After the final scene of last week’s episode revealed what everyone already knew, that the Nomads were behind the home invasions and Clay was the one pulling their strings, the opening of “Toad’s Wild Ride” filled in some new information: the specifics of Clay’s deal with his new lackeys. When Clay tells them to get out of town for a while, Frankie Diamonds (who’s played by Chuck Zito, the former president of the New York chapter of the Hells Angels) responds, “What about our deal? We get you back at the head of the table and we get a piece of your end.”

As Unser put it, “Who has something to gain by making the club weak; turning the town and the sheriffs against them? Suddenly the pretty guy they gave the gavel too, he ain’t looking all that smart.” But we’ve always known it was Clay, and we’ve always known Clay’s only goal since losing the presidency was getting it back. So I suppose that stuff’s not really new either. Here’s what is: Clay’s finally dropped the whole “lion in winter” act.

Clay’s been slowly regaining strength (both literal and figurative) for some time, but he’s continued playing the weak old man. Last week, his doctor told him things were looking up health-wise and he no longer needed the oxygen tank. Nonetheless, Clay put it back on as soon as he left the office and lied to Juice about his uplifting prognosis. Now, he’s ceased putting on airs (pun intended), or at least modified his bullshit. He no longer argues with the people who hate him, he simply agrees that they have every right to. He tells Tara she’s “supposed to hate [him], like [she] does,” and Jax that “I know you think I’m the devil, son, and you’ve got every right to assume that I’d be the one setting fire to your table.” Although he follows up the latter by proclaiming his innocence, hence modified bullshit.

But let’s pump the breaks on Clay for a moment, with six episodes left there will be plenty of time to talk about his misdeeds. Instead, let’s talk about Juice. Last season, Juice was suicidal. Roosevelt blackmailed (hey, another pun) him into snitching and he was forced to kill his “innocent” brother Miles as a result (I put innocent in quotes because let’s face it, these guys are a bunch of gun and drug-running thugs, affable though they may be). Chibs noticed something was up with “Juicey boy” and tipped off Clay, who granted him the “Men of Mayhem” patch partly because of the adept way he’d handled the Russians and Mayans, but also as a way to lift his spirits.

Juice was a broken man. That patch, and the honor and respect it represented, as well as Clay’s words when he gave it to him (“I love you, son”) were exactly what Juice needed at that moment. Clay became the badass, white biker father he’d never had, and ever since, he’s been loyal to Clay to a fault. Now, Clay’s pulled his most devoted apostle into the whirlpool of his deceit, and that loyalty could land Juice on the wrong end of a gun.

Ever since we found out the tragic circumstances of JT’s death, there’s been no question Clay will lie, cheat, steal, and even kill to save his own skin. We saw that this week, when he set up the plan to eliminate two of the Nomads (including GoGo, whose DNA will implicate  him in the home invasions). In one fell swoop, he attempted to distance himself from his minions and regain some of Unser’s trust (although I don’t think old Wayne will believe it for a second). Based on the preview for next week’s episode, Juice is in for a double whammy. He’ll come clean to Clay about the blackmail and killing Miles, and Roosevelt is going to reveal to Jax that he ratted in return for Clay, who’s responsible for the death of the sheriff’s wife. It’s obviously well within Clay’s playbook to set up this mess as a distraction from his own misdeeds. The preview ends with a Son on his knees with a gun to his head. Here’s hoping it’s Frankie and not Juice, (WARNING UPCOMING SEMI-SPOILER FOR “THE SHIELD,” ANOTHER FX SHOW KURT SUTTER WORKED ON) who’s always been to SAMCRO as Lem was to the Strike Team (END SPOILERS).

One last thing on the Jax/Clay situation: At least one of the guys involved in the drive-by was black, which complicates things a bit. It could mean Pope is somehow involved in the Clay/Nomad deal. Alternatively, it was mentioned that Warren, the con man played by Joel McHale, runs with a crew. So it could’ve been his guys getting revenge. After all, it seems silly to get a name like McHale to play a one (and one-tenth) and done character. If he’s just going to disappear now, his familiar face did nothing but detract from the suspension of my disbelief, which is a point in favor of this option. But the far more likely scenario is still that Clay hired a random black gang banger so he could make Pope a scapegoat. After all, Clay’s really only ever had one move when he needed to bail himself  out of trouble: blame it on the blacks. Think about it, Donna got shot, blame it on the blacks, Opie shot me, blame it on the blacks, and so on and so forth.

Now, on to the episode’s last bit of drama: Gemma falling asleep at the wheel and crashing with the Teller children in tow. Filthy Phil had a concerned look on his face as Gemma buckled the kids in. After all, she’d been smoking pot and maybe drinking just a little bit earlier and had likely been awake for more than 24 hours dealing with her car getting stolen, Unser being attacked, and the rest. The sequence ended with what appeared to be Abel’s blood dripping onto his stuffed toad, hence the title “Toad’s Wild Ride.”

The scene was foreshadowed in Jax and Gemma’s earlier conversation, in which mama bear revealed that her overbearing, possessive love of Jax stems from the early death of his older brother Thomas. Said discussion led to Jax advocating for Gemma to watch the kids for the weekend, despite Tara’s misgivings, which in turn led to the fateful crash. Is the death of Tara’s oldest child (I know, Abel’s not technically her child, but still) the final step of her transformation into Gemma? Well…

Here’s the thing, I’m still not positive Abel’s dead. Jax and Gemma’s discussion could have been a red herring. Maybe it was Gemma’s blood, or some grape juice. Maybe Abel’s alive but seriously injured. Sutter’s been known to pull that kind of thing before. Remember when we were all convinced Juice had hung himself? Because I sure do. Maybe it won’t be Tara turning into Gemma because of the death of her eldest child, but Jax turning into Nero because his son is now handicapped.

The result could be any of these things, or none of them. Here’s what we know for goddamn sure: Tara is going to tear Gemma to shred regardless. Remember when she beat the shit of Carla for almost getting Jax killed? That was one thing, she knows the kind of life her husband lives. But her children? And after she continually reiterated that she was trusting Gemma in spite of her best instincts? Gemma is in for a (overly due) beatdown. Tara’s rage could also land on Jax. After all, it was his idea to trust Gemma with the kids in the first place.

No matter what, this episode moved a whole lot of interesting plot lines forward and set the tables for a few more. I have to admit I was worried about the show falling off after a few of the season’s weaker episodes, but after this week I’m sure we’re in for the same thing Toad was. Get it? A wild ride.

Check out the preview for next week’s episode below and follow the writer on Twitter @NateKreichman.

“Who’s doing this to us?” Gemma asks at the beginning of “Small World,” referring to the home invasions that have been plaguing Charming. The same question has been on everyone’s mind, Gemma was just the one who happend to voice it. At the end of the episode, we finally got the answer to her question: Clay. He’s been pulling the Nomads’ strings and orchestrating the break-ins, although he didn’t intend for anyone, let alone Roosevelt’s wife, to die. He yells as much at his puppets during the reveal.

Now, most everyone has suspected Clay since the close-up on Greg the Peg’s prosthetic leg in the season premiere, which is why I refer to the ending as a reveal rather than a twist.  This was always an Occam’s Razor scenario. Who else had more to gain from “stirring the pot,” as Unser put it? Who else had anything to gain? Plus, the Nomads have been parroting Clay’s every word at the table and working to undermine Jax’s leadership since the day they arrived in Charming.

Likewise, Clay’s had his mind set on returning to the head of the table ever since the gavel was taken from him. Despite losing his once-substantial physical power, he was never going to just lay down. Clay’s been using his wits to return to a position of power. And now, he’s even got some of that brawn coming back to him. In “Stolen Huffy,” we saw him lifting weights. This week, he continued to wear his oxygen tank, even after his doctor says he no longer needs it, so he can continue to garner sympathy and maintain his wounded warrior image.

“Small World” confirmed Clay’s misdeeds to the viewer, and based on the promo for next week’s episode, it seems Jax will figure things out as well. With six of the season’s thirteen episodes in the books, the action’s starting to ramp up. Moving forward, that means Clay’s return to his prominent position as the show’s main antagonist, plus some conflict with Roosevelt as well as the newly introduced con man played by Joel McHale. Not to mention that the club’s amicable relationship with Damon Pope simply cannot last.

This week however, SAMCRO ended a more short-term beef—that with the prison guard who helped orchestrate Opie’s murder. While Jax and the rest of the “good guys” have always walked the line between anti-hero and straight villain, all their actions in that scene outside of killing the man himself fell squarely in the latter category. They were affable villains no doubt, but they were still villains.  I know I smiled when I heard Jax say “get a pipe,” but Tig took it a bit too far with the whole murdering the man’s innocent wife thing. Yet instead of saying as much, Jax simply smiles and declares the woman “collateral damage.” However, it makes total sense for the guys to be holding a grudge. After all, Ope was Jax’s best friend, and Tig feels guilty that his actions played such a large part in causing Opie’s death.

As such, we’re finally seeing the intense behavioral and emotional reactions I expected after that cataclysmic event. But given all the callousness and cold-blooded murder in “Small World,” the happy-go-lucky tone of last week’s episode now seems problematic continuity-wise. In my review of “Orca Shrugged,” I noted that the guys seemed to have gotten over the loss of their brother (and Tig having his daughter barbecued in front of him) remarkably fast. It almost seems like their grieving process is going in reverse. Maybe they should have gotten the anger and vengeance out of their systems before being struck by the attractiveness of a transexual prostitute. Then again, it was nice to have a laugh after all the torment we’ve been put through this season, and Walton Goggins appearance may have been the single best cameo of all-time, so I suppose I’ll call it a wash.

There were a few other developments this week, all of them significantly less interesting  Tara fails to sway Otto back to the club’s side and then lies about it to Jax, saying she never got the chance to see him. Someone, namely Unser, finally calls Gemma out on her shit. Jax and Pope negotiate a deal for the club to mule even more cartel cocaine. But the event that takes the crown for most boring subplot of the week had to be Carla’s suicide. For a while we’ve seen her sulking whenever Gemma and Nero are together, hinting that she might have been Nero’s bottom bitch at one point. Now out of the blue she forced the two into bed together and killed herself. It wasn’t exactly scintillating television.

The scene was poorly handled, seeming to miss a few big points out of Storytelling 101. First of all, why reveal her backstory in the moments just before and after her death? If the audience hasn’t come to know, understand, and relate to the character before tragically ending her life, the event has no impact outside of shock value. The show killed off the character and then explained why we should care, instead of the other way around. It was truly a strange choice as “Sons of Anarchy” tends to do well with both serial and one-off story arcs. The only possible motivation I can see for the move is wringing a tad bit of shock value out of a character the writers knew was going nowhere, perhaps as an excuse to get Nero and Gemma back together (which everyone and their mother knows is coming).

Nonetheless, “Small World” had several strong sequences and was enjoyable in spite of its weak ones. And now that we know Jax and Clay are going to clash in the near future, I remain both hopeful and excited for the future of “Sons of Anarchy.”

Check out the preview for next week’s episode below and follow the writer on Twitter @NateKreichman.

