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From Bradley Whitford vomiting to clear a crime scene, to the poster art for the show, to Billy Squier’s “Stroke Me” introducing a sexy hot rod car, The Good Guys tickles my funny bone. Many months ago, I worked on the script for the pilot in an acting class, and I was hooked. I hope it lasts! Sometimes the good shows don’t, but The Good Guys, like Modern Family, could be a show we’ll be talking about for years to come.

It’s written by Ginsburg & McIntyre, and you can follow their shenanigans more on the Twitter.

It took about 8 minutes and 26 seconds by my clock to figure it out, but Michael Slovis, the talented director of photography for Breaking Bad, has his name spelled with an actual element this season. That’s right, at 8:26 into the new season, his name appears as MiChael Slovis. C is for carbon. Carbon is a much better element than the non-existent one he had previously. (Ch = Chemestrium?)

Also, by 8:26 I had been astounded and had shed a tear. I love this (horrible) show! Catch up! Watch! Break! Ing! Bad!

I was thrilled to see a Breaking Bad billboard the other day. I hate billboards, generally speaking, so there was that. But I love Breaking Bad!

My love of BB had actually caused me to stop watching the show. You know, keep a few episodes on the TiVo because watching them all means it’s over, and you don’t want it to end. So now, in glorious anticipation of season 3, I have plunged into the end of season 2.

Episode 11 starts with horrifying violence from a youth. Dear lord, I hope New Mexico doesn’t have such horrible murderous children. As for the rest of it, let me just say this: “Bob Odenkirk!!!!!! Anna Gunn prego singing — schwing!!!!!!”

Episode 12: Whoa. More Krysten Ritter!!!!!! and more John de Lancie!!!!!! Then there was the me watching the very end saying, “Holy sh*t.” Whoa.

Episode 13, episode the last: It starts with the B&W montage that reminds me once again of Sunset Boulevard, a montage we’ve seen a few variations of throughout the season. It is awesome. Perhaps you have to be into the show to know it’s awesome, like viewing a subtle work of art you might pass by at the museum if you didn’t see on the plaque that it’s by Famous Artist. This montage of doom segues into an opening scene of more death. It’s grisly. And it’s an awesome season finale.

And now … I await season 3. Bring it! (And please use actual element symbols for every credited named. Michael Slovis deserves as much.) Season 3 happens on Sunday the 21st!

“Hold tight” for a few quick, random, unrelated comments on current television programming. I don’t care for Big Love’s new opening credits, but I’m loving that the show keeps being what it is, and am 100% into this new season.

Caprica, I can’t get into it. Despite my deep deep love for BSG. I have to say the strongest SyFy show now is SG-U.

Archer is a well-done cartoon on FX. People aren’t talking about it in my world, but they should. TV-MA ratings and cartoons can be a strange combo for viewers that aren’t immature men like myself, but check it out.

Modern Family is strong, strong, strong.

The Super Bowl was awesome.

And the two shows I never, ever miss continue to be The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, because they make me a better person.

What shows do you never miss?

Glee has many great things about it — and you can read about those all over the internets, so let me offer a couple of minor complaints. The show could be so much better.

1. Any scene with cheerleaders wearing cheerleader outfits in it pretty much sucks. Painfully clichéd, caricatured and shallow, especially when there’s more than one girl wearing her cheerleader outfit around school.

2. The musical numbers don’t sound like what they look like. Big problem. Huge problem! Come on — give us cred. We are smart viewers, we can handle it. Many (most?) of the actors on this show can really sing quite well, so let us see what it would sound like if we were present in the scene as we see it. Instead, we see obvious lip synching, and we hear instruments that make no sense. Not right! (Please note: I am not talking about fun, surreal moments like when the football team dances to “If you liked it then you should’ve put a ring on it.” Nope. That’s great. It was staged and we bought it. But almost all other numbers where you hear and see something that doesn’t add up: these make the show less than it could be. If you show four vocalists, let us hear four vocalists in the moment. Etc.)

So much good. So much potential, also, to be that much better.

I’m back into Breaking Bad. I’ve let a few episodes accumulate in the ol’ TiVo and gather some serious dust, but am now determined to finish Season Two. It’s awesome, so the determination level required is low.

New to the series in this episode, Bob Odenkirk plays Saul Goodman, a sleazy lawyer introduced via low-budget local commercials that play while two other characters get it on. Bob Odenkirk does excellent guest-star work in this episode, and his character could easily be with us for several episodes more. I kind of recognize Bob, but looking at his IMDb page, I realize that it’s more accurate to say that although he’s worked a ton, I have no idea who he is. That’s the kind of actorly success I aspire to! (For non-actors, that may sound ironic. It’s not.)

Also, I’m liking Todd VanDerWerff’s write-up on this episode.

Breaking Bad is a well-made show! Will it win the Primetime Emmy on September 20th? I’m rooting for it, along with Big Love and Dexter.

Last week, the following shows were nominated for the major award Outstanding Drama Series: Big Love, Breaking Bad, Damages, Dexter, House, Lost, Mad Men. These are all good shows, but nobody is pointing out that there were no nominations in the second half of the alphabet. Conspiracy! Zedists!

Okay, seriously. Damages, House and Mad Men shouldn’t win because of the simple fact that for all of them, the previous season was better. Dropping a notch rules you out in my book, even if still very good. Lost? Please.

That leaves Big Love, Breaking Bad and Dexter. All so good! I can’t choose! Better go do some more “research.” Where’s the remote?

Pushing Daises is done. The final episode has aired now in the UK, even if it hasn’t aired here in the States yet. Do you miss it? In a word, I don’t.

On the good side, it was different. A lot of the top shows are so similar, and this show was different. I grant that that might be good in and of itself.

But the apparent sense of insight from listing amounts of time in accuracy up to the second; the repeated use of “The facts were these” as our narrator’s segue; and the very fact that the narrator has a British accent: all these actually give a false sense of insight. All these turn off the thoughtful viewer. And so many scenes are painfully created in a way that is very far from reality. A strange and unholy blend of attempts to be very real and yet very false in the above, in casting, in art design and color, in dialog, etc. This is why it never really worked for me. Also, it’s a little too copycat if you’ve seen a certain extremely famous French movie. Also, the cartoon voice of Ms. Chenoweth (and some guest actors) is a little too, well, cartoony. Also, the new veneers and reworked bangs that Anna Friel has started wearing strike me as contrived. Also, the preposterous setup of lovers that can never touch — that’s going nowhere unless they jump the shark.

Okay, enough. Did you love it? Tell me why. I’m listening.

This time, Breaking Bad opens with a music video. Or should I say, video de música? Los Cuates de Sinaloa cantan «Negro y Azul». Claro que Sinaloa se conoce por tener las mujeres más guapas en todo México, y supongo que eso quiere decir que en esta semana, el Breaking Malo va a tener chicas guapas. ¡Qué bueno! Aquí se puede ver otra video de «Los Cuates» con chica media desnuda. Y aquí se puede leer una entrevista con ellos.

Okay, back to English — after saying that cuate means comrade, equal, some dude from where you’re from. The lyrics to their Black and Blue (this episode’s title, too) are sung in a vocal range akin to speaking. I wonder if that’s how they always roll. But the lyrics are translated sloppily, with “potent” instead of the better “powerful,” and the all-too-common mistake of using a reverse apostrophe at the start of a word to indicate the omission of letters. “Talkin’ ‘bout” should be “Talkin’ ’bout.” ¡Drives me crazy! All of this is preview, probably with Bryan Cranston’s stand-in, so let’s move on past the first 4 minutes.

Some more teacher. Then lots of fallout from last week’s intense episode, rehashing the kid, the ATM, the sound. Then a great line for those moments when a grey lie is needed: “You didn’t hear that from me.” Got to remember that one!

Later:
“I’m a blowfish?”
“You are a blowfish.”
“I’m a blowfish.”
“Say it like you mean it!”
“I am a blowfish!”

Finally, for a second, I thought I saw a scene not shot on location. One moment where Dean Norris, the poor schmuck that doesn’t habla the Spanish, looks over the valley seems to be filmed on set. Quickly forgotten, because s#|t goes down. ¡Caracho! Things are getting malo.

I want to write about another episode of Breaking Bad. Again, I’m late, about 13 days this time. Again, the opening credits include a non-element in the name of the DP. Again, it’s an awesome show.

In this episode, we see further how the bad in Jesse‘s and Walter‘s lives creeps along, spreads further. Jesse has to go protect his drug racket, and pulls out the revolver to do so. Skyler thanks their benefactors for the money her husband didn’t get from them, so a lie will be unraveled? This is the Act I setup, counterbalanced by an everyday event, a long chemistry lecture about carbon and diamonds and H. Tracy Hall, on the normal first day of school … where not everything can really be normal now, can it?

When we return to Jesse, he’s still waiting for his victims, but playing peekaboo with their unfortunate kid. Cute and dirty. Later we see — and even more so, hear — one of the grossest deaths ever, but it was particularly satisfying, too. How easily done, how deliciously deserved.

At the end I thought that in this episode a young boy plays a key role and this cute young actor never speaks. Well written, well acted, well shot. (Carmen Serano and Jessica Hecht give awesome guest star work, too.) The boy seems to be a parallel to the work Mark Margolis played earlier this season, non-speaking and brilliant acting at the opposite end of life’s spectrum. Heartbreaking situations. And beautiful.

The writing is so beautiful when you stop and think about how they are weaving in all these bad things, keeping the show fresh, a mix of expected and unexpected problems when you get involved over your head with drugs and such. The bad is beautiful to me on this show. With one exception: Skyler and Walter seem to be going nowhere in there scenes together because their scenes together are getting repetitive.