The first visual evidence from the second half of Breaking Bad’s fifth and final season has found its way to the interweb. And like Walter White’s impossibly pure stimulant, it’s quite blue (y’know, tonally) and will only make you yearn for more of its sweet embrace until your friends and family are all like, “Just shut the hell up about Breaking  Bad already. We get it, it’s awesome; everybody knows now.” But anyway, back to the picture. The scene takes place in the casa de Pinkman, where young master Jesse (Aaron Paul) is visibly shaken. On the couch beside him is his former meth-making partner/life-ruiner Walter White (plus what appears to be that giant sac of money he gave to Jesse in the last episode). It seems as though Walter is trying to talk Jesse down and/or convince him to do something horrible for the greater good of Walter White — an increasingly common occurrence in a relationship that, in the first half of Season 5 (which aired last summer), lost virtually all of its lighter, Laurel-and-Hardy aspects as Walt’s baser impulses ate away those last little bits of his soul. Hit the jump to check out the pic.

Despite speculation of a July return date, AMC’s spectacular Breaking Bad will not return until almost mid-August (August 11th at 9 p.m., to be exact).  The series will conclude its run with eight episodes, the back half of its fifth season, and serve as a lead-in to new drama series Low Winter Sun.  Also, AMC will be adding Talking Bad (like Talking Dead), a half-hour live after-show that will discuss and dissect the events of the Breaking Bad episode earlier that night.

AMC also announced the renewals of its unscripted programs Talking Dead, Comic Book Men and Freakshow, as well as the premiere dates for Small Town Security, Showville, The Pitch and Owner’s Manual.  Hit the jump for all of the details, plus a rundown of the cable network’s new original programming (heaps of it!) that’s currently in development, including the recently announced sci-fi series Ballistic City from director Joseph Kosinski and screenwriter Travis Beacham.

With just a handful of episodes left of the highly acclaimed AMC drama series Breaking Bad, premiering this summer, the Academy of Television hosted an evening to celebrate the show while giving a glimpse into what fans can expect as the story about everyone’s favorite meth dealer continues.  Collider was there to cover and attend the event, and we’ve compiled the highlights of what was said during the Q&A.

During the discussion, actor Bryan Cranston talked about how he didn’t quite grasp the extent of the darkness of his character’s journey when he signed on, how much he’s enjoyed the ride, that he got the “Br Ba” elemental chart tattooed on the inside of the ring finger of his right hand to commemorate the end of the series, which scene has resonated the most for him, how much the show has changed his life and career, and just how satisfying the finale will be for fans.  Show creator Vince Gilligan talked about how they decided 62 episodes was enough to tell their story, the temptation of wanting to do another season, how the show ended up on AMC, that the show was originally set in the Inland Empire, their strive for authenticity, how they do the time lapse shots, that he never looks online to see what people are saying, and whether the spin-off featuring Saul (Bob Odenkirk) might actually happen.  Check out what they had to say after the jump.

This week on The Collision, we are joined by Allison Keene and Charles Judson.  Our conversation is sparked by a Mad Men spec script from actress Erika Anderson, which brings African-American characters into Matthew Weiner‘s critically acclaimed show.  From there, our conversation expands to explore diversity in popular TV series, if showrunners should feel obligated to diversify their casts, the difficulty in writing minority characters, and much more.  As always, we finish up with our recommendations.

Click here to listen to the new episode of The Collision, click here for the previous episode (“Violence and Evil Dead“), click here to add the podcast to your RSS, and click here to find us on iTunes. To keep up to date with The Collision, you can follow us on Twitter at @MattGoldberg, @AdamChitwood, and @DrClawMD (Dave Trumbore). Hit the jump to check out the trailers for this week’s recommendations.

With Breaking Bad coming to a close this summer, AMC is apparently desperately looking for a way to keep cashing in on its success.  While many would say Mad Men is currently the best show on television, I’ve always given the edge to Breaking Bad, which is just as cinematic and full of visual metaphor, yet also has the fantastic ability to make viewers want to reach for anti-anxiety medication.

The considered spin off would star Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), and series creator Vince Gilligan would be on board to create this new Saul-centered world, which could be a half-hour comedy.  Hit the jump for more possibilities.

One of the best television shows in history will sadly come to an end this summer as Breaking Bad wraps up its final season on AMC.  The network has released a new featurette for the last batch of 8 episodes that takes fans behind-the-scenes of the show, and it’s a total tease.  The video doesn’t reveal anything at all about the final run of episodes (which is a good thing), but we do see the castmembers talking quite cryptically about what’s to come.  The fifth season was split up into two batches of eight episodes, so I assume this upcoming run plays like the final half of one season rather than an entire new season.

Though we don’t know much plot-wise about the final episodes, we do know that Bryan Cranston directs the first episode back, Looper director Rian Johnson thankfully returns to helm another installment, and creator/showrunner Vince Gilligan wrote and directs the series finale.  Hit the jump to watch the featurette.  Breaking Bad is expected to return sometime in July, so hold on to your butts, folks. 

The Writers Guild of America Awards were held tonight, and Ben Affleck‘s Argo continued its sweep through awards season by netting Best Adapted Screenplay for writer Chris Terrio.  Mark Boal won Best Original Screenplay for the film that will actually continue to resonate for years to come, Zero Dark Thirty.  Meanwhile, Malik Bendejelloul‘s won Best Documentary Screenplay for the wonderful Searching for Sugar Man.  Over on the TV side, Breaking Bad won Best Drama Series, Louie won Best Comedy Series, and Girls won Best New Series.  Hatfields & McCoys and Game Change continued their awards winning streaks by picking up Best Long Form (Original) and Long Form (Adapted), respectively.  Finally, Portlandia beat out some stiff competition (such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report) to pick up Best Comedy/Variety.