Joel McHale, Ryan Seacrest and Kate Micucci are taking 100 all-new 2013 Ford Fusion to the awesome places all over the country and filming real people having amazing experiences. You can check this out by Visiting RandomActsofFusion where you can enter for a chance to win amazing prizes like trips to Ryan and Joel’s hometowns or 5-star vacation do-overs. Or sign up to see the all-new Fusion in your hometown. It has a completely new look that we think will be a hit.

Bullz-Eye: So are you psyched that “The Killing” is finally back?

Eric Ladin: I am. It’s about time! I think everybody is.

BE: Of course, you realize that a lot of people are really just desperate at this point to find out definitively who killed Rosie Larson.

EL: I do realize that, yeah. [Laughs.] I’ve been reminded of that quite a lot over the last nine months.

BE: Were you shocked at the outcry about the lack of resolution in the season finale?

EL: I was, a little bit. I knew that there would definitely be some people that were upset, but I didn’t foresee the hatred and…just the pure venom that was spat towards our writers. [Laughs.] Yeah, I was a little shocked by that.

BE: At least there was a small but somewhat vocal group that was reminded people that we didn’t find out who killed Laura Palmer until the second season of “Twin Peaks.”

EL: That’s correct. And if you ask David Lynch, he’ll probably tell you that the biggest mistake he made was telling people who killed her at all. I think he said – this was in an interview I read – that if he was able to do it again, he’d never tell who the killer was. So, yeah, I don’t believe that there was anywhere that said that you were guaranteed to find the killer in Season 1, but by the same token, I think that AMC’s PR probably could’ve handled it a speck differently. With that said, as a TV viewer, I would not have expected to find the killer in Season 1. So I guess there’s that.

BE: I don’t hold a grudge, but when I talked to Veena Sud before the series premiered, she did say that everyone would be pleased by the resolution of Season 1. So maybe she had bigger plans that never came to fruition.

EL: [Laughs.] Maybe so.

BE: So how did you find your way onto “The Killing” in the first place? You’d obviously already been part of the AMC family before that, having played Betty’s brother on “Mad Men,” but…

EL: Yeah, I had. But I had a working relationship with the casting directors, and they had approached my representation with this role and said that they had me in mind for it. And then I went in and auditioned, and that was that. But, y’know, as soon as I read the script, as soon as I got it, I knew it was something that I felt very strongly about and wanted to be a part of. It just was so different from anything else I had read.

BE: Going in, how much were you told about Jamie’s plotline beyond the pilot?

EL: You mean after we were shooting, or during the audition process?

BE: During the audition process.

EL: Not much. I kind of gathered what I could from the pilot script and had some conversations with them about it when I came in to speak with them before the audition, but not very much at all. I just kind of came up with stuff, like we always do, and I guess my instincts were correct.

BE: What would say you brought to the character that hadn’t existed on the page before you got there?

EL: You know, it was important for me that… [Hesitates.] There were rewrites on the pilot, and I think that through the first draft and also just through first impressions of Jamie, you don’t see a lot of humility. You see a guy who’s extremely cutthroat. But what you don’t see, I don’t think, is that there’s a reason for everything he does, and he’s always just kind of thinking several steps ahead. There’s a very deliberate and thoughtful process that’s going on through his head, and there’s a reason he’s doing everything he’s doing, so it was important for me as I started to explore him to make sure that that came across. But like most great television, that’s not going to happen right at the beginning. You have to allow characters to kind of live and breathe a little bit before you get to know them.

BE: Initially, your predominant scenes are with Billy Campbell, who plays Darren Richmond, but as the first season went on, you ended up working a bit with Patrick Gilmore, who plays Thomas Drexler.

EL: I did!

BE: There’s a particular scene with Jamie and Drexler…

EL: Was it when we went to his house and he had the 19-year-olds swimming in the rooftop pool?

BE: It was, in fact.

EL: [Laughs.] Yeah, that’s quite an apartment. It’s a famous bachelor pad here in Vancouver that…I think they’ve used it in several other films and stuff. But it was great. Patrick’s fantastic. I love his work on the show, I think that he’s a really talented guy, and it was fun working with him. We got along great, so it was a lot of fun.

BE: Can you speak at all to what we’re going to see in Season 2, either with Jamie specifically or with the show in general?

EL: Yeah, I think that, in terms of Jamie specifically, it’s going to be a different to Jamie than you’ve ever seen. Things happen right off the bat, moments into Season 2, that will let the audience see parts of Jamie and, more importantly, parts of Jamie and Darren Richmond’s relationship that you’ve never seen before. And for Jamie, it’s about finding out how important it is that he cultivates this friendship, and the lines are blurred between work and friendship, as I navigate the season. And then overall, I think just as a theme for Season 2, it’s about the past coming back to haunt us…and every character has that weaved in their storyline. Everybody’s decisions that they’ve made, everybody’s secrets that they’ve tried to keep buried, are all coming to head in Season 2.

BE: Are you hopeful that the people who felt like they got burned by Season 1 give the show another chance?

EL: If not, they can go watch something else. [Laughs.] I’m just being honest. Am I hopeful? Well, obviously. I’ve done a lot of good work out there, as has everyone in the cast, and I think it’s a show that deserves the attention. So, yeah, I’m absolutely hopeful. If people aren’t going to turn back in because they were upset by Season 1, then, frankly, this isn’t a television show for them. They can go watch “Hawaii Five-0.” And nothing against “Hawaii Five-0,” but this just isn’t their television show. This is a show that is for somebody who wants to watch character development, wants to watch themes, wants to watch a family get torn apart and how they react to that and respond to that, how detectives don’t draw their gun every single episode, that there’s more methodical and cerebral things that go on in day-to-day life when trying to solve a murder.

