TV

Breaking Bad Episode 510 “Buried”

Chrys Buckley

Lydia-Breaking-BadThe question that was on everyone’s mind was answered in this episode. Yes, Saul is in fact still wearing the ribbon from the Wayfarer 515 plane crash.

And the question people didn’t even know they had was also answered. Yes, Saul’s office has a back door.

Seriously though. Lines in the sand.

This episode was all about laying out the loyalties. Everyone has chosen a side now. The only exception, the wild card, is Jesse. Jesse didn’t say a single word in the entire episode. We will have to wait and see if he starts talking once Hank enters the room. I have some theories about that, but predictions come at the end of the post. For now, Jesse’s just a money-tossing, depressed, guilty, scared Wild Card, the loyalest character whose loyalties are undetermined as yet.

Skyler chooses Walt. Walt actually assumes she wouldn’t. He knows on some level, more than he seemed to in the first half of Season Five, what a mess he’s made of his marriage. During last summer’s episodes, I was not on Team Walt at all, and I wouldn’t say that I’m on his side now, but a few things made me come around to his way of seeing things in this episode, made me feel for him, and in one instance, made me actually proud of him.

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Samples, Writing

Bathroom Jungle Gym – Truth, Lies and the Wicked Witch 4

Chrys Buckley

To start this piece from the beginning, click here.

tlww4indexI started asking to go to the bathroom way too often in Mrs. Domaracki’s class, especially when she was about to check homework and I hadn’t done it. It wasn’t a good plan—she always checked mine when I got back—but it delayed things a bit. I got a good sense of when she was as about to check, raised my had and then wandered slowly to the girls bathroom with its pale green walls and three stalls with low walls. I sat on the toilet and read a chapter in a book or thought up what I wanted to write in my next “book “ about secret passages and baby-sitters. Or I did math problems or recited in my mind facts about the Solar System until I couldn’t anymore because it had been more than five minutes and I had to scurry back to class.

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TV

Breaking Bad Episode 509 “Blood Money”

Chrys Buckley

“I gotta say, I don’t like the way you’re looking at me right now.”

Oh. My. God. Breaking Bad is back!!!

509imagesAnd holy shit, in that flashforward teaser, the White house has seen some better days. I think it’s safe to say that this scene is supposed to follow directly after the flashforward we saw last summer, where Walt, coughing and taking meds and making a 52 with his bacon, buys an M60 in a Denny’s bathroom. Not exactly a sign that times are dandy for Walter White. Next stop is his trashed house to retrieve the ricin and drive off for whatever mission or “last stand” he’s about to make. But of course, Future Walt must of course first survey the damage done to his house and the yellow “Heisenberg” painted on the wall. And scare or shock the living crap out of his neighbor, Carol.

Such a great teaser. Gives us a little continuation, a little more story, but asks more questions than it answers. Why is the house in this state of disarray? Has it become public that Walter White is Heisenberg? Did the whole family leave in a hurry together? Are the others alive? Who’s the ricin (and the M60) for? Why is Carol so startled by Walt that she drops her grocery bag (which of course contains oranges)? Will Walt survive his mission?

I wonder if there will be anymore flashforwards (my guess is no) before we catch up to this point in the story, (I’m making an educated assumption) in episode 515. It’ll be awhile before all these questions are answered. Plenty of time to guess, theorize and speculate in the meantime.

Until then, back to the present with Hank on the pot.

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Samples, Writing

Mystery Worlds – Truth, Lies and the Wicked Witch 3

Chrys Buckley

To start this piece from the beginning, click here.

the_secret_passage_by_nelleke-d5eoh7j_largeAt every indiscretion—a not perfect grade on a test, talking in class when I wasn’t supposed to, not coming in from the playground in a timely manner after recess, not doing my homework completely or on time (a bad habit I’d quickly slid back into), reading during lunch instead of socializing with kids who made fun of me—Mrs. Domaracki called my mom. Even if it was just one thing in a day, it always counted for two warnings.

Night after night, several nights a week, I was sent to bed at seven. I lay in bed, watching the sky still light out outside my windows. Sometimes I’d stare at the tree out my east-facing window by my bed. Or stand at the south-facing window across the room with no big trees outside it but way more sky. I listened to the fire siren as its moan ebbed and flowed. In my head, I talked to my Care Bears on the white shelves near the south-facing window, telling them why it, whatever it was that day, wasn’t my fault. Sometimes they believed me. Sometimes they sided with Mom and Mrs. Domaracki.

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Writing

Writing Question: Point-of-View Poll

Chrys Buckley

povimagesSo I’m working on this new story, and I don’t even know whether to call it fiction or non-fiction, it’s something experimental in between the two. Most of the story is just a conversation between two people, and yet it’s intense and full of drama. I actually want the feeling that the story evokes, at times, to be uncomfortable, too close for comfort, because if such a conversation were to take place in real life, it’d be awkward and uncomfortable (and still intense and full of drama). Oh also, in the story, it’ll be a little unclear if this conversation ever happened or was just in the character(s)’ imaginations. Yeah, I’m weird.

