus’ Mexico plans in that final scene, he reveals his buggingof Jesse’s car and in true paranoid Walter White fashion, lashes out againsthis only real ally in this whole thing. That the alliance may have ended after that brutal fight in Jesse’shouse with Walter sent off to lick his wounds is quite a nasty place to putthem for the remainder of the season. WhileI doubt this will be a permanent issue for the remainder of the series, its nota easy place to recover from, and knowing Walter White, if its not worse, itwill be made worse by Walter White.

--Nice teaser images for thisepisode, hinting to the messy fight between Walt and Jesse.

--Disturbing moment when Guswanders out towards the line of fire (“The Terminator” move as described laterby Jesse), and there’s a realization that as much as Gus may not get killedthis far into the season, its not above the show’s creative team to do justthat.

--Skyler’s ditzy performance wasamazing. It was a cavalcade of acted stupiditythat seemed so real it was creepy. Especially calling it THE Quicken.

--So was Hank’s rendition ofSurvivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”. You know,the one that drifted off into mumbling the lyrics.

--Walt’s blow off to Hank by complainingof stomach trouble. “It’s out ofcontrol, and I can’t really leave the bathroom. You know, Tex-Mex cooking and all…”

--I almost got spoiled whenwatching the season 3 blu-ray when someone revealed that the only f-bomb ofthis season (it’s a contractual thing that the show is allowed one per season:with season 2 it was Walt’s “fuck you” to Gretchen, and last season’s “I fuckedTed” from Skyler) was going to be dropped by Jesse. But it’s a pretty potent usage to close outthe episode.

--Another acid filled containerfull of a Gus Kring employee goes off to parts unknown.

--Jesse’s an Ice Road Truckersfan. “Guys drive on ice.”

--Weird that Walt asks for acigarette from Jesse, only to not really inhale the smoke. Hmmm…

--“Are you sure you want a fullbody wash for your car? OK, then. Here’s your receipt.”

--“Tell them the answer is yes.”

--“And if you ever plan on callingthe cops on one of my guys again, you go ahead and get two barrels.”

--“Run, move your feet and soforth.”

--“Word has come down?”

--“Can you walk? Good, then get the fuck out of here and don’tcome back.”

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Friday Night Movie -- UNITED 93

2011-09-11T21:48:00.000-07:00

My memories of September 11, 2001are foggy to say the least. I canremember preparing to go to work at my secretarial job, but spent most of the morninglistening to the news on TV about what was going on. I actually wandered around in a haze, notreally going anywhere, but just…wandering. It seemed every little thing I took for granted on my regular day wasmagnified dramatically, and for awhile, the world seemed not so large.

Minutia is everything in theworld, and a harder thing to capture cinematically. Minutia is also the fuel of writer/directorPaul Greengrass’ 2006 docudrama, United 93. Maybe moreso than any dramatic event in U.S. history, 9/11 unfolded infront of us as it was happening. Rumorsran rampant, and facts got confused with the lies. That we still argue over the details of whathappened that day to now is as much as a confirmation of the reach and theconfusion that happens when news it caught as it happens.

United 93 is with exception tothe opening sequence, an almost real-time portrayal of that morning. We see the perspective of the air trafficcontrollers who are just befuddled by one plane’s behavior, then disappearancefrom their scopes. We don’t evenregister what has happened to that plane, even when someone off hand notices abizarre pillar of smoke coming from one of the World Trade Center towers. Its like we’re watching the events happen,without much buildup or dread that other movies would go for.

A lot of this is due toGreengrass’ method of filmmaking, which came to province in the political dramaBloody Sunday (almost a cousin of United 93’s docu-style) and his first majorstudio movie, The Bourne Supremacy. Soit seemed fairly ambitious for Greengrass to do a movie about 9/11 that lacked bigstars (save for a few well-placed character actors that you will claim you’veseen before, and would be right about), involved actual air traffic controllerswho worked on that day, and hypothesized what happened in what was likely the harrowingfinal minutes that occurred before United flight 93 crashed. And yet, the movie becomes all the better forit. Take for instance another 9/11 basedmovie released that year, World Trade Center, which was primarily a big studiomovie, big stars, and really focused on several main characters. That movie felt limiting and flat, inessence, everything a big studio retelling of a historic event would be.