The 63rd annual American Cinema Editors Eddie awards were held last night, honoring editorial achievements from the world of film and television.  The list of nominees included familiar titles from the awards circuit, such as Argo, Life of Pi, Brave, Frankenweenie, Homeland and Breaking Bad, along with some less-talked-about documentary fare and non-scripted television series.  Hit the jump to check out a list of the winners from the 63rd annual American Cinema Editors Eddie awards.

As you’ve probably noticed, over the past 48 hours, we’ve posted a ton of toy articles.  The reason is every February in New York City, the toy industry holds its yearly convention (Toy Fair) and it’s where every toy manufacturer shows off their upcoming products.  If you’re a fan of movie related toys, Lego, or just cool stuff, Toy Fair is basically a huge preview of what you’ll be spending your money on this year.

Anyway, while walking around the show yesterday, Samantha Cheirif took a number of pictures and this batch covers Mezco Toyz Breaking Bad and NECA’s Carrie, Kick-Ass 2, Pacific Rim, Prometheus, Aliens, Rambo, The Lone Ranger, The Hobbit, Gremlins and more.  Hit the jump to check out the images.

Yesterday, Mezco Toyz invited 50 reporters to their international world headquarters for an exclusive preview of the items set to be revealed at Toy Fair next week. We’ve got a bunch of preview images that are sure to please collectors.  On display were new models from such properties as Man of Steel, Breaking Bad, Axe Cop, Thundercats, The Dark Knight and more. Hit the jump to check out the images.

The freight train that is Argo kept on trucking last night.  Though the film’s Best Picture Oscar chances were all but dashed when Ben Affleck was snubbed for Best Director (it’s incredibly rare for a movie to win Best Picture without a Best Director nomination), the film picked up the top awards at two major guilds—the Screen Actors Guild and the Producers Guild.  Now two becomes three, as the Directors Guild Awards were held last night and Argo pulled off the hat trick by landing Affleck the Best Director DGA trophy.

There is one major precedent that everyone keeps pointing towards with regards to Argo: 1995’s Apollo 13.  That film won the PGA, DGA, and SAG awards, only to find Ron Howard left out of the Best Director Oscar nominations and it ultimately lost Best Picture to Braveheart.  Is Argo in the same boat as Apollo 13 or can it pull off the win?  Furthermore, who wins Best Director at the Oscars?  Hit the jump for more, along with the full list of DGA winners that includes Looper’s Rian Johnson for his work on Breaking Bad and Girls’ Lena Dunham.

The Oscars picture is starting to emerge.  Last night, Argo won the Producers Guild Award for Best Picture, and tonight Ben Affleck‘s drama has won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.  With tonight’s win, Argo is slowly moving towards being the first film since Driving Miss Daisy to win Best Picture at the Oscars even though the director didn’t pick up a nomination.  Like Driving Miss Daisy, Argo will have managed the incredible task of directing itself.  The night’s other film actor winners included Daniel Day-Lewis, Jennifer Lawrence, Tommy Lee Jones, and Anne Hathaway.  It will be interesting to see how these will match up with the Oscar winners.  Over on the TV side, Downton Abbey broke Homeland‘s awards-streak by picking up Best Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.

Hit the jump for the full list of winners.

We knew that Breaking Bad would finish out its run this July, and now we know exactly when the fall of Walter White will resume.  Aaron Paul has tweeted “New episodes of Breaking Bad will air July 14th. Get ready to break some shit.”  Oh, we are ready to break some shit, Mr. Paul.  We’re ready to break some shit all over this bitch, yo.  AMC has denied the release date, but I’m willing to bet that Paul simply jumped the gun on true information that was supposed to be officially released.

As we previously reported, creator Vince Gilligan says the series finale will be polarizing, and that it will draw comparisons to Casablanca.  Since there are eight episodes remaining, the series finale will air on September 1st assuming there is a new episode every week and no cruel delays.  However, I will accept back-to-back new episodes even if it means pushing up the finale (as if AMC wasn’t going to draw Breaking Bad out for all its worth).

AMC’s Breaking Bad is one of the best shows we’re likely ever to see on television, and it will be a sad, sad day when the series wraps up its final season later this summer.  It seems like an impossible feat in hindsight, but there’s nary a bad episode to be found in Breaking Bad’s entire four and a half season run as creator/showrunner Vince Gilligan has magically been able to maintain the show’s ridiculously high quality for nearly five years now.  As such, Breaking Bad’s final run of episodes comes with some impossible-to-meet expectations.

As Gilligan and his crew are busy scripting the show’s concluding eight episodes, the showrunner recently spoke up about his approach to the series finale and addressed those dangerously high expectations.  Hit the jump to see what he had to say.

The nominations for the 2013 Producers Guild Awards have been announced.  The PGA’s are a fairly reliable predictor of the Academy Awards, as last year all but two eventual Best Picture nominees (The Tree of Life and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) were PGA nominees.  This year’s contenders include expected fare like Argo, Les Miserables, and Lincoln, indies such as Beasts of the Southern Wild and Moonrise Kingdom, and critical favorite Zero Dark Thirty.  The PGA’s are also fond of singling out one “popular” choice, and in this year’s case that film looks to be the excellent Skyfall

In addition to the feature films, the PGAs also announced the nominees in television.  Drama series nominees include the usual suspects like Homeland, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Game of Thrones, while the comedy category is filled out by 30 Rock, Louie, Modern Family, and for some reason The Big Bang Theory.  Notably absent is HBO’s Girls and NBC’s brilliant Parks and Recreation.  Hit the jump to check out the full list of film and television nominees.  The 24th Annual PGA Awards will be held on January 26th.