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Blindness and Disability, Samples, Writing

Instrument Analysis – Truth, Lies and the Wicked Witch 2

Chrys Buckley

To start this piece from the beginning, click here.

jazzy-cello-susanne-clarkAnd at first, I tried to be good. All my dittos from class were filled out and filed neatly in my folders. I swept the floor even though I couldn’t see the dirt, going around the kitchen systematically until a dark pile formed in the epicenter. I scrubbed the bathroom sink and only complained silently to my favorite doll Jenny and my Care Bears in my room. I went to the Centerstream after school program with my seven-year-old brother Randy and didn’t cause any trouble.

One day early in the school year, my music class had a test. It wasn’t a real test, our teacher assured us. She just wanted to see what we already knew coming in. Up front she had about twenty-five big glossy photos of instruments lined up side by side, all seated in that little tray that’s supposed to hold chalk and erasers, and leaning back against the blackboard. The teacher told us to get out a piece of paper and number it one to twenty-six. Next to each number, we were supposed to write the name of the instrument in the matching picture.

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Blindness and Disability, Samples, Writing

The “Truth” About Me – Truth, Lies and the Wicked Witch 1

Chrys Buckley

tlww1imagesI was excited for fourth grade. I had been assigned the teacher I wanted, Mrs. Domaracki. I had new school clothes. I had all my school supplies in order—folders for math and reading and science and social studies and spelling. Some had covers with graded coloring going from almost white on top to a deep fuchsia pink on the bottom. Others were black with hot pink and yellow squiggles scattered about. They were all packed in my backpack, ready for the new school year. There was only one thing left to do.

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TV

Breaking Bad: Hank’s Dilemma in All its Dimensions

Chrys Buckley

WARNING: This post contains SPOILERS if you are not caught up on the first half of Season Five of Breaking Bad. If you did not see the episodes that aired in summer 2012, stop right there, watch them, and then you can come back. If the words “Hank on the pot” mean nothing to you, do not go any further!

You’ve been warned.

HankimagesOkay, so, last we saw Hank, he was sitting on the toilet, just looking for some reading material while taking a dump. And let’s back up a bit before that. The Whites and the Schraders were having a poolside party. The women were talking about hair (Marie wants a halo) and the men were talking about home-brewing beer (Walt says it’s like chemistry). It was this odd, unexpected happy ending scene. Walt had retired from the meth, err empire, business after making shitloads of money. Walt had even paid Jesse back the five million he had withheld from the buyout. His debts were paid, his children were back home and life was sweet.

But then Hank just had to take a shit, and while on the pot he found Walt’s copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, with the inscription, “To my other favorite W.W., It’s an honour working with you. Fondly, G.B.” Gale Boetticher’s poetic justice from beyond the grave.

It left us all, at that mid-season finale, saying one thing over and over: HANK KNOWS.

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TV

Breaking Bad Episode 413 “Face Off”

Chrys Buckley

Screen Shot 2013-07-22 at 9.00.49 AMYeah, that happened.

Gus got his face half blown off and walked out of the room and straightened his tie. Maybe gilding the lily, maybe a believability stretch. Still a nice touch. It’s a lot like the scene where Gus makes himself throw up after taking the poison in 410 “Salud,” he was alone, no one was watching, and he was still so Gus. Same here, he’s pretty much dead, in shock, and habit takes over. Gus doesn’t just put on a face for the outside world of this meticulous, inscrutable, insanely professional man. Gus is Gus to the core.

RIP, yo. Gus is dead. Walter White has “won” so he says.

But before that, one of my favorite lines ever. “Did you just bring a bomb into a hospital?” Jesse asks Walt. Great callback to “You brought a meth lab to the airport?” from Walt to Jesse in Season Two. So funny how Walt’s bag sticks to the door.

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Music, Samples, Writing

Total Eclipse: A Memoir Chapter

Chrys Buckley

This piece directly follows Warding Off Eclipses with Sex and Music, which chronicles what I thought of as my alt rock music heyday at fourteen.

totaleclipseimagesI was seventeen. Everything had changed. Love Phones went off the air. A country station bought X107. Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys took over all the other radio stations. Even Randyand the neighbors weren’t into music anymore, like music has a switch for some that can be shut off. I wondered if my switch—that feeling I got from music that was like a direct line to the moon and my deeper self—was one of those circular switches for dining room lights, slowly being dimmed.

It was the night of the Battle of the Bands in my high school gym, the one school event that made me feel like I wasn’t an alien. I needed this evening so badly to help crank my light back up.

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