United 93 felt real, because ourfocus was on multiple elements: with the civilian ATCs trying to decipher whatwas going on in a sea of airplanes flying above them, the military who weretrying to scramble a solution for a situation that was getting progressivelyworse, and a scared plane full of passengers who were becoming aware that theirtime was running out. There wasconfusion on all ends, and while some would argue (rather incorrectly, I mightadd) that if certain people were better prepared for such an act, it probablywouldn’t have happened, its only retrospective thinking, and at worst, narrowspeculation. The people on the groundare pros who did not expect such a coordinated attack, and nearly an hour intothings, still weren’t even sure what the point of all of it was. On the other end, the people onboard United93 weren’t getting their information all at once, but in pieces via phone callsto friends and family.

As I mentioned earlier, the movieis almost real-time in its events, with the actual United 93 hijacking cominghalfway into the film, but we know it is coming. For a movie that is about events that arestill fresh in our minds, it is surprisingly tense and ominous, even as wespend the last third of the film locked in United 93 as the passengers decideto take back the plane. We all know howthis is going to end, but how it happens (or at least what we can piecetogether did happen on that flight) is what makes it unnerving to watch. And when the film goes to sudden black as theplane slams into its final resting place, we aren’t given reassurance of futureevents or even some Hollywood-esque happy ending tied onto it. Unlike a lot of “based on true events”movies, this movie stays within its time frame, and doesn’t deviate, even if itcomes with such a heartbreaking end.

At the time of its release, somecritics accused this movie as coming too soon after the events of 9/11, but inmany eyes (including my own), United 93 came at the right time. It may be the most potent docu-drama of thelast ten years, exactly for the things that Hollywood would tell you is notwhat makes a good movie. It is about thedoomed flight as much as it is about a brief moment in history where ourperceptions changed, and our resolve was tested. For good or bad, we faced an unimaginablethreat and instead of letting it destroy us, we fought back against an enemywhose methods were horrifying.

United 93 isn’t about great heroes, but about commonpeople under fire coming together for one goal, even if that goal may cost themtheir lives. That plane would likelyhave ended up crashing somewhere in Washington causing countless morefatalities, and instead of those passengers letting their fate be decided byhijackers, they met it on their own terms. It is no small feat for a movie to be both true and emotionally involving,and United 93 does both so brilliantly.

Breaking Bad Season 4 review / Episode 8: “Hermanos”

2011-09-05T20:01:00.000-07:00

Ask any storyteller, and they’lltell you it’s a tricky thing delving into the past of the antagonist of anystory. So when realizing “Hermanos” wasgoing to primarily deal with Gus Fring and his obscured past, there was someconcern on my part. Handled correctly,you can add depth and more menace to that character; incorrectly, you defangthe menace of that villain. “Hermanos”manages to stay in the former category.

We’ve known for some time thatGus has been at odds with the cartel long before the split that has made up themajority of the season, but here we see how it all came to be. When Gus visits Tio Hector (yes, the man withthe bell!) in the teaser, it’s in fact a flashback to the events of last season’s“I See You”, where Gus tells Tio what has happened to the cousins. The thing that becomes clear in that scene isthat despite Gus’ claims of innocence, that it’s a lie, and that both men knowit is. There’s deeper history here, but youdon’t expect the show to follow up on it immediately.

That’s why the extended flashbackthat makes up the last act of “Hermanos” so surprising. We see a younger Gus and his partner Max at ameeting with the cartel, made up of a non-wheelchair bound Tio, and the cartelhead Don Eladio (and what a surprise to see Steven Bauer here, who of course,is well known as Tony Montana’s unfortunate buddy Manny from Scarface). They came to bring their meth business to thecartel, but get shit on because of they gave the meth to cartel members whowent to Los Pollos Hermanos. Believe itor not, there’s a hierarchy in every ethnicity, and Chileans doing somethinglike that to get the attention of Mexicans tends to be a frowned upon thing. Sowhen we think Gus, the mastermind of this plan is going to be killed, it’s a shock(at least to Gus) when Max, the chemist of the duo gets killed in front of Gusas nothing more than an object lesson.

This rattles Gus to no end, andadds depth to events we’ve already seen before in the show. When Hank got warned about the cousins in “OneMinute”, we’ve always assumed it was to get rid of the bloodthirsty duo, butnow realize it served a dual purpose: to hurt the cartel for what they did allthose years ago. His visits to Tio arenow seen as needles into the invalid’s heart, and a constant threat to Tio’slife that may only come to be when Gus bores of hurting Tio and the cartel. He’s mixing vengeance for his partner Max(and that’s something I’ll talk about more in the notes below because of whatit may imply) with his desire to become master of his domain.