BE: For those who might be tuning in with the mindset of “I’m giving you one more chance,” will they get enough in the early hours of Season 2 to feel like it’s been worth their while to give “The Killing” another go?

EL: I think so, yeah. I feel like the first two hours are a fantastic two hours. I think they answer some questions that people were unsatisfied with, maybe, in the first season, and things that have been lingering on their mind throughout the hiatus between Seasons 1 and 2. But in true fashion of our television show, they’re going to open some more doors. But, you know, I think that’s kind of the great thing about this show. It’s why people like to sit around and talk about “Lost.” “What are your theories? What are your theories?” And the same with “Twin Peaks.” We have that in our show. “I think he did it.” “Well, I don’t know, ’cause the way he did this…” And I think that breeds conversation, it breeds theories and all that, and I think that’s what makes it kind of fun.

BE: The Onion AV Club, although they may not have loved the entire first season, had a fun thing going with each review where they declared the episode’s Guilty, Guiltier, and Guiltiest characters.

EL: Yeah, and that’s kind of… For me, at the end of a standard procedural, it’s tied up and it’s finished, and there’s not really much more to talk about. Television should make you think, make you leave and go back in your head and think about the scenes you saw and why people did certain things. I mean, I think one of the things in particular with this show that the writers do so well, and one of the payoffs in Season 2 for viewers who were fans of Season 1 and have stuck with the show, all of a sudden things are going to start to unravel as we get closer, and you’re going to start to be able to call back to the things that happened in Season 1 and go, “Oh, that’s why they did that! Okay, all right, I get it now…” They do an incredible job of mapping out the entire two seasons, so, y’know, I think that’s gonna be a huge payoff for our avid fans.

BE: My favorite episode of Season 1, even though it got mixed reviews from critics, was 1.11 (“Missing”), just because you actually got to feel like you knew Sarah and Holder.

EL: Absolutely. I love that episode. A lot of people did not. A lot of people thought that it was a stall tactic. But I am right with you. I thought that it was a perfect chance to get to really know those two characters and realize a little more about their relationship. And it also shows that, even though it’s television, other things happen in our day-to-day lives. Even detectives. Things happen in their daily lives that they have to deal with in addition to the crime they’re trying to solve. So I enjoyed it.

BE: I wanted to touch on a few other things you’ve worked on over the years. First of all, how did you come to be the narrator on the History Channel series “Mudcats”?

EL: Oh! That was also an audition process. In voiceover, I’ve started to get a little more work here and there, and things have started to get on kind of a roll for me, which is awesome. I really enjoy doing voiceover. I think they probably heard my voice on something, and then I went in, and…I think we did about three runs of it in different fashions, and then they offered me the job. It was a blast. It was a blast to do. They’re really great. All the producers are fantastic, and the show… [Starts to laugh.] The show is neat. It’s not something I would do. I don’t know that I’d stick my hand in a hole for a 60-pound catfish. But it’s fun watching these guys do it.

BE: Have you seen that they’ve already spotlighted the series on “The Soup”?

EL: [Laughs.] No! What did they say?

BE: Oh, you know: Joel McHale picked out as many sexual double entendres on your show as he does for “Hillbilly Handfishing.”

EL: Nice! That’s fantastic! I’ll have to look that up on YouTube. That’s funny!

BE: On “Mad Men,” you get to play Betty Draper’s younger brother. What was it like being a part of that ensemble?

EL: It’s amazing. You know, that’s a show that, in all honesty, I think is maybe one of the best television shows ever. I love “Mad Men.” I’m a huge fan of that show. And, y’know, I got to work very closely with Jon (Hamm) and January (Jones), and that was a treat. And just working with Matt Weiner…he’s incredibly specific, and he’s so detail-oriented in everything from the writing to the sets to the costumes…which, of course, everybody hears about all the time. But it is so true, and having worked on it, you see that first hand. And it’s pretty great.

BE: Presumably you can neither confirm nor deny if we’ll be seeing William in the upcoming season.

EL: I cannot. [Laughs.] In the secretive fashion of “Mad Men” and AMC’s shows in general, I can neither confirm nor deny that.

BE: You’ve done a lot of one-off roles on shows as well, particularly in the last year or so, where you turned up on “Criminal Minds,” “Miami Medical, “Dark Blue,” and so on. Do you have a favorite of the bunch that really stands out for you?

EL: You know, they’ve all been great. I think one of the ones…I worked on “Justified” earlier this year, which is a cool show, and I had a lot of fun working on that because I’m a fan and I think they’re great over there. And…going back, I think one of my favorite shows that I’ve worked on was “Cold Case.” That was a way back, but I worked with a fantastic director named Paris Barclay, who I’ve worked with since then, and he’s fantastic. I also worked with a great actor named Arlen Escarpeta. I’ve remained close with both of them, so that was a lot of fun and something that I’ll always remember.

BE: What was the “Generation Kill” experience like?

EL: Maybe the best ever. [Laughs.] Yeah, that was seven months in Africa, shooting this really intense but great show, but it came at a perfect time in my life, and it really helped me kind of get on the career path that I’m on right now. HBO, as I’m sure you always hear, is fantastic to work with, but that show in particular just…it gave all of us an experience that I’m not sure we’ll have again. It was something special, and a lot of those guys I’m still very, very close with today.

BE: You don’t hear as much about that show as you do, say, “The Wire,” but how interactive was David Simon on the set?

