My Take on Emmy Nominations: 2009

Emmy nominations will be announced next week, so I've compiled a list of actors, shows, and personalities that the Emmys would be remiss not to include.

(I have not broken them into categories because I'm often completely befuddled by who is deemed "supporting" and who is "lead" and what is a "comedy" and what is a "drama" and I'm trying to avoid that headache.)

Aaron Paul, Breaking Bad: Paul has been flawless at handling everything Breaking Bad has thrown at him. He's been brilliant at comic relief and gut-wrenching with dramatic material. In fact, there's no one I want to see on the Emmy nomination list more.

Adam Baldwin, Chuck: Baldwin is perfect as the gruff Major Casey, giving us little glimpses into the character's humanity but never becoming too much of a softy.

B.J. Novak, The Office: He's just so good at playing such a cocky little jerk (while never losing sight of Ryan's inherent patheticness).

Breaking Bad: I've documented my love for this show before, so should come as no surprise that I'm pegging it not only for a Best Drama nomination, but also for the freaking Emmy itself.

Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad: There's a reason he won the Emmy last year, and Cranston continued to excel this season as Walter's morality became even more nuanced.

Cat Deeley, So You Think You Can Dance: Deeley is easily the best reality competition show host around as anyone knows who has watched her interact with contestants, the judges and the audience. And she's a fashion icon to boot. It's insulting that she wasn't nominated last year.

Chi McBride, Pushing Daisies: If McBride's surly and sassy (but secretly sweet) private investigator isn't on the list of Emmy nominations, I'm going to pull an Emerson Cod and yell, "Oh, HELL no!"

Christina Applegate, Samantha Who?: Applegate was effortlessly charismatic and hilarious as the lovable amnesiac, and it's a bummer that ABC didn't give her more support.

Chuck: The top-notch quality of the show's sophomore season cannot be ignored. With the possible exception of those episodes with that annoying MI-6 spy who kept getting shot, Chuck was firing on all cylinders this season and capped it all off with a season finale that was easily one of the best hours of television all season.

Gabrielle Anwar, Burn Notice: I realize that Burn Notice is one of those quasi-comedy, quasi-drama type shows that people enjoy watching but the Emmys tend to completely ignore (while being all over stuff that nobody is enjoying anymore like Boston Legal), but nevertheless I think Anwar deserves a nod. You'd be hard pressed to fine anyone on TV who is cooler than Anwar's Fiona, and that's got to count for something.

James Roday, Psych: Roday's been overlooked in the past, but as Shawn, a fast-talking, pop culture-obsessed genius, he has proven time and again that he's got serious acting chops.

January Jones, Mad Men: Jones absolutely stole the show's second season with her depiction of cold-hearted Betty Draper. Jones was masterful at giving us glimpses of the fragile girl behind her character's ice queen facade.

Jennifer Esposito, Samantha Who?: Esposito's Andrea is horrendous, but she's also wickedly funny.

Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory: Everyone on this show is funny, but Parsons is consistantly hilarious as Sheldon's scientific, antisocial temperament gets pushed to the limit by his friends and surroundings.

Lee Pace, Pushing Daisies: Pace's turn as the sweet and funny Piemaker ended far too soon, but it was beautiful to watch while it lasted.

Lost: Overall, I probably liked Lost's fourth season better than its fifth season, but this show was undeniable as it ratcheted up the suspense and the stakes ever-higher to lead into its final season.

Pushing Daisies: Sure, the second season was ridiculously abridged, but it was also ridiculously good.

Rose Byrne, Damages: Supporting/lead/whatever, Byrne really held her own during Damages' second season, as her Ellen Parsons went toe-to-toe with Glenn Close's Patty Hewes and didn't back down.

Steve Carell, The Office: I adored the high jinks of the Michael Scott Paper Company, and Carell shone throughout, especially in the conference room scene where he masterfully cut David Wallace down to size.

Terry O'Quinn, Michael Emerson, Ken Leung and Jeremy Davies, Lost: Since so many supporting actors had very strong showings on Lost this season, the Emmy list could very well include any or all of them.

Zachary Levi, Chuck: Perfectly balanced Chuck's humor with his humanity, adding a lot of soul to a very fun show.

(photos: amctv.com, abc.com, usanetwork.com, cbs.com)

Breaking Bad: Horrific Prefection

Breaking Bad:
"ABQ"

OMFG, Breaking Bad's season 2 finale was phenomenal. The second-to-last episode ended with Walt's horrifying decision to not help Jane as she choked to death in her sleep, and the season finale kept the WTF moments coming. The shockers were relentless: from Gus touring the police station to Skyler catching Walt in his lies and kicking him out to the terrifying revelation that the now infamous pink teddy bear fell from the sky after an airplane collision that was caused (albeit inadvertently) by Walt's actions.

Breaking Bad has always lived in the world of moral grayness and ambiguity. With this finale, however, the show moved further into the dark end of the morality spectrum than it ever has before. The show has extensively explored the dangerous nature of drug dealing for the novice dealers, but in our eagerness to see Walt and Jesse succeed and make boatloads of money, we sometimes lose sight of how destructive the drugs they are selling can be. Example A: Jane, who all in all seemed like a sweet girl and was dearly loved by her father and Jesse (and had a tremendously awesome mural on her bedroom wall), dies from choking on her own vomit after a drug binge. Her death leaves Jesse, one of our heroes (or anti-heroes), completely devastated and also leads to Example B: Jane's grief-stricken father, an air traffic controller, is driven to such distraction that he fails to prevent a collision between two airplanes above Albuquerque.

Wow, that plane crash. The source of the teddy bear, the glasses, the wallet and the other debris littering Walt's back and front yards. And the cause of probably upwards of a hundred deaths of innocent people (including the child owner of the pink bear). How can we justify what Walt has done in the face of all this destruction? What started out as a dying man willing to do anything to provide for his family has resulted in a series of progressively horrible events. Walt is already racked with guilt--imagine how he will feel when he finds out about what caused the plane crash. Even aside from all of the collateral damage, has any of this worked out for Walt at all? He beat cancer (for now anyway), but he lost his family anyway.

It's all so bleak. The one heartening moment in the finale came when Walt hunted Jesse down and went into the crack den (is that what that freaky place was?) to save him. Jesse's raw grief was devastating, and it was nice to see Walt vow to help him. If nothing else good has come from any of this, at least these two men have formed an indelible bond.

The up-shot of it all: Breaking Bad should win the Emmy for Best Drama Series. I've watched Mad Men, Lost, Damages, and a myriad of other shows, and nothing has been as consistently stellar this season as Breaking Bad. Additionally, Bryan Cranston has made an extremely strong case for repeating his Best Actor win, and if Aaron Paul's brilliant work is not recognized with at least a Best Supporting Actor nomination, I may cry.

I, for one, am fascinated to see what season 3 will bring. Will a post-rehab Jesse still want to be involved in the drug trade after drugs led to the death of his girlfriend? Will Skyler find out the truth and how will she react? How will Walt come to terms with the fact that his quest for financial security has led to the deaths of so many people? Is there any redemption at all to be had here, or must we now just embrace the dark side?

(photo: amctv.com)

Breaking Bad: Meth Madness

Breaking Bad:

"Seven Thirty-Seven"

Yea! I'm glad this show is back; it's so flipping awesome. I watched and loved it last year (but never got around to blogging about it for some reason). Bryan Cranston winning the Best Actor in a Drama category at the Emmys was definitely one of the highlights of the awards ceremony for me (the others being Zeljko Ivanek winning Best Supporting Actor for Damages and Mad Men taking Best Drama. I also think that Aaron Paul deserved a nomination.). Geez, cable dramas are good.