And if that doesn’t seem tocomplicate things enough, Gus still has to contend with Hank Schrader. He’s brought into a meeting with the DEA, andtakes the brilliant case Hank had laid out in “Problem Dog”, and explains itall away as calmly as can be. But evenGus is not superman and invulnerable, which makes his reaction to Hank’s lastminute question about his real identity so surprising. It’s a crack in the veneer of Gustavo Kringthat is amazed someone would even ask that question, and if it wasn’t obvioushow much Hank is starting to concern him, it should when Hank inadvertentlygets Walt to drop a GPS device onto Gus’ car. That Walt shows Gus the GPS and Gus’ smiley face doesn’t conceal howirritated he is (Giancarlo Esposito makes Gus seem warm in the general public,but when he tells Walt to put the GPS onto his car, that warmth intentionally seemsas robotic and lifeless as can be) by this shows that the walls are starting toclose in on Gus.

Walt is faring no better here, asat one point he boasts to a cancer patient during a routine checkup, to “nevergive up control, to live life on your own terms”, when its obvious how littleWalt is in control of anymore. His brother-in-law’sinvestigation puts him into full-on bargaining mode with Gus (via a securitycamera, which makes as much sense as pleading to the sky for help at thispoint), Walt discovers Jesse’s loyalties may lie with Gus now, Skyler’sbecoming more of a boss to the car wash/money laundering plan than he is, andGod knows how that cancer checkup actually went (that he hesitates to answerWalter Jr.’s question about it is curious to say the least). He’s a man not in control of anything in hislife now, and his only method of keeping himself sane is to believe howimportant he really is. As seeminglyimpotent he felt last season, this seems even worse, which knowing the way Waltreacts to that impotency, is only likely to bring on bad things.

You got the cartel on one end andHank’s lone wolf investigation on the other, with both looking like bad newsfor Walt. Walt has spent the majority ofthis season trying to find a way to get rid of Gus, but it becomes clear howbad things may end up going for Walt and everyone he knows if Gus is killed offor taken to jail. Both Walt and Gus aretrying to have success and revenge both ways, but as with many tales oftragedy, eventually it can only end badly for everyone involved.

--Lot of flashbacks this episode,especially with may be the farthest back we’ve gone in the show’s chronologywith Gus’ meeting with the cartel. Pretty ambitious to end an episode on essentially a ten minute flashbackof a supporting character (and all in Spanish, no less), but it’s acted andshot beautifully.

--An interesting discussion hasarose because of this episode, that of Gus’ relationship with Max. It’s clear they’ve been friends for a longtime and are willing to stand up for each other (which seems at times to echoWalt and Jesse’s relationship), but its implied (and a theory even discussed inthe show’s insider podcast) that Gus’ relationship with Max may be homosexualin nature. Now personally, its not aconcern to me of anyone’s sexual orientation, but the subject is left vagueenough to suggest either theory. I’msure this is a subject that will come up later, and if it doesn’t, we learnvolumes about the man Gus was and the man Gus becomes in that scene alone, andthat is enough for the moment.

--Really was shocked when Max waskilled (and that we only see Gus’ reaction first before seeing Max’s bulletopened head), but when you have several noted actors (including the druglordGus had set up to be killed in “I See You”), its always gonna be the guest starthat is likely to get killed.

--Skyler is not absent as thereview appears here, as she tries to hide Walt’s ill gotten gains (although Icould have told you a lot of paper, even vacuum formed is very heavy to hang upin a closet). She then hides the moneyin the crawlspace of the house, a place already stuffed with tales of WalterWhite.

--Jesse also is still involved(albeit through the proxy of Saul Goodman) in the affairs of his ex-girlfriendAndrea, but even Saul sees this as problematic, “I don’t mind appearing to themevery week like Ed McMahon, but why don’t go ask them how they’re doing?”

--Am I wrong in noticing this,but has Marie shifted out of purple?

--I wonder if Tio got in thewheelchair because he actually got caught pissing in his boss’ pool?

--A weird piece of trivia I wasnot aware of until I heard the insider podcast: Max is named after the actorwho played Crazy-8 in the show’s very first episodes.

--“Los Pollos Hermanos, wheresomething is always cooking!”

--“Your chicken is so…zesty! Piquant!”

--“Is Gustavo Fring your realname?”

--“The only reason you’re notdead is because I know who you are.”

--“You add plus douchebag tominus douchebag, and you get like, zero douchebags.”

--“Good. DO IT. May I help you with your order?”

--“Maybe next time.”

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 stars