SNL- What Up With Cranston?

Spoiler alert...Below are some thoughts on last night's episode of Saturday Night Live. So watch the ep, send a bottle of sparkling apple juice to my house, then read what I had to say.

There are two ways to look at last night's second episode of Saturday Night Live. Firstly, it was much better than the season premiere. On the other hand, it could have been a lot better with such a great host. As Jackie Boy tweeted me this morning: "they wasted brian cranstons' talents more than jimmy T's last night." Of course, if you don't watch Survivor you don't get the joke, but the point is that Cranston can be hilarious and he did not show that much of it last night.

Having said that, there were a couple of great sketches that made it a big improvement over Amy Poehler's show from last week. Knowing me the way you do, you're not at all surprised to hear that What Up With That? was absolutely fantastic. I don't care how many times it comes on, when that snare drum starts up in the background and Kenan's eyes bug out like crazy, I crack up without hesitation. To go along with the fantastic Floydster doing his red jump suit dancing, and Lindsey Buckingham getting bumped once again, we had the great Morgan Freeman and Ernest Borgnine as the other guests. I'm not sure if Borgnine had never seen the sketch before, or if he just loves it as much as I do, but you could not wipe the ear to ear grin off of his face during that sketch if you tried.
Grade: A

Can they do the Miley Cyrus Show without Cranston as Billy Ray? I hope so, because this could be one of my favorite recurring sketches. As a Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana fan, this sketch was great because this new castmember's impression was spot on. It wasn't really making fun of her though. It was basically just exaggerating all of the things that make her so funny in the first place.
Grade: B+

Looking back at my notes, I realize there wasn't much else that was that great. My next favorite was probably Cranston's monologue. I guess anything mixing comedy with singing and dancing will put you in my good graces.
Grade: B-

The Rescue Dogs 3D Digital Short was pretty good. The dude texting back "Haven't heard from you in years. Rescue Dogs 3D? Are you serious?" was pretty good. As was the pizza guy showing up and getting shot immediately. But the entire premise of the iphone not being a good way to get help just wasn't a funny idea.
Grade: C+

I'll always laugh at kids getting punched in the face, but this sketch (Basement Karate) was another waste of Cranston's talents. He could have done more with this, but instead they gave all the material to this chick playing a boy. Not great.
Grade: C

Black Noise Machine. Short and sweet. Racial stereotypes are funny.
Grade: C

The Sparkling Apple Juice song was good but nothing to really talk about here.
Grade: C

Another political cold open. Sepinwall, and I'm sure many others, are complaining that Armisen is still doing O'Bama now that they have this Pharoah guy that is really good at it. The problem is that Armisen is like their head player. You can't just rip that away from him. And I don't think he's that bad at it, but that's just me. Anyway, this sketch was boring and not funny.
Grade: D+

Pepto Ice Commercial. Mehh.
Grade: D

Kid Smartz. Cranston was good here as the game show host that is inappropriately affectionate with his kid contestants, but the problem was that it wasn't as funny as the actual show it was making fun of. If you have seen this video of the show, Just Like Mom, you know exactly what I am talking about.
Grade: D-

Shanna. This will never be funny to me. It's gross and uninteresting. Stop making this come back. Please.
Grade: F

Just a couple quick notes on Kanye before I go here. Of course I fast forwarded through all but the first 30 seconds of each song, but seriously? What was he doing in that second song with that little machine with the noises? Pushing buttons to make voices come out? Definitely something I could have done. If you're going to be an artist, be an artist. Don't do something any joker off the street could do.

Finally, last year I mentioned how they were picking such terrible hosts. This year's first three; Amy Poehler, Bryan Cranston, and Jane Lynch are exactly the type of host I said they should be getting. They're famous, yet they're all comedy actors. Keep hosts like this, and no more Taylor Swifts or Taylor Lautners, and this season will be much, much better than the last.

Breaking Bad- A Gale Storm

Spoiler alert...Below are some thoughts on last night's Breaking Bad season three finale. So watch the ep, sing along to a foreign song, and read what I had to say.

Jesse Pinkman- "We had a good run."

I hate to repeat myself, but this season three finale of Breaking Bad gives me no choice. The first three quarters of the episode did hardly anything for me. Not only was it slow, like Breaking is quite a lot, but none of this down time was enhanced by major tension.

Having said that, the final couple acts of the episode were once again amazing. When it was revealed that Gus's plan was to try and get Gale ready enough to run the lab by himself, and kill off Walt, no one could have been surprised. This is exactly what we all assumed after seeing how good Gail was as an assistant.

The surprising part, for me anyways, is what Walt's plan of attack ended up being. Killing Gale so that Walt himself was the only cook Gus had available? Interesting strategy. When Walt and Jesse first started speaking in code about what they actually had to do to get this done, my first thought was kill Gus himself. Take out the big guy. But this plan actually makes more sense, since Gus truly will need to keep Mr. White around if Gail is no longer around.

I loved Jesse, after admitting that he could not do it, continuing to attempt in talking Walter out of this whole thing. And then in the end being the one who had to do it in order to save his buddy's life. The two guys back together again! Looking out for each other as their main goal. I felt really bad for chipper, singing Gail as he stared down the barrel of Jesse's gun. He didn't deserve to go out like that, but I'll take that loss over the death of our favorite meth cook any day.

So we had quite the cliff hanger to end this season and I can't imagine it went down like anyone expected. Was there really no Skyler or Hank in this final episode of the season? I'm curious as to what next season will be about. You gotta figure this show can't go on much longer, and it has to end with Hank catching Walt right?

Breaking Bad- Going Half Way

I can definitely see why some people think that Breaking Bad is the best series currently on tv. I completely disagree with them, but it makes sense. It is extremely well written, directed and acted. But there is something to be said for pure entertainment value, and sometimes Breaking Bad just doesn't have it. That was not the case this week during the penultimate episode of the third season, which was awesome.

Breaking Bad has become the king of leaving episodes with a bang. Earlier in the season it was the ridiculousness that was 'One Minute' and this week it was a fantastic finish for Walter White, Sr. There really is something to be said for this strategy. Even though a lot of Breaking Bad can be really slow, finishing eps with such energy makes people think the episode was better than it actually was. Even now I'm thinking that this entire 45 minutes was fantastic, when maybe it was just that the final three were so good.

When Walt finds out about the kid getting killed by Gus's trusted employees he leaves his family immediately so that he can go help out his buddy, Jesse. As we watch Jesse get out of his car and creep closer and closer to the two gangsters the tension was crazy high. I had no idea what was going to happen but I was not ruling out Jesse getting killed and him being off the show. What I was not expecting was for Walt to pull his best Hugo Reyes impression and drive in out of nowhere and run over the bad guys in his Aztec. One was straight up dead and Walt straight up shot the other in the head before telling Jesse to run.

I guess Mike the Cleaner's speech to Walter earlier in the episode paid off. He definitely didn't use a half measure when he mirked those two dudes. Going halfway, in putting Jesse in jail, would have been a mistake by Walter. But so was the halfway move by Gus in just telling his employees to stop using kids to sell their drugs. All that accomplished was the employees capping the 11 year old kid in the middle of the street. And kudos to Jesse for sticking up for both the kid and his own opinion when he went toe to toe with big Gus Chiggins.

Only one more episode in the season and I heard it got extended by some minutes. Always an exciting factor.

Breaking Bad- Walt Whispers

Jesse Pinkman- "This is my own private domicile and I will not be harassed...bitch!"

Last week I complained about the fact that Walt and Jesse continued to be apart. This week I was extremely happy to get the two guys back together, if only for ten minutes. To watch the two guys combining wits again as they fought off an angry DEA agent was like we were back in the saddle again.

After Hank is reminded by his wife that Walt had some sort of relationship with Pinkman, the owner of the meth-lab of an RV Hank is after, the phone call is made. In that phone call both sides of the conversation are great. Both Hank's remorse for having to drag his brother-in-law into something so terrible by asking if Jesse ever said anything about and RV, and Walt's inability to even respond to Hank when prompted was classic. Obviously Walt had so many things running through his head at that moment that he might not have even been able to speak (what does Hank know? what can I do to stop this? when can I get some more of that delicious coffee from my lab assistant?).

It was what that convo led to that made this such a great episode. Walt made his way to the RV and was ready to get rid of it. How was he dumb enough to not tell Brandon to shut his mouth and DON'T CALL JESSE ABOUT THIS? Of course Brandon letting Jesse know that Heisenberg was all up in the RV's business forced Cap'n Cook to make his way to the junkyard and reunite with his favorite chemistry teacher. Too bad for the ex-partners in crime, Hank was on Jesse's tail the entire way.

