Notes on Pop Culture: Two Seasons of 'Breaking Bad,' 'Rescue Me' Battles Alcoholism & Army Mom Goes AWOL

Breaking Bad’s First Two Seasons

CliqueClack TV, a blog to which I contribute, has this nifty little feature called the “Virgin Diaries” where the site’s writers watch a TV series for the first time and write about it, giving readers who are already fans of the show the chance to re-live the show from the beginning.

In the past few weeks I've been writing about AMC’s Breaking Bad, the drama where Malcolm in the Middle’s Bryan Cranston plays anti-hero Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who’s diagnosed with lung cancer and starts cooking meth so that when he dies, he’ll leave some significant money behind for his pregnant wife and their 15-year-old son with cerebral palsy, as well as trying to make sure that the cost of his cancer treatments doesn't drive the family into bankruptcy.

The cancer, coupled with the drug making (he's a whiz at making pure crystal meth) awakens something dormant within Walt -- chiefly his confidence -- and he blossoms, going from a timid teacher (who had done Nobel Prize-worthy work in graduate school) to a cut-throat drug manufacturer.

My review of the complete first, seven-episode season is here, followed by my take on the first part of season two as well as the remainder of Breaking Bad’s sophomore season.

I was riveted by the first season while watching Walt transform, but I didn't find the second season as compelling as the first. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t bad, it was just . . . different, more depressing, as Walt’s personal life fell to pieces as he learned the ropes of the meth business and his partner coped with tragedies and struggled with his own appetite for drugs.

Rescue Me Battles Alcoholism

Speaking of depressing . . . the past two weeks of Rescue Me have featured the intense fear that Tommy Gavin’s daughter Colleen – who’s a raging alcoholic like her father – had died after going on a bender with Tommy (I was convinced that she was going to be found dead by the end of last week's episode), to this week's episode, where Tommy claimed he’s off the juice again and tried to drive demonic spirits out of his daughter by forcefully baptizing/exorcising her by plunging her face into a baptismal font which Tommy had filled with a priest’s stash of booze.

I can’t decide whether the show is going to try to sink Tommy to even lower depths – I don’t think he’s reached “rock bottom” yet, whatever one might call “rock bottom” – in his and his troubled family’s battle with alcohol, or whether it'll spend the remainder of the time trying to have Tommy climb his way out of the hole he's in. I also can't figure out where the writers are headed, and that's, I think, a good thing.

Army Wives and AWOL Moms

Recently Army Wives took on the thorny issue of what to do when a single parent is supposed to deploy overseas and his or her childcare arrangements fall through. Based on a true story of an Army cook who was threatened with court martial for failing to report for duty to go overseas after her mother backed out of taking care of her 10-month-old son, Army Wives tugged at the heartstrings, asking the question of whether this fictional AWOL Army mom should’ve been loyal to her job or to her child.

My column on moms in the military -- both on the Lifetime drama and what's gone on in the real Army -- was posted on Mommy Tracked this week.

Image credit: AMC.

Two TV-Centric Posts: 'Rescue Me' and Me as an All-Powerful Emmy Goddess

I’ve got two new posts up on CliqueClack TV today, the first is a review of last night’s episode of Rescue Me where Tommy Gavin publicly proclaimed that he was giving up drinking – AGAIN – and was going to be a better man, a better husband and a better dad. And everyone laughed in his face, not buying it, while his wife Janet told him that he'd transformed her into a cynical, negative person. Then by the end -- and this is hardly a spoiler if you've actually watched Tommy over the years -- he raised a hefty glass of whiskey and declared that the world was "not cooperating" with attempts to stay sober.

Now his eldest daughter Colleen is apparently following in his boozy footsteps and he’s helplessly inept when it comes to giving her guidance.

The second blog post is my wish list of TV shows and actors/actress who I think should get Emmy nominations when they’re announced tomorrow morning. I can summarize my go-with-the-heart picks with four words: Mad, Men, Modern and Family.

