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Breaking Bad – 413 – Face Off

9 Oct

The Whites’ backyard is an honest space for Walt.  It’s a place where the man doesn’t lie and doesn’t pretend to be anything he’s not.  He’s asserted his petty manhood in a drinking contest with with own 15 year old son, he’s freaked out and burned drug money, he’s even seen the sky come crashing down around him.  Last week saw Walt back in his old fortress of solitude near the pool, spinning his .38 snub, trying to decide what to do.  The gun landed on him on two consecutive spins but a third spin had a different result entirely.  At the time, I assumed it was simply pointing away from Walt, telling him to go on the offensive.  But the reality suggests a course of action far, far more grim: Walt poisoned Brock.

This show has always delighted in taking Walt to dark places.  In fact, it is Vince Gilligan’s stated goal to take these initially sympathetic characters and make their actions so horrifying that we question ourselves for still cheering them on.  Does it work?  We saw Walt’s body-count increase by five tonight.  Five.  Plus, he put his neighbor in danger when he asked her to go into his house and check to see if the stove was still on.  Further, he endangered the lives of residents and employees at an old folks’ home.  And I’m with him – literally unable to silence my excitement has he does what it takes in order to survive.  But the only other moment of the episode I was unable to keep my reaction from verbally bubbling to the surface was that poolside revelation of the Lilly of the Valley.  Bold, bold move on the writers’ parts.

What the hell else even happened?  Actually, all this excitement surrounding the hour’s conclusion has me skipping over the absolute killer opening acts.  The dramatic device of having a character communicate exclusively through ringing a bell is sheer genius.  No other show on television would have the patience to let that old man ratchet up the tension with his one-letter-at-a-time messages.  The Hector scenes drag on to some unknown conclusion that insists on staying out of reach.  The fact that this bell-ringing dovetails with Walt’s master plan as the method of detonation for the bomb just seals this whole experience up as a masterful piece suspenseful, thematically unified piece of television.

There’s also the moment for which the episode gets its name: Face Off.  It is fitting that Walt has to be the one to kill Gus, just as it is necessary that Fring’s final actions are to calmly walk out of a room and adjust his tie.  In general, our last moments with ABQ’s late meth king-pin are just as they ought to be – calculated and measured, the final minutes with a menacing mother fucker who always keeps his cool.  I am sad to see the character (and the ever capable Giancarlo Esposito) leave the show, but hot shit, that’s the way to go.

So where does this leave us for next year?  The laundry meth lab goes up in smoke and the cartel and Fring’s organization are both quashed.  Last week I talked about the battle for our characters’ souls, and while Walt has a self-declared victory tonight, it would appear that he’s only getting himself deeper and deeper in trouble.  What happens when the DEA launches a full-scale investigation of Fring?  They basically have to now, right?  And what happens if Jesse ever finds out that Walt poisoned Brock?  Plus, Mike is still out there – if he’s still stuck in Mexico waiting for Gus to send for him, he’s going to be pissed.  AND TED.  Still no resolution there.  I assume he’s dead, but even if that’s the case, the dude clearly had family.  And to top it all off, Walt still needs money.  Without Fring’s economic structure in place, how will he and Jesse move their meth?  The carwash is doing pretty well, actually – do they even need to keeping bringing in sky-high stacks, yo?

There’s a million different directions the show could go and they all hinge on deeply personal decisions by the characters.  This thrills the ever-loving shit out of me.  Breaking Bad has been my favorite show on TV since the first episode of its second season.  It was a bold claim seven episodes into the series, but I can say 30-something episodes later that I must have been channeling some clairvoyant djinn when I made that claim.  This year got off to a slow start, but it was always solid.  This show makes the best possible argument for a slow-burn.

I’ve had a lot of fun writing about Breaking Bad this season.  This is the first time I’ve tackled such an endeavor, and indeed it served as the backbone of my fledgeling blog.  I’m sad to see it go on hiatus again, but I’m inspired by the momentum it achieved.  I watch a lot of TV, some for this blog, some out of habit, and some as a professional curiosity.  If you want to write television shows, you gotta know what’s on TV.  Result?  I watch a lot of shitty TV.  So much, in fact, that I find myself saying outrageous things like “did you guys see New Girl?  It’s actually pretty good” or “I’ll watch a few more episodes of Pan Am.“  Breaking Bad is in a class all its own – objectively genius and uniquely compelling.  Oh that I could ever emulate this level of quality.  Thanks so much for reading, but also thank you for watching this show.  Thank you for harassing your friends, family and co-workers about watching this show.  It deserves a bigger audience.

I’ll be watching zombie show, but I’m torn about doing write-ups like this.  If anyone wants that, let me know.  I live to serve.  Otherwise, I’m playing my Terra Nova game on Monday nights, and I’m always game for a new series to write about.  Thanks again.

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Breaking Bad – 412 – End Times

2 Oct

When Saul Goodman packs up the operation and decides it’s time to disappear, circumstances have become dire indeed.

As Walt packs his family up in DEA vehicles to be hauled off to Hank and Marie’s for protection, director Vince Gilligan employs a trick he’s used many times before: he frames the characters using windows.  From the driver side of the SUV, we watch Walt strap baby Holly into her car seat.  He then shuffles out to say goodbye to his wife, the two separated by the window frame.  In this past, this sort of thing has been used to suggest distance between characters – sometimes Walt and Skyler, sometimes Walt and Fring.  But tonight it showed these two separate characters in a struggle together.  What’s more, Walt finally acknowledges Skyler’s value in all of this.  She asks “how am I going to convince Marie?” and by this point, Walt knows “you’ll think of something.”  They’re calculating, they’re working.  The crying baby in the back does the emoting for the entire family.  Then Skyler gets in and the vehicle pulls away – taking Walt’s family from him.  Really, just an incredible opening.

With a direct threat on his life, Hank finally convinces Gomez to check out the laundry facility.  It was really fun to watch Gomie talk is way into facility, even if they ultimately didn’t find anything.  This scene also provides another of tonight’s great visual flourishes: Tyrus and Jesse quietly waiting for the DEA sweep to conclude.  Against the stark red background of the meth-lab floor, Jesse’s yellow jumpsuit and Tyrus’ black leather jacket pop.  It recalls some of the bolder color-play from earlier in the series and lends both of these characters a strong sense of identity.

There is, of course, more color-play with the endless purple fog that drifts through Marie’s house, but this is starting to feel like a joke at the character’s expense.  Of course Marie has every possible purple kitchen appliance, why would she settle for anything less?  When it comes to any issue of substance, Marie’s got to be the most impotent character on this show – which she proves again tonight when her burning desire to get Walt into her house hits a brick wall immediately.  The purple is something she can control.  It’s not unlike stealing.  Gah!  I think there’s such an interesting character there, but she so frequently has to take a backseat to, you know, real problems.

Real problems like poisoned children or principal characters pointing guns at eachother’s heads or homemade car bombs.  All three of these issues power the Great Breaking Bad Tension Machine tonight.  The GBBTM is usually engaged once, maybe twice an episode, and with the exception of the last few shows, has been deployed sparingly this season.  Tension on TV is a strange thing.  There are certain things you simply know that a TV show is not going to do.  Even shows known for there unpredictability still have unbreakable rules.  For example, no matter what else LOST was going to do, they were never going to kill Hurley.  Just never.  As long as there are more Breaking Bads, Jesse is not going to shoot Walt in the face.  It’s still fascinating to see how the characters are going to get out of it, but the dramatic irony does suck a little bit of the fun out of a moment like that.

But let’s take those other moments.  Brock is in the hospital dying of ricin poisoning.  Jesse has lost so many of his loved ones to either death or estrangement, and usually as a direct result of either his or Walt’s actions.  BB’s got the balls to kill off a kid, and the show hasn’t flinched in the face of making Jesse suffer before.  As a betting man, I say Brock lives.  But that’s one of the things I love about this show: I really can’t say what will happen there.  The momentum of neither the characters nor the series determines the outcome, so anything is possible.  Jesse’s distress at the hospital in heartwrenching.  His first realization that he can’t go back to see Brock, but assures his mother that it’s okay and he’ll be right outside is truly moving and plays deftly against the Jesse Pinkman we see in the next scene threatening his partner’s life.

But once Walt and Jesse kiss and make up, they go into men-on-a-mission mode.  I love it when these characters have a clear goal, partially because it allows me to use Jesse’s “Go science!” from Season 2′s Three Days Out.  Walt mixes up a homemade remote detonated bomb in his kitchen using – what – instant ice cream?  He uses spit and determination as far as I’m concerned.  The attempt on Fring’s life was an impressive entry from the GBBTM.  I thought for sure that Gus’ time was up.  Killing the Pollo Hermano would leave so many unresolved problems for Walt and Jesse but allow the show a little breathing room.  But then, Breaking Bad always thrives in tight corridors.

There was an interesting little bit of religious imagery in this one.  Jesse’s girlfriend (no, I don’t remember her name) where’s a cross around her neck.  Gus calls Jesse into the hospital’s church for their meeting.  And then there’s that title.  Saul Goodman knows it’s the end of times and he responds accordingly.  Both Walt and Jesse have gone so far down their respective troubled roads, that survival seems like a struggle but salvation in untenable.  So while we can be reasonably well assured our main characters will live until the series ends, the real gamble is regarding their essential goodness.  If I were a less cynical man, I’d used the word “souls” here.

One to go, and then we’ll be done until next summer.  If you’ve enjoyed reading these, I’m moving on to Terra Nova (and playing a game with it) and I suspect that I’ll cover NBC’s Awake when it starts mid-season.  Also possibly Game of Thrones when it returns in April.

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Breaking Bad – 411 – Crawl Space

25 Sep

Now that was a Breaking Bad.