Have you ever been more scared than when Walt and Jesse closed the shades and Hank snooped around the outside of the RV? Could Hank found out about Walt at this point in the series? I guess not, but I still thought it was possible at the time. Luckily Crazy Karl came in to save the day. After enjoying some delicious Triscut crackers in his car, Karl questioned Hank on whether or not what he was doing was legal. He had no warrant or probable cause claimed Billy Madison's friend. Hank continued to pry before Walt started relaying his words to Jesse in order to get Hank off their backs. Mr. White whispered to Jesse, "this is my private domicile and I won't be harassed." Of course in fantastic Pinkman fashion, Jesse fits it to suit his style, "This is my own private domicile and I will not be harassed...Bitch!" Great stuff.

In a last ditch effort, Walt calls in a favor to Saul. Hank leaves the premises after Saul's secretary tells him that Marie was badly injured in a car accident. It was a big risk by Walter. Is this something that Hank will realize had to come from someone that knows him? Will he know someone is involved that knows his family? Or will he chalk it up to good research done by somebody else entirely?

A couple other things of note. It was so pleasant watching Walt get dressed for his new job and make himself some lunch with the upbeat music playing in the background. He then made his way to his new meth lab where he found his new lab assistant. His new partner in crime was a man of similar ilk to Walt. A normal chemistry-loving man. "It is all still magic. The chemistry," the lab assistant tells Walt. And Walt agrees. The next sequence of the two of them having so much fun cooking their meth was awesome. Great energy and again great score backing them up.

After completely studding out in the cold open, the Two Suits finally spoke at the end of the episode, and lost a lot of cool points in my book. Again with no words, and without walking faster than Anton Chigurh, the Two Suits mirked some cop in Mexico in fine fashion. The One Suit stood with an apple in his hand, while the other Suit came around the back of the cop and chopped him down to size with a giant axe. The first Suit took a big bite into his apple as if he were Mike Dutton coaching a basketball game and the other one handled things. They finally become a couple of chatter boxes when Gus Chiggins tells them that they still are not allowed to kill Walt. They are, on the other hand, allowed to kill the DEA agent who shot Tuco, Hank Schrader. Cue next episode.

One more thing. Where would you rather go to eat some chicken...Los Pollos or Mr. Cluck's?

Breaking Bad- Walt's In. Jesse's Out.

Walter White- "I'm in. You're out."

Breaking Bad has used different types of story telling structures throughout its first three seasons. They've done flash forwards of scenes we would see down the road. They've done flashbacks to moments far back in the history of the characters' lives. This week we started the episode with a flash back to a time period that we knew very well. A new way of executing great story telling. They used both 1)old footage that we had already seen (Walt with a full head of hair giving Jesse a bunch of money to buy an RV) and 2)new scenes that we had not scene before (Jesse and Combo stealing the RV from his mom and living it up at the strip club). After the cold open ended and the opening credits began to roll, I knew it was all going to come back to Hank finding out about that same story one way or another.

It took a heck of a lot of stuff in the middle of the episode before we saw Hank take a look at the picture of Combo, Jesse and a stripper. Hank is now on Jesse's tail and seems to be the beginning of the end for our favorite meth cooking duo (of course something will trip Hank up).

But Walt and Jesse aren't much of a duo at this point, which both saddens me and detracts a bit from the show. I know you can't do the same thing over and over again, but the buddy buddy give and take between Walt and Jesse are what made the show good in the early going. With Walt going nutso selfish with is meth and kicking Jesse out of the meth scene by way of Gus Chiggins, we are forced to deal with the two of them separately.

Sure they're both great characters on their own, but no where near as good as together. Jesse giving it to Walt over the phone was fantastic. He has gotten back to his old self. We had lost him to depression for the first few episodes of this season and he was not nearly as enjoyable to watch. The amped up, ready to brawl Jesse is the Jesse I learned to love in season one.

Meanwhile, Walt on his own was good only because he slowly but surely was lured back into the meth game. Thanks to Gus Chiggins pronouncement that, "A man provides...And he does it even if he's not appreciated...or respected...or even loved. He simply bears up and does it because he's a man." After that Walt went home, signed the divorce papers and figuratively put his apron back on. His showdown with Jesse at Saul's office (where he let Jesse know that he was back in the game) "I'm in. You're out" was both chilling and a sad state of affairs on the relationship of Walt and Jesse.

Breaking Bad- An Honesty Bomb

Walter White- "Honesty is good...don't you think?"

