TCA Press Tour: Chasing Jon Hamm

"Have you seen Jon Hamm?" That was the million-dollar question at the AMC press-tour party last night. We knew the twice-Emmy-nominated "Mad Men" leading man was, in fact, present because we'd  gone downstairs near the hotel pool and spotted him in a pre-party staging area where he and the rest of the cast of the Emmy-winning "Mad Men" and the Emmy-nominated "Breaking Bad" were being held by their "people" as they waited to mingle with the press. But nobody would believe us.

An hour or so into the festivities, many of Hamm's costars, including the gorgeous-in-green Christina Hendricks, the beautiful January Jones and handsome John Slattery, were enjoying cocktails and taking questions from reporters while the man who plays Don Draper  was nowhere to be found. It's important to mention that on the terrace, too, was the brilliant cast of "Breaking Bad," including Emmy-winner Bryan Cranston, sporting layers and highlights, Aaron Paul, and Anna Gunn in a sexy black dress, all talking up a storm with reporters. (Cranston even knew several of them by name.)

The event to celebrate the beginning of the press tour also marked a historic time in AMC history, the basic cable network that has for two years in a row landed more Emmy nominations than any of its competitors. In other words, there was a lot to brag about.

But in these circles, it was all about the Hamm. And Hamm was nowhere to be found for half of the party.  When he showed up, clean shaven and debonair, cocktail in hand, he graciously began chatting with reporters.  Soon, we were wondering if perhaps he'd been held by the pool bar too long, if you know what we mean.

"If I can be so bold ... AMC doesn't have a track record," he said, replying to a question about whether AMC is a basic-cable pioneer. "They're coming as blind as anybody else. And they came in at it as, 'We would like to make a television show that tells a really great story.' And that's actually the way to determine how to make a television show as opposed to, 'We would like to make a television show that makes a lot of money.' I think we're seeing not the greatest way to do television unless you like Fat Dance Camp or whatever is on NBC at 8 p.m."

A reporter followed up with an observation about "Mad Men" reflecting the classy '60s. Hamm had plenty to say about that.

"Buddy, I don't know if they had class back then. I can send you a couple of links of stuff where guys are berating their wives for making their coffee badly. What I think happened in the '60s is I think irony happened. And the idea of selling non-earnestly became cool. And obviously that's not a mistake that that's when the baby boomers started getting 18. We're seeing a lot of it now, we're seeing these cool hipsters, man ...

"You can't tell 18-year-olds anything. ...  That's what happens. The irony happens. And it's cool to be in a not-cool place. Get it man? And so that's what the big shift was that our guys are trying to figure out."

A question later, his publicist Erica Gray of PMK interrupted and escorted him to the other side of the room.  By then, the party was starting to wrap, and we couldn't understand why our time with Hamm had been cut short. After all, we had been patient. We followed the publicity trail and found Hamm on the other side of the back bar, smoking with a few others. How very Don Draper, we observed.  So we let him have his moment. Then we saw other journalists approaching, so we figured the coast was clear. But before we could utter one syllable, Gray (does she make a lot of money doing this kind of thing?) led him away again.

OK, now we were taking it personally. Wasn't this a press party? An event that by design means that actors will speak to the press? Hamm seemed to be comfortable with his thoughts about irony, but something wasn't sitting right with his peeps. Oh, sorry, we mean  "people." What were they protecting him from? Gray showed Hamm the way out, and just like that, our life's work was over.

There was nothing else to do but whine to a colleague from another major newspaper who then shared that while he was interviewing one of Hamm's costars, he was interrupted by a publicist who resorted to violence to end that interview. She had the nerve to strike him in the back!

It appears we were luckier: No Hamm but no black and blue either.

-- Maria Elena Fernandez

Photo: Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times

'Breaking Bad': Perfect season ends with a falling sky

The writers of “Breaking Bad” work inside of a room that has no clock, only a dartboard. There are also bulletin boards on two walls that eventually get papered over with index cards. And there is a single window. 

This window looks out to the Burbank airport, planes rising up into the sky. . . .

And so we come to the end. Audacious in scope and flawless in execution, Sunday night’s second-season finale was an alarming end to a perfect season. Walter White looked up and saw the sky falling, a piece of it landing right in his pool.

It was a plane crash, two of them colliding in midair, and White had both nothing and everything to do with it.

