I'll listen to that as well. Thanks, @avclub-195704d42ca54b9b5438856244f7ad95:disqus .

I wanted Alicia to slap Maura Tierney's character.

Her husband was the former State's Attorney when she was hired.  Given that he was in jail, that couldn't have been a plus.

I'll give it a listen, @avclub-98a0a254da8ca766b7d890e7374849ab:disqus .  Thanks.

I'm always several steps behind and scrambling to catch up.  Thanks, @marahe:disqus .

So has anyone listened to Yellow Loveless, the cover album by Japanese bands?  I've only heard Tokyo Shoegazer's cover of "Only Shallow", and it's a fairly straightforward cover which doesn't transform MBV's version to something fundamentally different.

The Lonely Island sketch is the only part of this episode I've seen so far, but I really liked it too.  As for the L.A. part of it, so what?  These guys started making videos in L.A., and now they're making videos in L.A. again.  I'm not bothered by it either, and I'm at a complete loss as to why Sims or anyone else…

I'm willing to believe that Carell's career was only made after The 40 Year Old Virgin (and the 6 years or so as Michael Scott after that was just icing on the cake), but why assume a single factor?  It could be that he needed to be in The 40 Year Old Virgin and The Office in order to be where he is now.  It could be…

You know, the only thing I can think of that actually rhymes with "Denver" is the first name of Enver Hoxha, former leader of Albania.  And yet he does not make an appearance in this rap.

A bit of context (well, maybe) to T.J. Miller and Denver:

It's a word!  It's a plan!  It's … Letter-Man!

Yeah, but the "trying to figure out how to get a paying job going again" is a big deal to most people.  Being beloved is nice, but I can understand his frustrations.

@avclub-53a91f2f576c749bc795a5bd2ad22163:disqus, try the
July 21, 2009 episode (link to flash player at http://wfmu.org/flashplayer… ).  This was back when Tom and PFT were still on a speaking basis.

Second, that Will and Diane had to do their jobs even though they knew
exactly why their client was under suspicion—her pregnancy, which she
terminated via birth control pills so she could race in the Olympics.
Often it’s implied that Will or Diane or Alicia have to lie or ignore
the truth in front of them to best…

Yeah, pretty much.  The steak: 1) allows the real sheriff to have his would-be badass talk about how he's going keep eating because reheating a steak gives you steak that just isn't as good and 2) comes with a sharp knife used in the fight scene.

@avclub-9bd5eb56846904f649391a1669b7b45f:disqus, I agree that it's too early to compare series in terms of quality; I can only make a guess based on the pilot, obviously.  I do think there's another similarity, in that both have lawmen anti-heroes (Givens less of an anti-hero than Hood, of course) with pasts that are…

I'm with you, @avclub-638c1a4f003b46aad4aa5cf3f424d215:disqus  — I might even go as far as a B+.

I didn't catch the cast interviews, but it seems like some of it was shown in the trailer.  I agree with you:  I'm going to give the show at least a couple more episodes.

The preview for episode 2 looked pretty dumb, but until I saw it, I was reasonably impressed by the show.  The transvestite hacker badass was annoying — quirk for quirk's sake — and the double-decker tourist bus which inexplicably speeds up after it jackknifed was stupid (Edit: Haysoos beat me to it. Great minds…

All it suggests is that maybe, possibly, Proctor already had Hood in his pocket, right?  Even without the steak, it immediately occured to me that Proctor might very well know the real Hood.