Lindy West breaks it down.

In the battle of "Who had the most EWWWWWW moments," last night's episode of Girls beat out The Walking Dead by a wide margin. HOW CAN THIS BE?? Find out by hitting the jump for my spoilerific recaps of both shows, AND your observant observations in the comments. Welcome to The Walking Dead (and Girls) Chitty-Chat Club!

• Courtesy AMC
• "Here's some advice: Never put anything in your eye socket bigger than your elbow. You're welcome."

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It's the show everyone's talking about, and watching it can be a distinct pleasure (even if the producers have the sketchiest notion of what constitutes "addiction"—a woman who takes 200 laxatives a day doesn't have a "strange addiction," she has bulimia, and should therefore be on A&E's Intervention).

But almost as good as watching the show is simply reading the episode titles on Netflix.

(Also worthwhile: Reading the Wikipedia plot synopses.)

Since you're all about watching entire series on Netflix now (and you've already lost an entire weekend burning through House of Cards), why not lose another few days of your life on a brand new Netflix exclusive series starting in April called Hemlock Grove? Eli Roth (Grindhouse, Cabin Fever) is your producer, and Famke Janssen (yum), Lili Taylor, and Dougray Scott are your stars in this horror series about two dudes suspected of killing a young girl—one of whom is rumored to be a werewolf (!!!)—and their attempts to find the killer. The trailer kind of reminds me of Twilight—if Twilight had a bunch of sexy nude people in it, and was well written. Check it out!

Jay Leno, whose job materialized presumably because he had some major dirt on a high-level executive at NBC, is rumor-legedly going to retire. Said rumors also purport that Jimmy Fallon is to take his role. If the television industry were anything like an actual capitalist market, something like this would have happened years ago.

Welcome once again to the only TV recap in America that recaps both The Walking Dead AND Girls—at the same time. (What do you mean I "shouldn't be so proud about that"?) Hit the jump for my spoilerific thoughts about last night's episodes—AND your "oh-so-observant" observations! LET'S START CHITTY-CHATTING!

• Courtesy AMC
• "Oh, so you're gonna kill ANOTHER black guy? Wow, sure, that's just awesome."

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Think it's weird for me to recap The Walking Dead and Girls as if they're the same show? WELL, THEY ARE THE SAME SHOW. Join me after the jump for this week's spoilery recaps, and chime in with your own Walking Girls comments!

• Courtesy AMC
• "People may despise me... but at least I ain't Jessa."

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Did you watch The Walking Dead last night? Oh... okay, so a few of you did. How many of you watched Girls instead? Just about as many! So let's chitty-chat about BOTH, whaddayasay?? Join me after the jump for my spoiler-filled observations, and leave your own in the comments! LET'S START CHITTY-CHATTING! (Oh, and you can talk about Downton Abbey too, if you wish.)

• Courtesy AMC
• "Now am I crazy, or did Hannah keep her clothes on for an entire episode?"

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You know those times when you see news stories about teenagers doing terrible, stupid things and you feel awful about the future of this country? Leonard Cooper on the Jeopardy! Teen Tournament is the exact opposite of those stories. We're going to be just fine.

Let's talk about my brain for a minute. You know... how advanced it is. To help you understand the advance-iness of my brain, let's use the most fanciest, most expensive crystal goblet in the world as a metaphor. Would you fill the most fanciest, most expensive goblet in the world with a daiquiri made out of motor oil, used Band-Aids, battery acid, toenail clippings, Cool Ranch Doritos, and donkey sperm? No, of course not—you'd be called a goblet murderer.

WELL, AH-HAH! I'VE LURED YOU INTO MY INSIDIOUS LOGIC TRAP! Because, just as you would not ruin the world's most precious goblet with such a foul concoction, neither would you fill the world's most precious brain with confusing television shows!

After decades of producing mindless gibberish—shows such as The Nanny, Mad About You, Home Improvement, The Bachelor, Grey's Anatomy, and any number of CSI, NCIS, and Law & Order spin-offs leap to mind—TV is now flipping the script and producing shows designed to make you "think." Unfortunately, after years of turning our brains to mush, we've actually lost the capability of cognitive thought! So what the networks want us to say is this: "By the shimmering sword of Perseus! This refreshingly edifying episode of Fringe is the mental equivalent of a soapy handjob from Helen of Troy (whose face and soapy handjobs launched a thousand ships)." However—thanks to our now mushy brainpans—what we're really saying is this: "Durrrrrr... me not understand. Why am lady in show wear pants? (Drrroooool)."

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Community finally returns with new episodes tonight, but without series creator Dan Harmon on board, Mike Hale at the New York Times says it's a shadow of its former self. You should read the whole review, but here's the nut:

The show has been dumbed down, its humor broadened past recognition, and the two episodes provided for review — Thursday’s season premiere, “History 101,” and the Feb. 21 entry, “Conventions of Space and Time” — have fewer laughs between them than a single good scene from the old “Community.”

It sounds like everyone's worst Community nightmare has finally come true. But in cheerier Community news, the writing team did an Ask Me Anything on Reddit last night, and it had all sorts of neat little tidbits, including more slagging on Chevy Chase and this genius idea from a deleted scene:

Abed and Troy had an inflatable couch filled with helium in their apartment — you know, so it could float back up to the ceiling when not in use — and the bit got cut. (They lost the ottoman, but then it flew back in the window at the end of the scene.)

It's a shame that our planet's helium supply is rapidly depleting, because that couch idea is a winner.

It shouldn't be much of a surprise to regular readers of Slog, really, that I'm enjoying the hell out of Netflix's House of Cards. It's a political show about the ugly business of Washington DC, starring (and, in a weird, Shakespearean way, hosted by) a duplicitous snake, a politician's politician. What's more, the first two episodes are directed by David Fincher, and the rest of the series takes its cool design sense from Fincher's toolbox. So you have an unsentimental story about politics at its absolute worst, with a great visual sense, strong female characters, and a very interesting power dynamic between the protagonist and his wife. I couldn't look away if I tried.

I don't think I'd be able to critique House of Cards because I'm such a fan of it. Sure, the politics is a little dumbed down—that's fiction at work—and the dialogue can be a little on-the-nose. But the reporters and politicians in House of Cards are all fascinating characters, and the series, whose first season has just been released in one huge lump, is such a great exercise in plot. I haven't seen the British TV series or read the novels that House of Cards is adapted from, but I can still tell that this is a brilliant adaptation; it feels wholly American. I can't imagine what the British version is like, because it's so inextricably tied to the American political system.

My favorite thing about House of Cards is that it feels like the anti-West Wing. Don't get me wrong—I loved the West Wing* for its optimism and love of wonky policy chatter. But Kevin Spacey's Francis Underwood feels like the flip side of President Jed Bartlet, and it the reality of Washington D.C. falls almost exactly between the smarmy Machiavellian plots of House of Cards and the shining hope of the West Wing. In Wing, laws are passed because they're for the greater good. In Cards, they're passed to advance a personal agenda. There's a little bit of truth to both, and if you blend the two shows together, the lights and darks combine to form what could be considered a realistic portrait.

* Well, to be clear: I love the first three seasons and the final season of the West Wing. Everything else is barely watchable television.

Obviously, The Adventures of Pete & Pete was the best Nickelodeon TV show EVER obviously. And in this Funny or Die vid, some of the cast get back together for a 20th anniversary reunion show—which almost goes terribly, TERRIBLY WRONG. Okay, so it does go terribly wrong. Nice ponytail and bloody tattoo, Little Pete!

Please make this a regular show!!

Here is your Jack Donaghy Insult Generator. And here is an open thread for pre-emptive mourning: