I have nothing to add to your excellent post except for my thirst for Shawn Hatosy. I have had a crush on him since The Faculty. Face like a slapped ass but that tight freckly body just UMPH. Flicks a switch in my lizard brain.

Her introductions always kill it. This episode's intro reminded me so much of Look Around You for some reason.

I had a lot of laugh out loud moments in the episode, but less due to "jokes" than to the episode capturing the absurdity amazingly well. Basically my reaction can be summed up by the ending scene when Al Capone's great-great-granddaughter mouths "what the fuck?" to the camera with a grin on her face.

Like I always tell my nearest and dearest, not murdering starts at home.

I don't know man, that little suburb looked pretty idyllic.

I had to laugh at Kim Dickens' expression when the neighbor got a shotgun blast to the skull. It was less "what is this absurd nightmare I exist in?" and more "aw man, all over my carpet!"

Something something World War Z Battle of Yonkers.

I feel like the show wants us to write off Ruben as "too tough for his own good" and "his hardness and cynicism will be his downfall", but the funny thing is he's by far the least irritating character for me right now. He honestly has the realest "Los Angeleno" reaction to the apocalypse and I want more of it.

Well if we're going to be making comparisons, shouldn't we be comparing the first seasons of both? Of course the storylines are different— one begins in media res and the other is necessarily a slower burn documenting the dawn of the outbreak. Still, the first two eps of TWD already blow FTWD out of the water.

1. Can we please talk about the beginning of the episode, when they pulled out in front of the truck and Kim just gave it a look like "not now, I'm on the phone"? Didn't they have any other takes they could use, or is that just Kim's face? I'm beginning to fear that she inherited Laurie Holden's 'one face for every…

I think the key to the show, and something that has been shown over and over throughout the episodes, is that Rick would be nihilistic but for Morty.

I'm not talking about it being made-up. It just seemed like a very 'on the nose' about-face over a short period of time, when the reality is things were pretty frigid and mean in that neighborhood for like a decade.

I beg to disagree, I think it was pretty clear poodle lady had more malicious intent than that.

Loved it. A part of me does think the ending sequence and certain scenes (lady with the dogs) were a little bit "just so" for David Simon— after all, this is the guy who has no problem leaving your favorite Wire characters to eat the random bullets of the universe.

I also agree that the whole switching from Spanish to English and back to be kind of a jarring artistic conceit. The whole Dominican Republic sequence would have been more natural in pure Spanish with subtitles

By the end of Part Four, there were some indications that the people in public housing were going to play a more vocal and active role. Anyway, when they start actually moving in to the new locations we will surely see more direct clashes between the two communities (although not necessarily between, say, Wasicsko and…

If you ever get around to continuing TWD and reading the reviews of the later episodes on here, you'll find that AV Club actually has a pretty robust fanbase. And you'll also pick up the difference between the critiques that come "from a place of love", as it were, and really ripping an episode to shreds.

Big Bird reprises his Emmy-nominated role as the Yellow King.

Well, everyone knows heroin keeps you model thin and meth gives you meth teeth. I guess what I'm trying to say is, he picked a good drug to be good-looking on.

Funnily enough, we'd take Semyon more seriously if it were made clearer (through direction and scripting, especially interactions with other characters) that we should be taking his dialogue less seriously. I agree that the scenes where he's acting like a thorough gangster are much more engaging. But he doesn't have…