That honesty bomb that Walter dropped on Skyler at the beginning of this season has done wonders to his personality. I loved watching him go from manic to depressive throughout this episode. Sure the depressing Walt moments aren't all that great, like being frustrated that Skyler won't let him in the bedroom so he pees in the sink. But the highest of highs are such a joy to witness, like when Skyler gets home and Walter has an ear to ear grin claiming that he's cooking dinner. Yes the meth cook was once again wearing his apron, only this time instead of drugs it was a big ole pot roast.

Walt also finally got a chance to explain himself to his wife this week. His long plea for why he started cooking in the first place was so heartfelt that I definitely would've taken the man back. "The things I've had to do, I've got to live with them." I mean come on Sky, have a heart. No instead of welcoming him back with open arms, she went to work and got her some Ted. "Honesty is good" Walt said. So the cold hearted b*tch let Walter know what she had been up to with her boss. And roll credits. Can everyone admit that Skyler is the absolute worst?

And now a word to the Albuquerque phone department. Thank you for disconnecting Jane's number. If I had to watch Jesse Pinkman call that voicemail one more time I was going to throw a fit! Why don't you take one of my favorite characters on tv and turn him into a complete waste? I get that his gf just died, but man has this dude been a buzzkill the first few eps of this season. Cutting off that cellphone was the best thing that could've happened to Jesse. Let's get down to business with some meth cookin'.

It was nice to see more development on the Gus Chiggins situation with the Cartel. Obviously they have some deal worked out with Gus controlling his area. The fact that Walt is a part of his plan is the only thing keeping the cook alive at this point, but as the Cartel boss told Gus those Two Suits aren't like the rest of them. They will do whatever they want to get revenge for their fallen cousin, Tuco. The fact that Tuco was their cousin makes the Two Suits that much sweeter. P.S. are either one of them going to say a word this entire season?

Hank's partner at the DEA, Steven Gomez, and T-time would get along really well..."We shoulda went to Chilis."

Update: This from Todd VanDerWerff at HitFix.com

I can get rooting for Walter over, say, the cousins, who are simply forces of a dark and implacable evil that cannot be stopped (whereas Walter remains at least somewhat human), but I have trouble seeing why anyone would call Skyler "whiny." She's a woman who's just had everything she ever worked toward or hoped for yanked out from under her, and she's reacting like any of us would if we found out that our spouses were meth kingpins. Hell, she's probably acting BETTER than any of us would.

This guy has to be kidding. She is "whiny." Isn't one of the fun parts about watching tv hating on the terrible "whiny" characters? I could care less if she's acting in a better fashion than I would given the situation. What she's doing, and how she's acting, is the epitome of someone that no one would ever want to hang out with. She's lame and that's what makes her fun to watch. I can't stand her and its truly engaging.

Breaking Bad- Mr. Pollo's Game of Chicken

Flynn White- "My name is Walter Jr."

Breaking Bad is a real character driven show. That is, it is driven by the character of Walter White. Like him or not, he's such a strong personality that its almost impossible to not be drawn in by his actions. What makes Breaking so good is that although slow moving, the story telling can be really good. Last night's waning moments of the episode were a great example of how it has the ability to force the audience to wonder and ask questions through story telling, while keeping you so very excited throughout.

The final house break-in scene was foreshadowed by two earlier moments in the episode. The Two Suits met with Tuco's mute papa to find out who this crazy Heisenberg actually was. After using a ouija board and the old man's trusty bell, The Two Suits got a name- WALTER WHITE. On the other side of the story there was the Wire Tapper. We met him earlier in the ep when he received a call from who I thought was Saul Goodman saying that "We may have a wife problem."

Jump back to the end of the ep where all of the action goes down. The Wire Tapper, in all of his casual style, walks up to the White Home and drills his wire tap into the side of the house. While all of this is happening, Walter is frantically trying to break into his own home because Skyler locked him out. Once he gets in through the crawl space, and The Wire Tapper goes back to his car, we get the real magic.

The Two Suits show up to the White Home with an axe ready to do business. They're thinking to themselves, "get in, get out, nobody gets hurt (well except Walt)." As the silent killers wait for Walt to get out of the shower, The Wire Tapper makes an urgent phone call saying that there is a problem. Who's on the other line? Mr. Pollo himself. How powerful is this dude. Is he in charge of all the meth in the world? Anyway he simply texts "Pollos" to the The Two Suits and they forget all about killing the meth manufacturer that has done them so much harm. They got out of there as fast as Jack Donaghy when someone says "Twig and plum."

T-time and I predicted that The Two Suits would get to the ABQ by this second episode but wouldn't be confronted with Walt until ep two. Does this Mr. Pollo put a wrench in that prediction? Is he gonna sideline The Two Suits for a while? Or is he going to use them for some other plan that he's concocting in that giant factory of his? Whatever happens, I'm extremely intrigued by where the story is heading.