As soon as I saw it, I was immediately sucked back to last summer, to the “Breaking Bad” set in Albuquerque. There, series creator Vince Gilligan sat down with me in the hollowed-out RV in which White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) cook crystal methamphetamine on TV. I asked if he could describe, in broad terms, what the second season might be about. 

Gilligan sat there, searching his brain for the right words: “This season is … how do I put this? … this is sort of … for lack of a better way to put it, this season is kind of, sort of about the butterfly effect. Not the Ashton Kutcher movie, but the old philosophy that a butterfly flaps its wings on one side of the planet and it sets off a chain of events that leads to something huge on the other. And the decision of cooking crystal meth is going to cause a decision that’s going to lead to something pretty big at the end of the season.”

Pretty big. Pretty big?

'Breaking Bad': T minus two days ...

I have seen the finale, and let me just plan your Sunday night: Do what you want until 10 p.m., then tune into AMC. Turn off the cell phone -- no texting, no tweeting -- and don’t even worry about the DVR, unless it’s just to relive it after. You need to see this as soon as possible.

Then, good luck trying to fall asleep.

Yes, the teddy bear question will be answered. And no, you don’t know how it will end up in the pool. You may think you know. You don’t.

With that in mind, here are some “Breaking Bad” notes for those of you thirsting for Sunday’s second-season finale, along with a story you might not want to miss: Aaron Paul on “The Price Is Right.”

'Breaking Bad': Hush, little baby, don't say a word ...

“Breaking Bad” is becoming one of the most twisted love stories television has ever seen. It began with the premise of a dying man wanting to leave a nest egg for his family, which led him to use his chemistry knowledge for the unsavory purpose of cooking high-grade crystal methamphetamine for lots and lots of cash. But this was for family, and so we somehow understood, and maybe even loved him a little for it. The hook was intriguing enough for us to come along for the ride.

This ride, though, has now descended into the deepest of valleys, a place much darker than I think any of us ever anticipated. We’re talking about a show that opened its pilot episode with a man wearing only his underpants. And a gas mask. The “dark comedy” tag, it seemed way back then, would always remain more on the side of “comedy.”

And so much for that.

What’s happened this season has been at once surprising and sublime, and in television you do need one to achieve the other. There are too many channels, too many options, and so shows have to shock to stay relevant, to keep us from picking up the remote. And the cumulative shock of this second season of “Bad” has been the complete unpredictability of Walter White, played by the infallible Bryan Cranston. Walt has now morphed from that goofy middle-aged man in his underpants into someone we at times don’t even recognize anymore, a guy we’re no longer sure whether to love or to be frightened of. How else to describe a man who in one episode pours endless shots of tequila for his 16-year-old son, making him sick, and then in this episode cradles his new baby girl in his arms and gives her a peek at the stacks of cash he just netted from a major drug deal? "Daddy did that," he whispers. "Daddy did that for you."

Yes, he’s still willing to sacrifice anything for his family. But only for his family. So blinded is he by this intense love that he’s become far less aware — or moved — by the consequences of his actions outside of his own home. As long as his own house of cards is still standing, it doesn’t much matter to him if others in the neighborhood are falling down.

Case in point: Sunday night, and probably the most shocking scene of the series. …

'Breaking Bad': BABY COMING!

It’s finally happening. Everything. Skyler’s in labor and Walt’s racing toward a giant drug deal that could net him and Jesse $1.2 million. And that’s when the door closed, “Breaking Bad” cutting to a painful black on Sunday night. Until next week, ladies and gents. My, oh, my does it appear that we could be in for a doozy of a final two episodes.

All this -- and much, much more -- occurred only a week after we spent a whole show basically fixing a water heater and some rotting wood. See how the writers set us up? It’s borderline cruelty, but it makes for such great stop-and-go television.

As for next week, who knows? Will this baby actually pop out? At this point, the mere idea of Skyler (Anna Gunn) without the baby bump seems almost inconceivable. And secondly, could this drug deal actually go down smoothly? Note the exit Walt (Bryan Cranston) is supposed to take off the freeway: Exit 13. That can’t be good. And let us use this opportunity to recall yet another classic Saul Goodman quote, though seeing it in print doesn’t in any way do justice to the masterful way Bob Odenkirk actually delivered it to our drug-dealing duo.

“Look, let’s start with some tough love, all right? Ready for this? Here goes. You two suck at peddling meth. Period.”

