It’s kind of funny that this week’s Breaking Bad episode photos are mostly of people sitting on a couch or a bed or in a chair staring blankly, which is pretty much what everyone is doing on Breaking Bad lately, and pretty much what everyone watching Breaking Bad is doing while they watch everyone on Breaking Bad do that.

This week’s show wasn’t as much of a new episode as a part two of last week’s episode: Skyler continues to try to buy the car wash for money laundering purposes, Jesse continues to bury his thoughts with an unending drug party, Walt scuttles around demonstrating that he’s wrong about everything, Hank mopes in bed, and Marie deals with Hank.

Still, I guess we can go into some detail as the plot inches forward.

Skyler comes up with a non-violent plan to buy the car wash from the reluctant owner. With the help of Saul, she hires an actor to pretend the car wash is contaminating the groundwater, a fake problem which will fake-cost $200,000 to fix, thus giving the owner a reason to sell to Skyler. Walt doesn’t think Skyler’s plan will work, but it does, thus continuing Walt’s two-episode arc demonstrating that he really doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.

On the other hand, there’s a lot that Skyler doesn’t know as well. Seeing bruises on Walt’s face, she worries that he might be in trouble, which is adorable since Hitman Mike’s beating is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the horrific violence and danger Walt has been embroiled in.

Skyler also scolds Walt for buying some expensive champagne, because they’re supposed to be hiding their money, which is a little weird because she’s about to spend $800,000 on a car wash. I don’t know why a huge public cash deal for a car wash is okay while spending a little money on bubbly is a big no-no.

Jesse tries to reach out to Walt, inviting him hang out one evening, a small cry for help that Walt ignores. Jesse drives go-carts in a manic way, demonstrating that his mental state is fragile, something we already know from the last episode. He returns home, where his party has turned into an orgy of violence and vandalism and, well, an orgy. When things quiet down too much for his liking, he just starts throwing wads of money at the assorted scumbags in his house, I guess because he has no idea what else to do with it. We’ve got it, Breaking Bad: Jesse is an unhappy mess. Can we move on?

Meanwhile, Marie, at the end of her rope with the abusive and depressed Hank, attends open houses for expensive homes, inventing stories about who she is while stealing things until she gets caught and arrested. Hank has a cop buddy bail her out, and this buddy, out of pity, throws Hank a bone by asking him to examine Gale’s lab notes found at the scene of his murder. So, while still bed-ridden and scarfing Cheetos, we’re led to believe Hank may be on the verge of breaking out of his funk, doing some police work, and pick up Walt’s meth trail once again.

Not a bad episode, not a great episode, just a slow series of events that most shows would probably cram into a single episode, and the reiteration of information that we already know. This is the show treading water, but Breaking Bad still treads water better than most shows do anything else.

Case in point: on to Falling Skies! This episode had plenty of requisite annoyances: more personal discussions set to tender piano music, more annoying children, more general stupidity from the characters, more Pope being a filthy bore, but it added something new to the mix that made me sort of forgive it a little.

The survivors are planning an assault on the main alien structure, so Gruff Army Guy, Professor History, and Dreamy Teen go to take a closer look. They run into a woman living comfortably downtown in the shadow of the alien base. She says she was captured by the aliens but they let her go. So, here’s an idea: let’s trust her completely, because it’s not like we’ve ever encountered anyone else who made an evil deal with the aliens before, except for that guy last week who tried to kill us and turn over all our children to them.

Gruff Army Guy visits his former home because he feels responsible for the death of his family, and decides he’s so sad that he wants to stop fighting aliens, until a minute later when he decides he does want to fight aliens. Yay, I guess. Surprising nobody except the people on the show, the lady living downtown is working with the aliens, and the aliens send out a single Mech robot to kill Professor History, which is a great alien plan despite the fact that they’ve sent out a single Mech robot to kill Professor History like twenty times now and it always fails.

On the plus side, we get a look at a brand new alien! Which I have to admit is cool and interesting and makes me want to keep watching the show. We have the Mechs, who are pretty ineffective as sentries because they’re so easily heard and spotted and bamboozled and exploded. We have the Skitters, who we’ve suspected for some time aren’t really running the show, and now we have proof: while dissecting a dead Skitter, Doctor Lady and Religious Girl discover a harness inside it, implying the Skitters are slaves just like the Earth kids are, and that harnesses may actually turn other living creatures into Skitters, which is bad news for Professor History’s son and the other kid.