And no, Lost is not on the list for best drama because I’m still holding a grudge over that series finale debacle thing which still has me feeling as though watching the final season was a complete waste of time. (As more time passes, I find myself getting angrier about the whole mess.)

Image credit: FX via New York Magazine.

Notes on Pop Culture: 'Eclipse' Rises, Turning on the Lights on FNL and Tales from a 'Breaking Bad' Virgin

Eclipse: Better Than the First Two Twilight Flicks

I went to see Eclipse on opening weekend and am happy to report – even though it might diminish my credibility with some literary/film school/independent flick types – that I enjoyed it, thought it was much better than New Moon and more light-hearted in places, not taking itself TOO seriously.

My pop culture column over on Mommy Tracked this week also points out that, despite the fact that the movie (like the book series) has all these super-strong werewolves and vampires protecting the fragile human Bella Swan from violence and possible death -- at times even being held her involuntarily hostage in order to keep her “safe” -- Bella’s no slouch when it comes to protecting those she loves either, that’s when she’s not pining or pondering becoming a teenage bride.

Friday Night Lights: The Lights in Carroll Park



Being a teenager is damned hard, at least in Dillon, Texas, at least for the likes of Becky, who’s 16 and pregnant, and for Vince, who can’t find a job because he’s been arrested and has been trying as hard as he can not to fall in with the gang and the violence that threatens to envelope him.


While Vince, whose mother's drug problems make her AWOL as a parent, had Coach Taylor there to help him get a job – at Ray’s BBQ where Virgil offered to hire him as long as he kept himself out of trouble, 16-year-old Becky, herself the child of a teenage mother who's largely absent while tending bar, had no one to advise her after she got knocked up from a one-night-stand with Luke Cafferty. Though Luke has spoken with her and offered help, she’s leaning toward an abortion, though she’s still on the fence and in serious need of guidance. And seeking out Tim Riggins’ counsel – the same guy who’s working at an illegal chop shop after hours – doesn’t seem like the best move.

Meanwhile, while Eric Taylor was looking for Tinker to find out why he’s missed practice, Eric witnessed the aftermath of a shooting of a 12-year-old in Carroll Park, which made him realize that for some of his players who live in the area just getting to football practice unscathed, never mind escaping the reach of violence that plagues that area, is a constant challenge. Ever the optimist, Eric wanted to try to do something about it, but he went about it in his typically awkward Eric kind of way. No politician he.

Eric needed Buddy’s help – again -- just like he needed him to help rustle up the support of the East Dillon football alums for a Homecoming event earlier this season. With Buddy’s assistance, Eric met with a community organizer, who had credibility with some of the youth in the area, and they arranged not only to get the lights turned on in the troubled park, but to bring the community together with a pick-up football game between neighborhood players and the East Dillon Lions.

The best moment of the episode: Eric playing wry with Tami when he informed her that he was disgusted by the notion that, by the mere fact that Glenn had kissed Tami, Eric was one degree away from kissing Glenn. (When Glenn apologized to Eric, who knew nothing of the drunken kiss, loved, just loved Eric’s surprised, restrained rage look.)

Finally Saw Breaking Bad’s Freshman Season


The web site to which I contribute blog items about TV – CliqueClack TV – has this regular feature called, “The Virgin Diaries.” The writers who contribute to the site pick a show that has already aired that they, personally, have never seen before, watch it and chronicle their reactions. Fans who’ve already watched those seasons of the show get to re-live it through fresh eyes, remembering what it was like to learn a certain fact or see a new character for the first time.

My first “Virgin Diary” entry was posted today about AMC’s Breaking Bad starring Bryan Cranston. I just finished the first season – it was only seven episodes long -- over the weekend and wrote about how the star, Bryan Cranston surprised me by absolutely making me forget that he ever knew anyone named Malcolm or ever once donned roller skates and did a routine to the song Funkytown.

Image credit: AMC.

