The Highlight Reel presents This Week's Recap for September 30th

THIS WEEK’S RECAP…

Superstar of the Week: The cast and crew of Breaking Bad

The Breaking Bad cast at the start of Season 5
(L to R: Jonathan Banks, Bob Odenkirk, Aaron Paul, Bryan Cranston, Betsy Brandt,
Dean Norris, Anna Gunn, and RJ Mitte)

On January 20^th, 2008, a television drama debuted on AMC about a struggling high school science teacher who turns to producing and selling methamphetamine in order to earn a substantial amount of money for his family after being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. After 62 episodes of nothing short of pure gold, the story of Walter White reached an epic conclusion in one of the finest finales in television history on Sunday night with the finale of Breaking Bad.

In the aftermath of the series finale, I felt a feeling of pleasure as a viewer I cannot recall feeling except for a handful of times in my 30 years of television. I felt this way when The Office said goodbye in May and a few years ago when Friends ended. Even those times though, it was a different feeling of closure. There was still openness to the characters’ futures that kept me thinking about what could be. With this finale, I felt closure – closure that comes with finishing an amazing ride. It is a bittersweet feeling of sorrow for the end of the ride but thankfulness for being able to experience it at all.

Thank you to creator Vince Gilligan for one of the great television dramas of all-time. Thank you to Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn, Dean Norris, Betsy Brandt, RJ Mitte, Bob Odenkirk, Giancarlo Esposito, Jonathan Banks, Jesse Plemons, Laura Fraser and the countless others who gave life to the characters in this wonderful story. Thank you, Breaking Bad, for setting the bar for quality television to a new level of excellence.

Jerk of the Week: Kanye West

 

In an interview with BBC Radio last week, rapper Kanye West referred to himself as a God and later said that he is the biggest rock star in the world today as part of a self-satisfying rant in which the rapper said that hip-hop and rap are the new rock music and the premiere genre in all of music. As the biggest rapper in the world today, that means that West is the biggest musical artist in the world today (i.e. a God).

As ridiculous as all of that sounds, West then showed that these delusions of grandeur are indeed realistic thoughts inside the mind of West through his reactions to a comedy skit from Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel, on an episode of his late night talk show, ran a skit where an annoying child recited West’s words from the interview in a humorous attempt to show how childish Kanye West appears. Where Kimmel’s comedy floundered, West’s Twitter rant succeeded.

Over two days, West tweeted the following statements – all directed to Kimmel:

“JIMMY KIMMEL IS OUT OF LINE TO TRY AND SPOOF IN ANY WAY THE FIRST PIECE OF HONEST MEDIA IN YEARS.”

“YOU CAN'T PUT YOURSELF IN MY SHOES. YOUR FACE LOOKS CRAZY… IS THAT FUNNY?… OR IF I HAD A KID SAY IT WOULD IT BE FUNNY???

“SHOULD I DO A SPOOF ABOUT YOUR FACE OR YOU FUCKING BEN AFFLECK… #NODISRESPECTTOBENAFFLECK #ALLDISRESPECTTOJIMMYKIMMEL!!!!”

Kanye West is an unfunny, pathetic joke. There is nothing about Kanye West redeemable. His music is horrible. His ego is overinflated. West is human scum. The fact that same many people, especially young people, see Kanye West and believe in the same hype West believes in himself is less a testament to Kanye’s greatness and more a statement on how far lost the youth of our society are. I do not wish death or ill will upon Kanye West. That said, I would not mourn him for a second should something horrible happen to get his ego in check.

Babe of the Week: Scarlett Johansson

A Melancholy Happy Trails to…
- The Crossover with Michelle Beadle, 240 days – On September 25^th, NBC Sports announced the cancellation of The Crossover with Michelle Beadle after struggling to find a stable timeslot or a solid audience on the upstart cable sports network.

In the aftermath of the show’s cancellation, it appears as though Michelle Beadle’s time at NBC is ending as Beadle’s agent is working on getting her out of her current deal so she can return to ESPN. After clashing with former Crossover co-host Dave Briggs, Beadle clashed with NBC Sports Executive Producer Sam Flood over the lack of promotion for the show and her straight-talk style that has won her millions of fans. More money and the entertainment TV aspect apparently are not enough to keep Beadle content at NBC when the suits want her to be someone she is not.