so evidently reverse engineered to make a point that it loses a lot of its value

I didn’t remember the re-framing of the Genesis story playing such a prominent role in the books, which is especially surprising given that the way it’s done has so many parallels with one of my other favorite young adult series—Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials”—both in terms of the overall narrative arc (a…

Murder House was the first thing I thought of with this finale, too. Same rush to get dying characters inside the house so they can turn into ghosts and everything. The imitation wasn’t exactly subtle (although Ryan Murphy certainly isn’t the first person to frame the allure of undeath as the opportunity to be united…

It’s almost like individual reviewers have different expectations of/reactions to the same works of art.

Not sure what’s going to piss me off more if/when the dog dies: the fact that David Simon and co. have given in to one of film/television’s most predictable and unnecessary sentimental cliches, or the fact that I will have to stop watching The Deuce due to my own inability to rise above such a transparent attempt to…

Perhaps, but I don’t think he fully becomes that cynical, bitter person until that moment with Kim outside the courtroom. It’s a sort of Schrodinger’s Cat phenomenon: once you open the box and the cat is dead, it becomes inevitable in retrospect. But things could have gone another way right until that moment.

I’m still not entirely sold that Jimmy’s speech in the courtroom *wasn’t* at least partially genuine and that his celebratory antics afterwards weren’t the act. I mean, that’s supposed to be the key to a great con, right—starting with something real and building from there? Believing the lie yourself?

The dioramas and hexagonal stacked sleep pods decorating the pharmaceutical headquarters were especially uncanny.

Is the “federal judge” thing a reference to an actual role? Because I recognized those others right away.

“It’s so tough being Princess of Wales. Like, I can’t be all things to all whales!” may be my favorite joke all season. It’s the throwaway ones that get me every time.

And those differences in circumstance may be at least partly a function of the differences in their ages—Walt and Saul/Jimmy’s a bit harder to handicap, but Kim definitely seems at least 5 or 6 years younger than all three other characters—although going with the whole personality/profession synergy you were bringing…

I’m definitely a part of the “Skyler didn’t get a fair shake” camp, but I have to admit I like Kim’s approach a little bit better.

46 for me. It’s quite a range.

Maybe the Frenchman’s blabbing about doing work for another client (building the tunnel under the Mexico/US border) was what lost him the job...He won’t suffer someone who has the potential to go off bragging about building an underground super lab for a drug king pin.

Speaking of deep cut BB references, last week’s episode (the one before that? where Jimmy is deciding between Jaws 3D and White Heat) was a nice little callback to Jimmy implicitly comparing Skyler to Verna back in Phoenix—maybe one that invites us to compare the similarities and differences in illegal secrets’…

I saw him as a mournfully complicit spectator to Amma’s poisoning—he clearly didn’t want anything to happen to her but had deluded himself into believing there was nothing he could do to stop it—and something of an active participant in that of Camille, whose death he was sure to help along because he thought her…

That was my take. Especially that final shot of the visit where Amma is looking so genuinely sad/guilty that Adora is in prison and Adora flashes her best beatific martyr face as she puts her hand to the glass.

Or he just has a sense of humor about these things. Did you ever see The Toast? Ortberg published a book of his work from the sight called Texts from Jane Eyre. Thought experiments involving a bunch of fictional characters in real-life situations with access to modern technology was the site’s bread and butter.

I was going to make the similar point that over the top characters in self-induglently pulpy fare was sort of his bread and butter.