Other Points

- I'm really starting to enjoy Walter Jr. now that he hates his mom and likes Walt. As the quote at the top shows he is very proud to be named after his father and might be getting rid of the ridiculous nickname of Flynn for the time being.

- Very little Jesse action in this one. He was very subdued throughout, while managing to blackmail (through the help of Saul) his parents into selling him the house that he used to live in.

- Walt has really lost it. Between him going agro on the food hut police officer and having to clean out the motel pool because it had some debrit in it, I'm starting to be worried about him.

- More subtle humor from the writers and Bryan Cranston. When Skyler won't let Walt in for dinner, he pleads with "we've got dipping sticks."

Breaking Bad- Two Suits Don't Look at Explosions

Hank Schrader- "Whatcha got in there, cinder blocks?"

Walter White- "Half million in cash."

What makes a show like Breaking Bad so good is that any true television enthusiast is forced to pay super close attention to every second that it is on because you have so much confidence in the story telling of the series. Unlike Flash Forward, who has gone through three or four showrunners in half a season, I have the utmost belief that Vince Gilligan and his crew have a reason for every second of footage that gets on the air.

The cold open to tonight's season three premier, No Mas, had no characters that the audience had ever seen before and managed to keep my eyeballs glued to the screen throughout. A bunch of Mexican dudes, including a couple of suit wearing bad asses, were crawling towards what could be called a church. Inside we saw the two suits worshiping a skeleton that was placed in front of what seemed to be a sketch of Heisenberg himself.

The entire time I wondered if this was a look ahead at something we would eventually get to at the end of the episode or the end of the season, like we've seen in the past. As the plot continued to come back to these two characters a couple more times during the ep, it seems that we are dealing with parallel storylines that will no doubt converge early in the season.

Speaking of these two suits...when's the last time we had a couple of dudes that were this hard and flat out this cool, without saying a single word during an entire episode. Seriously they must be big fans of Andy Samberg, or just have had some cool guy errands that they had to walk to, because not many people could have walked away from that gigantic explosion without looking back at it.

Back in the ABQ we had Walt in denial about his wife leaving him, Walt Jr. not taking it so well, and Jesse in his last few days of rehab. The quote at the top shows how Walt's complete dryness continues to get laughs out of me. He simply tells his DEA brother in law the truth and Hank thinks the guy is fooling with him.

Walt had a couple other crucial moments in this first ep. He finally got the nerve up to tell Skylar that he actually cooks meth and she didn't even give him a second to explain any of his reasoning for doing so. My thought...good riddance. She said she'll keep your secret Walt! That's all you need from her. You can do better than this chick.

We also got to see Walt take out his frustration with the plane crash that happened at the end of last season on the entirety of his high school. Because he let Jane die in her sleep at the end of last season, which led to her air traffic control father mistakenly killing 100 odd people in a couple of airplanes, Walt seems to feel responsible. He releases his frustration to 500 high school students in a way of a passionate speech about moving on after tragedy. Why did the teachers and students seem so weirded out by it? I thought it was rather moving.

And finally, Jesse Pinkman. At the end of last season, and the start of this episode, I was worried that we were going to have to deal with half a season worth of rehab episodes. Thankfully Jesse was in his last stretch of rehab when this ep started and he left by the end of the 45 minutes. I wouldn't have been happy with more than one ep worth of rehab stories. We're now back where everyone is comfortable...Walt and Jesse living in a hotel room together. Bring on ep two.

Catching Up- Breaking Bad

So here's the thing. A couple years ago when everyone was talking about the two new AMC shows that were fantastic, I tossed the comments aside because the shows were on AMC. As the past couple years have gone by, not only have I become a big fan of both Mad Men and now Breaking Bad, but it seems that a lot of the great tv is coming from cable networks. Not just pay cable, but also basic cable like AMC and FX. Although I have enjoyed Mad Men, obviously not as much as the rabid Sterling Cooper fans out there, it is not anywhere near as good as its AMC counterpart. The first two seasons of Breaking Bad were fantastic and I'm looking forward to the third installment beginning in March.