And now, the new alien. I don’t think they have a name on the show yet, but I’ll go ahead and call them Stalkers: they’re tall, skinny, and gray, and appear to be higher up on the chain of command. One of the Stalkers peers through the peephole of the lady’s apartment, which is pretty creepy. Moments later, the survivors give the traitor lady false information, then walk out of the apartment without even checking the peephole again even though a WEIRD SCARY ALIEN STALKER BOSS WAS JUST OUT THERE TRYING TO LOOK IN WITH HIS SCARY ALIEN FACE. Jesus, these people are dumb. But hey, new alien! That’s all it takes to make me happy. I’m a sucker.

Meanwhile, back at the school that the survivors are perpetually hanging around in, Pope is ugly and gross and saying angry things that are supposed to be funny, and has teamed up with Professor History’s youngest and most annoying son, and together they figure out that the best way to defeat Mechs is to shoot them with bullets made of Mech metal. Everyone at the school is excited about this and they cheer and make a lot of noise outdoors, because why not: it’s not like aliens have invaded the planet or anything, so there’s no reason to keep quiet and hidden during the daytime.

We’ve got a two-hour (sigh) season finale next week. I’m not sure what I’m hoping for: a good episode that will make this somewhat crappy season worth watching, or a terrible episode that will mean I don’t have to bother watching when it returns.

Finally, I sat down to watch the second episode of Alphas, but fell asleep in the middle. And then I forgot to record the third episode, and apparently the fourth episode aired and it didn’t seem worth recording that one since I’d missed the third and fell asleep during the second. So endeth my extensive, detailed recaps of Alphas. If anyone else is watching and it starts getting good, let me know.

Every week I think I’m finally done with Falling Skies, but my DVR keeps stubbornly recording it, and to tell my DVR to not record it means I have to push, like, three buttons, so I keep watching it, hoping it will get a little better. It hasn’t, really.

The recent storyline has a lone army guy showing up and saying, essentially, “I need to take all the children away from the camp because of ALIENS. And you parents can’t come for SOME REASON.” And the parents are all “No way!” And he’s all, “But, ALIENS! And, SOME REASON!” And the parents are all, “Okay, then. Good luck with taking our children away, I guess.”

To the shock of no one watching, this army guy has an evil plan to trade the kids to the aliens in exchange for the aliens letting the adults live in peace, and then the people from the camp find out this plan, and find the kids, and everything is resolved in a completely long and unexciting way in the course of two episodes. Also, some people we don’t care about get killed. We’ve also got that guy Pope back, and he continues to be gross and suck and talk about cooking, which is supposed to be funny because he’s a hardass, and hardasses shouldn’t know about cooking, you guys! There’s only two episodes left, so I’ll probably stick around for them, but if it doesn’t improve, I’m probably done with this show. I will summon the energy to push those buttons before next season, so help me.

The second episode of Breaking Bad aired this Sunday as well, and while nothing gruesome happened, it was still good in a number of ways (that number is one).

So. Walter knows Gus will have him whacked as soon as he finds a replacement chemist, and he plans to beat him to the punch. He buys an illegal gun (there is apparently such a thing in this country) and practices killing Gus for the first half of the episode, then requests a meeting. Hitman Mike informs Walt that there’s absolutely no way Gus is ever going to meet with him. Walt then approaches Gus’ home in the dead of night, but gets a phone call that lets him know that Gus is totally aware of his plan and that he should just go home. Still determined to gain the upper hand, he goes to visit Mike in a bar. Walt, in all his wisdom (he has none, we’re learning this week), thinks he can talk Hitman Mike over to his side, but Gus is Mike’s boss, and Mike, no matter that Gus coldly killed another employee right in front of him, isn’t going to cross his boss. And why? Because Mike is a professional. Gus is a professional. Walt, with all his planning and calculations, is a rank amateur.

This is really, really great stuff: Walt trying to be a criminal mastermind, even donning his badass Heisenberg hat, and getting essentially nowhere, because he’s not a mastermind, he’s a scared chemistry teacher who has survived to this point mostly on luck. And as a viewer, I’m an amateur as well. I see Walt planning his cold-as-ice assassination, and donning his black hat, and I think, “Yeah, go get him, Walt. Get gangsta. Clip his ass. ” And Walt, of course, can’t, because he’s way out of his league, and his plan to kill Gus and recruit Mike were incredibly naive. I loved the Walt stuff in this episode, as I almost always do. A great touch was giving Walt a cool soundtrack as he approached Gus’ house, only to have the music quickly dribble away as his plan was interrupted by the phone call.