We’ve been establishing new stakes for most of the season and now they’re all starting to pay off.  Skyler’s been on this road for so long now that it’s almost hard to believe that this is the first time she’s gone from just dealing with the dirty money to out-right criminal behavior.  Sending muscled goons to Beneke’s house to make him see reason would have been bad enough, but then… well, what happened there?  Ted flips out and makes a dash for the door.  But he trips and launches himself headfirst into the furniture.  Is he dead?  At this point, I sorta hope so.  If he lives and reports what happened to the authorities, the whole White operation becomes vulnerable.

And the Whites can’t use the “disappear” option, because Skyler gave over half a million dollars to Ted so he could pay off his IRS debt and she could avoid the extra scrutiny.  Looking back on the season (and the series as a whole, come to think of it), it is incredible how meticulously these pieces have fallen into place.  One of the strongest traits of Breaking Bad has always been the writers’ insistence on keeping the actions of the characters reasonable and reactionary.  People make mistakes, but no one acts for the sole purpose of plot complication – and that’s rare as shit for a television series.  All of these choices have been based in real, honest character work.  And this is where Walt’s honest character has led us.

I can’t shake the image of Walt lying on his back in the crawl space, laughing maniacally, as he realizes that he has no further options.  None of his desperate, hail-mary plans have helped in the slightest.  First he tries to keep Hank from discovering the meth lab at the laundry facility, risking his own life and safety.  But it doesn’t matter: Jesse, Fring, everyone knew what he did, and Jesse for one, was not in a forgiving kind of mood.  Then Walt thinks he can tip-off Hank and disappear before his family is put in danger, but (as always seems to be the case) Walt is just not good enough to make the moving pieces work in his favor.  What kind of options does he have right now?  Seek police protection?  Or have his crimes become too much now, even for a grateful DEA?  The teasers for next week suggest suicide.  But I doubt that would be as effective as Walt seems to believe.  Skyler – and her understanding of the money – is too big a loose end to leave unresolved, and the rest of White family remains in danger, both from Fring’s organization and the law.

It’s great to spend some real time working out just how fucked the Whites are, but our supporting characters are going through some shit too.  Hank finds himself bed-ridden (again) and realizes that he’s got to stop dragging everyone else down with him in his hunt for Fring.  That’s right, Hank’s learning the lesson Ahab never could.  It’s a positive change for the character, and while we don’t get to see how he is responding to a fresh threat on his life, I can only assume it adds to his sense of purpose.  You don’t get death threats for not getting close to the bad guys.

A more remarkable change for the better?  Jesse Pinkman.  He’s hanging out with that girlfriend of his and her son.  Even the video games that he’s playing project a more peaceful existence.  Weeks ago, he was playing Rage (which, doesn’t release until October 4th… so BB takes place in the not-at-all-distant-future?) but now, he’s playing some cheerful two-player Sonic the Hedgehog game.  Jesse has found value in his life again because Fring’s organization sees the value in him.  There’s a harsh scene wherein Jesse straight-up rejects Mr. White.  It feels hard.  It feels wrong.  But Jesse is making the only right move.  Walt has hung him out to dry so many times and demanded so much of Jesse while almost never paying him back.  Then we learn that the only reason Walt isn’t immediately killed by Fring and associates is because Jesse asked that they keep him alive.  Even when Jesse is standing up and proudly declaring “fuck you, Mr. White,” he still respects the man and values his safety.  That’s the heart I feared was missing at the beginning of the season.

We are heading into the home stretch, with only two more episodes this season.  I’m glad that some new TV is starting up – including Boardwalk Empire and Pan Am, both of which I’ll get to catch tonight – but I know nothing will approach the level of intelligence and intensity of Breaking Bad.

I’m going to take up writing about Terra Nova, which premieres tomorrow night on FOX and has dinosaurs.  Dinosaurs.  Do you need an additional reason to watch?  I think I might.  I’ll be posting a little game we can play while slogging through a new mythology-heavy sci-fi series.  So if you just wandered onto my BB write-ups, be sure to check back Monday morning to learn more.

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Breaking Bad – 410 – Salud

19 Sep

I watched the 63rd Annual Emmy Awards last night.  The whole show.  I even caught some of the red carpet nonsense before.  As is typical for award shows, it was awkward and self-indulgent and long and sorta boring and deserving artists were snubbed left and right (unless they worked on Modern Family – holy shit).

For the first time since the show started, Breaking Bad wasn’t in the running for anything.  This isn’t because she show took a severe dip in quality or anything, there simply weren’t any new episodes during the last TV season.  This means that benevolent acting god Bryan Cranston wasn’t there to cock-block the award for best Lead Actor in a Drama as he had for the last three years.  So this was Jon Hamm’s first real shot at the Emmy for playing Don Draper.  I’m sure I’ll get shit for this, but I’ve never seen Friday Night Lights.  From what I’ve heard, it’s a wonderful little show that deserves to have some attention.  So, good on Kyle Chandler, I guess.

I imagine the rest of the actors going home after the show, a little disappointed, but hell, they’re still successful actors making quality television shows.  Steve Buscemi, Jon Hamm, Michael C. Hall and Timothy Olyphant all have shows that will come back this year and give them another chance to win this award next year, with safety net of playing these same well-regarded characters.  I imagine they settled down in front of the TV and reassured themselves that they’ll make a go for it next year.  And then they set their DVR to play last night’s Breaking Bad and all of those hopes blown away by Walter White’s first honest break down.

The wheels came off the wagon tonight as Walt was forced to deal with losing the one thing he never thought he’d have to lose: Jesse.  Their fist fight last week had lasting physical and emotional consequences.  While popping painkillers and sleeping the day away is good for the body, it appears to be taking a toll on the man inside the man.  And Walt’s out of support network at this point – until Walter Jr. shows up at his condo and forces himself into his dad’s life.  This relationship is too seldom explored in any depth.  Usually, these two are simply common victims of Skyler’s domestic tyrrany.  But Walt fears that they will have something else in common: a view of their fathers that doesn’t match the reality, and more importantly, doesn’t measure up to the father’s pride.

An interesting shift occurred in Walt’s character throughout the course of season 2.  He went from breaking bad to save his family, to breaking bad to feel good about himself.  The brilliant chemist that had been overlooked for so long was finally getting some respect.  And even if the respect was coming from corners of the world that were alien to a suburban high school teacher, Walt was ready to soak it up.  We’ve seen cracks is Walt’s facade as he hints and teases his secret.  More than having a high opinion of himself, Walt wants his family to have the same the same opinion.  He’s not the victim of a gambling addiction, his life is not in danger – as Walt asserted a few weeks ago – he is the danger.  And that’s the way he likes.  Or, at least, that’s the way he would like it.

While Walt takes an extended time-out to get his mind in order, the rest of his organization has kicked it into overdrive.  Jesse, Fring and Mike fly to Mexico to teach the Heisenberg recipe and generally make peace with the cartel.  Things looked pretty grim for Jesse.  Right up to the point that Mike the Cleaner clues us all in to a greater plot: “Either all of us are leaving or none of us are.”  Again, Fring takes a Walter White tactic – poisoning his enemies – and actually has the tenacity to pull it off.  Gustavo raises his shooter of deadly tequila and simply toasts “Salud.”  What makes Fring so much more effective is his willingness to actually do whatever it takes to survive, even if it means poisoning himself.

Continuing the I’ll-show-you-who-the-real-badass-is theme, Skyler takes Beneke’s tax problems into her own hands and straight-up gives him the money to pay off the IRS.  Still tap-dancing around the issue, Skyler visits Ted and asks why he’s not just applying his new cash windfall to his tax penalties.  Naturally, Ted doesn’t see why this is any of Skyler’s business, and she lays it all out on the table: Skyler provided that cash because she cannot afford to be audited.  The web of White Family dirty-money is growing.  I like Skyler and it’s great to have her at the forefront of her own criminal storyline.

I’m interested to see if the increased profiles of the Whites and Gustavo Fring will trip some sensors over at the DEA.  I’ve been saying since the beginning of the season that the next thread of premise to unravel has to be Hank discovering Walt’s secret.  That’s where my money is.

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Breaking Bad 406 & 407 – Problem Dog and Hermanos

5 Sep

Goodness, it’s been a little while since I got around to writing about Breaking Bad.  As my good friend Pete points out, no one comments on the BB write-ups, so perhaps it doesn’t matter.  Still, I have known from the outset that I write about Breaking Bad for me, not for anyone else.  It helps me unpack what I’m seeing.  As a writer, I am fascinated with what the show accomplishes, and while some of the grander strokes of masterful writing on the series are clear and obviously brilliant, the nitty-gritty of what makes the show incredible so much more elusive.  And that’s what I use this space for.  Read on with the knowledge that, at least as far as these BB write-ups are concerned, you’re in my space.

I was between cable boxes for Problem Dog, so I had to hit a double-dose of BB yesterday.  I’m glad I did, as both episodes serve as acting showcases for some of the show’s non-Bryan Cranston cast.  In a hauntingly honest scene, Aaron Paul unloads on his former NA group.  It’s been a long road for Jesse; at the beginning of season 3, he was coming to terms with the fact that he was a bad guy.  The same NA group helped him recover from his heroine abuse following Jane’s death, and they helped him again when he needed a new market for the extra Blue he was skimming off the top.  Here is a group that supported him in these vastly different endeavors, and when they can’t help him get over killing poor Gale, he gives them hell.  PTSD must be a hell of a thing to go through, and I can only assume that the constant reassurances of “you’re going to be okay” only exacerbate the issue.  Jesse leans hard on “acceptance.”  Objectively, he’s right – neither the people in his life nor the audience should be able to forgive his actions, so why do we keep letting him in, over and over again?  The week previous, Skyler suggested that Walt was a school teacher in over his head and “unable to quit.”  Whatever wound up not being true about that statement is the result of Walt’s desire for control.  But Jesse?  He started the series knee deep in the drug world, and while his hand has frequently been forced (often by Walter), he keeps going darker and darker.  And in his descent, he pushes away everyone that was close to him – Andrea, Brock, even Mr. White.  Walt seems to think that Jesse doesn’t see that Mike and Fring doesn’t really value him, but I think Jesse knows exactly what he’s doing.  He’s rising in the ranks of an organization that doesn’t give a shit about him, and that’s just easier for him.

Hank is another character finally embracing what’s easier for him.  I’ve always thought that Dean Norris’ Hank Schrader is a too frequently unsung standout in the series.  Since he put Tuco down early in season two, Hank’s been put through the ringer, emotionally speaking.  And while this turmoil has been anchored by Norris’ portrayal, I don’t think any of it hold a candle to the giddy, hopeful Hank we see in these two episodes.  Hank is on the job and he’s able to pursue a criminal without having to himself in a situation where he might be forced to take a life.   It’s good old fashioned detective work.  A good portion of these episodes was simply Hank explaining his actions, peppered with the usual Schrader bravado.  He still plays the ultra-tough guy, but comments about the sweet young intern quickly go by the wayside when he realizes he’s on to something bigger.  It’s a good time to be Hank.

Not as good a time to be Gus.  Fittingly, a lot has been made of Giancarlo Esposito’s ability to be a steely badass.  One need look no further than the third act of the season opener to be reminded of how effortlessly that man demand’s the camera’s respect.  Hermanos gives us a closer look at the character and exposes us to some soft spots beneath the surface.  I wonder how much truth there is to Fring’s story about the chemistry scholarship that was awarded to Gale – I assume quite a bit.  Especially given his history with his hermano in the pollo industry.  Somewhere, under all that steel, Gus is a kind soul that wants smart people to achieve their potential.  He values loyalty, professionalism and education.  But he also knows the world he bought himself into.  This is one of the crucial differences between he and Walt.  Walter always imagines that there is a perfect combination of words that will get him out of trouble; Fring knows those words and deploys them with grace.

Oh, and Fring’s gay, right?

Breaking Bad – 406 – Cornered

21 Aug

“It’s all about me.”

The first half of tonight’s episode seems to believe Walt’s self-important statement.  Whether he’s arguing with his wife or hanging out with his son or just taking a shower, the first two acts barely leave Walt’s side.  This extra time with the man shows us how he’s still trying desperately to be the bad-ass meth-scarface he considers himself to be.  Take, for example, that excellent scene in the car wash when Walt refuses to part with the sentimental “first dollar,” only to nonchalantly destroy the frame and burn the dollar on one of his own coke machines.  Or look at the way Walt puffs up his chest and asserts to Skyler that he “is the one who comes knocking.”  He’s so comfortable being the criminal mastermind, just so long as there aren’t any other criminals around.  It sorta recontextualizes Walt’s previous attempts to take Fring’s life – Walt isn’t desperate to save himself, he’s desperate to prove himself, and he thinks that being a bigger bad-ass does that.  But his casual murder plots fall on their face frequently enough that he’s starting to rebel in other ways, like buying his son a fancy new car or bringing outside help into his lab to clean.  More on the latter later.

Something I’ve noticed about this season is the tight focus of an individual episode will change abruptly at about the halfway point.  Tonight was no exception, as we check in on the continuing adventures of Mike and Jesse.  It’s nice to see a show depict a junkie off his meds without putting him in a hooded sweatshirt and covering his face with white make-up.  Also fun to see Jesse dealing with other meth heads – it’s not dissimilar to that season episode Peekaboo (where the lady smashes her baby-daddy’s dead with an ATM while their kid was in the house).  I love the idea that digging a hole is a mysterious enough activity to draw the good-natured curiosity of Tucker.  Hell, I wanted to know what he was doing.  But the gambit paid off and Jesse is further ingratiated to the Pollos methempire.

But that was never his goal – it’s Walt’s.  The bold move to repurpose the laundry facility’s staff to help him in the lab backfired.  Walt thought he was being bold, assertive, when in reality, he was just being dumb.  Those poor ladies are getting on a bus bound for (what I can only assume is their home in) Honduras, despite his protestations.  “Blame me.”  “He does.”  Ouch.  But then, what does it matter?  He already on the outs with his boss and seems to be losing an ally in Jesse, what else does he have in this organization?  His essential invulnerability and a hell raiser’s spirit.  Obviously, Gus has bigger concerns, and Walt’s belief that everything revolves around him might be true for the moment, but increased cartel activity threatens to rearrange everyone’s priorities.  And where does that leave Mr. White?

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Skyler’s scene at the Four Corners.  Standing on the New Mexico side, she tosses a coin into the air.  The result of the coin toss is irrelevant, she’s looking to see where it lands: Colorado.  Skyler looks north and tries again.  Same result: Colorado.  No.  She slides the coin south 3 inches with her foot.  She’s not going to let anything drive her from her home, not even the rotten luck to be caught in the Whites’ current situation.  When she gets home, she puts her foot down, and again holds the hole thing together.

Breaking Bad – 405 – Shotgun

14 Aug

When I was in high school in medium-small-town Wisconsin, my friends and I drove everywhere.  At the risk of dating myself, I remember when gas was a buck-fifty – cheaper if you went to the little Amoco next to Stars and Stripes.  And we all had cars: some were hand-me-downs from older siblings, some were presents from parents that could afford them and a few were even honest purchases of industrious 16-year olds.  Like most kids of that age, we were constantly looking for a space that wasn’t ruled over by adults.  More often than not, it meant we were in the car.  This was also a magical way to share music with your friends – no one had CD players so we had to make taped copies of anything we wanted to listen to.  It meant that a surprising amount of my time spent not driving was engaged in preparing to drive.  A lot of relationships were born in the car, some flourished, others died.  The size and shape and capabilities of the car dictated the nature of our relationships, or culture and our lives.

We would honor calling “shotgun.”  For the uninitiated, you shout shotgun sometime after you leave a location, but not before you see the car, and you have the right to sit in the front passenger seat on whatever ride came next.  My friends and I were fiercely competitive about shotgun, and would always respond to losing the seat with a passive-aggressive “no, it’s fine, I didn’t want it anyway.”

My experience here isn’t unique, or even atypical.  Being in a small space with someone necessarily draws you into their life and them into yours.  Jesse and Mike spend some time together in the car tonight, and even if the climactic events are brought about by Fring’s designs, Mike and Jesse shared something meaningful.  Jesse in particular.  He’s the heart of the show and it’s always a drag on Breaking Bad’s energy when he’s upset.  It was nice to see him forced to do something active, pulling him out of his constant drudge-party.  And the hero routine suits Jesse, it gives him purpose.

Speaking of purpose, check out Hank.  Sure, Marie says he’ll only get out of bed to have dinner with the Whites, but the Heisenberg case has him mildly engaged.  That is, until Walt – now feeling his own purposelessness – suggests that the real genius is still out there.  Hank and Jesse are back, invested and ready to get something done.  But Walt is settling back into a world that simultaneously bores and terrifies him.  The intersection of mundane and criminal is not a good fit for Walt, even if he seems to think otherwise.

There were a lot of really nice visual touches tonight, including some great time-lapse, multiple kickin’ montages, unnervingly clandestine perspective shots and even some decent action.  Also, I’ve talked about color in these write-ups before, but I always find the palettes they use pleasing.  The road scenes have this nice red and yellow tint to them, accentuated by the car’s upholstery, that characterizes the long, hot New Mexican day.  By comparison, the blue light cast on Walt and Jesse by the sheets of Mega Meth feels much more cool and controlled.

While I watch Breaking Bad for its deliberate pace and excellent character work, I could easily just be watching it for the stunning filming and cinematography.  Tonight was a good reminder of both of these strengths.  All we need is some of the show’s trademark extreme-tension, and we’ll have the makin’s.

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Breaking Bad – 404 – Bullet Points

7 Aug

Breaking Bad appears to be going for the slow burn this year.  Aside from the violent opening, we are a little shy on action and tension all around.  This shouldn’t sound like a criticism: I love the character work and tonight’s episode in particular was beautifully filmed.

Because I found it to be the strongest of the episode, I want to start with Skyler teaching Walt how to execute their lie.  She approaches this as she’s approached all of her previous lies, with ample preparation.  Walt is much more of a seat-of-his-pant liar, so all the coaching and scripted confessions set his teeth on edge.  What’s more, he doesn’t like being painted as a villain, which suggests Walter still sees himself as a victim of circumstance.  He goes on – at length, later in the episode – with Saul about how his family can never know just how deep in he is, but seems to think that all of this is happening to him.  He can’t be sorry for what he’s done to Skyler, but he sure can suggest the line, simultaneously belittling her suffering and her role in this whole mess.  It’s a beautifully written, and incredibly acted, scene which nails that signature sense of humor.

And yet the haunting echo of this scene later in the program doesn’t share much of its levity.  When Walt drops by Jesse’ place to have his own version of the “you need to take this shit seriously” conversation, Jesse blows it off entirely.  That’s Jesse’ default stance these days, and it’s troubling for the character and troubling for the show.  My girlfriend said tonight that she’s having a hard time getting in to this season, that very little is compelling.  Specifically, she expressed that if Jesse doesn’t care about himself, why should we?  By all measures, Walt’s the only one who still cares about him, and that relationship becomes more unnecessary as Walt gets closer to his wife, or even, touchingly, to Hank.  Jesse is aggressively wasting space, and his current life style is so objectionable that I can’t even imagine myself existing in his presence, let alone being his buddy.  I vaguely remember feeling this way as the third season got going – that making Jesse realize that he’s just a bad guy dulls the heart of the show.  It certainly makes him less fun to be around.