The first question I had to ask is why Bryan Cranston? Since I never watched Malcolm in the Middle, I knew Cranston as the two Tims. Dr. Tim Whatley from Seinfeld and Doug Heffernan's neighbor Tim in King of Queens. Don't get me wrong, I though he was hilarious as both characters, but what was on his imdb resume that made him the choice for the character of Walter White? This character that begins the series as an soft spoken, awkward high school teacher with no charisma and turns into a hard as they come, big time drug dealer with a temper that could hurt people. Wherever they found this in him, I'm glad they did, because he has been the perfect man for the job thus far.

The maturation of Walt throughout the first 20 episodes is the most interesting aspect of the series. As he starts out with his goofy haircut, glasses and silly looking mustache, I thought to myself (as do the rest of the characters on the show) that there is no way this guy can become a drug dealer. I mean look at those sweaters he wears! But sure enough, the dude gets cancer, shaves his head and evolves into one of the toughest dudes I've seen on television.

There is one moment when this stands out to me the most. It came in the penultimate episode of season one. After Walt's partner Jesse (who I really love as a character) gets beat the snot out of by drug lord Tuco, Walt decides he is going to go make a visit to this Tuco and get done the drug deal that Jesse couldn't finish. Jesse, myself, and I assume the rest of the audience are thinking to themselves 'what the h-e-double hockey sticks is this guy thinking? How is he going to pull something like this off?

Walt had changed. As he walked into Tuco's drug layer he had the look in his eye. He was getting this done. I still had no idea how he was going to do it, but he was going to do it. While it looked like more meth for Tuco, Walt had concocted a type of explosive that could theoretically destroy the entire building. With a quick toss of a piece of it at a window, Walt blew out every single window in the room. As he stood with more of this concoction in his hand, he demanded from the drug king pin all of the money that he deserved and from then on everyone in the drug game in the ABQ respected the one they call Heisenberg.

Although most of this review is going to be about Walter, because he is the most interesting character, that is not to say that he is my favorite. Jesse Pinkman is easily my favorite character on the show. Unlike Walt, he never has moments where I want to slap him for being lame. Jesse is an idiot at times, a complete addict at other times, but he's always sweet and is completely lovable. And for that reason, Walt stays with him time and time again. Gus, the owner of Pollos Hermanos and a big time dealer that buys from Walt, asks Heisenberg why on Earth would he work with a screw up like Jesse. And although it's not the answer that Walt gave, the reason is because he loves this kid. He treats him like the son he wished he had. I'm not saying Walt has something against his own kid, but for some reason he hasn't been able to give Walt Jr. the fatherly love he deserves. Through thick and thin, Walt Sr. has been there for Jesse and watching them grow on each other throughout the first two seasons has been nothing less than magic.

The writing/directing technique that I love most about Breaking Bad is the way they use the cold open on many occasions. I know there is a word for it, but I can't remember what it is, when you start the episode with something that will happen at the end and then skip back in time. It's done on tv and movies all the time, but I can't remember the specific word for it. Unlike the one episode of Flash Forward this technique was used, Breaking Bad (like Not Our First Rodéo) uses it perfectly. Flash's opening sequence was a gun shot that was heading for a main character's head. It was way too obvious that that character was going to die, so why even use that? What Breaking tends to do every time they use this technique is show you an event that is so ambiguous that you are left wondering what the heck the scene is and how in the world are they going to get there.

Going back to the aforementioned season one ep, they started out the episode with Walt walking away from a building in the ghetto with sirens on in the background. Now that wasn't very climactic at all, but it got me wondering how was he going to get himself into that situation. As he got closer to going to Tuco's place it made more and more sense. After he blows up the building and leaves with all his money, walking away from the building in the ghetto, it's that much more satisfying.

The only disappointment I had with the strategy is that they used it for the entire season two, and the pay off wasn't very good. They started the first episode of the second season with the cold open of Walt's pool with a burnt pink stuffed bear and sirens in the background. When nothing happened with that story line in the entirety of the first ep, I realized they were foreshadowing the end of the season. They used that cold open again in ep 4, ep 10 and the season two finale. In the end it was Jane's dad being bad at his job and making two planes collide. A pink stuffed bear was obviously on one of the planes and fell from the sky and landed in Walt's pool. Yeah sure a plane crash is a big deal, but not in how it relates to the main characters of our show. Kind of a let down.

With Skyler kicking Walt out of the house, Hank getting back on the hunt for Heisenberg, and Gus finding out Walt's brother-in-law is in the DEA, and Jesse in rehab, there should be many complications for Walter H. White come season three.

Favorite Characters

1. Jesse Pinkman
2. Hank Schrader
3. Walter White, Sr.
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98. Walter White, Jr.
99. Marie Schrader
100. Skyler White