Now to the stuff I generally don’t love. Jesse, for his part, spends the entire episode surrounding himself with people and noise, trying to keep a meth-fueled party going at his house for three days to avoid being alone with his thoughts. After appearing to toughen at the end of the first episode, it looks like he’s back to cracking again. Once more, he spends the entire show on the same set, doing very little. His scenes weren’t bad, but I just don’t much care for Jesse or the actor playing him, so his struggles don’t really have much of an impact on me.

Skyler has her own careful plans to become a crime lord, and they’re rebuffed as Walt’s were: after making an offer to buy the car wash she plans to use as a front for their drug money, she’s turned down by the owner who is still smarting from when Walt quit the car wash way back when. Hank, meanwhile, continues to rehab from his injuries while being a complete dick to his wife. And, in an exciting twist, Walter Jr. comes out of his room and has some breakfast, which is apparently all he does this season.

This is Breaking Bad. It inches along with flashes of brilliance and occasional bursts of extreme violence, just enough to keep the slow pace from becoming interminable. There’s always something great buried in it. It’s not always a lot, sometimes it’s just a little moment or turn in the plot, such as in this episode, where Walt’s seemingly badass and brilliant plan of bumping off Gus turns pathetic as Mike quietly beats the shit out of him and leaves him gasping on the barroom floor. But the little collection of great scenes every week, amid long bouts of not much else happening, keep the show worth watching.

I also watched Alphas. Oh wait, I didn’t. I meant to watch it. But I keep forgetting. That’s probably not a good sign.

I watched the ninety minute pilot of SyFy’s new show, Alphas, which I’d heard about roughly thirteen seconds before it aired. The show is about a group of government agents who solve unusual crimes by using what could be defined as superpowers. Nobody can fly or shoot power beams out of their eyes or deflect bullets: these powers are more down to earth. Mostly.

We’ve got Bill, a gruff FBI agent who has the power to kick his natural fight-or-flight instinct up several notches, granting him enhanced strength for short periods of time. Presumably, along with the fight part, he could enhance the flight part as well, making him run away from danger really fast. Or maybe make himself really scared. I don’t know. He mainly kicks down doors and throws a couple desks around, and pushes a car out of his driveway, and is gruff. He also rudely eats food off people’s plates, which is supposed to give him some personality, I guess.

There’s Nina, who can override the willpower of most of the people she talks to, like a cop who tries to give her a parking ticket and a hotel clerk who doesn’t want to give her a list of guests. The other female team member is Rachel, who can heighten all her senses, so she’s good at eavesdropping, smelling things, and looking at blood cells with magnified vision. She can probably also taste stuff really well, too.

Gary can see radio signals, which lets him browse the internet without a computer and visualize cell phone transmissions. He’s also autistic, which means he is constantly asking to drive the car, which is something autistic people always want to do in pop-culture. Leigh, played by David Strathairn, is the Charles Xavier of the group, the kindly father figure who is teaching the team how to control their powers, settling disagreements, and trying to keep his mutants out of real danger, something his shadowy government boss doesn’t appear to have a real interest in.

Their case in the pilot involves a sniper who manages to shoot a federal witness who is in a windowless interrogation room, by firing the bullet with incredible precision through a small vent that leads into the chamber (the vent isn’t connected to a fan or anything, naturally: it’s just a vent, like the kind in video games that are just open shafts without any air-moving equipment inside them.)

Using their unique talents (at one point, Gary looks at YouTube videos without using an iPad!), the group tracks down the sniper (who has some powers of his own) and pick up the trail of yet another Alpha, one with the power to control people by planting instructions into their minds. There’s also some talk of “Red Flag”, which is another group of super-beings, only evil, who organized the hit on the federal witness and have had some run-ins with the good Alphas in the past.

The show was, I dunno, okay? It’s nice that it didn’t begin with a big recruitment sequence, as you might expect: the team is already assembled and has been apparently working together for a while, so we get to skip a lot of back-story and get into the case pretty quickly. While I appreciate that, I didn’t find any of the characters particularly interesting, and their powers are sort of vague.

For instance, Nina can tell some people what to do, but not others, with no explanation as to why some people can resist and some can’t. It seems like an open door for the writers to make things work or not work whenever they want, which may be a little too loosey-goosey to be really satisfying. I think rules are important in science-fiction and fantasy. The rules can even be silly, as long as they exist and are stuck to. Otherwise, any time the writers paint themselves into a corner, they can just whip up something to get them out of it. “Oh, he just used his ill-defined powers extra hard, and that’s how they escaped.” Then again, it’s just the pilot, so some rules and limitations may be forthcoming.

I don’t know. The show didn’t grab me, didn’t excite me, but didn’t bore me or annoy me. It was just sort of there. I’ll probably give it another shot.