Breaking Bad — “Buyout,” “Say My Name”

Spoilers for the above two episodes of Breaking Bad — or Breaking Sad, as I’m sure more than one clever viewer has cleverly commented.

Caught up with Project Runway, at long last.

Project Runway. Tenth season. Episode 5. Another team challenge. Another haggard sigh.

Spoilers ahead.

Sarah watches stuff, like Breaking Bad.

I went back and watched Breaking Bad from the beginning starting around Christmas this year. What’s more festive than dipping pretzels in almond bark to a backdrop of dissolving bodies in vats of acid and desert shoot-outs? I can’t think of anything.

Now that a new season is upon us, I meant to start discussing new episodes as they aired. Well, now the season’s half-over and I’ve not spilled any pixels over it. The time has come. Here are some ramblings about Breaking Bad, with spoilers up through episode 5 (“Dead Freight”) of season 5.

Things I’ve learned about life and love from Downton Abbey.

Beware! There are spoilers up through episode 6 of series/season 2.

Words to live by:

“As my future wife, you’re entitled to be in my debt.”

The sweetest expression of marital privilege and intimacy, as expressed to Mary by her skeezy fiancé, the newspaper baron.

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“Sometimes the future needs terrible sacrifices.”

“Sometimes a hard sacrifice must be made for a future that’s worth having.”

This is what Branson (the chauffeur) says to Sybil (noble lady) in a speech in which he takes their forbidden romance and the drastic social barriers that must be broken in order to live out that love and compares it to the murder of the Russian royal family and how that sucked and all and he’s sorry about it but it was probably necessary for social progress. Yay…?

TV — Project Runway All Stars, “Good Taste Tastes Good”

This week’s challenge, apparently paid for by the powerful American gelatto lobby, was an improvement over last week’s head-scratching gimmick (that challenge being to design a dress for Miss Piggy; the unspoken challenge was to become hysterical over the prospect of “meeting” her, which required pretending she was not a fictional character materialized by a piece of felt with some guy’s hand inserted in it). The grab bag nature of the “design a dress inspired by this flavor of gelatto” was accompanied by additional hodge-podge constraints and judges just to round things out. Was there any special reason Diane von Furstenberg and Miranda Kerr were judges? Was there a reason why the garment was to be completed in a mere six hours, other than to make the designers hate themselves and want to die?

Spoilin’ ahead!

TV — Some Parks and Recreation Thoughts

In the past few weeks I’ve made it through the entire run of Parks and Recreation, with the exception of the most recent episode. My overall opinion: wonderful! Really, really good. Sometimes great but mostly really good.

It’s sort of tough to talk about an entire series at a run, and I’ve recently discovered that I’m a freak who, if she cares at all about the TV show in question, will want to watch an episode at least a couple times if she wants to say more than two things about it. (Thanks, Community! You did this to me.) So I’ve only seen each episode once and unfortunately some of my recollections of Parks are a little fuzzy as I more or less chugged the whole series as one might a seemingly endless series of PBR tallboys on the most epic night out ever. But I’ll try to think a coupla thoughts about the show.

Since I gave a shout-out to Community already, I’ll mention that here on the internets, I’ve noticed that some Parks fans and some Community fans think the two shows are foresworn enemies pitted against each other in the battle royale of network TV. This is stupid for a lot of reasons, not least of which is the fact that the real enemies are Whitney and Chelsea. But the two shows needn’t be enemies. Each does different things quite well, and you’re not always even going to be attracted to what a show does do well; that shouldn’t be a strike against it. I’m not even sure why it is that these two shows are so often put against one another, but knowing that, I couldn’t help but frame a lot of my reaction in relation to Community. For instance —

-There’s not a character on Parks I dislike, but I’m not as heavily invested in them as I am the characters on Community. I think almost all the leads on Community are more fleshed out than almost anyone on Parks, and the journeys they go on have more stakes (like Jeff’s comparatively dark season 3), so I personally find the character-based stuff on Community that much more absorbing.

-That said, if you don’t care one whit about character, Community is a veritable sardine can full to brimming with jokes, allusions, parodies, and so many other things to enjoy. I think Parks is similar in that respect, that you can enjoy it on a more character-based or a more humor-based level (or both), I just don’t find it quite as rich in those regards.

-I don’t think Parks is near as ambitious as Community, so it doesn’t stumble or fall as much, but it also doesn’t reach the dizzying highs. But that means it’s more consistent, and you can kind of just hunker down and enjoy a solid 22 minutes. Other great things about Parks?

-Pawnee is such a fun little world to visit. It reminds me of a live-action Simpsons, where most of the residents are too dumb to know what’s good for them and very, very vocal in that ignorance, but you’re still rooting for them anyway.

-And of course Parks has Ron Fucking Swanson.

-Leslie and Ann’s friendship is terribly sweet, keeps things grounded, and is one of my favorite things about the show.

To hell with it, let’s just watch some of my favorite clips on YouTube.

TV: Project Runway All Stars, Episodes and 2

All stars? These people?

Observations:

Doesn’t Kara realize that “off-the-rack” is an oath on Project Runway, even in the unconventional challenge?

I don’t like that lady who spits on things.

I like Rami a lot better than I remember–I got so very tired of his Grecian statue dresses, but his dress for this challenge was hot and and such a stronger structure, so different from the flowy soft stuff he ever did.

Kenley’s looks like the model rolled around in some wrapping paper.

Emmet’s looks like a prom dress of DEB.

Marla’s is kind of neat.

Michael’s dress is too long.

April’s dress is Michael’s with long, ugly fringe on it. But the way the mop fibers are woven together is prettier, I think.

Izac Misrahi’s criticism of Sweet Pea’s dress–it looks “unresolved.” Not unfinished but unresolved.

TV: Breaking Bad, Season 4

Breaking Bad, Season 4

 

Almost caught up with the series to date. Unbearably tense. Will put notes in here about highlights as I try to get through this latest season. Quite possibly the greatest show ever.

 

No really, EVER.