In fact, I wonder if Breaking Bad isn't overall the best show on television (Steven King thinks it is). It certainly has got to be in the top five. It's amazing how quickly it can go from being completely devastating one second to absolutely hilarious the next and then right back to devastating. I mean, this show is grim. There's no way to deny that, but it also includes these moments of comic genius that break the tension for one quick beat. One I remember in particular was when Walt told Jesse that they'd need an eye-wash station in the RV where they were going to cook meth. I mean, does it get more high school chemistry teacher than that? It's these moments of unexpected, dark humor that keep us viewers from exploding from the stress or running screaming from the room.

This particular episode, however, was more terrifying that humorous (although that "rice 'n beans" joke was hysterical). Like seriously terrifying. As in, I'm a little scared to go to bed tonight, and Tuco doesn't know what I live. And that stuffed bear is going to haunt me. Holy crap.

Highlights and observations:

• Oh my gosh. That is easily the creepiest looking stuffed animal I have ever scene. That thing is terrifying.
• Oh, yeah, I forgot about the blue meth. (Wait, of course I forgot about it--this show hasn't been on for a freaking year.)
• After an impressive display of mental math, Walt figures out that he needs to leave his family $737,000 to take care of their major future needs. That amounts to eleven more weeks of cooking meth and eleven more drug deals with Tuco, which Walt decides is "definitely doable."
• One minute later, Tuco comes back because the guy he just beat up is now dead. He expects Walt to fix it, but come on: he's a science teacher, not a doctor! This is one crazy-ass drug deal. Tuco is beyond nuts. Eleven more drug deals with Tuco is suddenly not seeming "doable" at all.
• I like their green nursery.
• Well, I can understand why Jesse might think that he needs a gun to make it through 11 more Tuco deals, but I don't think it's going to help.
• Walt: "This is conjecture."
• Jesse: "Are you basing that on that he's got like a normal healthy brain or something?"
• Wow, Walt and Jesse have gotten themselves into several "him or us" scenarios in a pretty short amount of time.
• How much Splenda can Marie drink in her coffee? And, holy crap, she just ran over the poor kid's remote control car! She is hanging on by a thread.
• Hank: "Try rolling it, morons! It's a barrel! It rolls!"
• Holy effing heck, that's Tuco's car at Walt's house!
• Ha! Skyler hung up on her sister! (I can't say that I blame her.)
• Jesse: "Don't we, like, double our chances...mathematically?"
• Walt: "I have a better idea: beans. Caster beans. ...We're going to process them into ricin."
  Jesse: "Rice 'n beans."
• Ohhhh, I forgot about the tiara incident.
• Maybe Hank will look the other way if he finds out about Walt's drug dealing since he looks the other way on his wife's shoplifting.
• Hank: "We've got to be understanding. We've got to support the shit out of her."
• I think Jesse is too involved with this ricin making. I wouldn't really trust that job to him.
• Walt: "How much salesmanship to we really need? That degenerate snorts anything he gets his hands on."
• Oh my gosh--I thought Hank blew up Walt's house or something since he called with the flashing police lights behind him. I totally fell for that fake out.
• Ack! Tuco killed the big guy (Gonzo) too?
• Who takes a picture of two murder victims and sends it to his brother-in-law?
• Lock the door after you enter the house, Walt!
• Don't leave the money and the gun on the floor of the nursery in a diaper box!
• Wow, Hank and the other police people are jerks! Taking pictures with themselves and dead people? Ugh.
• OMFG. Tuco's in the back seat of Jesse's car! AHHHHHHHHHH--and that's the end of the episode! Since I'm watching this a couple weeks late, I do already have the next episode on tape and I want to watch it, but I don't think I'd be able to handle another hour of this right now. I think I'd better give myself some time to recover. I hope Walt and Jesse will be ok. Especially Jesse--I love that kid.
• So what the hell was up with that pink stuffed bear, anyway?

(photo: amctv.com)