That's the title of Eventualism, chapter 6.

Honestly, I was thinking more about how the zombie trends got started, with low-budget stuff like Night of the Living Dead and 28 Days Later. Once the trend gets going, then the big studios can bring in the stars and the CGI and the script Genericators™ and make a zombie movie into just another blockbuster.

One detail I really liked: Billings looks like he's on good terms with his daughter and ex-wife. It's one more example of how this show was able to sketch the complexity of its characters without ever slowing down.

Aw thanks to both of you and everyone else. I just feel that when you get something as amazing and rewarding as this show dropped on you, I gotta say thanks.

When you finish the series (which will most likely be late Saturday), go to the "Pilot" article here, as that was the most discussed question, in a full-spoiler way.

One of the things that made this the best ensemble on television was that everyone looked right for their part and brought the right kind of physicality to it, from Chiklis' bulk to Karnes' gawkiness to CCH Pounder's calm. It's the exact opposite of what you'd get on a network, where everyone is blandly good-looking.

By the way: "her niece was raped after a creep got off on a technicality"? No, she was raped after someone was freed by a computer glitch. Both more believable and less of a 1980s cliché. C'mon, Nowalk, pay attention here.

Seriously, I couldn't scroll down like two posts? Fuck is wrong with me today…

Also true of The Thin Red Line. Is there anyone your heart breaks less for when he's the first kill?

Goggins doesn't get awards because of what could be called the Heath Ledger rule: yes, you do have to fucking die before you get an award for a great performance in a genre show or film.

SPOILERS THEN

Thanks pw! One of the many things to admire about Team Ryan is that they had the discipline to stay focused on the story and not push the post-9/11 aspect of it. Unlike that opening speech of "Pay in Pain," they realized that if you tell a story about these characters, you'll say everything you need.

It's really interesting to go back to this first season and see how many things were tried, and how many of them weren't kept (which is often what happens in the first season of great shows). But the stuff that's important stayed, and stayed until the end.

That's a good way of saying it…we're outside of Walter to a much greater degree than we're outside of Vic. A big structural difference between the two shows is that Breaking Bad is much more about a single person, and The Shield is much more about a team. And that creates a great range of moral conflicts on The Shield;…

That's the one. It's also the episode that starts with a visit from the Representative of All the Good People of Farmington. A lot of straining for relevance here and point-making, which is so not what The Shield is.

Not sure, but I think he saw Julien and Tomas talking with each other at one point at the Barn, and Vic is smart enough to keep an eye on something like that.

The Greatness of The Shield, conclusion:  the purpose of the drama

The Greatness of The Shield, part four:  morality

Damn, but the elements of the show are rolling now with “Cherrypoppers.”  Visually (watch for the extreme, off-angle close-ups and the smallest hitch in the camera motion as it tracks from Julien to Aceveda and catches sight of the cross on the way), storytelling (because everything just happens at once, whether…

Yeah, that was a bit overdone.  The similar shots on Turturro and Fiennes didn't bother me so much as the visual (and musical) underscoring of every damn point in the sequence.  Clooney did a lot better in the broadcast sequences of Good Night, and Good Luck; one thing he did there was constantly incorporate…