EL: Extremely. Ed Burns was a little bit more interactive, only because about a month into our shooting schedule, “The Wire” picked back up. So David went back to “The Wire,” and he would come back intermittently, and Ed stayed with on set with us throughout the remainder. So he was there the whole seven months. But both are fantastic, both have such a unique way of working. I’ve said before, one of the most fantastic things about them is that they really allow you to play and find your character, and once you do, they’re so open to hearing what you have to say and allowing you to kind of test the waters with things you want to do and things you want to explore. They’re really great, and they’re really fantastic people to work for.

BE: Now, you filmed the episodes in South Africa and…where else?

EL: We started in Namibia, spent about five weeks there, and then we spent close to three months in South Africa, in a little town called Upington, which is right in the middle of South Africa. Maybe a little north of the middle, but pretty much right there in the center. And then we went to Maputo, in Mozambique, and we spent maybe two months there to finish off. So it was quite a trip. And in the meantime, we traveled, and when we had a few days off, we went to Zimbabwe and Zambia on trips, and we went scuba diving off the coast of Tofu Beach…oh, we had a ball.

BE: How do you enjoy doing the voiceover work for video games?

EL: It’s cool! It’s a lot more work than I thought it was, I’ll tell you that. With “inFAMOUS 2,” because that was motion-capture work in addition to just the voice work, it got grueling. And not to mention, Cole McGrath doesn’t do a lot of sitting around on his couch. [Laughs.] He’s jumping and climbing and flying and shooting and killing and everything in between. So, yeah, it was a neat experience and something I would gladly welcome again if the opportunity arose.

BE: Lastly, most of your work as an actor has been dramatic. Has there been a comedic role that you’ve had that you’d recommend?

EL: You know… [Starts to laugh.] I love doing comedy, but, yeah, for some reason, my career has kind of continued to steer me toward hour-long television. I’ve booked half-hour pilots that seemed to never get off the ground. Maybe that’s because I’m involved in them…? I don’t know. But, no, I can’t think of anything in particular. But I hope to be putting some more comedy under my belt soon.

BE: Well, I was mostly curious about this movie called “Bar Starz” that’s on your IMDb page…

EL: Oh. Oh, wow. Did you see how I didn’t mention that? [Laughs.]

BE: I haven’t seen the movie. I’ve only seen the poster. But having seen that, that’s why I had to ask.

EL: Well, that, uh, is a comedy. So there’s that. And, uh, yeah, there I am on the poster with my shirt off. [Laughs.] It actually was a very fun project to work on. It’s on Netflix, if you have 90 minutes to kill.

BE: We’ll be linking to that…

EL: It’s got an incredible cast, actually. One of my buddies, Jon Bernthal (“The Walking Dead”) is in it, and there’s some other great actors in the movie, but…it’s, uh, fairly silly. [Laughs.] Definitely not for everyone.

America loves an underdog; cult TV fans only love underdogs. So it’s no wonder that suddenly almost everyone seems to love “Community.”

TV’s backhanded salute to two-year colleges comes by its underdog status honestly. Seemingly cursed with underwhelming ratings despite wide acclaim, it was put on indefinite hiatus late last year after an outstanding musical episode gleefully spoofing “Glee.” Hollywood naysayers to the contrary, there was clearly plenty of life left in the highly imaginative, frequently surreal show set at Colorado’s fictional Greendale Community College, a sort of academic “Green Acres” where normal logic is permanently suspended.

The show, which airs Thursday at 8:00/7:00 central and is also viewable via Hulu and NBC.com, returned in mid-March to a surprise — extremely healthy Nielsen numbers (2.2/7 in the advertiser beloved 18-49 demo). The credit, the show’s makers agree, goes largely to the intense activist fan base.

“Community” stars comic Joel McHale (“The Soup”) and an outstanding ensemble cast with an ethnic makeup that, shockingly, actually resembles a typical suburban community college. Aside from the three cast members we spoke to, the show also features gifted former “3o Rock” writer and actor Donald Glover, Daniel Pudi, Alison Brie (aka Trudy Campbell of “Mad Men“), and some guy named Chevy Chase. Speaking of Mr. Chase, just as the original version of this piece was posted, the Bullz-Eye staffed noticed a burgeoning net-storm over what sure sounds like a pretty ugly altercation between Chase and executive producer Dan Harmon with possibly inevitable repercussions that we can only guess at.

Nevertheless, spirits were high one sunny Sunday afternoon in Anaheim just a couple of weeks back at the 2012 edition of WonderCon as a bunch of mostly fannish writers met with just a few of the very talented people behind “Community.” Yvette Nicole Brown plays the outspoken, devoutly religious, and disarmingly maternal Shirley Bennett; Gillian Jacobs is high-strung former anarchist Britta Perry; and “The Hangover” heavy and former real-life practicing M.D. Ken Jeong inhabits the role of Spanish teacher turned security guard Señor Ben Chang. Also present was affable seemingly affable creator and showrunner Dan Harmon. As befits a production that blends real intelligence with anything-for-a-laugh energy, everyone had something interesting to say to a table full of committed fans and this enthusiastic “Community” newbie.

Yvette Nicole Brown on the good ratings news.

2.2 is massive…for us that’s like the stratosphere. You could say, “Oh, we’re so fabulous.” No. The fans are fabulous. This is 100 percent flash mobs, black goatees, Subway sandwich buys. They really blanketed NBC and Twitter with their love for the show. I think it made people who had never heard of us go, “Huh. Let’s see what this is.” I’m praying they come back next week.

Creator Dan Harmon on the surprisingly good ratings for the show’s return episode.

I never thought our ratings made sense when they were as low as they were, but now I don’t think that these make sense. It was like a 50 percent increase or something. It was insane. I don’t know who got a Nielsen box or whose cat stepped on the remote. I hope that we can keep it up.

Ken Jeong on the show’s perceived near-cancellation.

The events that have transpired since December have only brought the show and the fans even closer. We have even more love out of it. In hindsight, this has all been such a blessing. You really get to feel the love right now.

Gillian Jacobs on the the role of improvisation on “Community.”

I would say that there’s a lot of goofing around. There’s not a lot of actual improv with the lines. Maybe two percent of what you see in the show is improv. It’s scripted; we try very hard to get it word perfect. It’s just a lot of us making up stupid songs. Stupid raps… We quote the show to each other and we become obsessed with certain lines and repeat them. Lines that probably nobody else cares or remembers, we repeat daily. It’s like jokes on joke on jokes on jokes and we can’t even remember the origin of them anymore.

Yvette Nicole Brown on the persistent level of strangeness on “Community.”

We’re so used to it. We get one, like the episode that we came back to — “Oh, it’s just a wedding? We’re just in the study room having a wedding?” It’s almost like we’re let down now. There are no major explosions or car chases. We kind of are getting used to “anything goes.” It makes you a more capable actor because you have to be prepared. Maybe you’re doing a musical this week. Maybe you’re doing a “Law & Order” episode. You have to be prepared to slip into any of those shoes at any given time.

Ken Jeong on the initial reveal of Ben Chang’s torrid relationship with the lovely Veronica, a mannequin leg, in “Competitive Ecology” from Season 3.

I just couldn’t stop laughing before we started shooting. I told [director Anthony Russo], “I don’t know if you guys remember but, Season 1, I actually had a hot Spanish wife. Now, Chang’s actually happier with the mannequin leg.” It’s a good thing — and I, as an actor, am happier. You go from a beautiful wife to get even more love out of a mannequin leg.

Dan Harmon on whether he thinks “Community” ever gets just a little bit too absurd.

Yeah. You could see where I went over the line, in my opinion, with the zombie episode on Halloween ["Epidemiology" from Season 2]. I still did the episode, but you could see that, at the end, I gave everyone amnesia. That was me saying that I felt like I was going too far.

The litmus test I learned from that episode, that I still use, is that I picture the events in the episode being described in a newspaper article. If the newspaper article makes national news because it’s so insane, like, “Zombie Outbreak at a Community College”… then I think that that might transcend the boundaries that make us feel comfortable in a workaday sitcom. We want those people to be our family. We want to hear them argue about credit cards and remote controls. We don’t want them to be able to say, every subsequent episode, “Why are we arguing about this? We were zombies. We were zombies!”

Gillian Jacobs on her memorable not-quite-musical anti-star performance during the climax of the Glee-ful “Regional Holiday Music.”

I just knew I needed to make a fool of myself. It was great because they had an audience of extras sitting there, so I had people to humiliate myself in front of, in addition to my cast mates who are used to me humiliating myself. It’s about as vulnerable as it gets, frankly, to be dancing around in a brown unitard singing off-key with really spastic movements.

Yvette Nicole Brown on the show’s introduction of Shirley’s long absent no-longer-ex-husband, Andre, played by Gen-X sitcom legend Malcolm Jamal Warner.

Before Malcolm was cast as Andre, Shirley said all these horrible things about Andre. He was the worst person ever, right? Once Malcolm was cast, it immediately rehabilitated Andre. Andre started to be the coolest, the kindest, the most suave, right? Even before you [i.e., the fans] saw the episode, just hearing he was cast, it was like “Andre’s okay with us,” which was genius of the writers. But the thing that got me about it is, once you saw the way they interacted you started to understand. “Oh, this guy isn’t perfect. He does have some selfish issues. He is a little delusional.” He’s got a stereo business in 2012! “iPods are not going [away], what are you doing?!”

Dan Harmon on mining comedy from the edges of acceptable discourse.

You have to understand that, in a writer’s room, you can say anything you want. You have to. We were talking about, “Is there anything you can’t do?” And I said, “From the hip, you can’t do Columbine — that doesn’t work in a sitcom.” Then, we started talking about, “How would you do it?” The answer was with paintball. That turned into an action movie parody [Season One's "Modern Warfare"] that made everybody happy. There are a lot of thought experiments like that, and in future episodes you’ll see our treatment of those sort of forbidden topics.

Ken Jeong on his character trajectory as Ben Chang.

This season has been my favorite Chang arc of the series. It really is. When Dan told me I would be a security guard before we started filming, he didn’t have to say anything. I was just crying laughing. I said, “I know exactly where this is going and this is really, really good.” I could see it because [for Chang] it combines the authority of Season 1 with the patheticness of Season 2. You have pathetic authority in the third season. It’s been heaven.

Gillian Jacobs on possible romantic tension between Britta and Troy (Donald Glover).

This group gets so confused. I don’t really know if any of them should be together. They’re not very mature. I don’t think that any of them, besides Shirley, have ever really been in a successful relationship — and she was divorced when we first met her. I definitely love that it’s a show were there can be tension going every which way. I’ll grab Danny’s arm in one episode and it’s like, “Abed and Britta!” In “Paintball II,” at the end of the second season, it’s like, “Annie and Abed!” or “Jeff and Britta!” or “Annie and Britta!” [Journos laugh.] It can go in any direction on our show and you don’t want to mess with the magic. The magic is the tension.

Yvette Nicole Brown on Shirley’s current storyline, where she is attempting to start a campus sandwich shop — if she and sneaky millionaire Pierce Hawthorne (Chevy Chase) can somehow displace the Subway shop currently occupying the space.

I think it’s really good that Shirley is doing something for herself. For the longest time she’s been Andre’s wife, she’s been [her three sons'] mother, she’s been the mother hen of the study group. She hasn’t really had a chance to shine in that way. Everything that’s been discovered about her has been things that she’s embarrassed about. She lost her consciousness during the zombie apocalypse and apparently slept with the worst person ever [i.e., Ben Chang]. She’s pregnant, right? She goes to this bar and all of this history of her being an alcoholic is out there and everybody’s making fun of her. Every time something comes up about her, it’s embarrassing. I kind of like where the arc is going to go, where she’s going to get to be a little bit more heroic in her own life, in her own eyes, and not be a victim and not be a villain.

Dan Harmon on the roots of “Community.”

I went to a community college, that’s where I got the idea for the pitch, but it had nothing to do with the quality of the school. Actually, it was kind of the opposite. I felt like the community college environment was the healthiest that I had been in for most of my life because it was a little more human and honest compared to the culture that we’ve evolved into where you know the people next door to you the least. You’re the most suspicious that they’re racists or pedophiles and you’re the least suspicious of people that you don’t even know, like celebrities and 13-year-old girls on the Internet.

It was Glendale Community College in California. I go there about twice a year to do Q&As, but mostly to remind them that, I promise, Greendale is not based on Glendale. “Hogan’s Heroes” couldn’t be in a properly run prison camp. Greendale has to be an underdog.

Ken Jeong on his acting process in relationship to portraying Ben Chang.

I think the worst thing to do, for me as an actor, is to over-analyze anything. This is a show; this is fiction; this is fun; this is acting. This is all I ever want to do with my life. I was a doctor before I did this and now I’m playing someone completely insane. It’s heaven. It’s the ultimate compliment when people come up to me and say, “I can’t believe you were a doctor.” For them to be shocked that I have a wife and two daughters [is flattering]. People are truly, truly incredulous.

Gillian Jacobs on bearing the brunt of to the show’s recurring, “Britta, you’re the worst” running gag/meme.

I really liked it because I felt like it gave her a really defined role in the group. I love that Britta always fights against it. You see moments where she gets sad, but a lot of the time she’s really defiant and will just push back against it really hard. She’s not defeated by it… She’s very stubborn and I really love that about her, and I love that she’s so often a hypocrite.

Yvette Nicole Brown on how much of Shirley she sees in herself.

Do you guys think I’m like Shirley? What do you think? No? I’ll say this. When I got the first script, the pilot, I saw Shirley calling someone “pumpkin” and “sweetie.” I call everybody “pumpkin” and “sweetie.” I was like, “This is written for me!” I am a Christian like she’s a Christian. The difference is that Shirley is way more judgmental than I am. I believe that Christians are supposed to love, not judge. We come from different positions there.

I think Shirley, at her core, loves people and I do love people. At this point, it’s hard to say what is me and what is her. I’m not as violent. I am not as full of rage. And I do not use a Miss Piggy voice to seduce people. That revelation was scary because she talks to her kids like that, she’s talked to Annie and Britta like that… I’m [thinking] “she’s been flirting with everybody!”

Ken Jeong on eventually perhaps playing more normal, or even out and out dramatic, roles.

My first movie role was “Knocked Up” where I played a doctor. That was actually a dramatic role within a comedy. Judd Apatow, the director, hired me on the basis of my medical background, [he] didn’t know about my comedy background. There are definitely upcoming projects I’m attached to that I’ll be doing something more dramatic or different… Honestly, [however] I’m happy to work. I’m so grateful and to work on the best sitcom on television is just such a bonus. These are all my friends. We’re family.

Note: If you enjoyed this piece, you might also want to take a look back all the way to the long ago days of 2009 when “Community” was new and our own Will Harris got up close and personal with the cast. More wonderment and hilarity can be obtained right here.

Since AMC let slip a few trailers this week to promote the new season of “Mad Men,” I figured this would be a good time to revisit the cocktail party thrown by the network during the January TCA Press Tour, where I was able to get a few minutes with a few of the cast members, but here’s the score, so you don’t get too excited: I got a couple of minutes one on one with John Slattery (Roger Sterling) and Rich Sommer (Harry Crane), got a single question with Jon Hamm, and was able to ask precisely nothing of Christina Hendricks. I did, however, stand next to her for an extended period of time, and just for the record, she’s just as gorgeous as in person as she is on TV and in photos…which, come to think of it, might have had something to do with why I never managed to ask a question. (Mostly, though, it was because I’m not into trying to out-talk other people, which was the modus operandi of just about everyone else surrounding her at the time.)

Oh, and speaking of not getting too excited…? Total-lack-of-spoiler alert: there ain’t a single lick of new footage in any of the below trailers. Thanks for nothing, Matthew Weiner. But, hey, at least they serve to remind you of how much you missed these characters.

Man oh man, March 25 seems like a lifetime away…

One of the big pieces of news to emerge about the return of “Mad Men” was that one of the episodes in the new season – not the season premiere, although it was the first episode the cast filmed upon coming back to work – was directed by Jon Hamm. While standing in a scrum during the cocktail party, I was privy to some of Hamm’s reflections on the experience.

“It was great, honestly. Part of it is that we’re all very close, and we’re all very good friends, and we’ve all worked together now for almost six years. So for me, it was very easy to just say, ‘Okay, that was great, let’s do it again, let’s try it a different way.’ Simple direction, not too complicated, and I didn’t try to overreach. I didn’t try to do too much. It wasn’t about camera moves. I didn’t try to be David Fincher. Part of it was, like, ‘Let’s see if I can do this and not run the train off the tracks.’”

Eventually, I managed to get in my one lonely question, which was to find out if, as director, he was in charge of the table read for the episode.

Hamm looked at me with equal parts good humor and incredulity. “Have you talked to Matt Weiner?” he asked, grinning. “Matt Weiner runs the table read.”

