It’s not a sudden jump. His increased involvement in the meth trade is a snowball that gains in size and momentum until it’s a full-blown avalanche crushing everything in front of it. And it takes four seasons to get to that point.
Now I can’t read this thread because I don’t want the show spoiled, but it’s amazing. We started watching Breaking Bad a few weeks ago and I’m now getting to the end of season two. The things that impress me most are Bryan Cranston’s acting and the dark comedy, which is reminding me a lot of Hitchcock lately - the echoes of Vince Gilligan’s work on The X-Files are clear but I didn’t get as much of that Hitchcock mix of desperate bumbling comedy in the midst of confusion and terror - and the way the show is a metaphor for masculinity. Another thing I’ve enjoyed since the first episode is the fact that the show went dark early. You might have expected Walt and Jesse to bumble along for a while and act under the impression that they weren’t really hurting anybody (someone was going to be making and dealing that meth regardless). But no - took that away from them right in the first episode, when their misadventures in drug dealing quickly led to murders. That really set the tone for everything else. Walt says he started doing this for his family, but from the beginning it’s been destroying it.
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There is a another character that not only matches Bryan Cranston early, but IMO far surpasses his acting chops in later seasons. Truly, I can’t recall ever seeing acting ability perfecting itself right in front of me like that. It’s yet another treat from a show full of them.
I caught the first three seasons on Netflix. I’m really glad I did.
This isn’t a spoiler, I’m only spoiling it because of the way Morbo worded that quote and I know who he’s talking about…
Having said that, whenever I run across this picture it always catches me off guard.
[spoiler] You just wouldn’t expect to see him like that or those two hanging out all buddy buddy.
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm235716096/nm0348152[/spoiler]
Also, another thing I recommend to anyone who likes this show…I know this is an odd recommendation, but go watch Malcolm in the Middle. For years before Breaking Bad was on I’ve been saying* how good of an actor Bryan is and even back then he was amazing. Malcolm may have been the main character but Bryan stole every single scene he was in. He showed a greater range of acting in that show alone then many actors show in their entire career.
*I’m not sure, but I’m willing to bet I’ve even said that on this board before BB aired. ETA the earliest I could find on this board where I said that was 1/19/2009, a year after the show started, but I’m not sure if I had started watching it at that point. I may have ‘caught up’ after S2 started.
I see it’s a no spoilers thread so I don’t have to be ridiculous or take my chances. I will wait to see who Morbo is talking about, but I will say that Anna Gunn is doing good work here (as she did in Deadwood) and in the episodes I’ve seen recently I’ve become more impressed with Dean Norris as Hank.
I’d imagine he has to be talking about Aaron Paul, who is just about as good as Bryan Cranston.
He’s very good, yes. It feels like the show has quietly built up a lot of depth.
I’m two episodes away from finishing season 3 on DVD. Great show, but I see it as more of a chronicle of how bad decisions lead to more bad decisions and things getting way out of your control.
Walter started out seeming like such a nice guy…
This is on my list, but I admit I’ve been a little reluctant to start it, since it’s struck me as being kind of…bleak, I guess? That seems to be a theme in a lot of recent critically acclaimed shows. They seem to compete to see who can depict the most hopeless, depressing, miserable world for their characters to inhabit and be dragged down by, and I have a hard time finding that entertaining. Six Feet Under is the best example that I’ve actually watched. I finally had to quit because I just wanted to go hide in bed for a day after every episode. On the other hand, I quite like Justified, partially because even though bad things happen, and there’s violence and unhappiness, the main character is, at the core, a good guy who’s trying to make the world a better place. That seems like a very passe or naive attitude to take these days, but what can I say? I like my entertainment entertaining.
My point, I guess, is to ask people to tell me if my impression of Breaking Bad is, in this respect, right or wrong.
Well, so much for me trying not to spoil it.
You’re right that there isn’t a lot of happiness going around since you start with a cancer patient who becomes a drug dealer. Through almost the end of season two, I don’t think it’s that bleak. Maybe it’s going in that direction. The comedy is very dark, but it might be more intrinsic to the show than it was to shows like The Wire and The Sopranos and Six Feet Under. I’ve seen most of Six Feet Under but I did stop watching the show somewhere in the middle and never fully caught up (I did see the last few episodes) because it did feel like an unending parade of angst and misery - and I guess it didn’t help that there was much less action than shows that are about crime.
This board needs a “+1” button to vote up threads. Breaking Bad is indeed one of the greatest TV shows ever aired. That is all.
I’ve been thinking about starting a thread to discuss this - whether bleak is inherently more interesting, or it’s just that people who’ve decided to break from the TV pack by showing more intelligent, in depth, and adult-oriented entertainment try to buck the trend for the normal hero-always-wins-everything-is-fine nature of typical TV.
Anyway, Breaking Bad is fairly bleak - there’s a lot of unpleasantness, and if you need to relate to the main character and consider him to be fundamentally a good guy, then it’s probably not for you.
Well, I don’t figure a compliment to someone’s acting ability is really a spoiler, since there’s not really anything specific needed to be said about the character.
I see that now, but based on the way it was worded I thought it might have been the other character who showed up later. Besides, I like that picture.
A few years ago I decided to rewatch SFU. I only made it half way through, partially because I caught up to the point where I started to remember the episodes and partially because I found that I could only watch one episode a night and sometimes couldn’t even bring myself to watch another one the next night. My brain just sort of needed a break after being drained like that. It was taking to long to watch the series. I absolutely looove SFU, but when I was only watching one or two episodes a week, after a while I just sort of forget about it. One of these days I’ll do it again, but I’ll dedicate a few months to it. It’s an amazing show, but you really have to work through some parts of it. It’s kind of emotionally draining.
Caricature of what? I am no fan of Skyler, but she is a pretty complex character with a lot on her plate. At first, your window inot her wolrd is pretty small, but that’s mainly because she is a secondary character. As for the explosives, though I don’t disagree, I would be stunned if there weren’t a similar “Hollywood” moment in Justified, or anything else on tv. There were certainly moments like this in the Wire.
I watched the first 3 episodes of Breaking Bad and I just haven’t been able to bring myself to watch any more of it. It is very uncomfortable for me to watch, which is weird because I have other shows I love that aren’t light and fluffy.
I am inspirational! ~~* confetti ~*~**
Unfortunately, I can’t read this thread because I’ve only seen the first seven episodes and I do NOT want the future spoiled. So la-la-la I can’t hear you.
This discussion of Aaron Paul’s character is a spoiler, though: I think the thing that most impresses me about his acting is how seamlessly he’s reversed our moral expectations of Walter and Jesse. You go into the show thinking that Walter is a basically good guy, and Jesse’s essentially a loser. But as the series progresses, you see that (a) Jesse Pinkman has a genuine moral core, and (b) that core is being steadily eroded by Walter White. Frankly, Jesse is much more of a tragic character than White is).