Are you still in need of a woman's voice, aural? My girlfriend is claiming "shyness," but I can do some arm-twisting if need be.

Not only does Nolan show Bruce on that reverse angle, but it's a Bruce that looks pretty damn spry for having been literally tethered to a nuclear bomb at the moment it detonated. My personal retcon is that it's the ghost of Master Wayne come back to haunt Alfred. There's your sequel, Zach Snyder.

I don't recall whether it's been mentioned yet, but as a frequent matinee attender one thing that regularly disrupts my experience is, quite frankly, older people.

Not all older people, obviously, and not all of the time, but I go to enough screenings to have noticed that it's a thing. Specifically, it's older people who likely have hearing aids (or are likely in need of hearing aids) not realizing how loud they are whispering and/or not realizing that they are, in fact, not whispering at all but speaking in a much-too-loud voice. Also, there's the falling asleep and snoring loudly thing, which I witness at least once a month.

To be fair, I consider this almost a separate issue altogether because these folks are absolutely not doing these things on purpose and are otherwise exemplary theater patrons. If someone doesn't realize, then they don't realize. The good news is I've never seen an older person horsing around on an iPhone during a screening.

I'd be willing to give the salty Sailor a go. (Yeah I could have phrased that better.) Or the mysterious Boy.

It's okay to retcon a couple of the more farfetched plot points as the desperate measures of a man who has finally resigned himself to death and thus has nothing to lose. This helps deal with questions like "What would Walt have done had he not been allowed to park his car in that exact spot?" and "What if the Nazis would have simply shot Walt on sight?" It's like Gus poisoning Don Eladio and his men: what would Gus have done had he not been allowed to go to the bathroom? He would have died. High risk, high reward.

I think so too. I don't hate The Sopranos finale, but I do suspect it was the result of David Chase feeling that pressure and either over-thinking it or saying "To hell with it." Indeed, what happened is that people can't talk about the series now without giving their verdict on the finale (like I just did). BB's approach was to make the whole season (season 5-b, anyway) basically Walt's "endtimes." Before the finale aired, we knew paradise was lost and that a happily-ever-after ending wasn't possible. With Walt, we could literally see the writing on the wall. The Sopranos finale had to deal with the "Will it end badly for Tony?" question. With BB, the answer to that was a foregone conclusion, and the finale just had to show us how it happens.

I'm already looking at my Chamberlain garage-door motor differently.

Let's go ahead and get this out of the way:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4zRe_wvJw8

Notice also, at the key moment, that the president's head moves back and to the left — back, and to the left...

One thing this show specializes in is creating situations that make us say "Well I just don't see how X could happen, especially given Y and Z" and then showing us a surprising-but-somewhat-plausible way for X to happen. When it comes to the finale, it's hard to rule anything out.

BTW: Conan has the whole gang from the show on right now (Jonathan Banks is a solid talk show guest). Cranston said that the dvd/blu-ray boxed set will include a feature-length doc, part of which will show Paul and Cranston reading the final script together for the first time and reacting to it. Sounds kinda cool. Wait, I don't know... does that sound cool?

Ensure got some primo product placement.

The ending of “Granite State” was beautiful. It was mostly visual storytelling and Cranston's performance. Pretty cool how the theme music kicked in there. I'm a sucker for shit like that.

If anything will get Walter pissed off, it’s his old pals going on Charlie Rose and downplaying his role in Grey Matter. Walt’s secret criminal success compensated, to some extent, for not being the legitimate "somebody" he could have been. It's a clever touch, now, to have that criminal success be the cause of his old associates basically calling him a nobody publicly (well, on PBS, at any rate), even speculating that he's met his demise. (I love the idea of Walter White being this bin Laden-type figure — bearded, holed up, receiving portable medical treatment, watching people on TV speculating that he's already dead.) Ripping off that old scab, at that moment, might have been the only thing that could have gotten Walt off that barstool. A defeated Walt sat down, and an angry Heizenberg got up.

It’s funny to contrast Todd and Lydia’s coffee-shop rendezvous with the one Mike and Lydia once had. If I recall correctly, Lydia pulled the same you-sit-there-I-sit-here thing, but Ehrmantrout simply rolled his eyes, sat down in Lydia’s booth, and said hi to the waitress, who clearly knew him. But Todd is no Mike. Drink tea and put on a collared shirt all you want, Todd. She’s just not that into you. Is it possible Todd will do what Mike once wanted to do — kill Lydia? I can't tell whether Todd is the “If I can’t have you, no one can” type.

Is there a some kind of checklist of loose ends the finale has to resolve? The ricin. What else?

You know, it occurs to me that, as the show's finale approaches, we'll be seeing all sorts of provocatively headlined web articles trying to score pageviews off the fact that the show will be trending insanely. Some pieces will be smart, some dumb, and some reasonable people will disagree about. Point is, there's going to be a shit-ton of them. Let's brace ourselves.

Those hunting for a serviceable mic: keep an eye out for eBay bargains. My co-worker scored a lightly used usb mic with a little stand and a shockmount all for around $40. He's pleased with it so far. Nothing wrong with used gear if the price is right and the seller's reputable.

Awesome discussion you two.

I can't decide whether I want a third season or not. There's something to be said for just having "Election Night: Part II" be the finale. It sure felt like a finale there at the end.

They hardly ever leave the newsroom, no doubt. It is the name of the show, though. The Cheers gang spent a lot of time hanging out at the bar. If the show had been called Rehab, then it's a bit more weird.