Obviously that respect and appreciation is mutual—I joined to comment on The Shield when its Classic coverage started, and conversations like these and posts like yours have made me regret not doing it sooner. And since your Shield posts in particular are to me a key text for analyzing and appreciating the show, so…

I'm waiting for someone to combine Black Friday with roller derby, or at least make a post-apocalyptic movie about it. That said, someone stepped on my hand in a Wal-Mart the one time I went at midnight, so now I stay at home in my pajamas and buy my cut-rate DVDs over the internet, as was always my destiny.

I like viewing Breaking Bad as a supervillain origin story. Actually, I could really see it being adapted in graphic novel format: you have a certain pulpy, Gothic strangeness, costuming (Heisenberg's hat and glasses, particularly), and storytelling beats that would break down very well into panels. Plus, Gray…

SPOILERS FOR BREAKING BAD AND THE SHIELD

Horror movie: the "hand-holding" scene in Robert Wise's The Haunting. Perfectly captures, at first, the free-ranging paranoia of hearing strange noises while you're lying in the dark and then escalates to the shock of Eleanor realizing that the hand she was holding—and the one holding hers back so tightly it…

I am sometimes amazed those two shows even coexist in the same universe. At least I can safely doubt that there will ever be a critical revival of The Newsroom's reputation.

That psychological underpinning is a nice way of circumventing the show's usual adherence to the "back story is bullshit" philosophy: what little we can deduce about Shane's home life suggests it wasn't ideal, and like you said, that not only relates to how focused he is on keeping Vic's attention and affection but…

I'm torn between the desire to keep the reviews ongoing and the desire to not go that long without Shield commentary.

I like both the theory @avclub-3be42d8a3412057f79af152555e39bd4:disqus gives below about Shane's need for family and this idea here that Shane's anger at Lem is just a placeholder for his deeper anger at Vic, which is more dangerous to admit to (both because he loves but doesn't one hundred percent trust Vic, hence…

I'm used to these comments being the highlight of my AV Club week, but pointing out the difference between "Al Capone with a badge" and "Joe Friday with a record" in particular struck me as exactly at the heart of what good analysis really is.  Damn.

"Tread lightly" is a justifiably great line, but I also loved Jesse's gradual confession of what he knew (paraphrased): "If he were out there, you'd always have to be looking over your shoulder, and that's not how you do things, so—I think he's dead.  And I think you know it."  Somehow "I think you know it" is even…

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I also never reacted that virulently—I was always sure of Dutch's overall feelings—but note that, as always, the show succeeds in complicating and muddying overt motivations. Dutch wants to understand, but he also wants to sleep. The cat is a tool, a means to an end, but also a pest that he rids himself of. No one…

I would seriously consider reading a summary of the whole storyline, beginning to end. The show kept me interested on an episode by episode basis, but seeing the full arc shape throughout and the little moments that gain weight because of the knowledge of the end? It vaulted the show into my personal number one drama…

I really liked it—enough to read it in one day (although, to be fair, it's not that long).  It doesn't have the layered complexity of Flynn's later two novels, but it has this nice slow unraveling of both mystery and character details, a grim and almost claustrophobic atmosphere, and a collection of macabre details…

I really need to see the film now.

That "golf" scenes is one of my favorite moments, and, as always on The Shield, for "favorite," read "most heartbreaking," as in: season seven is my favorite season/The Shield is my favorite show.

Just finished Alberto Moravia's The Conformist, a detailed character study of a man with psychopathic tendencies and a passion for "normality" who tries to find an outlet for both of those urges during Italy's Fascist period.  It has a thriller plot and some of a thriller's sensationalism, but more deliberate pacing…

Seconded, and I'd add The Blunderer, as well.  She's a very grim writer, but a very immersive one as well, and I remember her books the way you'd remember the time being lost in some particularly dense landscape: everything ominous down to the very details.