TV Patrol: DVR Catch-Up

With summer creeping up on us all, I don’t think I’m alone in saying that it’s been hard to keep up with the TV. Thank you Jesus for the DVR! I have a ton of quality programming piling up on my playlist. Shows like Kendra, Nurse Jackie, River Monsters, Little People, Big World, Tosh.0 & The Tudors are just waiting for me. This afternoon I sat down (well, I laid on the couch) & caught up with my favorite show, Breaking Bad and checked out VH1′s sneak-peek of Bret Michaels: Life as I know It.

For those of you who missed Breaking Bad last week, they took the time to reunite Walt & Jesse in a unified cause… the common house fly. It seemed to have gotten into Walt’s pristine meth lab & the man was obsessed with finding the “contaminant” & destroying it. A FLY! A whole episode obsessing over a fly. Outstanding. At first I thought WTF? … but then as it went on, it’s just what the show needed. Jesse & Walt needed to re-connect. They ARE this show & it’s the two of them that make it so damn interesting. Without these two & their connection, there is nothing to watch. Simple as that.

Jessie looking like a fly and getting his ass swatted was pretty amazing.

This week we get a hint of what Jesse really had with the now-dead Jane. Her lip-sticked cigarette butt is still in his car ashtray as a sort of shrine to her. A little flashback lets us know that they did more than shoot-up & have sex all the time. They went to an art museum to look at a painting of multiples of the same door. Jesse thought they went to see paintings of vaginas. Jane said the artist painted vaginas, but she was there to see her doors. Jane was trying to enlighten him as to why each door was unique in it’s own way & he’s not buying it. It was cute & different and after using the cigarette to explain that each one she smoked was different & each time they had sex it was different, so each time the door was painted it was different, she butted it out in the car. It was nice seeing her again.

Over at the hospital, Hank was being a real pussy about rehab, whining & crying that it hurts. I think maybe it was because they were hanging him by his nutsack.

That’s gotta hurt.

At the meth-lab, Walt is constantly peering over Jesse’s shoulder, making sure he’s not double-dipping the meth boxes. This makes Jesse act all insulted. Later, when he goes to the rehab meeting, he finds out over donuts, that his douche-bag buddies haven’t sold squat of the pilfered meth…. only to each other. Their excuse is that selling it to these rehabbers is like shooting a baby in the face…. just wrong. Jesse steps up to show ‘em how it’s done. He connects with a newbie named Andrea.

Skyler’s got something up her sleeve. She’s having Walt over for dinner & afterwards, Walt Jr. hits them up for a new car, cuz he’s getting his license. He wants a ’71 “Stang but Skyler tells him to beat it. she’s got shit to discuss with dear-old Dad…. like Hank’s therapy bills. Her big nose & dead eyes want to know just how the money trail works. Off they go to Sal’s office & she tells him she has “concerns” & wants “assurances” that the money trail isn’t tracable. She demands details & he comes right out & tells her Walt’s invested in Laser-tag. Hahahaha! She is not impressed. “Walt’s a scientist & they love lasers!”…. simple as that & he shows her the door.

Andrea is a little whore & has Jesse on her couch gettin’ down with it & he’s talking all “methy” & trying to entice her into trying it. She’s starting to like the idea….. and the door opens & a kid runs in “Mommy!” Grandma is right behind him. Jesse meet Brock… Brock meet Jesse. Grandma throws Jesse the “evil eye”.

Skylar & Walt are taking a ride. She’s got a surprise for him. He explains that he “just can’t quit” his production & he’s kinda under contract. The money he makes is outrageous. Oh, you can tell she likes that part. Ever since she saw that first big bag of cash, her whole attitude has changed. She wants heated floors in her bathroom damn it! They pull up to the car-wash Walt was working at before he got sick. “This is what Walt would invest in, not laser tag. If you’re going to launder money, do it right Walt.” Speaking like a true pro.

Dumber & Dumber catch up with Jesse outside the church where the meetings are held. He asks what the fuck they are still doing coming there? “Dude, I’m up to step 5!” “Ya, I’m step 2… catchin’ up to ya!” Jesse shakes his head & walks away, catching up to Andrea. They pick up the kid & go to lunch at a taco joint. Hmmm…. looks like he’s liking the mom & dad thing.

Sal is in the car-wash parking lot with Walt. “There’s no Danny!” The laser tag place has a Danny. He’s the guy who’s in on the action & won’t squeal. He needs the laundered money to make his dreams come true, so he’s more than happy to look the other way. It’s good business. The car-wash has no Danny!

