Noiseless Chatter Archive

Before this show premiered, I had a lot of ideas about what it could be. “Heartbreaking” wasn’t one of them, but Jesus Christ would I be hard pressed to describe Better Call Saul without using that word now. When the possibility of a spinoff was first floated, the idea seemed to be that it would be a comedy. Technically, it still is, but it’s one that’s very much in the mold of Breaking Bad. Though the laughs may be more frequent, they’re still just the relief between tragedies. There’s only one more episode of the season to go, so speaking about its statement as a whole isn’t completely out of the question. If you were to ask me, I’d have to say that it’s telling us, on no uncertain terms, that Saul used to be a good lawyer. That statement requires some qualification, as the Saul Goodman who represented Walter White was good at his job, good at protecting his clients, and good at keeping legal entanglements to an absolute minimum. But as Mike says this week about cr...

Just a few short words about where I’ve been. Or, one short word: asleep. This entire week or so I’ve been feeling drained and lethargic. As best I can tell, it’s due to a medication I’m on, which has recently had its dosage reduced. This is good news, at least on the whole. But my body seems to want to hibernate until it adjusts…and that’s been problematic for a few reasons. The most visible to you is probably the lack of updates on this site. It’s something that I hope gets rectified soon. Especially since there’s something I really want to get written and ready for this week. I’ve been more or less useless outside of work, which soaks up what little energy I have. It’s nothing to worry about in the long-term, and I don’t feel sick or uncomfortable at all. Just dead, dead tired. So…yeah. I appreciate your patience. Again, I’m hoping to have something special ready this week, and to resume my normal level of erratic productivity soon. Goodnight.

Ultimately, what we all want is to be accepted. Socially, professionally, romantically, sexually, emotionally, intellectually, artistically…the specifics differ from person to person, but everything we do, everything that drives us, everything that gets us out of bed in the morning and keeps us limping through this confusing, frustrating, impossible dance of civilization comes down to a desire, in some way, in any way, to fit. Jimmy McGill is no exception. And that’s heartbreaking. On Breaking Bad , Saul Goodman filled the role of comic relief. It made sense there, and eventually became a necessary component of the show, because Walt’s story — Breaking Bad ‘s central journey — was one of continuous unfolding tragedy. A character like Saul needed to be outsized and impossible to miss, because as the show continued and became weightier, we needed something on the other side to keep it from tipping into irredeemable darkness. And, so, he was there, the profiteering “circ...

  ALF Reviews: “Turkey in the Straw: Part 2” (season 3, episode 8) Welcome back! This week we… Oh, fuck. It’s this Thanksgiving hobo thing again? Jesus. Yeah, it’s part two. Of two, thankfully; we can take some solace in that at least. And if you didn’t catch last week’s episode, no worries; this one opens with over two minutes of clips from it. Having said that, if you didn’t catch last week’s episode, fuck you; none of the clips tell you anything that maters. It’s really strange. If you’re going to show a recap, at least make it relevant to what we’re about to see. Instead it’s overt, obvious padding, as the “clips” are actually long, unedited conversations between characters. There’s no reason to replay them in full except to eat time. A smarter show would chop out all but the most important soundbites and a few of the better jokes. Here the editors just say, “Fuck it, we’ll spend a whole minute listening to Willie talk to Flaky Pete again.” It’s padding, and it’s shameless. By ...

I wondered what it would take to push a man over the line, to stop him saying “Absolutely not” and start him saying “Yes, please.” [This episode] has that answer; you just make “absolutely not” lead, reliably, to tragedy. That’s from my review of episode three. After this most recent installment, I have to say I think I got it right. “Bingo,” as they say… At the end of that episode, Jimmy McGill found the Kettlemans camping out. That encounter quite specifically (and quite literally) led to a payoff here. What song was it that the family was singing when he found them? Something about a dog having a name-o? Oh well; it probably doesn’t matter. Here, Jimmy’s chickens are coming home to roost. From the opening scene — in which his Juan Valdez bump ‘n’ dump last week is less amusing to the police than it was to us — all the way to the very end, this man is facing the consequences of his actions. Taking money from the Kettlemans was certainly the biggest mistake....

  ALF Reviews: “Turkey in the Straw: Part 1” (season 3, episode 7) At long last, we get to  ALF ‘s Thanksgiving episode. Hooray! And it’s…complicated. I’ve got a sort of toleration/hate relationship with this one…and, to be honest, the second half could sway me in either direction. But that’s a story for next time. We’ve got plenty to talk about before deciding if this two-parter is a heap of shit. This episode opens with ALF teaching Kate how to use her new microwave oven, and while the joke is both lame and nonsensical (ALF is reading instructions from the VCR manual, which somehow takes ages for either of them to realize) Lynn isn’t being raped so this is already a masterpiece compared to last week. It’s the day of Thanksgiving, and ALF has hidden all respect for the audience. Specifically, the plot hinges upon the idea that ALF doesn’t understand Thanksgiving. That’s fine, right? He’s a space alien, so Earth (or, erm, American) customs are new to him. Yet, by now, we know ...