The mushroom people were terrifying, but what's stuck with me are the later-season breaks from reality. The clock face, the maybe-that-guy-isn't-really-there-with-Will, the human raven-stag that Will hallucinates. Shuddering just thinking about that last one.

Also Kenneth's NBC song over the credits! So ridiculous but equally heartfelt, and a perfect cap on the show (the finale also goes to there).

The Middle had a great episode in season three called "The Map" where they said goodbye to Frankie's great aunt Ginny (Frances Bay) who had passed away. The first scene, the car ride as the Hecks come back from the funeral, is heartfelt, funny, and so moving, and the rest of the episode follows suit.

Didn't answer in time, but when I first visited LA as an adult a few years ago, my friend and I drove around looking at things we'd seen in movies. There's the diner from Swingers (okay, I haven't actually seen that one), here's the Pasadena (Pawnee) City Hall, there's Griffith Observatory from Rebel Without a Cause,…

I actually don't talk about these shows being novelistic because I'm with you. Television is television. What novels are like Arrested Development season four? (I'm sure there are some, but the differences would also be instructive.)

Welt am Draht is out on Criterion Blu-Ray, so we wrote about that in Monday's inventory.

Also the escalation. Talisa getting stabbed in the gut several times is a doozy, but that's the kind of horror you might expect. Then Robb? Okay, that's a twist. I gasped. But when Catelyn goes, I vocally exclaimed. I don't even remember what I said, just that I was that shocked.

@avclub-fa6fdc1bb56715a0e468248020a12fa3:disqus A list called "24 Foreign Language TV Shows You Can See Legally In The US" without Berlin Alexanderplatz and Fanny and Alexander would have some pretty big holes. Damned if you do and damned if you don't it seems.

Sorry, no Shield review this week thanks to strep throat. Coverage will pick up next week with a pair of doozies.

For me I think Mean Girls is way out front. Especially if we're counting half-watched TBS broadcasts. Second is probably I'm Not There.

"And at the very least, the network would move Glee, which has been eroding far too quickly for comfort up against Grey’s Anatomy, which attracts a similar audience."

Ooh, good question! I was a big scaredy cat as a kid, never interested in horror movies, but my parents basically forced me to watch The Shining the first Halloween I didn't go trick-or-treating, because that's what we were watching in the living room and I was handing out candy. It was terrifying. The woman in Room…

“Cassidy delivers some bad news to Axl at the prom.” I'm so happy for Weird Ashley right now.

Yes! My copy of Matilda is torn up, folded, crinkled, and taped together. Haven't read it in forever, but it was definitely my favorite book for several years.

"Is she making you say that?"

Or if you record The Prowler during the workday and watch it tonight!

We still get notifications like that as long as the writer changes the publication time.

I think what happens in cases like this is that the article actually publishes later than its scheduled time. Initially every review is scheduled for when the episode airs. If the writer has to post the review after that time and doesn't update it to the actual publication time, then the review sneaks past the…

Well said. It's not for nothing that Kennedy and Oswald die right when the Draper marriage and Sterling-Cooper do. The assassination shocks all the pretense away for a brief moment and people actually try to change, or rather, people actually try to live up to their ideals.

Exactly. The political machine in The Thick Of It is sinister precisely because the institution bulldozes good intentions until its operators are just coattail-hangers. In The Loop is about going to war to save face and accepting the human casualties. In what way is that not sinister? Because they're all trying hard…