Oh hey that whole WAR WAR WAR with Syria thing is still a thing that’s looming out there. It’s easy to forget about it what with Breaking Bad going HAM and the return of football and the kids twerking and that. But this morning brings a rather interesting development that may actually help to avert America having to invade another Middle Eastern country. Reports CNN: "Facing the threat of a U.S. military strike, the country’s leaders Tuesday reportedly accepted a Russian proposal to turn over its chemical weapons. The development, reported by Syrian state television and Russia’s Interfax news agency, came a day after the idea bubbled up in the wake of what appeared to be an off-the-cuff comment by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. And while U.S. officials say they remain skeptical, it quickly changed the debate in Washington from solely “Should the U.S. attack?” to “Is there a diplomatic way out of this mess?”"

Let me begin by disclosing my biases here: I am an unabashed lover of fake mustaches. I have seen every episode of Saved by the Bell multiple times and have written thousands and thousands of words about it. I started watching Franklin & Bash semi-ironically and it has somehow ended up becoming a part of my soul. I enjoy the comedy of Paul F. Tompkins, particularly his appearances on the Comedy Bang Bang podcast. And I would very much like to drink Manhattans with Mark-Paul Gosselaar. So I am, shall we say, not impartial in regards to these videos from Paul F. Tompkins’ web series “Speakeasy,” which feature the comedian sitting down with the man behind Zack Morris and Peter Bash to knock a few back and discuss his career. The second video I posted below is getting the most play so far, because it features Gosselaar playing a few rounds of Zack Morris In 2013 and that is some pretty damn strong Internet bait, but the more straightforward interview in the first clip is really interesting, too. For example, did you know that Gosselaar attended a regular high school 30 miles outside of Los Angeles for a solid chunk of Saved by the Bell’s run? How weird must that have been for the other students? Like, you’re just sitting at your lunch table poking at your Salisbury steak with your spork and all of a sudden Zack Morris himself asks if he can join you? I would have thrown up. But I think my favorite part of the clip is when Gosselaar discusses the differences between being a teen star today and when he was on the cover of every third edition of Tiger Beat. He makes some solid points about how technology has changed the way we consume this sliver of pop culture, and, in the process, he sort of defends Justin Bieber. He also repeatedly calls him “annoying,” so it’s not the strongest defense you’ll ever hear, but still, it’s interesting to get a perspective on that situation from someone who lived through it and came out the other end a healthy, seemingly well-adjusted adult. A healthy, seemingly well-adjusted adult who owns at least one fake mustache. Let’s not forget that part.

A great final season of television should be like a great novel: Everything that came before should mean something. All along, Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad has been about great, efficient storytelling. Every element is necessary and irreplaceable. A final season should make use of all of those elements: It should be like an amazing, unpredictable, mind-blowing new song with elements of the rest of the album interwoven into the narrative. That is exactly what the final season of Breaking Bad has been so far. Everything from the previous five seasons informs this sixth season (or season 5B, if you prefer). By calling back to earlier episodes, Vince Gilligan is rewarding his audience for paying attention and, in the process, enriching those earlier episodes, which mean more now that we’re seeing how they inform the final eight episodes. I don’t know how else to say it except that all the callbacks and parallels from the last five episodes has been really f***king NEAT. I have taken the liberty of cataloging 25 of the callbacks and parallels from the first five episodes of the final season (the final season, for our purposes, is only the last eight episodes of the series). There may be more. There will no doubt be more in the final three episodes. People will probably continue to spot them for years to come. Some guy in 2016 watching the entire series for the sixth time may spot something new in “Rabid Dog” that he’s never seen before and his mind may finally explode all over his laptop. In the decades to come, people are going to look at this series as the perfect example of how to make a great, entertaining, compelling, intense and intelligent series that rewards its audience as much as it challenges it. These brilliant callbacks are just one of the many reasons why Breaking Bad will persevere.