I think he probably got madder and madder on the way over. Replaying the betrayal over in his head and ruminating on what family is supposed to mean, instead of letting himself calm down.

https://www.youtube.com/wat…

I don't think Chuck really cares about those desperate old folks. He cares about the law being perverted. I'm sure Chuck could marshal an argument about how Jimmy's lifelong habit of perverting the law could lead to desperate old folks getting exploited, but I think what Chuck actually cares about is the principle…

Part of what bothers me about Chuck is his apparent inability to stop trying to control things and to accept others' and his own human weaknesses. I don't think his motivations, deep down, are heroic. I think, deep down, he's terrified he's not as morally upright and nobly just as he wants to believe he is. …

Yeah. The issue is that Chuck sees a law license as the shield that keeps him from being contaminated from the dirty tricks and rip-offs that Jimmy perpetrates. For Chuck, it's not great if Jimmy's a non-lawyer con artist, but at least Chuck the Lawyer can try to reassure himself that the Law stands as a barrier…

Vincent Gilligan is unusually good at depicting how spite can motivate some people to despicable extremes. Spite fueled Walter to break all the rules, and fuels Chuck to zealously follow them, but it makes both of them villainous.

Don't remember the scene, but in Russian, when you're addressing someone close to you—basically using their name to get their attention—you can use what's grammatically the neo-vocative form. As a grammar case, the vocative has mostly disappeared from the language, but it hangs on in a few instances, and the newer…

Did the second song sound a lot like "Shake It Off" to anyone else? I don't know either song well enough to feel sure about this; I just know that as I was checking my email while it was playing in the background, I kept expecting to hear, "She wants to break up every night (ooh, ooh!) / She wants to break up every…

They are indeed the opposite of people, but the commercials are very much suffering from a lack of blood, love, and rhetoric. Especially blood.

Yeah. I mean, I doubt Elizabeth is thinking consciously about whether the Soviet Union will live up to her expectations. But it's definitely an issue. She hasn't been there to see how much all the corruption has accreted, to make all of the discomforts seem pointless instead of like noble sacrifices for the…

It's Tolstoyan, too. Like Levin reaping the waves of hay.

There weren't many entry points onto the Mall. Whichever one people used to get in, they tended to congregate near the closest giant screen/sound system where they could see and hear things.

And he holds his cigarette like a European.

I fully meant to make a protest sign that said, "Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not some farcical aquatic ceremony," but I didn't get around to buying a yellow marker to color in the word "aquatic."

He's saving room in his jacket for all the coat hangers that will constitute our new health plans.

Bought, and sold, and fried again… the dove is never free.

But wasn't Scott's illicit lovah the same co-worker that Scott previously confessed to almost cheating on Paula with, back when Paula confessed to almost cheating on Scott? And though we the viewers only met that co-worker once, her and Scott's dynamic very much played as long-established flirtiness.

That was the only movie I'd seen her in for a while, so there was a period where I thought she *was* a real actor! She's directed well, I'm saying.

Fun fact: the word "jujube" comes from Persian. I'm not saying he's an Iranian plant; I'm just not saying he's not.

Here's a 1957 Soviet cartoon where ears of corn sing and dance about their many uses: https://youtu.be/zWTRj5ny2v…