After Jesse & Andrea are done doing the nasty, she takes him up on his offer to do some of that “heavenly blue” he was bragging up when they met. Well, things are different now & Jesse’s all pissed at her, calling her a crap-ass mom if she’s gonna get all smoked up when the kid’s comin’ home. She ain’t no crap-ass mom & now she’s all irate & putting on her clothes. She swore she’d raise her kid right so he never ends up like her kid brother, Tomas. Calming shit down, Jesse asks about the brother. It’s a small world. He’s the kid that rode up on his bike & shot Jesse’s #1 man on the street corner back in the day. The dude that sold him the RV. Of course Jesse doesn’t let on that he knows the story, but now he knows who did it. This is when I get that knot in my stomach. He’s gonna do something stupid & it ain’t gonna end well. Nothing Jesse does ever ends well.

And now for some parenting advice from the guy who got swatted in the last episode.

A quick check on Hank has him all pouty in the hospital. Seems the wife has scored therapy equipment AND a hospital bed. Hank can go home! “You put a hospital bed in my bedroom! Get that out of my house TODAY! I’m not leaving this hospital until I can walk!”

Walt clues Skylar in on the Danny thing. She wants to be the Danny for the car-wash. Walt is dead set against this & her getting involved. They are divorced. Oh well, Skylar remembers something…. she never did file those divorce papers. Spouses can’t testify against one another.

Chicken/Drug King Gus asks Walt to dinner. They are having a homemade dish which brings back memories of Gus’s childhood. Walt explains it has to do with the chemicals in his brain & then asks why he’s having him over for dinner. “To break bread together”…. and to give him some advice: “Never make the same mistake twice.” What the hell does that mean? I still haven’t figured out what he’s referring to. Walt has made LOTS of mistakes. Pick one.

Jesse’s on the street corner where his #1 was capped. Here comes the kid on the bike. Jesse asks if he’s Tomas & he is, so Jesse wants to score. “$300″ “You’re crazy… it ain’t worth that much.” The kid starts to leave, so he gives in to the price. Tomas cues the bad guys in a black car. Jesse walks over to the car & hands over the money. The dudes drive away. The kid peddles up to him & hands him the bag. Jesse stomps off with death & mayhem in his eyes. I think I see our bloody season ending in the next 2 weeks.

Well hell… I think I just recapped the whole show for you guys!

Since I’ve chewed your ear off this long…. let me just say this about Bret Michaels: Life as I Know It. If you are expecting any of the crazy goings-on that made Rock of Love so entertaining, this is not that show. It seems that our second favorite rock lover has a real life with real kids & a real girlfriend. Kristi is Bret’s on-again, off-again girlfriend & the mother of both his little girls, Raine 9 & Jorja 4. We got to meet Raine on Celebrity Apprentice when she came to visit during the show. Since Bret’s headline illnesses, he’s been pushed right out there in the public eye. I think VH1 originally planned on airing this show over the course of the summer. Now it’s holding off filming until the doctors give the okay.

As for the show itself. It is reality oriented. Kristi wishes he was home more & treated her with as much attention as he does his kids. They both admit that they have had mutual splits, numerous times since 1993. She did say she gets all the sex she wants whenever she wants, in all sizes & colors, but she goes thru a lot of batteries. Bret doesn’t have that type of variety in his sex life, from what we’ve witnessed on his past shows. I think I’d rather use electronic dongs than be sloppy seconds to those skanks.

Bret & his little girls together are adorable. It’s fun to see him take Raine to the school bus stop & plays in Jorja’s princess castle. She seems to swear like a little truck driver, something Bret says she learned from him while he put the castle together. She also “toots” alot. When he takes them to Cracker Jax family sports park, Raine is put upon to take pictures for Dad’s fans as they pose with him. That was just a little weird. I loved when they were in the trampoline/bungee ride. While Raine did somersaults, Bret just jumped up & down. You just know he didn’t want his hat & bandana to fall off!

I’m not sure how staged all of these events are, such as Raine’s homework assignment on “What my daddy does for a living” essay. Bret has said in interviews that he doesn’t want the future episodes to dwell on his illness & recovery, although he realizes it would grab some good ratings. He wants it to focus on the problems of trying to balance being on the road & having a stable homelife. I think that his recent medical problems will have a profound effect on what we see in the future, even though he doesn’t want it spotlighted. The game has changed & this will no longer be the show he originally planned.

So tell me… what’s waiting on your DVR for you to watch?