When I asked John Slattery how much of his excitement about the return of “Mad Men” was based directly on no longer having to be asked what he’d heard about when “Mad Men” was coming back, he laughed but couldn’t quantify a percentage.

“I’m just excited,” he said. “I just finished shooting last night, in fact.”

What, you mean all of Season Five?

“Yep,” he said, grinning. “And it went by in a blur, I’ll tell you that.”

When he first stepped back into the shoes of Roger Sterling, Slattery admitted that he had to find his groove. “I’m always off the first day back,” he admitted. “I mean, we were obviously gone for awhile this time, but I always feel, like, ‘How does all this work again?’ Plus, Jon Hamm was directing, so that was new. But he was great. Really, it was just good to be back. Plus, the scripts are better than they’ve ever been. I think so, anyway. And, yeah, I know that sounds like what you’re supposed to say, but we’ve all been commenting on it.”

Slattery described the “Mad Men” cast reads as amazing, but he said that even he and his cast members often find their hands tied by the secrecy surrounding the show’s scripts. “We – the cast – read these things like fans,” he said. “We can’t wait to get them, and once we do get them, we all sit around and read ‘em. If we have to, we’ll steal ‘em from whoever we can steal ‘em from – make-up, the hair department, some production head, whatever – just so we can sneak a read before we do our table read.”

No surprise here: Slattery can’t say a blessed thing about what we can expect in Season Five. Instead, I closed by asking him if, after learning that Roger was going to be writing a book, he was surprised as it became increasingly apparent that it was going to be a real snooze.

“Roger’s image of himself is certainly different from anyone else’s,” said Slattery, laughing. “But, you know, I think that’s what the whole show is about: all of these people have this image of themselves that they try to carry off, and in the end, it differs considerably from how everyone else sees them.”

Like I said, I didn’t get (or couldn’t manage) to ask Christina Hendricks a question that night. But, look, this shot was taken that night. Would you have been able to string two words together?

Rich Sommer is glad to be back at work, too. At the party, though, he was mostly just happy that AMC had finally deigned to release a few details about the return of the show.

“It’s just nice to have the news out,” he said. “They sent us a little thing a few days ago, saying, ‘This is what we’re going to be telling everyone, so you can talk about these things at the party.’ I was, like, ‘Oh, thank God…’ So now you know it’s going to be two hours on the first night back, you know Jon directed the first episode we filmed when we came back…”

But which of the plot points was Sommer most glad to be able to…

Sommer can’t resist a laugh. “Which of the plot points…?”

Sorry. Which of the talking points – God forbid Matthew Weiner should offer even the slightest bit of specifics as far as what we might see – was Sommer most glad to be able to finally discuss openly?

“Well, it has to be the return date,” said Sommer. “That’s nice because it’s the easiest to answer. I mean, I’ve had to lie straight to the face of people that I love when they asked, ‘So Jon directed the premiere?’ ‘Uh…yep.’ I have said, ‘Well, yeah, he directed the first episode,’ because it was the first episode that we shot this season. So I could say that without totally lying. I hate lying to people.”

So Sommer can’t say anything specific about the new season. Can he at least offer something general?

“For my money – and I know I’ve said this before, but I mean it – it’s the best season,” said Sommer. “I mean, I really, genuinely believe it. I wouldn’t say it otherwise. I don’t know how the hell Matt Weiner does it, but he has an amazing writing staff, and they just won’t let the other shoe drop. They just won’t. It’s great.”

Like Slattery, Sommer enjoys the experience of doing table reads with the rest of the “Mad Men” cast. Apparently, it’s just a big ol’ lovefest on that set.

“There’s giddiness at every table read,” said Sommer. “We are so fortunate to like each other. And I know a lot of shows say they do, but I go to shows and they don’t always. Some do. Some get along great. I know on ‘Modern Family’ they all love each other. But we really genuinely…there’s not a bad apple in the bunch, so it’s always very exciting to go to those table reads. And you know everyone’s gonna be there, because we don’t all work together all the time, so it’s the one time that we’re all together.”

As noted, Jom Hamm helmed the first episode filmed upon the cast’s return to work (though not, we cannot stress enough, the first episode of the season), and he likened the experience to when Slattery sat behind the camera a little while back.

“For me, one of the biggest hurdles to overcome with a director is how they communicate with actors, because they’re looking for something, and they have to find a way to kind of get it out of you, to pull it out of you,” said Sommer. “And sometimes the direction for that will be a little…surface, if that makes sense. They’re going, ‘I want you to say it like this.’ But Hamm and Slattery are both actors, so they’re talking about the emotion and the feeling of a scene, which I love. If they tell me a scene feels too closed, if it needs to be more open…I love that. I can do that. When it’s a line reading, though, it’s a little harder. When someone says, ‘I want you to say it this way,’ I don’t really know how to inform that. But as actors, they know how to talk to actors.”

“Also,” Sommer added with a grin, “they’ve both been in the business for, like, a hundred years.”

Knowing that he had to run off to chat with other journalists, there was only one more pressing – and, theoretically, easily answered – question left to ask of Sommer: has he booked another appearance on “The Soup” yet?

“Not yet,” he said. “We talk about it all the time, though. I’m good friends with Joel (McHale) and K.P. (Anderson), the producer, and they always say that whenever I want to come back, there’s a place. So with ‘Mad Men’ coming back, I can almost assure you that I’ll be on there.”

Awesome. Which reminds me: LeVar Burton’s always turning up with you guys on “The Soup.” When are you going to get him on your show?

“We’ve got to do it!” said Sommer, with legitimate enthusiasm. “I mean, that guy’s great. For the moment, though, don’t worry: he’s definitely an honorary Mad Man.”