Breaking Bad

[Surfah]

I watched the first season and couldn't handle much more. Great show though. Very real. Very gruesome. I remember when he tells the kid what kind of tub to get I thought, uh oh. Nasty.

[RobinFinderson]

I have a guess on where this show is going.

*** Minor Spoilers if you haven't seen season 2 ***





I think it is going to continue playing with some Godfather-like themes. Walt has become a formidable drug lord, in spite of his regular-Joe background. His secret life is harming his marriage, and his wife is beginning to get a whiff of the true nature of the man she is married to. I think that Walt Jr. is going to have to make a choice between his two parents, and he will choose Walt. The whole idea of the show was born out of Walt's desperation to leave behind some kind of inheritance for his handicapped son. Now that death by cancer is off the table, yet Walt has lost his family (at least his wife and newborn child), we wills see that Walt Jr. truly inherits more than his father bargained for... the boy with the handicap will break against type by becoming more wicked, more violent, and more insane than his father could have ever imagined. The father will finally see the true nature of the inheritance he has built to give to his son, and the son will accept it.

My guess for season 3.

[SteelBlue]

That was exactly my problem! When he had the dude down in the basement and then liquefied him - I just kept thinking Holy Shit! How did I get myself, er, how did he get himself into this mess!?

I've seen one episode and that was the one. Very creepy.

[MarkGrace]

Just finished season 2. Overall it was insanely brilliant (the ATM scene? The turtle scene? Too much awesomeness to list), but I'm not totally on board with the...

Spoiler for Season 2 finale:

plane crash ending. After seeing that apocalyptic bear and the flash forwards for so many episodes, to have it end with the plane crash was kind of a cop out -- especially when those foreboding body bags end up being filled with two unidentified passengers from the plane. Plus, I just didn't think it was consistent with the established universe of the show. It was big and showy and just too over-the-top for a show that has succeeded based mostly on its nuance. The rest of the episode was pretty great, but to have it end that way seemed like a cheap payoff after all the speculation that I put into wondering what might happen. The show consistently surprised me during this season, but for the first time the surprise wasn't pleasant.

One cool thing is that I just read an interview with the show's creator and he said that the titles of all the episodes featuring the bear spelled out "737 Down Over ABQ."

Anyway, lots of nods to The Godfather, Scarface, The Wire, etc. throughout the season. My buddy has the first 4 episodes of season 3 saved and I'm hoping to get caught up this week.

[RobinFinderson]

Just finished season 2. Overall it was insanely brilliant (the ATM scene? The turtle scene? Too much awesomeness to list), but I'm not totally on board with the...

Spoiler for Season 2 finale:

plane crash ending. After seeing that apocalyptic bear and the flash forwards for so many episodes, to have it end with the plane crash was kind of a cop out -- especially when those foreboding body bags end up being filled with two unidentified passengers from the plane. Plus, I just didn't think it was consistent with the established universe of the show. It was big and showy and just too over-the-top for a show that has succeeded based mostly on its nuance. The rest of the episode was pretty great, but to have it end that way seemed like a cheap payoff after all the speculation that I put into wondering what might happen. The show consistently surprised me during this season, but for the first time the surprise wasn't pleasant.

One cool thing is that I just read an interview with the show's creator and he said that the titles of all the episodes featuring the bear spelled out "737 Down Over ABQ."

Anyway, lots of nods to The Godfather, Scarface, The Wire, etc. throughout the season. My buddy has the first 4 episodes of season 3 saved and I'm hoping to get caught up this week.

In response to your spoiler tagged comments:

Spoiler for response to spoiler with no real new spoilers:

I agree, the plane crash didn't quite fit in, and dealing with such a huge event has caused the third season to get off to a very slow start. Still definitely TV worth watching, but a bit slower paced than before. There is a lot more personal character stuff in the first few episodes of S3 where Walt and Skyler deal with their marriage problems, and Jesse deals with loss and addiction. It is interesting, because we care about these characters, but I'm hoping things will pick up a bit. By the end of episode 4, it seems that all of the pieces are in place for things to get more interesting.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

BTW, before anyone partakes in something like Happy Town, check out Breaking Bad.

I DVRd all of Season 1 and 2 and walked them all in about two weeks. Season 2 was better than Season 1.

Now Season 3 has started and it's better than Season 2. Walt White is having an awesome Michael Corleone character arc.

[BigPiney]

I liked Season 1 best, I think. It was just so brutal and funny at the same time. I haven't like the whole family issues in Season 3, but this last episode has things very much going in the right direction. Has the potential to be the best.

[BigPiney]

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...,1023342.story

These guys are great.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Bad ass episode last night. Hank's a stud.

Will the producers ever get rid of Jesse? Please?

[MarkGrace]

I really need to get caught. I'm behind on this and a couple other shows.

You really don't like Jesse? I'm not sure what's happening with him right now, but I love him.

And the opportunity to get rid of him has passed. The writers had planned to do so before the strike, but over that period they decided against it.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

I really need to get caught. I'm behind on this and a couple other shows.

You really don't like Jesse? I'm not sure what's happening with him right now, but I love him.

And the opportunity to get rid of him has passed. The writers had planned to do so before the strike, but over that period they decided against it.

