Sunday Sunday Sunday! We’re going to have a weekly chat about Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad. I buy mine off Amazon, so I’m usually a day behind, but every Sunday around showtime I’ll post an open thread. I’ll probably start linking the Breaking Bad podcasts and trailers and whatnot

If you haven’t seen Breaking Bad, you should. You can find Breaking Bad:
-On AMC, Sundays at 10 eastern
–Seasons 1-4 on Netflix
–on DVD
–on Amazon Instant Video (my preferred method)

Rules:
-Don’t be a dick
-No spoiler warnings, so don’t come in unless you’ve seen the latest episode
-Feel free to hyperlink and youtube it up
-Liveblogging is cool, just be specific so we know why you’re going “WHOA DUDE WHOA WHOA BRO”
-Make sure your speculation is reasonable

This week is “Gliding Over All,” written by Moira Walley-Beckett and directed by Michelle MacLaren. Last episode of the half-season! Let’s see how crazy this is gonna get…

Sneak peek for this week:

King of Trios 2009: Night 1

On Demand
DVD

Prior to the show, the crowd is told that Iceberg missed his flight and won’t be at the show. No big loss.

Match 1
King of Trios Round 1
Team EPIC WAR (Austin Aries, Ryan Drago and Tony Kozina) vs. F1rst Family (Arik Cannon, Darin Corbin and Ryan Cruz)

Little bit of backstory for this one. Supposedly, Aries was told to play a face dynamic in this match. Aries wasn’t really happy with this, since he just turned heel in EPIC WAR and he’s been heel pretty much everywhere else. Still, it was insisted that he play face here. Aries decided to oversell it in a way that’s hilarious enough to offset it being unprofessional. This is apparent from the pre-match promo where he interrupts Drago to express how this is all about the fans and their desire to see high-flying action.

When everyone’s in the ring, Aries makes sure to shake everyone’s hand and then claps a little too hard. Drago slaps him on the back to force a tag before things can begin, pissing off the crowd. Drago faces Cannon and can’t get his bearings until pulling Cannon’s hair. Kozina is tagged in to help take advantage, but Cannon sneaks off to tag Corbin. Corbin and Kozina brawl to the outside, effectively tagging, so we get Aries vs. Cruz. They’re the quickest guys on either team, so this is some nice fast-paced action with Aries getting the upper hand. Corbin blind-tags in and the North Star Express double-team on Aries. Cannon comes in to pound on him for a bit and Aries begins to get his second wind… TATANKA-STYLE! He starts doing a war dance while no-selling their hits, chops each one in the head and then lets loose with this!

Kozina hops off the top rope and does a really sloppy headscissors that sends Cannon and himself over the top rope. Aries prepares for a dive, only to get tagged by Drago yet again. Cruz ends up being the one in peril as the EPIC WAR guys take turns beating on him. Drago keeps tagging Aries way too hard for the sake of being a dick. Kozina sets up Cruz on the second rope and tries to jump onto his back, but Cruz sidesteps and causes him to fall out of the ring. Drago tries to stop him from tagging, but receives a kick in the face and the next thing you know, Arik Cannon is cleaning Drago’s clock. Amusingly enough, when Cannon bounces off the second rope for an elbow drop, Aries enthusiastically pats him on the back. Drago is able to send Cannon out of the ring with an enziguri, but the North Star Express step in and sandwich his head with their move the Shell Shock. Drago rolls to the outside and Cruz holds the ropes open to make it easier for Corbin to dive out there for the follow-up.

Cruz tries to do the same, but is intercepted by Aries. Kozina gets Cruz with a top-rope bulldog, but there’s a kickout. Kozina and Aries set up some kind of superplex/top-rope Stunner move, but they’re knocked off. Cannon plants Drago with a Backdrop Driver, but he kicks out. Corbin flapjacks Cruz onto him with the Cruz Control and it’s enough for the full pin. After the match, Aries befriends the team and continues acting as an over-the-top face.

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Prelude to King of Trios 2009

After 2008 proved how big they could get, CHIKARA figured maybe they should scale it back just a little for 2009. Things became far more refined and bigger indy names were brought in for star power, such as Bryan Danielson, Austin Aries and the return of El Generico. This would be the first year to give us the format that the company would stick with for the following few years.

Previously on CHIKARA…

2008 was a time of friendships exploding. UltraMantis Black brainwashed Tim Donst into becoming a member of the Order of the Neo-Solar Temple, but Donst was only pretending for the sake of gathering intel. Not only did he end up befriending Hydra and convince him to split from UltraMantis, but he found out that Shane Storm was selling Mike Quackenbush’s secrets to the rudos for help in stopping his losing streak. Quack viciously attacked his former friend and Storm became a pariah in the locker room.

Vin Gerard continued to reign victorious against the masked tecnicos of CHIKARA and gained an ally in Shane Storm – renamed STIGMA. Although Fire Ant defeated Gerard at the finals for the Young Lions Cup tournament, Gerard defeated him in the rematch. Gerard and STIGMA also gained a new ally in Colin Delaney, who came back from his less-than-successful WWE run. Together they called themselves the UnStable.

As for last year’s winners, the remainder of 2008 was a mixed bag. El Pantera had a handful of matches before returning to Mexico. Incognito won the big Rey de Voladores tournament. Lince had a series of matches against Eddie Kingston, losing repeatedly but always insisting on another match. Due to personal circumstances, Eddie left the company for much of the year and Lince was inserted into the UnStable storyline. Many fans became unenthused with his push and turned on him quite a bit. It got so bad that during their matches, Eddie would have to shout at the crowd that Lince almost died that one time in order to force sympathy.

When Colin was in WWE for a few months, his brother Jimmy believed him to be on the CHIKARA roster thanks to Gerard whispering in his ear and would unmask different wrestlers to see if they were Colin. Colin betrayed him upon return and Jimmy began his road to revenge by teaming up with Lince. He then decided to become the new Equinox, reprising Gerard’s old identity to successfully get under his skin. By the end of the year, he defeated Gerard for the Young Lions Cup.

The same year also gave us Claudio Castagnoli’s major feud with Brodie Lee as the Swiss wrestler decided to knock that bully down a peg. Their initial matches led to disqualifications and a No DQ match led to the Fabulous Three interfering, so the big blowoff was done via the company’s first and only ever steel cage match. Claudio won decisively.

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