Notes on Politics & Pop Culture: Palin & Feminism, 'HawthoRNe' Premieres, Fallon Mocks 'Twilight's' R-Pat Again

Palin & Feminism

I donned my protective gear as soon as I hit “send” and e-mailed my latest Pop Culture and Politics column to my editor at Mommy Tracked. The piece is about the anger expressed by liberal feminists over the fact that conservative women have said they want to call themselves feminists and cultivate a conservative version of feminism, as embodied by Palin’s reference to “Mama Grizzlies.”

Feel free to weigh in over on the site as I assert that having powerful women on the left AND the right running for and holding elected office while embracing the term “feminism” is a good thing for women.

Speaking of “Mama Grizzlies” . . . Republican Nikki Haley, who faced allegations of infidelity and a slur against her Indian-American background, won the South Carolina GOP runoff for the governor’s seat. She will face Democratic state Sen. Vincent Sheheen in the fall. If she won, she'd be her state’s first female governor.

HawthoRNe Season 2 Premiere

I was disappointed with the season two premiere of the TNT drama HawthoRNe starring Jada Pinkett Smith and Alias’ Michael Vartan. The first season was okay – it certainly was no Nurse Jackie – but this season’s premiere does not bode well for the quality of the second season. Not at all.

I reviewed the premiere at CliqueClack TV and expressed hope that episode two of season two will improve.

Jimmy Fallon Mocks R-Pat Again

Yeah, they’re goofy and Jimmy Fallon’s way too old for the role, but his “Robert Pattinson is Bothered” spoof videos (where Fallon pretends to be Twilight heartthrob Pattinson and climbs into a tree to vent about things that bother him) amuse me. This week, Fallon/Pattinson addressed why the World Cup is neither a cup nor representative of the world.



Speaking of Twilight, Jimmy Kimmel is having a Twilight/Eclipse special tonight. The new film premieres next week.

Image credit: TNT.

'Parenthood' Goes the Mean Girl Route

While watching last night’s Parenthood, I could not stop thinking about the Phoebe Prince case from Massachusetts -- where a teen girl took her life earlier this year after prosecutors said she was relentlessly harassed by classmates in her new school. There were so many similarities between the real life case and the one unfolding on Parenthood where a girl is being harassed by a group of girls for sleeping with her cousin's ex-boyfriend.

I reviewed the latest episode, “Team Braverman” for CliqueClack TV and observed that the response of Kristina Braverman, Haddie's mom, to this situation made me really dislike her character, one I’d previously admired for her down-to-earth demeanor. Plus I felt really badly for Amber, who made stupid, teenaged decisions while I became increasingly irritated with Haddie.

'Parenthood' Muses on Working Parenthood & Grandparents with Financial Woes

Parenthood has been on the uptick these days – with the exception of the fact that, no matter how much I’ve tried to forget that Lauren Graham played Lorelai Gilmore, I just can’t (her character went out with her daughter's English teacher, went back to school as an adult, has daughter who, according to previews, falls asleep with a guy overnight just like Lorelai's daughter did in a gazebo that looks like it was lifted from the Stars Hollow town green).

Part of the reason why I’ve been enamored of the drama as of late is its treatment of working parenthood, which it addressed in two recent episodes, the latest of which I lauded in my Pop Culture column on Mommy Tracked.

The writers have also, FINALLY, started paying some attention to the grandmother, Camille, who’s been largely wallpaper up until the last episode. (Episode recap is up on CliqueClack TV.)

Notes on Pop Culture: 'Mad Men' Season 4 Premiere (End in '12?), Catching Up on '24,' 'Parenthood' Renewed & More

Random notes on pop culture this week (also known as school vacation week in my house, when the three offspring wreak havoc with the schedule) . . .

Mad Men: I've already programmed Sunday, July 25 at 10 p.m. into my BlackBerry as the premiere date for the fourth season of Mad Men, one of my all-time favorite dramas which, according to a New York Post report, may end after its sixth season in 2012. Quelle horreur. (Currently, I'm in the midst of watching the season three DVD set and remembering how very grand it was. Just finished watching "Souvenir" the other night.)

