Full disclosure: I saw this and a bunch of other flicks that I'll roll brief reviews out for over the coming weeks over the summer. As you'll see here, this wasn't necessarily because I didn't like the films but rather was a byproduct of my busy schedule during the baseball season. Regardless, here is one of many backlogged Man on Film entries that will be heavily sprinkled in here.
Going into Celeste and Jesse Forever, I had trailer-fueled trepidations that had been at least in part alleviated by the myriad interviews that co-scribe and star Rashida Jones did leading up to its release. If there was one thing that worried me more than anything (other than my general doubt in Andy Samberg), it was the hand heart sign that Jones and Samberg exchange multiple times in the trailer and the iceberg of saccarine cuteness whose tip it conceivably shewed.
Thankfully Celeste and Jesse Forever didn't fall into the pit that seemingly every indie rom-com over the past decade did, not revelling in its quirk, not falling in love with its own preciousness. Moreover, as Jones wrote the movie with herself in mind to star and co-wrote it with Will McCormack, the cast of characters are actually interesting and layered; the very fact that [apparently skilled] scribes of both sexes crafted the characters in consort with one another makes for a romantic comedy in which those characters are written with the insight of someone who actually knows how men and women think. All too often, this fare is one-dimensional, predictable, and out of touch with one of the two sexes. Even the better works within the genre have only the aspirations of being a modestly intelligent pastiche, self-referentially laying the genre conventions out on display, entirely too content with its self-awareness.
Using Jones and McCormack's script that simply strives to be genuine while silently bucking convention, director Lee Toland Krieger follows up the stellar indie 2009 Adam Scott vehicle The Vicious Kind with another winner. This time working with a larger cast and canvas, he fills out the cast with a slew of gifted and hilarious supporting performers such as Ari Graynor, Rob Huebel, Eric Christian Olsen, Elijah Wood, and the aforementioned McCormack. He also gets a surprisingly strong performance from Emma Roberts as an ingenue pop star and a predictably outstanding performance from Chris Messina, who it seems I spend a lot of time lauding, both here and in the real world.
As for the leads, Jones is great, having given herself a role with some real meat to it and making one wish she were given more to do on Parks & Rec. At the very least, one can hope that she'll continue to write roles for herself that aren't the standard girlfriend/wife roles that wait for nearly all actresses in Hollywood. The surprise is that Andy Samberg is actually very good. By far the more sympathetic of the titular characters, he is vulnerable, likable, funny, and relatable, all traits that I cannot remember myself associating with Samberg in his past projects.
With nearly everything going for it, Celeste and Jesse Forever is the most pleasant of surprises. It trudges through the muck that the genre of rom-com and the equally suspect sub-genre of indie rom-com and comes out the other side exceptionally unsullied, unlike nearly all that went before it.
"Dead Freight" brings us the second caper of Season Five. After sliming up Hank at the DEA, Walt and the other two stooges use a wire-tapped phone call to corner Lydia, who oddly enough wasn't lying about the tapped barrels. Walt, Mike, and Jesse then use Lydia's insider info to pull off a methylamine heist with the unwavering help of their trusty sidekick, Todd.
Landry, Moe, and Shemp
Craig Scholes: Can you hear that? If not, it’s my slow clap congratulating you on calling a train heist.
Stan Earnest: Well, thank you, but that was because I have inside info (not Breaking Bad spoiler info, but train info) which I will share plenty of later, but for starters I just want to say I have a lot of issues with this episode. Some are serious issues with the way the heist was pulled, others are simply timing issues with the show. The pacing has left the viewer off kilter at this point. It is fantastic that we get to see Walt dive to all new lows--and highs for Heisenberg--as he plots under the radar of Hank, but the show is snail-pacing the first 8 episodes of Season Five if we are going to see Walt use that M60 before the Summer of 2013.
This is going to get ugly. I am calling it right now. I know how TV works. Breaking Bad is captivating. It is the best show on television, yet it has one-third of the viewers as The Walking Dead. This first half is going to end on a cliffhanger and the madness that would be a Hank vs. Walt standoff will have to wait, for a whole year. A. Whole. Year. Meanwhile, AMC will have a standoff with Gilligan and Co., and we will probably have Breaking Bad move to Fox, and they will only want it if there are three more seasons to come. So, I'm not saying I have lost faith by any measure in Vince Gilligan. I'm on board the train. I just am seeing red lights at this point. But I have faith, and the episodes are still entertaining as hell to me.
CS: I don't think your Fox theory is going to happen at all. From what I understand, the second half of Season Five has already been agreed to. I think if they try and pull out there are going to be some ugly contract problems.
SE: Let's hope so, we never hear the full spectrum with these things. I've heard it has been "bought" but not necessarily paid for--like they could go in with a higher budget, and there would be problems.
CS: I heard a Reddit rumor that Morgan Freeman is going to have a part.
SE: Wait a damn second, Morgan Freeman? Oh, I get it; God finally comes down to give Walt his karmic bitch slap.
CS: It seems to me that everyone involved likes the idea of wrapping the show up and ending it on top, and at this point the show is what it is. Dragging it on forever doesn't do anyone any favors. I don't think AMC is actually making that much money off of it.
SE: That is why I am so on board. Gilligan doesn't lie to his audience. At the same time, I don't think he ever knew how far this show was going to go. I mean, we have had five episodes without Hank even sniffing a scent of Heisenberg. If AMC isn’t making mega bucks off of it--because they have their heads up their asses on the marketing of merchandise like we have previously discussed--then there may be a problem.