Lucky for them, though, Saul is beginning to resemble a Walmart; he isn’t fancy, but he’s got everything you need. In this case, he happens to also know a kingpin of a dealer who may buy up all 38 pounds of the blue stuff. Well, sort of. “Let’s just say I know a guy who knows a guy. Who knows another guy.”

Some thoughts about Sunday’s episode, after the jump:

'Breaking Bad': Men

Walter White replaced the water heater and some rotting wood, but he might as well have been caulking a bathtub. The point is that we just spent an hour basically watching a guy doing some home improvement, and that it made for compelling television is almost absurd. 

How does “Breaking Bad” pull this off? Well, by first going back to the mysterious teddy bear opening, this time revealing a little more: two dead bodies beneath white sheets. We don’t know who they are, but we do know that the bodies are in Walt’s driveway. And so the stakes to this season-long teaser have just been raised; we now know that whatever eventually happens will be big, very big.

In a way, that sense of impending doom is really the hook to this series and especially this season. And it’s almost like a bargaining chip with the audience. Like, “Don’t worry, folks. Things will go down and all hell will break loose. But for now let’s just sit down, relax and enjoy this trip to the hardware store.”

In the end, this particular episode was essentially about men. As such, it was simple and straightforward, and that’s part of what made it so funny. Let’s face it, boys -- there is hilarity in our sometimes narrow-minded ways, and this is what “Bad” successfully minded.

Even my mom -- and happy Mother's Day to all of you out there -- caught this show for the first time Sunday. And this is what she told me: “The women on this show just make so much more sense than the men.” Par for the course, is it not?

And now, let's look at these latest examples of male behavior:

'Breaking Bad': Raise your hand if you cried

It’s OK, fellas. Be confident enough in your masculinity. That'll be your story. And mine.

Yes, my hand is up. Call me a softy. At the end of this one, these eyes welled.

Why? Because “Breaking Bad” is a show so bleak – a man has cancer, two years to live, deals drugs, lies to his family – that the good news is just so rare. When it arrives, you notice.

Why again? Well, because by giving this story’s protagonist a death sentence in the first place, the story itself is forced to slow down, which might sound like a detriment but has in fact become the series’ greatest strength. By pacing itself like this, by squeezing every bit of juice out of this man’s remaining days, the series tends to enrapture you in both the highs and lows. You're given the time and space to feel them. 

But because we've spent far more time in the valleys than on the peaks, Sunday's ascent to the good news was especially exhilarating. The big news: The tumor in Walt's chest has shrunk by 80 percent. He's by no means out of the woods, but he may have a little more time on this earth than just the two-year window he was initially given.

Now, for many of us, we can't necessarily say that this was entirely unexpected, because we unfortunately live in an entertainment world where behind-the-scenes news now informs our on-screen expectations. Rather than allowing ourselves to be surprised, we hear casting rumors and network news; and in "Breaking Bad's" case, we knew AMC had recently renewed the show for a third season. So it's not like we actually expected Walt (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse (Aaron Paul) to die out there in the desert. Nor should it have been that much of a shocker when we learned in the end of Walt's improved condition.

So why again? Why did my eyes go wet?

Oh, yeah. Because of the writing. Because of the acting. And because how you reacted to that scene was probably relative to how much you'd already put in to the story.

If new to the show and just taking a peek, for instance, you may not have felt much when the doctor broke the news to Walt and the loved ones who surrounded him. You might have even taken the cynical view, noting that the show seems to be doing well for AMC, and so of course Walt will now magically live on for a little longer.

But if you’ve been there from Day 1, when the story effectively began with another doctor giving Walt his death sentence and Walt channeling all of that confusion into being bothered by the mustard stain on the doctor’s collar -- well, if you’ve been with Walt since then, then you had to feel as if you too were in some way part of Sunday’s collective exhale, part of the tears that streamed down Marie’s (Betsy Brandt) cheeks, part of the smile that spread across Walter Jr.’s (RJ Mitte) face. Admit it: Your shoulders loosened just a bit, in the same way that Walt's finally did as well. 

And you also completely understood the bathroom scene when Walt, seconds later, saw his reflection in the paper towel dispenser of a public restroom and smashed it repeatedly with his fist.

Sometimes there are no words. Just emotion. “Breaking Bad” has a knack for nailing these moments.

