Breaking Bad

MusicForFish said:

Not this time

Thanks, watching ep1.
How far into season 1 until it gets crazy?

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it goes off the hook by episode 4 or 5 i think.

Candy Explosion episode.

Show goes into supersonic high gear in Season 3. At that point you'll probably stop going to work or eating to binge the rest of the show.

Definitely kicks it into high gear when the body melts the floor, and Walt makes his mercury fulminate crack bomb, and doesn't really stop until a fly gets into the lab.

k^M said:

Definitely kicks it into high gear when the body melts the floor, and Walt makes his mercury fulminate crack bomb, and doesn't really stop until a fly gets into the lab.

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"Fly" is the tenth episode of the third season of American television drama series Breaking Bad, and the 30th overall episode of the series. Written by Sam Catlin and Moira Walley-Beckett and directed by Rian Johnson, it aired on AMC in the United States and Canada on May 23, 2010.

Lithose said:

I honestly couldn't stand Jesse. Every fucking problem, almost universally, was Jesse's fault. The entire series may as well have been called "Cleaning up After Jesse's stupidity", with a B story of "dealing with Rocky Dennis Skylar". The entire schism though between Walt and Gus was driven by Jesse being an insufferable retard and then midway through the fight Jesse swaps sides because "Walt is mean" (Because Walt told him the fucking truth about how Gus was manipulating him). He was an insufferable cunt.

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Lithose said:

I love the Jesse character, but how lovable he is really depends where you are in the show. Right now, he's the character with, by far, the most redeemable qualities. But midway through Season 4, when he was getting played like a bitch to betray Walt, I really was hoping he would die. It was just frustrating watching Walt play ten moves ahead with Gustavo, but Jesse be so easily manipulated into being loyal to Gustavo, even though Gustavo had tried to kill him, and Walt had saved him just a couple months before. But then he totally redeemed himself by coming to his senses! And then this season he's just really grown, and become an actual decent human being, which was an immense change from the start--it's hard not to like or admire that (And he did it all, with only changing very subtle elements of the character.)

I think it really speaks to the strength of the actor that he can take the same performance and change it so subtly that he can go from hate/love/hate/love again, that is not easy to do.

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Guess the fond memories didn't linger!

DickTrickle said:

Guess the fond memories didn't linger!

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Yep, literally like a couple episodes after that he went right back to hate. The pattern just made him terrible on rewatches because you really see how he's essentially there to be a constant fuck up to drive conflict for Walt. By the time he swapped back to disliking Walt again in Season 5, I was done (I think I made that post right around the train heist). But if you saw in Season 4, I really disliked the character, but I thought he'd end on a high note...Instead he ended like this.



And, yeah, he went into the trash for me. Only so many times I can watch someone have it all, and be on easy street, and then fuck it up for himself and his mentor/friend, and then blame the mentor/friend when the man has to do drastic things to clean up from the mistakes Jesse made in a totally unforced manner. By the end of the series I was angry Walt didn't shoot the fuck.

I think you're taking the wrong lesson from the show if you think that at any point either Jesse or Walt "had it all."

Jesse is a flawed character in many ways, idk, he wasnt my favorite character from the show but his motivations and actions make sense in context. This seems like it could be pretty cool, we will see.

chaos said:

I think you're taking the wrong lesson from the show if you think that at any point either Jesse or Walt "had it all."

Jesse is a flawed character in many ways, idk, he wasnt my favorite character from the show but his motivations and actions make sense in context. This seems like it could be pretty cool, we will see.

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I don't know, I think there were a few points in the story where they were in a pretty good place before one of them went and fucked it all up. Usually Jesse, but also Walt with the whole book on the shitter thing

Jesse definitely fucked things up a lot but I feel like in the end it was at least somewhat more understandable because he was tired of Walt and was wanting to be out of things (from what I remember). He saw Walt for who he was. Earlier in the show it was easier to dislike him, for me, because he was just a fuckup without any justification except he was a dumbass junkie. I think he gets more shit than he deserves (just like Skylar, fight me!) because Walt was simply the cooler, more interesting character.

Walt also had too big an ego and ultimately wanted too much and that certainly affected their stability and safety at times. He was a smart badass though, so it makes it easier to like him, I think. Jesse didn't really have that side to him to any consistent degree.

They both saved each other at different times, too. It was this dysfunctional father-son pseudo-relationship that really drove the show and I don't think I would have found the show so interesting if it came across as completely one sided.

I haven't rewatched the show yet so I'm sure my memory is foggy on some things but that's at least how my memory recalls it.

Walt should have just shut up and partnered with Gale. Fuck Jesse. Agree that he ruined everything. Kid couldn't hack it.

Nobody understands Walter White except Vince Gilligan. When he got cancer he became a desperate loser of a man because he was angry. He thought of himself as a victim. He could have done the right thing but made the wrong decision at every turn.

During/after Ozymandias he realized it, no longer able to save his family, having failed them beyond repair, and resolved to save the last person he could. His high school student, his first victim.

None of that is badass and it's easier to think of him as cool like Scarface. Walter White is the epitome of uncool. A failure as a man and a terrible father and teacher.

I wrote a piece once about how unrealistic the ending was. In the real world someone like Walter White would not exist, the competitive criminal underworld would have either killed him or enslaved him as a chemist long before season five. Murdering Gus Fring is pure TV entertainment bullshit. If Walter managed to get to the end it would have made headlines the next day. The lack of mentioning someone like that operating under our noses seemed a waste, not hearing about it on the news and the way most people wouldn't even be shocked, cooking breakfast like it's just another day. Instead the show ended with Badfinger rock n roll in a typical fashion.

I'm glad the trailer addressed that thought from years ago. It proves Gilligan is not a bad writer and knows what's up.

Have never seen a single episode of Breaking Bad, The Wire, or The Sopranos.

chaos said:

I think you're taking the wrong lesson from the show if you think that at any point either Jesse or Walt "had it all."

Jesse is a flawed character in many ways, idk, he wasnt my favorite character from the show but his motivations and actions make sense in context. This seems like it could be pretty cool, we will see.

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I agree in terms of the expression its probably not a good fit, but I more meant it as in "got what they wanted". Both of them, in writing terms, are on "fall arcs"--it means they are chasing the lie (What they want is not what they need, its destructive but they can't see it.)

In this case though, I meant they got what they wanted and things were stable. Throughout the series, whenever Walt got what he wanted--he put his head down, and worked. His only fuck ups, except for Hank/Book, then stemmed from his need to help Jesse--overall, none of them were unforced errors. They were all some outside force which caused him tor react. Now, once he did react, his flaw came into play (Greed/Envy), and he wanted more each time he was knocked off his perch...But in general, once he was on the perch he set his eyes on, he did nothing to fuck it up, some outside problem came in that knocked him off. (Until the very end again, Hank/Book)

Jesse on the other hand? He'd just blow himself up sometimes seemingly because he was bored. He was a perennial fuck up that would cause trouble for no reason sometimes. Like the time he was making millions and just decided to sell Meth on the side by stealing it. Or the time Walt parted ways with him, and Jesse like a belligerent asshole demanded back in regardless of the consequences (Only to subsequently whine about how Walt did this to him). It just became tedious at the end watching Jesse follow the same pattern. =-/

Feanor said:

Nobody understands Walter White except Vince Gilligan. When he got cancer he became a desperate loser of a man because he was angry. He thought of himself as a victim. He could have done the right thing but made the wrong decision at every turn.

During/after Ozymandias he realized it, no longer able to save his family, having failed them beyond repair, and resolved to save the last person he could. His high school student, his first victim.

None of that is badass and it's easier to think of him as cool like Scarface. Walter White is the epitome of uncool. A failure as a man and a terrible father and teacher.

I wrote a piece once about how unrealistic the ending was. In the real world someone like Walter White would not exist, the competitive criminal underworld would have either killed him or enslaved him as a chemist long before season five. Murdering Gus Fring is pure TV entertainment bullshit. If Walter managed to get to the end it would have made headlines the next day. The lack of mentioning someone like that operating under our noses seemed a waste, not hearing about it on the news and the way most people wouldn't even be shocked, cooking breakfast like it's just another day. Instead the show ended with Badfinger rock n roll in a typical fashion.

I'm glad the trailer addressed that thought from years ago. It proves Gilligan is not a bad writer and knows what's up.

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Jesse being a "victim of Walt's" is a frustrating line of thought for me (Despite that you can tell even Gilligan WANTS it to be true). That loser belligerently forced himself into the business multiple times after he was free and clear. Everyone gives Jesse no agency, like he's a child because he's an incompetent. But he's still a man, he's still responsible for himself. Most of the terrible things in his life were not attributable to Walt save for the fact that Jesse would have been dead long before he had anything to lose if not for Walt coming into his life. Otherwise, nearly everything that people claim Walt "victimized" Jesse with, was actually Jesse's fuck up that Walt either 1.) didn't save him from 2.) Needed Jesse to deal with some of the fall out after he did save him. 3.) Retaliated against Jesse for an action Jesse began without thinking of the consequences of (Jesse going over to Gus Fring's side after causing the fissure which drove Gus and Walt apart). In every case, seeing Jesse as the victim requires us to erase his actions which began the cycle.

Jesse's GF dying and Walt didn't save her? Why was she ODing in the first place? Because Jesse's inability to control himself. Having to shoot Gale? Why was the altercation with Gus needed in the first place? Because Jesse's inability to control himself. Jesse's own terrible character often gets ignored because he lacks the one thing Walt has---competence. So people write off his agency completely and essentially categorize him as a child (Because, lets face it, that's the way its written--a father son relationship).

Walt manipulated Jesse over and over to keep him in the subservient "mentee" position. Walt drew both of them further and further down this rabbit hole of degeneracy and greed, in the end not even because of any real need just because of his own hubris. The repeated theme of the show is the increasing costs they continue to pay for their actions. Jesse wasnt in a great place to begin with, and each action took its toll on him. He acted out at times, acted rashly, I dont think that's unrealistic or even uncalled for. Walt, on the other hand, is kind of a sociopath. He completely blew his life up because he was too proud to ask for help, too entitled to accept his life as is. He ruined the lives of countless people, including his own children. And I'd argue theres a reading of that ending that he never really grew past that, he died mired in that shit even if he did one redeeming thing in saving Jesse. It isnt as if this could have been a story about a couple of successful upstarts if Jesse had just sucked it up and worked with the white supremacists and Walt, or if Jesse had just kept his head down in Gus' lab and done his 8 hours a day. The things they were doing were horrible, they were horrible people.

Feanor said:

I wrote a piece once about how unrealistic the ending was. In the real world someone like Walter White would not exist, the competitive criminal underworld would have either killed him or enslaved him as a chemist long before season five. Murdering Gus Fring is pure TV entertainment bullshit. If Walter managed to get to the end it would have made headlines the next day.

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Then you read into that incompletely. As far as his defining failures went, Walt was a frustrated genius entrepreneur FIRST, loong before he was a failed husband, or a failed father and ultimately a failed teacher.

By the time we meet Walt he was already on the downward trajectory of a life that could've been that of a billionaire entrepreneur as co-founder of Gray Matter Technologies, which had used his research in Cal Tech to become a giant multinational. His former partner Elliott Schwartz and his ex-girlfriend, both of whom became billionaires on the back of Walt's work, admitted that Walt was the relentless, passionate force behind their initial success.

So a more apt comparison of Walt vs. Gus would've been what if Elon Musk or Bill Gates had made a wrong turn early in their lives and became drug dealers during their mid-life crises and took on El Chapo instead.

What makes this show so good is that regardless of how you feel about certain characters their actions feel genuinely plausible based on the circumstances they find themselves in. A lot of shocking things happen in Breaking Bad but none of them feel out of place or hamfisted solely to make the audience gasp. The writers do a good job of portraying the human condition in various ways.

Also, Mike is one of the best characters ever created in a TV show.