Noiseless Chatter Archive

Better Call Saul is about how the world of this show becomes the world of Breaking Bad . But that’s not all it’s about. We’ve talked almost weekly about the running theme of loose predestination; the precise details of your future may not be laid out, but your general direction sure as hell is. And part of the drama of Better Call Saul is waiting for gravity to reassert itself, to send lofty dreams crashing back down to Earth, to injure (in so many ways) those it was already decided would never be allowed to fly. It’s also, however, about relationships. And that’s both the central theme of “Sunk Costs” and the filter through which we should understand it. Of course, the beauty is that it’s still about everything else we expect from Better Call Saul . We get further insight into Mike’s relationship with Gus. And Gus’ relationship with Hector. And Jimmy’s relationship with Francesca. All of that will inform the events we remember from Breaking Bad , as well as the ...

I want to love Mega Man 3 . I really do. It’s often spoken of in the same breath as genuine classics. It’s rarely criticized for anything other than superficial reasons. It’s adored, with many fans holding it up in comparison with Mega Man 2 , as though it’s impossible to declare which of these great games is better. I will declare. Mega Man 2 is better. And I don’t see how Mega Man 3 can even compete. But I want to love it. I really do. Mega Man 3 does so much right. It introduced the slide, which is now a distinguishing feature of Mega Man’s moveset, and which so elegantly adds an entirely new wrinkle to navigating stages and avoiding enemies. It introduces not one but two great new characters: Rush the utility dog and Proto Man, our hero’s moody and conflicted older brother. On top of that, its soundtrack contains some of the best tracks in video game history. And yet…it’s not a great game. It might be a good one. It probably is. But it’s not great. It’s flawed and ...

Better Call Saul is a great show, and “Witness” assuaged my quiet worry that it soon wouldn’t be. This was among the most effective hours of television I think I’ve ever seen, maybe because of how effortlessly it pivots at about its midpoint from being one of the funniest episodes to being one of the most painful. Most great television episodes do something very well. “Witness,” though, does two quite different things very well. It almost feels as though it’s two separate half hours that just happened to air back to back, which in this very specific case I mean as an enormous compliment. “Witness” isn’t aimless or confused; “Witness” is artful and layered. It isolates the main components of its delicate comedy-drama balance, which allows each half to breathe, to function, to hit us hardest. I loved this episode. So why was I afraid I wouldn’t? Well, as you know if you’ve been reading these reviews, I’m a day or so behind on new episodes. I don’t have cable, so I b...

Well, we had to talk about it sooner or later… In July 1991, Paul Reubens was arrested for indecent exposure. For a children’s entertainer, that’s understandably a death knell. But it was also — let’s be frank — kind of bullshit. Reubens, as we all now know, was evidently pleasuring himself in an adult theater. Police raided the theater and made arrests as they saw fit. By Reubens’ account — which I find pretty believable — once they realized they had caught a celebrity, the police were not as interested in the rest of the culprits. They had Pee-wee Herman. Who else mattered? Reubens — also by his account — volunteered to do charity work for children, in character, in exchange for keeping the arrest quiet. However seriously it might have been considered, that ultimately didn’t come to pass. Reubens’ mugshot was all over the news, and he became the butt of jokes for talk show hosts, standup comedians, and sketch comedy shows overnight. Pee-wee’s Playhouse had al...