A 'Breaking Bad' Q&A: In the bedroom with Bryan Cranston and Anna Gunn

“Breaking Bad” seems to be working on a different level than in the show’s first season, and one of the key reasons has been the relationship between Walter and Skyler White emerging into one of the more compelling marriages on television. While the pregnant Skyler mostly played dumb to Walt’s odd behavior in Season 1 and always proved sympathetic above anything else, this season she just isn’t taking it anymore.

In the Season 2 premiere, for instance, she berated him for getting too physical with her in the kitchen. He’d just returned home from seeing a man beaten to death, and was so emotionally charged from the event that he found himself wanting to hold her … and then suddenly much more. Like a dog in heat, he pressed her up against the refrigerator and, when things grew more violent, she was forced to push him away. “You cannot take it out on me,” she later yelled.

The third episode ended with the click of a lamp. Skyler had just asked her husband if he had a second cellphone, a concept he denied, and when Walt went in for the goodnight kiss, she simply turned away from him and clicked off the lamp on her side of the bed. She knew he was lying, and now he knew she knew it as well.

No sympathy for the dying.

During a visit to the “Breaking Bad” set last summer, Bryan Cranston and Anna Gunn joined me for a chat in that very bedroom. They were between scenes, and as the crew set up for a shot in the kitchen, Cranston and Gunn sat beside each other on their TV bed, traded some sarcastic jabs and spoke about playing house.

The following is an edited version of the chat:

'Breaking Bad': Finding the funny

We call this show a “dark comedy,” but until Sunday arrived, just about all of “Breaking Bad’s” epic moments had been purely dramatic. Sure, we’ve seen a pantless Bryan Cranston on advertisements for the show and witnessed such things as Aaron Paul falling into a port-a-potty, but to me those moments had been window dressing for what was always more of an emotional tale with a very raw, dark center.

The really good stuff? I immediately think of Walter White (Cranston) strangling a man with a bike lock, Tuco’s uncle tapping his bell and last week’s exploding turtle. “The end justifies the extreme,” is the show’s fancy tagline, and the extreme has always proved far more compelling than any of the humor that’s been sprinkled in along the way. 

On Sunday night, though, that formula changed. And to my very pleasant surprise, it worked wonderfully. No, masterfully. That’s how I’d choose to describe that one sequence with Walt, Jesse and the drug deal staged especially for Hank’s DEA surveillance camera. The surreal humor packed into those few minutes was funnier than anything we’ve seen to date on this show, and I haven’t even gotten to Saul Goodman yet.

Just to recap the fake exchange, here’s what was suddenly playing out before our eyes: a man committing a crime … for the benefit of two other criminals … because he prefers prison and has managed a way to go there and get paid for it … and all of this was orchestrated by a lawyer who twice suggested that the easiest thing for all parties involved would be for someone to just kill his client.

And then it got better.

'Breaking Bad': TV on the big screen and a cast Q&A [updated]

“Cinematic” is a term critics and fans sometimes associate with “Breaking Bad,” considering the AMC drama is shot on a 35-millimeter camera and the individual episodes often play out like short films. Those qualities also made for an especially dazzling Wednesday night in North Hollywood, where AMC rolled out an advance screening of Sunday’s episode for members of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences – the group responsible for the Emmys.

Make no mistake, this was a night to woo; this was AMC dressing up in its finest suit and trying on a new pickup line. And the drinks were on them, so I was there, too.

Pete Hammond, who would moderate a post-screening Q&A with the cast, first took the Leonard Goldenson Theater stage and gushed, “I think one reviewer said it best when he said, 'This is television as God intended.'" Applause came from the back, but from my seat near the front of the 600-seat theater – filled to about 2/3 capacity – I couldn’t tell if it was mainly from AMC hands.

The next hour was more clear. Up on the big screen, “Breaking Bad” simply popped. The colors jumped, the jokes killed and a tense-but-also-hilarious climactic sequence involving Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul and some DEA agents was an absolute homerun that brought the audience to a tizzy. Because the episode has yet to air, I can’t go into much more detail. But I will say this: Some fresh life is about to be breathed into this series, and it begins with three words: "Better call Saul!" Bob Odenkirk is the visiting actor to look for here, and judging from the theater's reaction, he steals Sunday's episode, hands down.

Simply put, the wooing went well. On my way up the steps, I heard a woman in front of me saying, “I have to watch this show,” and then a man behind me whispering to a date, “It’s just the perfect blend of humor and sending this guy to the grave.”

But before the theater emptied there was the Q&A, and here were some of the highlights: