Still Not A Review of “Breaking Bad”

A few weeks ago I mentioned that we had started watching “Breaking Bad” on Netflix, and that my wife had immediately become addicted to it. At this point we’re partway through Season 3, and is she any less addicted? Oh no.

Since we began viewing the show, we have basically seen nothing else, except for a brief interlude to catch “Iron Man 3“, and the only reason that happened was because the disc for “Next Stop Wonderland” was delayed for a few days, then arrived looking like someone had whaled on it with a hammer. Netflix took pity on us and sent “Iron Man 3” along as a chaser for the replacement “Next Stop Wonderland” disc, so for a few days we were living high on the hog like multiple-disc-at-a-time subscribers. “IM3” has since gone back to Netflix, while the replacement “Next Stop Wonderland” disc sits in the PS3, wondering where it went wrong. I thought my wife might like “Next Stop Wonderland”, as the description sounds rather like “Crossing Delancey“, a favorite of hers and one of the few films whose titles she both remembers and can connect back to the plot. And she probably will like it when we finally watch it. But for now, we have conversations like this:

Me: “Do you want to finish up ‘Next Stop Wonderland’?
Wife: “Aren’t we in the middle of an episode of ‘Breaking Bad’?”

and

Me: “Hey let’s finish up ‘Next Stop Wonderland’.
Wife: “What was that about again?”
Me: “It’s the romantic comedy where the writeup reminded me of ‘Crossing Delancey’ where Hope Davis –”
Wife: “Uh-huh. Let’s watch ‘Breaking Bad’.”

and

Me: “Do you want to watch ‘Next Stop Wonderland’?”
Me (before wife can answer): “‘Is that the name of an episode of ‘Breaking Bad’?'”

Hmm, perhaps I could get her to watch “Next Stop Wonderland” as a tribute to the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman, who has a role in the film (minor, so far) as Hope Davis’s initial (and, immediately, ex-) boyfriend, who appears to be heading off to join the cast of “Portlandia“. However, the flaw in that scheme is that I’m pretty sure she has no idea who Philip Seymour Hoffman was.

Anyway, it’s not that I don’t want to watch “Breaking Bad”, which could well be the Best Show Ever; it’s just that once “Next Stop Wonderland” finally goes back I’m planning to front-load the disc queue for a while with movies where things explode, since those can jump the line on “Breaking Bad” while my wife is otherwise occupied with, say, grading papers, and she doesn’t care if it sounds like someone is setting off car bombs in the front yard. Still, it’s been a long couple of weeks here, so we’ll watch whatever makes everybody happy. Which, for now, remains the saga of one man’s quest to make meth that looks like the frozen liquid from a chemical toilet, and also, to get a pizza off of his roof.

BTW, in case anyone has been missing the Tuesday Teaser, here’s one from The War of the Ravels, which I am pretty sure will finally make its debut later this year. Taking care of an ailing pup consumes a quantity of time that only becomes apparent once you aren’t doing it anymore. *Sniff*

The map-reader gestured to the north with long, spidery fingers and said something Bernard didn’t catch, but that evidently meant it was time to put the document away, because the one carrying it folded it up several times into a small square, which unfortunately did not fit back into the messenger bag from which it had come. The Rittandic unfolded the map and folded it again, properly this time, and tucked it away.

Ah, yes. Even in a land of fantastic magic, nobody can fold a map correctly on the first attempt. Some things are just impossible no matter what world you inhabit.