Introducing our reality-free feed
There’s no getting around it — there’s a crapload of reality shows on TV. The writers’ strike wreaked havoc on television programming as we knew it this year, so not only did returning reality monsters like American Idol and Dancing with the Stars come back, but we were blindsided with new ones; this is a TV website, so we’re not going to ignore this enormous elephant in the room.
We’ve gotten some requests for a “reality-free” page, where you won’t see any posts related to reality television as posted here on TV. Behold, the Reality-Free page! Like other categories, you can subscribe to that category’s RSS feed as well. We’ve just started using it today, but it will continued to feature any non-reality TV posts from now on.
Breaking Bad: Crazy Handful of Nothin’
(S01E06) I hadn’t even realized how quickly this season has gone by until the closing moments told me that next week was the season finale. That’s way too soon, and yes I understand there was a pesky writer’s strike which played havoc with production schedules. But Breaking Bad is just too good of a show that’s just starting to find its groove. Bryan Cranston just constantly blows me away with his performance, and Aaron Paul continues to find ways to turn what could be a very one-dimensional, archetypical street thug into a complex personality.
That said, after this episode I find myself wondering if Cranston’s Walter really needs Paul’s Jesse anymore. I’m sure he ultimately does but he seemed to handle things pretty well himself. Walt is clearly emboldened by his prior misdeeds, murder and arson on top of the obvious drug activities, as well as his sense of impending mortality. His new-found courage, or lunacy, reached a crescendo in how he ultimately handled the Tuco situation. By the way, I thought that was a really well handled flash-forward effect. By showing us the carnage and the bald Walter, we know it’s something that’s to come as the chemo hadn’t taken his hair yet, but we didn’t yet know when.
After having both failed to find other ways to get by in life in last week’s episode, Walt came back and agreed again to work with Jesse. Still left unresolved is why he’s so adamant in refusing his former partner’s money for his treatment. Preferring to take on the tremendous risks of cooking and selling meth over accepting a handout from a friend, or at least a former friend, is a pretty huge statement. Whether it’s a huge statement of Walt’s stubborn independence or pride or an indication of tremendously bad blood in that relationship remains to be seen. And hopefully it will be addressed, because right now it’s a huge albatross hanging over the story.
Meanwhile out in the desert, the arrangement put in place for “cooking” is that Walt is the chemist and Jesse the salesman, with no crossover between the two. That plan quickly fell apart, though, as Walt’s deteriorating health in response to his chemotherapy chased him from the RV mid-batch, leaving Jesse to finish up. This also led to Jesse discovering that Walt had cancer as he’d watched an aunt die from the disease. In a moment of tenderness, Jesse suggested, “Put an icepack on your head during chemo. My aunt said it helped with the hair loss.” Later, when Jesse brought back a paltry $1,300 from his various sales, Walter was disgusted and immediately started making suggestions on how to rectify the situation. By the end of things, arbitrary lines would be broken and Walt would be fully involved in this side of the operation as well.
When Walt asked Jesse if he knew any distributors to whom they could move large quantities, Jesse responded, “Yeah, I used to. Until you killed him.” A sobering reminder of this dark path they’re going down. With that distributor, Krazy 8, out of the picture, a guy named Tuco had horned in on his territory. But despite Walt’s insistence Jesse explained that you can’t just go up to someone like that and try to sell. You have to have an “in.” And then, later, Jesse finds his “in” with a friend of his who used to share a cell with Tuco.
Unfortunately, when Jesse called to give Walt this good news, Walt was in the middle of going over his high school lab equipment with DEA agent and brother-in-law Hank. The gas mask they’d found in the desert when investigating the new clean strain of meth circulating had led Hank back to Walt’s high school. At this point, Walt should be incredibly grateful that he comes across as such a stick-in-the-mud because it was just beyond Hank’s comprehension to think that Walt could possibly be involved. I would suspect he’ll be in for quite a rude awakening if and when he finds out.
Throughout the episode we were treated to Walt both receiving his chemo treatments and responding to them. From bouts of sickness to clumps of hair falling out to him ultimately shaving his head when the bald patches were getting too prominent. We also got to experience an incredibly awkward group therapy session in which Skyler and Walt, Jr. lamented that he goes off in the afternoons and seems withdrawn. Honestly, Walter has been a withdrawn man since we’ve met him and I have a hard time believing this is a dramatic character change. Sure, he’s probably become more withdrawn and it’s more challenging now, but should they really be surprised.
The creators did a good job of setting up high school janitor Hugo as a sympathetic character while at the same time showing us Walt’s declining health. It always seemed to be Hugo who was there to help clean up after Walt’s bouts of vomiting as a result of the chemo. Be it to clean it up so Walt could get back to teaching the kids or just to offer him a stick of gum, Hugo came across as a decent guy. So I guess I should have seen it coming when Hugo took the fall for the missing lab equipment. Even though his only crime seemed to be the fact that he was a pothead, it was enough for Hank to connect him. Ultimately he was cleared of that, but he was still looking at losing his job and going down in some fashion for possession. Another notch on the bedpost of victims Walt is ratcheting up.
While Walt was busy dealing with this, poor Jesse was getting his ass kicked … again. He has spent at least half of this series so far either getting his ass handed to him physically or verbally. And this time it was by Tuco and his goons. At the arranged meeting, after Jesse demanded he be paid $35,000 up front for the pound of meth he brought rather than trust that Tuco would repay him later, he instead got beaten nearly into a coma. And then Tuco just took the meth anyway. Walt didn’t even know this had happened for the longest time. When he found out, he went and saw him in the hospital where Jesse had a neck brace, broken bones and extensive injuries. Again, something that might not have happened were it not for Walt.
At this point the episode came full circle as bald Walt arrived at Tuco’s pad with a bag of meth. We’ve seen Walt show increasing signs of reckless behavior, but this was him entering into a whole new arena of crazy. Manhandled and escorted to the same room in which Jesse met his grisly fate, Walt made his demands. “Thirty-five for the pound of meth you stole, and another fifteen for my partner’s pain and suffering.” Standing there with nothing but a bag of meth, torn open in front of him on Tuco’s desk, Tuco could do nothing but laugh.
“Let me get this straight. I steal your dope. I beat the piss out of your mule boy. And then you walk in here and bring me more meth?” Tuco laughed. “You got one part of that wrong. This is not meth,” Walt said picking up a piece of it and throwing it to the ground. The next shot was ground level outside as all the windows blew out upstairs. This was an amazing scene, which is why you get to relive it so thoroughly. Here we have terminal high school chemistry teacher Walt walking into the hornet’s nest. He knows what they’re capable of because he’s seen Jesse and knows they’ve already stolen a pound of meth from them. It would be nothing to these people to kill a sickly looking middle-aged white dude.
But a show of strength was exactly what Tuco would respond to and suddenly Walt had made the business deal that Jesse couldn’t. Of course, it will still probably all turn out horrible for Walt as this is a very dangerous crowd he’s now climbing into the proverbial bed with. So far, Walt has managed to roll with every punch the meth game has dealt him, but I have to figure he’s going to meet his match soon.
With no word yet on a second season, I can only hope there’s at least some sense of closure next week. That said, the show has been getting almost unanimous praise across the review circuit and I think has been netting good numbers for AMC. And with a lot of buzz about Cranston come Emmy time, you would think a renewal would be a no-brainer. Or maybe the story isn’t even being set up to have a second season. You know, if it is designed to end next week in whatever fashion, I think I might find that tremendously satisfying as well. I like the idea of a show knowing when to get in and when to get out.
Brought To You By …
A new column here at TV, where we talk about all of the things you’re missing when you hit fast forward on your DVRs.
I thought I’d kick off the very first Brought To You By…column by talking about yesterday’s Super Bowl ads (apparently there was also a game of some sort played…). USA Today did their annual ranking of the best and worst of the ads, having a bunch of viewers watch the ads with meters and give an opinion on the good and the bad, and for some reason Bud got the top spot, the way they do every single year. It must be that the people who vote on these things like horses, wacky comedy, or they’re all drunk (on Budweiser). The company got three of the top ten slots, and number one went to the spot where the dog trained the horse, accompanied by the Rocky theme. It’s bad enough that Bud seems to win over viewers every year, but this dog/horse ad wasn’t even the best of the Bud ads yesterday!
Anyway, I have my own thoughts on the best and worst, and I’ll list them after the jump.
Best
1. Coca-Cola/Dueling Balloons: Maybe I just have a soft spot for giant balloons based on cartoon characters, but I thought it was really funny to have Underdog and Stewie fight for a Coke in the skies over NY. And then Charlie Brown gets the bottle!
2. Pepsi/Justin Timberlake: Most of the time, commercials that feature celebs pushing soda just aren’t funny, but this one was actually clever and well done. Timberlake really has a second career making short films involving his penis.
3. Fed-Ex/Pigeons: I kinda knew where this one was going, but it didn’t make the images of giant pigeons creating havoc any less funny. This is what Cloverfield should have been like.
4. Bud Light/Wine and Cheese: This was the best beer ad of the night. The pacing and the editing are really well done, and the closing line of “Goin’ on a cheese run” is perfect.
5. Planters/Unibrow: I had no idea what was going on in this ad at first, but then it turned into one of those “wow, this is so creepy and odd it’s really funny” things. Good use of music too.
Worst
1. Anything by SalesGenie.com: They’ve been advertising in the game for the past couple of years, and no one knows, understands, or cares what they do. Something to do with sales leads? Gah.
2. SoBe Lizards: This one seemed to go on forever, and my roommate and I just looked at each other and said “what the f**k is going on?” Dancing to “Thriller?” There were a few ads this year from water companies, and all of them made me want to drink Coke.
3. Under Armour: I don’t get these commercials. They seem to want to empower athletes to want to be better (by wearing clothing), but to me they just reinforce what I hate about sports.
4. Lifesilk: What do you get when you put Marilyn Monroe, Shakira, and Madonna together? The most boring commercial in the world. What exactly are women supposed to get from this ad, that they can get hair like those stars by using Sunsilk? The text at the end that encourages viewers to visit their site and share their story just confuses me. Share my story about hair? (By the way, Madonna reportedly got $10 million for this, Shakira $2.5 million.)
5. Bridgestone/Richard Simmons: Come on, admit it, you would have liked this ad better if they actually ran Simmons down.
The Dark Knight: Anthony Michael Hall’s Character Revealed
Ever since it was announced that Anthony Michael Hall had been cast in The Dark Knight, the internet has been hard at work speculating what kind of role he would play in the film. Warner Bros decision to keep the project almost entirely secret (and limiting press access) has resulted in mass spoilers being leaked online. And now we have a tip on what character Hall may play in the film.
Earlier this month we published a list of call sheet spoilers from The Dark Knight. Last week’s call-sheets included a new character named Reese (read no further if you don’t want to know any more possible spoilers) who tries to blackmail Lucius Fox using Batman’s identity. We also had some information on another sequence which involved Bruce Wayne serving as a distraction to allow Reese to escape a Gotham tv station without being mobbed. According to the call sheet, Reese is being played by Joshua Harto and not Anthony Michael Hall.
HollywoodChicago claims to have information which ties Anthony Michael Hall’s character to this storyline. According to the report, Hall’s character plans to use the Gotham City News to reveal Batman’s true identity. Hall’s character is intensely jealous of Bruce Wayne, and even drives a matching Lamborghini Murcielago.
“Of course, the Joker is the true villain. Out of fear that the Joker will lose the object of his game-playing affection, he sets out to stop Hall’s character by calling in a bomb threat to the TV station.
The bomb threat causes widespread havoc. The move is designed to steal the attention off the character so he can’t issue the Batman-revealing report.”
So does Anthony Michael Hall play the Reese character? Or are the storylines of Reese and Hall’s character intertwined? Either way it sounds like way too much is going on in this Batman sequel (it now seems we have at least 3 antagonists, and that is never good), but I could be wrong.