24: The Spouse and I were dreadfully behind on 24. We watched three hours of it last night and we're still one hour behind. As for the twists and turns during the past couple of hours -- which have definitely improved I must add: I still hate Dana/Jenny and wish she'd been the one who'd been shot instead of Renee; I wonder if Chloe will still snarl as much now that he-who-needs-to-stand-up-straight has left the building and I'd like to know why it seems as though the Russians are almost always evil puppeteers on this show.

Parenthood: I wrote a column, published on Mommy Tracked this week, examining how the freshman drama Parenthood has spent some time developing a working mom character – a workaholic mom is jealous of her at-home husband whose company is preferred by their young daughter -- but not as much time on the at-home mom character. Until a recent episode. The teenaged daughter of the at-home mom looked down her nose at her mother for having left the workforce in order to raise children and ridiculed what her mother did as frivolous. Parenthood should have a whole bunch of time to delve really deeply into modern motherhood as represented by these two archetypes given that it was just got the green light for a second season.

TV Actors Who Make You Forget Their Old Big Roles: Speaking of Parenthood . . . my latest CliqueClack TV post addresses how when I watch Lauren Graham on Parenthood, I’m still thinking about Lorelai Gilmore from the Gilmore Girls and it's been bugging me. Yet when I see Peter Krause in Parenthood, his Nate Fisher character from Six Feet Under doesn’t come to mind. The post asks: Which currently appearing TV actors have been successful in getting viewers to forget their previous, famous roles when they take on a new one on a new TV show?

Two current success stories I mentioned: Matthew Fox, who was once Charlie Salinger on Party of Five and is now Jack Shephard on Lost and Kim Delaney who was once Det. Diane Russell on NYPD Blue and is now Claudia Joy Holden, the general's wife, on Army Wives.

Army Wives: While we're talking Army Wives, I'm one episode behind but wrote a column about the season premiere over on Mommy Tracked and how the writers have taken an Army wife mom of two -- who once lectured fellow Army wives that they’d better just get used to coming in second behind their husband’s military career and quit complaining -- getting sick of coming in second and demanding that her husband leave the armed services.

I’ve been reading: I’ve been horrifically behind in my reading for my book club. (The last book I read all the way through BEFORE my book club met was The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which was awesome by the way. I highly recommend it.) I just finished reading Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shors, even though it was the book which the club discussed two weeks ago. (Once I got about 40 pages into it, I felt as though its momentum took off and made me keep reading it.) Now I’m reading my daughter’s Twilight: The Graphic Novel Volume 1 (greatly admire the illustrations) while I wait for my next book club book, Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks to arrive. I’m determined to read it in time for the book club.

Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.

'Parenthood' Enters the Family Drama Arena

The premiere episode of Parenthood, which aired last night on NBC was, like most pilots, overloaded with storylines designed to introduce each character and place them into some kind of context. Once the introductory business is out of the way, the real test of whether a show's got staying power is by watching the next few episodes. I'll be looking to see whether the show can and will delve into what makes each of these characters tick. But I think it has promise.

That being said, in my Pop Culture column on Mommy Tracked I pleaded with the show's writers to NOT -- I repeat, NOT -- go down the road of cliche when it comes to working moms and will refrain from demonizing them. There's this one character who's a workaholic lawyer mom, Julia Braverman-Graham (Erika Christensen), and because she's always fielding work calls, messing with her BlackBerry and working long hours, her young daughter openly favors her at-home dad. A similar dynamic was played out on Brothers & Sisters a few years ago with the Sarah Wheedon Walker (Rachel Griffiths) character, and Sarah was threatened with the loss of custody of her children during her divorce proceedings because of the long hours she worked. Brooke Shields' movie mogul character in Lipstick Jungle also suffered similarly for trying to thrive in a tough career while raising children.

Meanwhile, over on CliqueClack TV, I compared Lauren Graham's iconic role of Lorelai Gilmore in the Gilmore Girls to her new Parenthood character, Sarah Braverman. While I initially found that there are more differences than similarities between the two characters, after watching the preview below which NBC just put on its web site and seeing that Sarah's potentially interested in dating her 16-year-old daughter's teacher . . . well that scenario was played out in the first season of Gilmore Girls. (Remember Max Medina? You can refresh your memory with repeats of season one currently airing on ABC Family.) If Sarah starts dating her daughter Amber's high school English teacher, there's a distinct possibility that I may have to reassess my conclusion about just how much Sarah and Lorelai have in common.