In some ways, Walt is struggling from the same thing, only less explicitly.  He stares down at his feet, per Skyler’s instructions, at Hank and Marie’s dinner table.  He’s going through the motions, and struggling to play out the part of someone with which his family can sympathize.  That ritual, the one by which a man appears to be what we expect of him, is sad and fascinating, if not a bit unsetting to see played out on television.  I’ve always found that to be some of the more gut wrenching material from Dexter.  Dexter’s voiceover will often confess to pretending to have emotions as to avoid being singled out and avoid suspicion.  While Dex invents feelings to keep himself alive, the practice of presenting yourself as normal is universal.  We all withhold details of our weekends from our coworkers, we all pretend to enjoy something we don’t.  Because we are social creatures and whether we like it or not, there will always be other people in our lives.  Now, Jesse is refusing to play that game.

Mike and Fring recognize this quality in Jesse, and I’m guessing that’s the point.  Our villains are going to be painfully sympathetic when they go to extreme measures to silence Jesse.

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Breaking Bad – 403 – Open House

31 Jul

Tonight was Ladies Night on Breaking Bad.  I, for one, was glad for it.  Skyler and Marie have long since been shifted to the background, and as I mentioned last week, they’ve both been given the role of Fun-Ruiner.  This episode allowed both characters to come into focus, showing the result of their common pathological natures – good for Skyler, bad for Marie.

Let’s start with Marie.  We’ve always known about her compulsive theft, but either the nature of the crime has changed, or we’re finally granted a little perspective on what the whole process is for her.  At a season 1 baby shower, Marie gives Skyler a diamond tiara which Sky determines is stolen when she tries to return it.  Oops.  Sky is momentarily held by the store owner and eventually scolds Marie, who never really cops to the deed.  “Open House” shows Marie’s whole ritual, at the center of which is a fabricated identity.  And it’s not one particular fantasy she favors either: sometimes she’s married to an astronaut, no kids; sometimes she’s a mother of four; sometimes she’s hand model; sometimes she’s a rich divorcé.  It is curious, as she almost certainly didn’t make up these fake identities when shoplifting from upscale children’s stores.  Like her sister, Marie understands that the devil is in the details.  So the details had better be right.

Which brings us back to Skyler White.  Her behavior here has all the trappings of Classic Skyler – the Skyler most viewers despise.  She’s inconveniently principled and doesn’t let Walt take more criminally explicit short cuts.  Even if Saul hears “brutal intimidation” when Sky says “attitude adjustment,” she means precisely what she says.  I gotta say, the scene in which Saul and the Whites struggle to come up with an agreeable plan was one of the more charming of the season.  For all its intensity, one of the things that initially drew me to the series was its keen sense of humor.

And it’s during this scene that we get the first little glimmer that everything we might find irritating about Skyler is actually useful.  Or at least insightful.  Skyler insists that this Car Wash must be their target – no nail salons, no other car washes (gross, amirite?), just this one.  She might be being difficult, but if so, she is only presenting the united front that she knows Walt will agree with.  Those Whites are a proud people.  In inventing the details of this story, Skyler already understands Walt’s motivations – not just as they’re going to be presented to the public, but also as they really are.  Look how much she seems to know about Walt even when he keeps her in the dark.  She knows that black eye is indicative of real trouble and no yammering lie about a “disagreement with a co-worker” is going to convince her otherwise.

Skyler’s MVP play of hiring a fake city worker to test the chemicals outside the car wash is genius.  It is great how committed she is to this project, feeding the guy lines from municipal codes and EPA laws.  This is exactly the kind of thing that Skyler seems uniquely capable of doing, and it’s nice to see her finally getting some props from her husband.

By the way, how’s their relationship doing?  I can’t really remember where we left it before the Gale incident.  Walt’s still got his fully furnished bachelor pad, but Skyler is becoming an increasingly regular presence there and Walt’s just hanging out in their house waiting for the phone to ring.  Perhaps it makes sense that Walt is concentrating his effort on improving the one business-relationship he has any hope at ameliorating.  He can say that he’s “cleared the air” (terminology he used both last week and tonight) with Mike or Fring, but that security camera in the lab tells a different story.  And then there’s Jesse.

The relationship between Walt and Jesse always serves as a slightly mysterious attractive force in the universe of Breaking Bad.  The only scene they share this week is dripping with mega-obvious subtext, and both characters explicitly ask the other to tell them what’s wrong.  Questions are deflected (I’ll go go-karting with you, Jesse) and they are both left to deal with their own issues.  Or not deal, whichever the case may be.

Jesse’ house really took a dive quickly, didn’t it?  The house is a 24 hour drug orgy and the friendly faces of Skinny Pete and Badger are nowhere to be found.  The place is actually starting to look more and more like the shooting gallery that Jesse retreated to after Jane died.  And while that’s alarming, it’s even more alarming to consider what that house once was.  Jesse was originally given that house by his aunt Ginny who died of lung cancer.  The house started as a symbol of Jesse’s compassionate nature and when it was first warped (by the acidic goopy remains of a dealer burning through the second floor bathtub) Jesse freaked.  The affront on the house was an affront of Jesse himself.  But now, he brings this destruction on the house purposefully.  He’s got the sky-high stacks to turn the place into an instant party, or even just to jump start it when the burnouts have, well, burned out, but nothing brings him peace.

