Walter White and Jesse Pinkman weren’t the only old amigos back in business this week. Chris Ryan and I were finally reunited in the Grantland studio to cook up a wide-ranging discussion on the pop culture issues of the day. We started in the desert, where Breaking Bad (1:00) had a rare lesser episode. But the slow, methodical building of the Heisenberg empire segued into a conversation about Jim Pagels’s recent article in Slate (18:30) in which he argued against binge-watching TV. Is it a good thing to treat an entire season of television like Skinny Pete treats a bag of blue? Or should episodes be parceled out carefully, like hush-fund payments to incarcerated laundry managers? From there we covered the recent TCA Press Tour (32:30), including the perpetual foibles of NBC and the intensely awkward questioning of Claire Danes. To wrap up, we talked about Danny Boyle’s strange rise from gritty chronicler of born-slippy druggies to Olympic ringmaster (41:00), and the hefty disappointment of Rick Ross’s new album (45:00). God forgives, but Josh Lucas doesn’t.

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