What did you think about the Parenthood premiere?

'Big Love's' Short Season Making Every Episode Feel Like a Finale

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Big Love.*

The recent episode of Big Love, "Next Ticket Out" had way too much of everything. The storylines leapt all over the place so that you couldn't really absorb what had just happened before something else monumental occurred. Everything seemed important because every storyline seemed to have heft: The new weirdness on the compound, the senate campaign, Barb's scuffle over Marilyn, Marilyn's crusade against Bill, Margene's marriage, Sarah moving to Portland, etc. And when everything's important, nothing's important. It was all just too much.

"Next Ticket Out," like the "Blood Atonement" episode which preceded it, are examples of how the quality of this once incisive and intriguing HBO drama has suffered because of the decision to reduce the number of episodes. Last season I could accept the fact that there were only 10 episodes because there had been a writers' strike. Big Love's first two seasons consisted of a dozen episodes a piece. However this season, there will only be nine, meaning that 12 episodes worth of drama has been crammed into a paltry nine, so much so that there's no room for any of the characters or storylines to breathe.

Big Love characters are racing all over the place that I wonder how they have time to do it all. They're going from Mexico (where rogue, violent polygamists detained some of the Henricksons in an ostrich cage and they escaped by slicing off one of the bad guy's arms), to Washington, D.C. (where Bill was lobbying a congressman for political support), to the family's new casino (they're always driving off there and always getting back home in time for dinner), to state political conventions, to TV interviews and debates, to the Juniper Creek compound and from one campaign scandal to another. There's no time to contemplate, no time to see the impact of the events on the characters.

Remember how long it took Margene to deal with her mother's death last season? There were several episodes of her being unusually quiet and withdrawn, followed by her private grief manifesting itself with her decision to dye her hair blonde. Soon after that, she started getting aggressive selling her jewelry and making something of her life. It was a natural, gradual progression.

But this season Margene kissed her teenaged stepson, who's had a crush on her, and admitted to Bill that she had romantic feelings toward Ben. Under normal circumstances, this would be a revelation of nuclear proportions and its effects would be long lasting. But instead, characters talked about it for roughly two episodes and then, poof, all that was over in a snap, forgotten and we've moved on to the fact that Margene married Bill's ex-lover's fiance to keep him from being deported. Sure, Ben was asked to leave the house by his father, but after Bill put his life on the line for Ben in Mexico, it's all water under the bridge.

And how about Nicki's betrayal of Henrickson family last season, where, under orders from her parents, she got a job working in the DA's office for the purpose of sabotaging her father's prosecution. Then she dated the DA when she was supposedly married to Bill. Such treachery should've had Nicki in the dog house a whole lot longer than she was this season. It didn't take long for her shocking behavior to be trumped by something else, like her dead father, or her mother being married off to her ex-husband or her saving her teenaged daughter from becoming the latest bride for a Juniper Creek geezer.

I could go on and on with the storylines that haven't gotten the treatment they deserved or seem to have been abandoned altogether:

-- The Church of Bill that, in the season premiere that Bill and Don were building. It's now just collecting dust? Bill has replaced religion with politics I guess.

-- The "firing" of Don Embrey as Bill handed his closest friend over to the media and publically outed him as a polygamist. What happened to him, to his family? And who's taking care of Home Plus while Bill's busy with a campaign, a casino, a baby mama, a kidnapping in Mexico, the state take-over of the polygamist compound's books and three wives?

-- Alby who fell in love with the Juniper Creek trustee, was the happiest he'd ever been. Now he's grief stricken in the aftermath of his lover's suicide. This storyline needs much more time than it's been given as Alby has been vacillating between being desperately sad and trapped to being evil, like assigning Adaleen to J.J. which has resulted in an Adaleen pregnancy and denouncing his sister as a whore.