Which makes Jesse a lose end.  Fring’s been saying that you cannot trust a drug addict since our very first meeting, and judging by the goon stationed outside Jesse’s house, this is still an idea in which he takes great stock.

The theme of paying attention to detail ran strong throughout and no one is a bigger stickler for the details than Hank.  His details are not fabricated details, but honest, objective truths.  He’s not collecting rocks, he’s cataloging minerals.  He didn’t ask for Fritos, he asked for Cheetos (he had a bag with him in bed at the end of the episode, thank god).  And now he’s got poor Gale’s lab notebook in his hands.  The devil is in those details, and if Hank looks, he just might find him.

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Breaking Bad – 402 – Thirty-Eight Snub

25 Jul

I’ll admit to being a little underwhelmed by the season premiere of Breaking Bad.  That’s not to say that the episode was bad – it was up to the show’s stellar standards, and delivered a third act that recalls the “killing Crazy 8” scene from season one while effectively commenting on the characters of Fring, Walt and, to a lesser extent, Jesse.  There was an awful lot to praise, but the whole experience left me wanting.  All the previous seasons set up clear mission statements in their cold opens – and these statements were bold, exciting and fearless.  By stark contrast, this year we were treated to a Gale flashback, which nicely emphasized the damn shame it was that he had to die.  We also get some nice foreshadowing of the box cutter.  But these are both tame and generally harmless.  Gale is a thoughtful, professional chemist and the box cutter is a tool that allows him access to the shiny new cooking equipment.  This show has done such a great job of teasing something terrible, and showing the logical progression of events that leads to said terrible situation.  This is sort of the opposite, introducing us to peace and then warping that peace until it resembles the chaos in which our characters reside.  It is unpredictable, it is non-sensational and it is totally surprising.

This week, we’re treated to something similar: Walter White buying a gun.  For “defense,” no less.  Ignoring both the precedent set in the previous episode and the immortal advice of Chekov, Walt never gets the chance to fire the damn thing.  The fact that both this episode and the previous are named for weapons that are the ominous focus of the beginning of the episodes is intriguing and begs a further comparison between Fring and Walt.  The former has proven himself to be a pragmatic man of few words; the latter is an endlessly rationalizing man who never shuts up.  The best laid plans of Walter White often go awry, as demonstrated for like the millionth time tonight.

Actually, it’s sort of a shitty night for the machinations of both the Whites.  Skylar does her homework, just like Walt, and ends up walking away from her plan further from her goal then when she started.  Skylar’s got kind of a raw reputation with fans – she suffers from Betty-Draper syndrome, forced to play the perpetual wet blanket.  And I sorta get that.  I absolutely love when she goes into either detective mode or storyteller mode and actually gets something done.  Skylar came up with a story to explain their vast wealth to Marie, thus allowing them to pay for Hank’s expensive physical therapy.  That’s an inspiring set of lies, and no other character in this world could have pulled it off.  So it’s frustrating to see her not making progress on the car wash front.

The episode also deals with our favorite PTSD victims – Jesse and Hank.  We’ve seen Hank go through this before, unable to drag himself out of bed after killing Tuco.  Now, damaged from battle with the Cousins, Hank is physically unable to get himself out of bed.  Oh sure, he can walk down the hallway, but only when his professional personal trainer is there to cheer him on.  Marie’s good will and enthusiasm don’t help at all – in fact, Hank seems demotivated by her optimism.  Breaking Bad has long used colors as a shorthand for the main cast of characters (Walter is green, Jesse is red or yellow, Hank is orange and Marie is purple), so it is no surprise that Hank feels smothered by Marie while surrounded for their dark purple bedroom 24 hours a day.  His only escape from this domestic hell?  Collecting, and generally obsessing over, blue minerals.  The parallels to his hunt for Heisenberg and the blue meth are obvious, but it’s worth it to see Hank geek out so much.

Also geeking out this week is Jesse Pinkman.  His kicking new sound system has a bunch of flashy lights on it that hypnotize Skinny Pete and Badger, but Jesse is more excited about the actual specs of the equipment.  Unable to convey this excitement properly to his friends, Jesse evolves into his Non-Stop-Parties form.  And he doesn’t even seem into it.  Not that his friends notice, but Jesse couldn’t give a shit about which is the best zombie videogame (they’re both wrong by the way, it’s a tie between the remake of the first Resident Evil and Dead Rising – duh) and even the novelty of an uncut pizza can’t draw him into the fun.  When his buddies tap out on him, Jesse resorts to leaning his head against a speaker at full tilt, anything to drown out the voices in his head.  But it doesn’t seem to matter.

While I’m not particularly blown away by any single moment from Thirty-Eight Snub, the character work is absolutely phenomenal, and the thematic unity is elegant.  Since this is Breaking Bad, I expect that we are heading toward catastrophic events, which will be all the richer for great, quiet episodes like this one.

Note:  As much as I’m trying to avoid meta-blog mission statements of my own, I would like to make it clear that it is my intention to get Breaking Bad write-ups posted before midnight CST on the day the episode airs.  If that schedule changes, I’ll drop another obnoxious note like this one.

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