Yeah, so I missed the season premiere of The Office, too (again, Sister’s wedding last week, combined with a total ignorance of the show’s return—I’ve seen tons of ads for the new “comedy” with the two sisters from that one show and the other “comedy” with Zooey Daschenel, but nothing about The Office or Parks and Rec). Has NBC put the kibosh on advertising for their shows?

Still, I watched last week’s episode “The List” to catch up, and, writing out this recap, I can safely say that don’t remember much of it outside of there being a list made up by Robert California (I love that name) and everyone worrying about what it signifies. I can’t say it was very good, but it didn’t seem particularly bad either. More ho-hum.

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Well, this season of The Walking Dead certainly went out with a bang, didn’t it?  Sorry, I never met a bad pun I didn’t like. Once again, we don’t see many zombies, but there was tension running rampant throughout the entire episode as members of the group find themselves in one predicament after another.

I thought it was a stellar episode to cap off the season, and thankfully, the writers took a little mercy on us.  They didn’t leave us with a gigantic cliffhanger that we have to wait a whole year to resolve.

Well, except for what the heck did Dr. Jenner whisper in Rick’s ear?  Are you going to be obsessed as I am over the answer to that?

The episode, entitled “TS-19,” begins with a flashback of Shane back at the hospital.  It is revealed that he actually did make a valiant attempt to save Rick, but became overwhelmed by the military (who were indiscriminately shooting anyone they saw) and Rick’s medical fragility.

Rick was hooked up to lots of equipment, and Shane simply didn’t know what to do.  Add to that the walkers lurching about, and Shane did what any sane person would -he left (but not before placing a rudimentary barricade in front of Rick’s door).

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This recap contains spoilers for the Breaking Bad episode, “Abiquiu.”

“Abiquiu” opens with a flashback of Jesse and Jane pontificating about the artwork of Georgia O’Keefe. The two are examining a more chaste collection of O’Keefe paintings featuring a series of doors, which Jesse finds boring and pointless, while Jane admires artistic liberties that O’Keefe took with each individual painting.

Jesse can’t understand why O’Keefe basically repeated the same painting with slight variations. “Isn’t that insane?” he asks Jane.

Jane counters that she believes you should go wherever the universe takes you, and by using Jesse’s logic, there is no point to repeating anything, even acts that are enjoyable. She takes a last drag and crushes her cigarette out in his car ashtray, leaving the tell-tale lipstick trace that caused Jesse to fish it out of the ashtray earlier this season, as it is the the last tangible remnant of her physical being.

The scene brilliantly cuts to a pair of feet dangling several feet above the ground. Uh oh, who is that hanging? Once the camera pans back, you see that it is Hank, in the Hospital, in some sort of harness device that is lowering him to the ground. A physical therapists encourages him to take a step while Marie, Walt Jr., and Skylar look on.

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As usual, lots of spoilers ahead.  Take heed.

Well nothing like a little Danny Trejo cameo to start things off with a bang, huh?  Trejo plays Tortuga, who is wetting his whistle in a watering hole when he is visited by Juan Bolsa, from the cartel.  Juan makes some small talk with Tortuga, and tells him he has a birthday present waiting for him in a back room.  Tortuga is giddy to see a giant tortoise, but the rest of us know that the last time we saw a giant tortoise, it had a head attached, so this can’t possibly end well.

Juan tells Tortuga he is going to sign the creature, and he paints “Hola DEA”.  Now, I’m no knife expert, but I believe that Tortuga was then bludgeoned to death by a machete, which is a delicious  little wink to the upcoming release of  Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, which just happens to star a one Danny Trejo.

So, I went back to find photos of that tortoise with the head, and damn if that isn’t Tortuga’s head, and the tortoise says, “Hola DEA”.  So was that a flash forward in episode “Negro Y Azul” from season 2?  I thought we were seeing everything in chronological order, but I must be wrong.

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