The Jesse story line gets pretty old in Season 3. But the writers are using him to put Walt in uncomfortable situations. Also, Hank assumes a larger and more interesting role as Season 3 rolls on and some of it has to do with Jesse.

I am happy that the writers were prepared to get rid of Jesse, it makes me hopeful that they'll kill him off. His usefulness will hopefully be finished by the end of the season.

[MarkGrace]

I like Jesse, but I do hope they get more unafraid to off key characters. One of the things that really irked me about season 2

Spoiler for season 2 spoiler:

is that they had built up this suspense with the body bags placed out in front of Walt's house. To have the season working toward that key moment, the bodies should have been integral characters, people important to the universe of the show. That they were two airline passengers we knew nothing about just really seemed like a cop out to me. The Wire would never pull punches like that.

[RobinFinderson]

I sure like the show, but it seems like the writers are kind of playing it by ear. Case in point from the show last night (which I thought was the best episode of the season):

Spoiler for Spoiler for last night's episode:

The two Mexican hit-men go to the trouble of buying bullet-proof vests, a plot point that takes up a decent chunk of the episode. Then they get killed off, and the whole point of the BPV-scene seems to have been for the chance to drop that single bullet into Hank's hands. Unless future episodes trace that bullet back to the arms dealer, and bring the whole underground gun market into the story, that will feel like some sloppy writing.

I agree with Grace's assessment about things that irk him. Also, if the show doesn't manage to make a hard-core criminal out of Walt Jr., or at least start him down that path, by the end of season 3, it will have missed a huge opportunity. I want to witness the corruption of Skyler and Walt Jr!

[MarkGrace]

Alright, so I got caught up over the last two days. This season, at least through the first 4-5 episodes, felt a bit slower than 2. Season 2 did a nice job of mixing the character moments with the show's own brand of action/suspense scenes, but it seems like through the first four episodes of this season it was all character work. Which is great, but I think the show is at its best when it strikes a balance between the two, and episodes 5-8 have taken us back to that spot.

The end of episode 7, holy shit, what do you say? That was just absolutely thrilling. In fact, the majority of the episode was simply sublime. My wife was literally jumping up and down screaming during Hank's showdown with the twins. That said, I'm going to nitpick here, and I'm taking it to the spoilers because it touches on season 2 again.

Spoiler for Spoiler alert, bitches!:

When I talked to my TV junkie buddy last night, he thought the end of the episode was some of most exciting TV he had ever seen, since, in his words, "I felt that moment could go either way." Don't get me wrong, those were fifteen of the most insane minutes I've seen in a long time, but for me it lacked that little extra bit of oomph because I didn't think for a second Hank was going to die. I still have that end-of-season-2 taste in my mouth where I felt like the writers were afraid to kill someone important, and it's carried over to this season to the point where when I see a moment like when just had like Hank, I don't think there's much chance they're going to take him out, especially since they've spent so much time on his character and the show seems to be building toward him finding out about Heisenberg/Walt (foreshadowing with the book about Escobar?).

I know I've already made a comparison to The Wire a bit earlier, but there were so many moments that felt like they could truly "go either way" in that show because the writers were so willing to eliminate even major players from the equation. Breaking Bad just lacks that for me so far, and I can't figure out why they won't go there. That said, Breaking Bad is built around such a small cast of characters that this is much more difficult to pull off than The Wire, which just had so many dang characters that if you put one down you could focus on the others.

The other thing I struggle with a bit about this show is its universe. There are shows that clearly take place closer to real life (not that they are actually reality, but made to feel more real or authentic -- I'd put The Wire in this category), and shows that take place in what is obviously a more escapist or heightened-type of reality (I'd put Dexter in this category). When we first started watching BB, my wife said it gave her more anxiety than Dexter because it felt so much more "real." In that sense, throughout the first season BB felt mostly like category one for me. However, since then, it has been in part built around these made-for-TV bad buys (Tucco, the Twins, Gustavo, Saul, etc.) to the extent that it now feels like it falls halfway between these categories. Walt, Hank, Jesse, and those in Walt's family all feel more or less like real characters, while all the characters on the other side feel a bit more Hollywood. So, I guess in a way, I sometimes get a little confused as to what the show is trying to be.

Anyway, all that said, I do get the feeling that Jesse might be going down this season. He's too loose, sloppy and erratic to keep working around this group of calculated and high-minded criminals (Gus, Walt, and to a lesser extent Saul, who has hinted to Walt recently that Jesse may need to be taken out). BB desperately needs to show some teeth by offing a main character, and because Walt no longer needs Jesse (he did at first to get in the drug game, but now he's solidly there) and has something of a father-son relationship going with him, I think he's the likely candidate.

Again, just being nitpicky. Definitely one of the 2-3 best shows on TV right now.

[woot]

I watched the entire run of Breaking Bad in the last couple weeks, and while for the most part I really enjoy it, I can't help but feel like this ground has already been 90% covered by Dexter and (especially) Weeds.

The characters are different so we get different developments emerging, but as far as the major themes of ostensibly good person turning to crime despite being friends with/working for a law enforcement organization, that's already been played out every which way, and I think in a more entertaining fashion. Granted, Weeds has really gone down hill since they left the 'burbs, and Dexter hasn't been quite as good since the first season, so maybe Breaking Bad will overtake them eventually. Still seems pretty derivative.