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I am just now watching episode 10 of season 3 of Breaking Bad. It’s the episode about a fly. You know the one! It aired on May 23, so I’m a little behind. (I like to savor delicious things — or save delicious things for later.)

Pretty much only Mr White and Jesse have any lines. More significantly: It’s hilarious (for a while). I am laughing out loud and BB is not a Laugh Out Loud show. BB is a Freak the F Out show.

Anybody else remember and lurve this lovely episode about killing a fly? From pre-credits thingy, to whacking each with an impromptu flyswatter, this episode rawks. (Insiders, read this, too.)

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!

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?

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.

This episode of Breaking Bad aired on April 5, and now 13 days later I’m blogging about it. Hmm. I guess that means I don’t have to worry about spoiler alerts!

DP MiChael Slovis’s credit is still out of whack, periodically speaking. And this episode is directed by Johan Renck. Re is the symbol for the chemical element rhenium, a rare metal, rarer than molybdenum and often found with it. Okay, you know what? I don’t really know where any metal comes from, let alone molybdenum. Oh sure, I’ve heard of mining, but in my tangible life it’s as relevant as alchemy.

On with the show. I noted that the DEA’s office (the excellent Dean Norris plays our main man there), shows an address in reverse lettering on the façade as they leave the lobby of 400 Gold SW. That building is shown here on Google Maps. Nice location scouting: a building without windows could well be a goverment building.

Did anybody else notice the vertical distance between the waist of Jesse (the excellent AAron Paul) with his lowriders and the waist of Jane (played by Krysten Ritter) with her long legs, skinny frame and high pants? I think her pants’ waistline was 2 feet higher off the ground than Jesse’s. It was a weird juxtaposition. But a good scene. I’m pretty sure we’ll be seeing a lot of Jane.

Later in this episode, an extended musical montage thingy. Wha?!?! So not this show! But the unappealing characters therein: so this show.

Right off the bat, we have a variation of the brief B&W opening from Episode 201. And it reminds me more of Sunset Boulevard in that it seems to indicate the death of the protagonist. Can it be?!

The immediately we jump into the most mundane family scene ever in the history of BB. Great. We know what that means. The lull before the storm. The storm in this case turns out to be pretty passive aggressive. In short: this is an excellent episode revolving around family, or the lack thereof. And now I’m almost caught up!

I am late in blogging about this season’s 3rd episode of Breaking Bad. Oops!

It opens with a scene with actors, unlike the first 2 episodes. Somewhere I heard that Bryan Cranston very much likes to work with his pants off — and many, many scenes have found him in his BVD’s for this series. But you get him baked in the desert — literally, from heat not drugs — and he’ll even lose the briefs. So it begins.

Guest star Michael ShAmus Wiles: for your opening credit, you get americium, the most patriotic element. Tom KiEsche: you get einsteinium, an excellent element — and by the way I think we have a mutual friend. MiChael Slovis: you get my continued apologies for your nonexistent element.

Tonight I learned a new word: fugue. Of course, I know the word from music, but its second definition, related to fugitive, is new to me:

fugue |fjug| noun (Psychiatry) a state or period of loss of awareness of one’s identity, often coupled with flight from one’s usual environment, associated with certain forms of hysteria and epilepsy.

Sometimes a fugue-state episode does seem kind of tempting, I must say. Flee your problems! Head to the high chaparral! Is that so wrong? But eventually I’d come back, if only for another fine episode of Breaking Bad.

Script highlight: Very funny “Whole Foods” line! Minor complaint: You could never reinsert an IV like that! Question of the week: What does “Bit by a Dead Bee,” this episode’s title, mean?