Marie Schrader (Betsy Brandt) of 'Breaking Bad' (Sundays, 10PM on AMC) has had problems with stealing things before. Back in season one, she shoplifted a tiara for Skyler's daughter and underwent therapy for kleptomania. The habit returned on Sunday's episode, which found Marie making multiple appointments for open houses, lying about her identity, and helping herself to souvenirs.

As Marie was leaving one house, she was confronted by a real estate agent who accused her of stealing a spoon at a previous open house. The agent said she had called the police and called Marie a thief. "You'd better just back off, okay?" Marie said, and then dragged Hank into the conflict. "My husband is a DEA agent."

(S03E06) The word "pivotal" doesn't even begin to describe this episode. When it was over, I let out a "Jimmy H. Carter!" so loud that it freaked out my fiancee -- imagine another name with the initials "J.C." instead of "Jimmy Carter" and you'll get the idea.

(S03E04) Even on cable shows that are tightly plotted because of their short seasons, there are sometimes episodes that feel more like they're setting things up for the episodes to come rather than pushing the story arc forward. This week felt like one of those episodes.

I wouldn't classify it as a "throat-clearing" kind of episode, because, even when treading water, 'Breaking Bad' still retains its intensity and sense of drama. But after the first three rollicking episodes, it was interesting to see the show take an hour to collect its thoughts and linger for a little while.

(S02E01) Three hundred and sixty-four days after the first season finale, the second season of Breaking Bad finally began last night (Damn you, writers strike!). While we only got seven episodes last year, the show still made a huge impact on the television landscape, primarily by being just amazingly produced and acted. The action and tone pick up here as if we've never been away, and despite a year since new episodes, it feels like only last week that we first saw Tuco go ballistic and viciously beat his own man.

Of course, if it had been last week then I doubt we'd have rewound the scene and replayed it in its entirety. Still, it was a nice reminder of just how crazy and unpredictable Tuco is. And it was the problem of Tuco that pretty much drove the entirety of the main plot tonight. It says something as to how perfectly disturbed Raymond Cruz portrays Tuco that despite being in the episode only during two sequences, his presence hovered over every moment.

(S01E05) This episode served as a bridge in our larger story to the next chapter of both Jesse and Walt's lives. In the previous installment, Walt withdrew from the sordid world of drug trafficking and focused on his family, revealing his cancer and looking at the varying options available to him. Meanwhile, his erstwhile partner Jesse had a bad drug reaction and sought refuge in the home of his parents, which didn't turn out as well as he had hoped. Here they both continued their efforts to move on with their lives, to varying degrees of failure.