CS: And after so long, critical acclaim won't keep a show on the air.
SE: So how much longer can we go with Hank looking straight through Walter?
CS: They've done it for about three seasons so far. Clearly Mike would whip Walt’s ass if it came down to fisticuffs, but that hasn't stopped Walt from getting the best of other people.
SE: Can we add up what he has seen so far, and what has got to be churning for him?
CS: Go for it.
SE: Ok, so the first red flag is the gas mask that goes back to the high school and thus the missing beakers and cooking utensils. Hank still remembers this right?
CS: Oh shit, you said Hank, and I read Mike. Can you imagine how entertaining a showdown between Mike and Hank would be.
SE: Yeah, like a DeNiro and Pacino showdown from Heat: one world-weary guy on the good side sitting across the table of another world-weary guy on the bad side.
CS: Hank is eventually going to have that Chazz Palminteri moment at the end of The Usual Suspects. When he puts all this shit together, will he drop a Pollos coffee cup?
SE: Onto Mike's foot as Mike spills the coffee beans about Walt in a scroungy diner. Chazz Palminteri, where is that guy? He had his Keyser Soze moment and disappeared forever. I think he is in that junkyard with Tuco's henchmen and Jimmy Hoffa.
Give me the keys you fucking cocksucker.
CS: He was in the flick Poolhall Junkies which was all right.
SE: Of course, I am going to search IMDB and see 47 B movies he starred in over the last 5 years. (I clearly underestimated Chazz; searching IMDB an hour after this comment I see he has had exactly 46 roles since Suspects--damn, I was close--and one of my favorites I forgot about, Hurly Burly.)
CS: How is it that The Usual Suspects is a 17 year old movie? It would be a Senior in high school, or maybe even a Freshman in college.
SE: Because we are old. So this Keyser Soze moment includes: gas masks and missing equipment at the school, the poker hand, the tequila incident, the second cell phone, the Aztek at the Jimmy In & Out bust, Gus at the hospital (which he didn't witness but his family did), “WW” from the lab notes, the can’t-handle-red-wine speech, and the car wreck at the laundry. What am I missing?
CS: Acting weird with the GPS at Pollos. He'll probably find out that Walt has been paying for the medical bills, too.
SE: Let's also not forget the cover up story about the gambling. How long before Hank haphazardly asks Walter to take him on a tour of these so-called underground facilities? Are we going to get a dark humor scene like when Walt saved the day at the scene of Jimmy In & Out? I would love to see Jesse orchestrate a fake gambling hall with Badger and Skinny Pete as black jack dealers. Of course, Badger couldn't be seen by Hank, but damn that would be great.
CS: Also, the realization as to why Skyler has been so fucking weird.
SE: What if the show ended with Hank never finding out who Heisenberg is or Hank dying before that moment? Rank that scenario in your list of all-time letdowns.
CS: Unless Skyler takes over the business.
SE: Clearly, Walt's worst mistake so far to me is not taking care of the wife first. I know how it works. You have to keep the wife happy. He should have taken her shopping and put her in a Benzo or Beamer cross-over and then grabbed the SRT. Oh Walt, you can play games with the crime underworld, but you have to keep your lady happy.
CS: I’m not sure spending cheese would have made Skyler happy though. She lost her shit over that champagne.
SE: I like that the show can take any weird direction it wants to and leave plot lines open. For example, Mike was saying that Walt and Jesse don't know Lydia like he knows her. Does this mean that she has stronger ties to Gustavo Fring than previously thought? Is that kid his? Or does that just mean that she is a nutcase and put a hit on Mike? I went from thinking the M60 was for Lydia to thinking that wasn't possible in two minutes.
CS: My theory is that Landry (Todd) turns out to be a maniacal child killer and the M60 is what it will take to keep Landry's blood thirst away from Flynn and whatever that fucking baby girl's name is.
SE: Holly maybe? She is the perfect on screen baby.
CS: Holly is a total bitch diva; I'm sick of her shit.
SE: I am hanging my head in shame, not just at that comment, but because I haven't seen Friday Night Lights yet. But with all the internet Landry comments, I am totally on board and going to mow throw all the episodes in like two weeks. I can't stand not being in on a joke.
CS: I can't wait for Crucifictorious and TwaughtHammer to go on tour.
SE: They can tour with Wyld Stallyns, Station, and Vamonos Pest.
I just realized that Lydia has to be completely wigged out by the time this is over if she wasn't all ready. Laura Fraser is amazing. She has to be thinking, "How the hell did they get a bug in the DEA?"
You know, Lydia has a small resemblance to Ron Swanson's ex-wife. If we get a Ron Swanson crossover, that is it, no one can deny this is the greatest show ever. Maybe the M60 is for a corn-rowed Ron Swanson?
CS: Being a Libertarian, Ron Swanson wouldn't give two shits about anyone doing meth.
SE: Until they stepped on his territory.
CS: Walt and Jesse escape the DEA in one of Ron Swanson's hand-fashioned wooden canoes, and don't forget Duke Silver.
SE: They are doing some serious CGI work at Breaking Bad to erase that wheelbarrow Walt is using to carry his grapefruits in. He put a bug in the DEA and slathered his fingerprints all over it.
CS: A friend sent me nearly that exact same message in a text tonight.
SE: Is he going to remove it next time? Or keep them going live? I mean surely the DEA does sweeps once in a while.
CS: It will be much easier to get it out of there than to plant it though. Walt can get it just by tying his shoe laces then accidentally knocking the picture off the table, then offering to re-frame the picture.
SE: And then DJ Roomba sweeps it up and he has to break into the custodian closet.
CS: I didn't exactly get a good look at what he put in the picture frame
SE: I thought he was jacking into Hank's computer for info, but wasn't the device in the frame just a simple mic?
CS: Thanks to the power of DVR, I just rewound it and saw that, yeah, it looks like a mic. I would imagine the thing attached to the computer was just a way to transmit the audio via the interwebs.
SE: Ok, moving on to the heist, we have a resident expert here. I worked as a train conductor for six years. I can’t get into detail, but the way they pulled off this heist was frightening to me. Like I said, I won’t give detail, but I’ve literally lived that particular scenario.
I know I get some credit for thinking they were going to heist a rail car of methylamine, but I have insider knowledge that I didn’t want to mention. Apparently, Breaking Bad doesn’t mind sharing the fact that rail cars of dangerous material sit in the middle of nowhere all the time. I am anxiously awaiting the Insider podcast to see what they had to do to get it cleared.
CS: In my amateur opinion (but having a fairly good grasp of momentum), it seems to me they got that train stopped a little too easily.
SE: I'm really biting my lip. This is hard to talk about, but yes, stopping a train is very, very, very hard to do. The thing is, as Lydia mentioned (she was really spot-on with the insider knowledge), this was a small train, but if it was a "local" that switched cars out there would be three guys on board, not two. Your typical coal train that is a mile-and-a-half long takes like a mile to stop under safe conditions. A mile. A little train like that one takes much less distance. There is no way, I mean NO WAY they have any clue how much distance it takes to stop a train. I noticed the bridge was really long that they were going to boost the methylamine off of, but man, NO WAY they have any idea how quickly it stops. It was the middle of the desert where you can see for miles and miles.
CS: I remember in middle school we had a conductor come to our school to warn us about crossroad safety, and he told us that it can take up to a mile for a train to come to a stop.
SE: An empty coal train can screech to a halt in like a quarter mile or less if it needs to, but anything loaded--like tank cars full of methylamine--takes much longer.
Lydia is also spot-on with her railroad lingo. The writer's did their homework again. There is "dark territory" railroad--it is actually called that--and it is scary as hell to ride on. I am accustomed to signals controlled by dispatchers that guide train movement, but occasionally there are pieces of dark territory that trains run over. It is old rail that doesn't have much traffic and the dispatcher controls movement through verbal commands the conductor records as a "track warrant". You have to really trust the dispatcher, and then you buzz on down the track in the complete darkness of the night with no signals, guided by all these old railroad rules. In no way does this mean you are ever out of communication with the dispatcher.
CS: I don't like you having insider knowledge over me. It isn't enough that you nailed this episode with the prediction.
SE: Further driving the point home, the first thing that train is supposed to do when it is stopped is contact the dispatcher, and then if the train has anything other than plain old coal cars or other less dangerous cars, is inspect the train. The ingenious part about this plot is that a giant truck in the middle of the road would completely distract the conductor from inspecting his train. The bullshit whistle I am blowing on this heist is huge; it's bigger than a tuba and louder than a train horn. With that said, if everything lined up perfectly, it could potentially happen. I mean everything. The crew has to be paying attention, they have to decide it isn't worth calling the dispatcher after they apply the emergency brakes (which is a violation of railroad rules), they both leave the train unattended anyhow (which is a violation, unless they are on a shortline with less rules and regulations), and on top of it all they don't inspect the train and just take off when the truck is clear.
CS: But isn't that the beauty of TV, everything working perfectly? Isn't it human nature to cut corners and assume things aren't astray?
We killed a kid in the desert, and all we got was this hose and a pet tarantula?
SE: Listening to the Insider podcast, Gilligan knows he takes liberties. The thing is, 99.9% of the people that watch the show haven't been acclimated to railroad procedure, and that may be why I have little suspended disbelief.
CS: I've had my doubts in other situations though. I’m still not convinced you could get that many car batteries to get an electromagnet strong enough to pull a U-Haul over like that.
SE: Yes, I am glad this madness is happening during Walt's off-the-rails phase. They are backed into a corner and don't give a damn, so why not take the risk. I love that he shares with Skyler what he was doing.
Let's talk about the elephant in the room, what does Todd's role mean for the series going further?
CS: It means Jesse is going to kill him.
Oh, and I almost forgot, once again the better half Saul's D team comes to the rescue. Bill Burr has been fantastic in this show. What a fantastic shirt with those nut-huggers too. "Of course you know something about engines, that’s why they call you an engineer."
SE: Most railroad engineers don't know dick about engines. A diesel locomotive is an electronically controlled engine ran on power from a diesel motor. They man the controls, not work on engines. That is why that Bill Burr line was so great.
CS: I'd really like to find out what they did to that dump truck to render it useless though. I know from experience that there are many engineers who don't know two shits about the most basic of engineering principles, hell, me being one of them a lot of the time--if not most of the time.
Once, I had someone tell me that they didn't know you had to go to college to drive a train.
SE: You don't holmes, not at all. Any regular joe with half an IQ can hire on and get trained. That isn't to say the railroad isn't chock full of what some refer to as "wasted talent", men and women that could have been brilliant at other jobs, but flocked to the railroad for the money.
CS: Every walk of life is littered with those people. I've known many idiot savants in my day.
SE: Which is why Walter White is so believable. I worked with a guy that was a professional french horn player at one time, repaired microwaves at one time, could sing just like Van Morrison, and had famous relatives, top that.
CS: I had a roommate who's father was fired from Halliburton by Dick Cheney and still voted for Bush/Cheney twice
SE: Speaking of dicks, what is Todd's deal? Is he a psychopath? Did he want to prove he could handle himself to the guys? Or was he just afraid to go to prison?
CS: I think he is just a guy who sees things in black or white. He rectifies problems and worries about consequences later.
SE: So does Jesse immediately off Todd? How does this shake out next episode?
CS: It shakes out with a battle of the bands between Crucifictorious and TwaughtHammer.
Faaaaaallacies!
Meet Walter White, he has a full head of hair, but this is not the same guy we saw in the very first episode. Walt is now operating under a false identity and buying weapons at a Denny's in preparation for Armageddon, but then again, what's new? The episode "Live Free or Die" follows Walt's transgressions as a mad man, Mike jumps back on board, and a plan is hatched to magnetize their problems away.
There must always be a Stark in Winterfell.
Stan Earnest: The first thing we see is Walt looking like reheated spinach exchanging pleasures with the same guy that sold him the .38 snub. What kind of gun did he buy this time? And is Walt's new mission to end Judgment Day before this season is over?
Craig Scholes: I have no idea, apparently I haven't watched enough Sons of Guns to be up on my fully automatic assault rifles. If I had to guess, I'd say something like an AR-15, but don't hold me to that.
SE: I don't think I will hold you to that because it looked pretty powerful, and he had quite a few rounds. Definitely looks like we could have a Scarface ending.
CS: Thanks to some clever Google work and DVR-manship, I have deduced it is a M6 Assault Rifle.
I don't know what Walt is going to do with this gun, but I imagine it will end horribly for him in epic fashion.
SE: Well done, Matlock! I will say, you also called Walt having full-blown cancer again.
CS: It's always seemed to me that for Walt to be truly carefree he would have to be dying. The ability to live with regret would really alter his decision making. Of course, you nailed Beneke still being alive.
SE: I have figured out what the weaponry is for: I am finally going to get the showdown I asked for between Beneke and Walt, because they are clearly rebuilding Beneke RoboCop style.
CS: Your RoboCop reference is way better than my Max Headroom reference. Clearly Saul's A-Team is pretty much a D-Team.
SE: This whole episode feels like another homage to Pulp Fiction like the beginning of Season Four, from the breakfast scene (how much does Denny's pay for advertising, or do they even want that kind of advertising) to the way the night shots in the car were filmed like sequences of Mia driving, which makes it fitting that Mike the Cleaner is the star of this one.
It's the one that says "Aztech Messiah" on it.
CS: I would imagine Denny's paid about as much as Dell paid. I also got the Pulp Fiction vibe in the Denny's. If only Walt's billfold said Bad Mother Fucker on it when he left the tip.
SE: What would Walt's wallet say if it was personalized? Like if it were a gift from Junior?
CS: I dunno, probably something incredibly lame; I'd go with Aztek Messiah
SE: And thus a new rock band name was born. Mike has so many great lines in this one; I can't pick a favorite, but, "Keys, scumbag, it's the international sign for keys" was pretty stout.
CS: That line did get a pretty hearty chuckle out of me. His hatred for Walt is pretty evident.
SE: Mike really deserves his own spinoff show.
CS: I wanna see the buddy comedy spinoff of Mike and Saul.
SE: He does have some balls to question Walt's magnet plan and then go in full-bore without a mask on. I laughed when he asked if they were going to drop out of the sky, and I was thinking, "Well, they did it before wearing snow masks with the little yarn balls on top."
Did you notice Skyler's tone with Beneke went from sad and horrifying to very relieved and bossy when she realized he hadn't talked? She clearly enjoys power, even if she doesn't realize it. I really hope she isn't scared all season long.
CS: I don't know what to think about Skyler. I do know that she isn't aging very well. She is probably my least favorite character on the show, and if she isn't it’s Walter Jr.
SE: Ah, the inevitable Skyler hate has its grips on you. I have no clue what direction her character is going to go.
So, Jesse has a hard time getting his thoughts out, so he plays charades with Mike and Walt. Magnets, yo.
CS: Right, that seemed the obvious answer to me; I'm disappointed that Walt didn't have the idea first. When they first brought up the laptop, I thought they were going to walk into Gus's office with a big magnet on a handle, stick it to the laptop, and leave.
S'all good, man.
SE: Walt was clearly too busy orchestrating his master poisoning plan to worry about the cameras. And I totally called Huell lifting the cigarette; we even got a Saul joke out of it.
CS: I'm surprised a man with such sausage fingers would be such an adept pickpocket.
SE: I like that Mike has clearly underestimated Team Walt/Jesse again and wanted to bail first thing after aligning with them. That discussion made the whole episode for me. It is so dark and so funny that they have to have that conversation.
CS: I find it hilarious how many phones Mike burns through.
SE: Yes, and again they are snapping flip phones in half again! What year are we in on this show? High comedy, the show hasn't lost its touch. I love that Walt really is over the top now. I think he blasted the magnets just for fun. He probably even knew the truck would tip.
CS: 42 car batteries ain't cheap either, but the coyness of Walt takes over, "21 batteries in series works great, lets run 21 more in parallel and fuck shit up."
SE: "Yes, Mr. White let's do this bitch." I don't think we got a "bitch" in this episode, but we got a "Mr. White," so that was fun. And Walt had to ask for money. Now that is a level of comedy I didn't think was attainable. Jesse is clearly enjoying his role as full-blown sidekick.
CS: Definitely. Jesse has demonstrated that he isn't a complete loser and is finally being treated accordingly.
SE: One of the main reasons I love this show I have explained before: it is meticulous and doesn't brain you with explanations of presupposition. I love that Walt has solved a problem and at the same time opened up another. Gus's fortune will now likely be seized by the feds. That was a bank account number to the Cayman Islands, right?
CS: I was going to ask you what it was. I didn't get a good look at it, but that seems like a weird place to keep a bank account number.
SE: Well, maybe it was an account for his boyfriend Max's family, because it was in a picture of Max and him. All I saw was "Cayman" and made some deductions. Vince Gilligan is a tricky bastard; I am really itching to know who Walt is going after. That was one hell of a tease in the opener.
CS: I have a suspicion that whoever Walt is either going after or protecting himself from hasn't been introduced yet.
SE: And them bastards at AMC, tricking me into watching some more of their programming by putting the preview of the next episode of Breaking Bad in the commercial break after the beginning of Small Town Security. Do you remember when Comedy Central first started and all their commercials were for Comedy Central shows? I always wondered how they made money that way. Now AMC has previews to their previews. "Coming up next, the preview that will tell you when to watch the preview of the preview, right after the first 20 minutes of some show you hadn't planned on watching."
CS: How many people do you think watched that horrible Small Town Security show for the Breaking Bad preview and The Walking Dead trailer? I was going to stick through it long enough to see The Walking Dead trailer, but I couldn't do it. I'll just wait for it to be on the webbernets Monday.
SE: Reason #2,098,309,737 the internet was invented. So, any predictions going forward?
CS: My prediction for next week: someone eats breakfast, and we are teased with something ominous without a clue what it is.
SE: Sounds reasonable, as long as Mike says "scumbag" again. I'm hoping Ron Swanson makes a guest appearance in the background with a plate full of bacon. He probably wouldn't draw his age with it, but I wouldn't put it past him to make pornographic images with bacon somehow. This episode definitely didn't toy with its food. It got right to it. Mike is on board, and Walt is back to destroying everything in his path. I am anxious to see where they start cooking again and if Walt changes his formula.
Season Four starts immediately where Season Three left off, at the scene of the crime of Gale’s death. Victor finds Pinkman in shock in his car and escorts him to the superlab where Mike, Victor, Walt, and Jesse await Gus’s arrival. Gus shreds Victor and declares, “Get back to work.” Hank has since become mired in mineral collection and karaoke videos whilst bed ridden while Marie returns to her kleptomaniacal shenanigans. Skyler attempts to buy a carwash to power wash some bags of money and perfects Walt’s gambling story. As relationships boil on the domestic front, Mike battles the cartel behind the scenes, and Pinkman turns his house into an abysmal hell of a continuous methamphetamine/industrial rock party.
This week we cover the first four episodes, and the next two weeks we will do four more each, and then land on the Friday before the Season Five premiere with commentary on the last episode and predictions going forward with Season Five.
You don't want to be near Gus when he's wearing this outfit
Stan Earnest: Season Four starts with an immaculately paced episode, "Box Cutter", with Gale making a triumphant return in the opening sequence. First question: What do you think Gus was going to do with Walt if he didn't go to work for him?
Craig Scholes: I don't think Gus was going to do anything to Walt himself, but I do think Hank would be walking because dos Penas would have had their way with Walt instead.
SE: I think "Box Cutter" is the best first episode of a returning season of serialized television ever. The tension, the backing score, the foreshadowing, and the climax with Gus going all Joe Pesci on Victor's neck, and with a twinge of that smirky Breaking Bad dark comedy the episode comes full circle, and Jesse Pinkman survives as Walt's partner! The dialog has all kinds of quotable lines, notably, "Get back to work." But my favorite lines come from Jesse chowing down at Denny's. You're right Jesse, everyone's on the same page now. Rewatching, I aimed to figure out if Gus killing Victor was really an errant plot line, but I see how it makes perfect sense now, especially once I realized that when Gus walks in he is caught stubbornly playing with the millions of dollars in lab equipment with a goofy smile stuck on his I-got-this-boss face.
CS: It occurred to me that perhaps Victor was executed because of the way he showed up at the crime scene, poked around, and, if I recall correctly, left fingerprints on the door jam, which only set off Gus even more when he saw Victor fucking around with the lap equipment. The further the show goes along the more I fucking hate Walt. He was such a smug asshole in that episode.
I absolutely LOVED the foreshadowing of the box knife at the beginning when Gale opens up the first crate. I remember thinking that Breaking Bad would in no way be able to keep the pace up after Season Three, and they definitely did that. The first episode of Season Four is probably my second- or third-favorite episode of the whole run. My favorite line of the episode was Jesse expounding upon that same page Gus and they are now on, "The one that says, ‘If I can’t kill you, you'll sure as shit wish you were dead.’"
SE: That is definitely the line I latched on to. By the way, I totally forgot that AMC flashed a violence warning before the Victor slashing, a petty move I am sure AMC was forced to make, and I hope it doesn't happen again in Season Five.
Mike totally picked out the Kenny Rogers shirts while Walt and Jesse cooked right? There couldn't be a more direct homage to Pulp Fiction. I will always remember that UC Santa Cruz's mascot is the banana slug.
Say "banana slug" one more time mother fucker
CS: Have you ever seen a banana slug in person? They are actually nearly the size of a banana, and they are the most easily spotted thing ever. They have to be poisonous to be that color and not be feasted on by random predators.
SE: According to the ever-so-truthful Wikipedia, raccoons, ducks, geese, and salamanders all feast on the banana slug. Also, there is a festival in Russian River, California for the slug where the most successful entries to the food competition are often those in which the distinctly repugnant flavor is unnoticeable. Speaking of slugs, Hank is a real charmer in Season Four isn't he? How do you think he developed a passion for minerals?
CS: I imagine he asked himself, “What is the dumbest fucking thing I can collect to annoy the piss out of my super-awesome, hyper-supportive wife.” I imagine she keeps calling them rocks just to piss him off though. Fun fact, the university that I "studied" at in Germany had the world’s largest mineral museum.
SE: I totally dig the way "Box Cutter" ends with the Alexander song "Truth" and a sweeping shot of Gale's apartment with the last shot being of the lab notes. I had that lightning bolt folder in junior high, although it might have been a Trapper Keeper. And I'm no Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros fan, but I've listened to that Alexander song probably 100 times since that shows airing.
CS: Can't say that I’m a fan of the song at all. Would you say that the overriding theme of this season is that everybody is fucking miserable. Seriously, every character in this show is just in a shitty mood for one reason or another.
SE: Yeah, everybody is grumpy as hell; at least the writers understand what they have put the characters through. Unpopular opinion alert: I may like Season Four better than Season Three. It certainly has a flair to it.
CS: Liking Season Four more than Three isn't an egregious error; it’s probably my second favorite season.
I can't decide if I am surprised Jesse owns a Roomba. On one hand, it’s one of those impulse buys. On the other hand, I don't think of Jesse as being the type of person who would worry about having clean floors.
SE: He could have gone the Tom Haverford route and had DJ Roomba, but I don't think that sound system would fit on the Roomba. Fun fact about this episode: the writers wanted a scene with Aaron Paul's head against speakers vibrating with bass, but they didn't want to blow Paul's ears out. On a trip to a local electronics store (they definitely like giving back to the community in ABQ) to purchase the sound system, they found a store clerk that showed them they could solve the problem by programming the unit in test mode where the speakers vibrate to the music, but without sound. They made a deal with the kid's manager and hired him for the day to program the song for show.
"Thirty-Eight Snub" and "Open House" are seen as filler, or boring, episodes to casual fans of the show. I find the slow burn to be quite pleasing, as I am intrigued to see if this is what the characters would actually be doing in the aftermath of what has happened, and there is definitely a fair amount of setup needed for the coming episodes. My problem is with Walt becoming a dumbass in this episode, but maybe he is just so completely razzed by everything around him he decides to act completely irrationally. He totally deserved that ass whoopin' at the hands of Mike.
CS: You could clearly tell that sound wasn't coming out of the speaker, and boy is Jesse losing his mind, all while being a good guy and leaving a nest egg with Andrea. What would you do if you magically had a stack of cash appear in your possession? I’m too paranoid to try and spend a bunch of hundreds anywhere.
Is it just me, or is Skyler becoming just as sketchy as Walt? It seems to me that the $873K or whatever it was she offered for the car wash was a pretty low-ball offer; on the other hand, I don't think I would have countered with $10 million.
SE: Eyebrows McGee really takes pride in his car wash. Another fun fact: real-life Bogdan is a nuclear physicist.
Did you think for any moment that Mike would switch to Team Walter at some point? I figured that was definitely Walter's next move, convincing Mike that he had some humanity left, but I had no inkling that the conversation would last two minutes and leave Walt bloodied on a bar floor. There is some karmic retribution in Walt getting the Pinkman treatment, even though I don't believe in karma, but I reckon it must exist in television drama.
CS: I don't think Mike would actually just switch sides, but I do see a scenario where he would if the right circumstances arise. Well, if you aren't so much a fan of karma, think of it as regression to the mean. Walt was just due to get his ass kicked. I doubt you can work in that business for too long without having a tooth kicked down your throat eventually, which is probably part of the reason why Walt is learning valuable lessons like how to properly draw a snub-nose.
SE: Walt is regressing all right, but not meaningfully. I respect that the writer's went super dark with Pinkman for Season Four. He's been through too much; of course he doesn't care about anything anymore. Most shows would just gloss over that and keep him running full steam. I hope I never get to a point where I am throwing wadded $100 bills into a passed-out drunk's mouth.
CS: I would however love to get to the point where I could afford to throw wadded-up Benjamins into a dude’s mouth. Yeah, Pinkman has really gotten it stuck to him, his parents turned their back on him, he has repeatedly gotten his ass kicked, his friends are useless deadbeats, his boss won't even give him the time of day, his lawyer fucks him over (more than the usual), the DEA has been on his ass, and his special lady friend pulled a Bon Scott. I think my breaking point is way before that; fortunately, I don't foresee myself ever getting to that point.
SE: How about Walt having a nice hot cup of coffee from Gale's wonder brewer? Maybe Walt can buy a coffee shop to launder all that money. Those cameras in the lab are probably a bad idea, but Gus is taking "full measures" this time around. I wish he could have seen Walt chase that fly around. Imagine Gus pulling his Volvo into a dark alley, screeching to a dust-unsettling stop. Mike hops in the car. Gus sleekly pulls a black leather folder personalized "Gustavo" in fine Italian stitching from beneath his suit coat, out of it slides an iPad, and he and Mike giggle like school girls as they watch Walt fall on that lab vat over and over again.
CS: Not only are the cameras probably a bad idea, but they're also really loud. What would be even better is if you see Gus walk into the lab with a box, open the lid, and a single fly flies into the lab. Then watch his maniacal laughter as he exits the lab; of course then you see Gus and Mike giggle like school girls as they watch Walt fall on that lab vat over and over again. Speaking of watch, has Walt always worn that sweet-ass calculator watch?
Walt = Butt-head. Fitting.
SE: I think I've only seen it once, must have been a luxury purchase with the meth loot; although he likely uses it for work--tax write-off ya know. I like the idea of prankster Gus and Mike vs. prankster Walt and Jesse. Can you see Walt calling up Mike and telling him he needed his help because he ice-picked Jesse and made a mess? When Mike arrives, they have a surprise for him. That better not be a surprise birthday party, though; an accidental shooting would be likely. At this point, what could Walt or Jesse call Mike about that would shock him?
CS: At this point, about they only thing that would surprise Mike would be for Jesse and Walt to shut up and do their job. But, if we want to go with the whimsical version I hope there is a stripper in the cake for the surprise birthday party.
SE: Question: why does Gus continue to pay Walt and Jesse after their little skirmish? Afraid of Pinkman running to the feds, or is it just part of the master plan? Certainly he must have charged them for the cleanup of run-over rival dealer #1 and capped-in-the-head rival dealer #2. That receipt is probably filed under "Vilma" in Roger Goodell's office.
CS: I was wondering about this too, and I would imagine it would have something to do with ensuring the product maintained a certain level of quality. Not only that, but as Jesse mentioned so many times, they are making a fraction of what Gus is making. There is also a good chance that Gus took away the bonus $3 Million of goodwill, and they are making the straight $1 Million a month again. Gus is smart enough to know not to make a volatile situation worse with even more disgruntled employees.
SE: Gus is very wise to leave the two up to their own devices. He figures they will probably ruin each other, but they have to keep an eye on Pinkman. I don't know if Gus knows that he has a get-out-of-jail-free card, but if you're found with a pound of meth and $500k, I am pretty sure that turns into a don't-pass-go-don't-collect-200-dollars card. Walt really needed to accept that invitation to go-kart. Walter White in a go-kart would be good times. I've never been; how 'bout you?
CS: Apparently if you have never gone go-karting, then you have never been to Branson, Missouri, sir. I'm willing to bet that Branson is the go-kart capital of the world, and I highly recommend doing it. Speaking of go-karts, that scene with Jesse reminded me of the go-kart scene in Clerks II.
SE: A Google search for "go-kart capital of the world" declares no specific winners, but Pigeon Forge, Tennessee is in the running according to some random webbie's Flickr photo. No, I haven't been to Branson, and I don't really see the appeal, other than it is closer to me than Disneyland and I like salt water taffy. I have relatives that go and claim that it is heaven on earth. And Clerks II kept me laughing, but that movie is an abomination, right? At least my favorite character, Randal, got a rehashing.
How fantastic is the Hank and Marie dinner party? The Gale karaoke video was a nice touch. If you ever get drunk enough to sing karaoke, what song will it be?
CS: One should definitely go to Branson once, especially if you are somewhat in the vicinity. The last time I went I watched an old dude fashion a square log out of a round log for about 20 minutes and I saw a guy carve a totem pole with a chain saw. They have some of the most amazing street vendor food, and in the summer they have a pretty righteous kids fest that I remember fondly. And for what its worth, I liked Clerks II.
Ground control to Rivers Cuomo
The last song I sang karaoke-style was the "Star Spangled Banner" in Germany on my birthday after having drank about 20 liters of alcohol. If I were to do it tomorrow, it would probably be something by Weezer.
SE: Trick question, homeboy. One can not get drunk enough to defend the singing of karaoke, unless you make a video to entertain your family and friends post-mortem, and even then you're on dicey ground, but 20 liters of German beer make you more of a man than me. And on that note, Walt needs to really learn to handle his liquor. First he forces Junior to slam tequila, then he wakes up in a sea of stale popcorn, and then he challenges Hank to get back on the scent of the illustrious Heisenberg. It really is killing Walt that he can't let Hank know that he is all badass now, but in a fight between wheelchair-ridden Hank and criminally insane Heisenberg, I'm still taking Hank.
CS: I’m not sure I would take Walt in a fight with Old Man Salamanca. It’s amazing to me how many times Walt gets put in his place, and how much it just causes him to push back.
SE: And no matter how much you push Jesse, he keeps figuring out all new ways to take it--the true vision of the odd couple. How nice was it for Mike and Co. to snag the guy that took Jesse's money, and Jesse doesn't even give a what-what. Did you have any first thoughts as to where Mike was taking Jesse at the end of "Bullet Points"?
CS : I remember thinking the first time I watched it that there was no way they were going to just off him. So I kinda figured they were going to try some sort of scared straight tactic, either that or they were going to make him mop up the chicken batter in the middle of the New Mexican desert.
So there you have it, Part One of Season Four. Tune in next week when we cover the next four episodes of everyone's favorite dynamic duo.
Safety Not Guaranteed, the product of first-time feature-length director Colin Trevorrow and first-time feature-length writer Derek Connolly, was cute.
If I were leaving everything there, as TSLF suggested, it may seem as though I were using cute as a pejorative. Nine times out of ten, I probably would be. This time I'm not.
Bolstered by a comedically adept cast including Aubrey Plaza, Jake Johnson, and Mark Duplass, the team of Trevorrow and Connolly gave us a surprisingly thoughtful comedy using the possibility of time travel to explore themes of regret, longing, and trust. As stated in the trailer embedded below, Jeff (Johnson) a reporter at Seattle Magazine takes two interns, Darius (Plaza) and Arnau (Karan Soni), to a resort town to find the man who placed the classified ad on the poster to the right. They find Kenneth (Duplass), and Darius gets in with him.
The set-up is in the trailer of course, and I just wasted precious time and keystrokes on the last paragraph, but Safety Not Guaranteed succeeds by and large where many other films would fail: in treating the subject of the piece, Kenneth, with respect. While the reporter and team head out to the seaside resort town with the notion that they're seeking a nutjob, the treatment of Kenneth by Darius is surprisingly sweet and earnest. While he is certainly different and a bit weird, it doesn't take long to wonder if maybe, just maybe he can actually do what he claims.
In treating Kenneth as something other than a joke, Trevorrow and Connolly open up the film to the opportunities that thoughts of fixing the past can present, both in reality and theory. It is a surprisingly introspective comedy that manages to be cute without being cutesy. Plaza gets to show a little range in a role that allows for her to stretch past the droll and disaffected twentysomething she's usually tasked to play. Much of the heart of the film, which it has in spades, comes from the surprising Plaza. While her character on Parks and Recreation has grown since the beginning of the series, Plaza doesn't often get to veer away from being sardonic. Her sincerity in Safety Not Guaranteed is refreshing. Don't get me wrong, Duplass and Johnson are both great, but Plaza is the revelation.
There are, I shit you not, two separate pics of Paris Hilton
holding this CD on the first Google Image page that comes
up when searching for Neutral Milk Hotel. Different outfits.
WTFuck? Must be a weird interweb meme.
Continuing on in the theme of men with unhealthy relationships with women theme of the week, what follows is a video by YouTube user TEBarrettJr. As is likely going to be the case with a lot of the songs on here, it can be difficult to find a usable video for some of these songs.
As alluded to yesterday*, the song is "Holland, 1945" off of what is likely my (and April Ludgate's) favorite album ever, Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane over the Sea. The album is largely inspired by Jeff Mangum's obsession with The Diary of Anne Frank, and this is the most overt of the elegies/temporally-displaced love songs to Anne Frank. While there seems to be a legitimate innocence to much of the pain and longing, there is a pathos to the feelings therein that would preclude one from being able to categorize these sentiments as healthy.
*Let's be honest here. How many of you thought I was going to go with "Lily, My One and Only" by the Smashing Pumpkins today?
Perhaps the initial lukewarm reviews scared me off, but for whatever reason I did not watch Parks and Recreation until a couple weeks ago.
It took me about four days to catch up.
Now, everything I heard about Parks & Rec led me to believe that--much like its counterpart The Office--the first season sat somewhere in between godawful and not very good. Since I've still not seen any episodes of The [American] Office from its first season other than the abysmal pilot yet found a way to be invested, I took the same approach to Parks & Rec. Starting with the first episode of the second season, I chugged along, holing up in my intermittently heated apartment during the recent snap that Texans call winter and burning through all 24 episodes in no time. By the time the fourth episode rolled around ("Practice Date"), I found myself starting to give a damn. When "Ron and Tammy" was finished, I was hooked.
Within a few days, I had not only finished the second season, but I had gone back and watched season one in spite of my leeriness, and had caught up on what I had missed of this current third season.
I feel confident saying Parks and Recreation is better right now than The [American] Office has ever been.
I think the show's real strength--and what sets it apart from its sister show--is that no one is unfathomably inept. The Office's true shortcoming has always been Michael Scott. Not only is he irritating, but he is such a bumbling idiot 95% of the time that suspending the level of disbelief necessary to buy him as anyone's boss at least in any long-term scenario is so taxing that it actually makes me tired. While I like Steve Carell, Michael Scott's exit can only be good for the show at this stage.
In the first season, Leslie Knope was essentially the female version of Michael Scott. In addition to being socially retarded (and I actually mean this in the sense that her social development was retarded, you whiny, PC douches), she was barely competent. Luckily, Greg Daniels and Michael Schur (presumably) identified that this dynamic was not working, and there was a paradigm shift insofar as way in which the character of Leslie Knope was portrayed. As the second season began to take shape, her awkwardness was still present, but she was no longer bordering on being incompetent. This adjustment drastically alters the show for the better. With Leslie becoming relatable, there is a transformation from mediocrity to sublimity.
The true key to its success, though, is that the characters are great. Parks and Recreation is a character-driven show, but unlike The Office all of its characters seem real*. Each character, no matter how small actually brings a lot to the show. I could wax ecstatic about everybody on the show, but I've got a better idea.
*If it is hard to believe that Michael Scott could possibly have risen to where he is, then it is even harder to believe that Dwight Schrute could exist at all.