-- Joey, who's gone nutty, killing Roman and then going after Hollis Greene and putting the lives of the rest of his family in danger. One minute he's smiling at his brother's campaign kick off event, the next he's holding a gun to Hollis Greene.

I get the feeling that next week's season finale will be so overloaded that it'll be anticlimatic. Every episode has felt so much like a finale, because something shocking has occurred in nearly every one, that there's no way that the ninth installment will feel special, unless of course the Henricksons go public about their polygamy.

As for the most notable storyline in the recent episode, "Next Ticket Out," that belongs to Barb who's being broken, bit by bit, by Bill's single-minded pigheaded narcissism. I blogged about "The Compromises of Barb" over on CliqueClack TV.

What did you think of "Next Ticket Out?" Do you think this fourth season has been too short, the episodes, too packed?

Ep. 42: Next Ticket Out - Recap

'Big Love's' 'Miracle' Pregnancy More Shocking Than Lois the Terrible

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the latest episode of Big Love.*

So there was a boatload of wildly insane moments in the latest episode of Big Love, enough nuttiness to go around for nearly every character. With a bounty of drama jam-packed into "Blood Atonement," two things topped my list:

1. Adaleen is pregnant.

As if last week's eeriely lit scene of Adaleen's wedding night to J.J., her former son-in-law (and father of her granddaughter) wasn't disturbing enough for ya, this week we learned that Adaleen is pregnant with his child. This means that Nicki's daughter, Cara Lynn, will be 15 years older than her aunt or uncle, an infant who'll also be her half-brother or half-sister. Kind of. Ick.

2. Lois can wield a machete with the best of 'em.

After running around trying to make amends with everyone held hostage in the room with her because she was certain she was going to be killed by the Greenes and would have to face God soon, Lois ultimately rose to the occasion. She came to the defense of her son Bill, something she wished she'd done when Bill was exiled from Juniper Creek when he was a young teen. Taking a machete from a nearby table, Lois dramatically sliced off Hollis Greene's arm as blood spattered across her face like something out of Braveheart and gave her family the chance to escape. Don't mess with Lois.

Ep. 41: Blood Atonement - Recap

To read my episode review of "Blood Atonement" on CliqueClack TV, go here.

What was your favorite/least favorite moment from Big Love this week?

Talkin' Lots of 'Private Practice'

Ever since the start of its third season, Private Practice has been lurching from one wildly dramatic storyline (with Violet Turner recovering from the violent, brutal C-section at the hands of a former patient), to another (currently Sam and Naomi Bennett's 15-year-old daughter's pregnancy and the flirtation between Sam and his ex-wife's best friend, Addision Montgomery). Suffice is to say, Violet's baby drama aside, there's been lots of romantic partner swapping, rivers of tears, loads of screaming and shoulder-clenching tension in recent episodes, so much so, that they've provided lots of grist for two Private Practice-centric pieces.

The first is a column on Mommy Tracked about the bold move on the part of Private Practice writers to decide to portray two moms -- Violet and Naomi -- in a negative light, as Violet decided that her post-traumatic stress was too much for her to bear so she gave her baby over to his dad and refuses to see the infant, while an infuriated and unhinged Naomi tried to force her pregnant teenaged daughter into having an abortion against the girl's will. (Naomi's reaction to her daughter's pregnancy has been so harsh that, aside from Emily Gilmore's reaction to her 16-year-old daughter's pregnancy, I'm having trouble thinking of another mother who's been portrayed this badly.)

The second is a post over on CliqueClack TV about the preponderance of Private Practice's intramural partner swapping which has grown to such epic proportions that I wonder if the show's in danger of running out of people to sleep with . . . kind of like what's happened to Grey's Anatomy.

Have you been watching Private Practice? Think they're gonna have to import more Grey's characters (a la McSteamy) in order to get more people for Private Practice characters to sleep with? Are you surprised by the portrayal of Violent and Naomi as troubled moms?

Image credit: Eric McCandless/ABC.