Monsters of Television

“You can do this.”

If I hadn’t watched Breaking Bad before this episode, I would’ve started tonight. Because that’s how mind-numbingly boring the Emmys were this year. Luckily, Breaking Bad is just the thing to shake off boredom and wire you for the rest of the night, just before Monday, when you have to drag yourself to work after laying awake all night, staring at the ceiling and wondering how the hell things could get any worse for Walter White.

It turns out that they can get actually, maybe, get a little bit better for Walter White, as “Salud” puts things in motions to set up the last three episodes quite nicely (maybe a little too nicely), and gives him some nice time to bond with Walter, Jr., who has been seriously neglected this season in terms of writing and character.

Oh, and then there’s all the “HOLY SHIT” stuff at the end. Because, you know, we’ve missed that. Read more »

“We’re both dead men anyway.”

Marie and Walt Jr. are like the Rose and Bernard of this show. Hear me out.

I don’t mean that they are romantically or cosmically tied to each other (although that would be far more interesting than Junior’s banal teenage angst or Marie’s off-again/on-again kleptomania). I mean that this is a show of cliques within cliques, inner circles overlapping together like an Olympic-level Venn diagram and there are only two people on this show that aren’t included in any of it. Well, the baby, too, but even she’s been accessory to some of Skyler’s research and criminal missions.

No, Marie and Junior are left out of everything, to the demise of any hope that their characters might get interesting in the near future. And, sadly, it seems like the only way to jump-start either of them is to (a) put them on a path that eventually collides with the secret-secrets of the other characters or (b) outright let them in on the secret-secrets so that they can become pawns/hostages/threats to the secret-secrecy. Either way, you’re running into a Chuck/White Collar situation where every loved one in the general vicinity of the main characters is pulled into the capers and, therefore, the danger.

Interestingly, that would make more sense in the world of Breaking Bad than it would be for those other shows since Walter doesn’t have a double-life (anyone dangerous in his life knows all of his business — he hides nothing) and family target practice seems likely if not inevitable sometimes.

All I’m saying is that, if we see that Marie and Junior end up selling Navajo fry bread at Four Corners, telling us they want to stay and live out their remaining years in peace, don’t be horribly surprised.

Now, let’s get to the fight. Read more »

“I’m sure if you keep digging, you’ll find me.”

That says it all, doesn't it?

I think my favorite thing about “Hermanos”, among the many many many things I enjoyed in the episode, is that it very much felt like one of those cold opens from season 3 that feel like a miniature movie. Those cold opens are wholly self-contained but send character and thematic ripples across the show. And, sure, people like to say, with each episode of a television show, they’re making a miniature movie, but there’s just something delightful about those cold opens.

With “Hermanos” the entire episode leads up to a sequence that would have otherwise been the cold open of an episode. There’s a steady build to it, which makes it, honestly, a miniature movie within the framework of this entire episode being a miniature movie of Gus Fring’s life. Read more »

“Chalk it up to clean livin’ and vitamin pills.

Well, welcome to the party, Hank.

So often in fictional narrative media, we’re forced to suspend our disbelief when characters can’t see what we assume they should be able to see. Whether it’s the detective that ignores the clue we see buried in the box or tank-topped, cheerleader-shorted sophomore deigning to walk down the dank basement steps, we’re constantly forced to assume a human being in that storyworld doesn’t think critically like we do. It’s an eye-rolling affair sometimes but one we accept. Usually it’s a crutch for the storywriter: if it’s remotely plausible that a detail can be skipped due to human error or blissful naivete, then it’s less work for the author. Or maybe it’s just that years of cultural consumption have taught us that the dude’s behind the door! Run, girlfriend!

There are at least two times in this episode of Breaking Bad where the there are opportunities for a detail to be skipped or a monologue to continue that would at least continue a story arc into a natural conclusion for the week. But, instead, we get real revelations from people breaking that media perception of just allowing things to happen and not bringing critical thinking in until the penultimate act.

The best part is: it’s for our benefit. Read more »

“Someone has to protect this family from the man who protects this family.”

The contrast between a “normal” episode, filler, and a breather boils down to the WTF moment within the last five minutes. Last week, even if the episode itself was pretty low-key, it had Hank putting some pieces together that makes him one step closer to realizing who Heisenberg really is. Well, kind of. Baby steps.

There really wasn’t breath-taking intensity, though, unless you count the cringing anxiety I suffered watching the dinner scene. So you wouldn’t expect a breather episode to follow. And, yet, here we are. Fleshing characters out and not really pressing the story forward.

While there were some interesting scenes, for a series that can probably count its filler episodes on one hand, it’s almost disappointing when one comes around. This is especially true when the filler episode comes on the tail of a week with so much momentum. The ball started to roll and this episode totally forgets about the ball. Instead, we focus on stuff we kind of already know and (probably, hopefully) set the table for oncoming, rapid-fire WTFs. Probably preceded by an OMG and followed by a BBQ. Because barbecue is delicious. And so is Navajo fried bread. Read more »

“You are not the guy.”

This is going to be kind of quick since I don’t have much to say, I don’t know the episode warrants a lot of commentary, and I’m sure a good chunk of it has been expressed elsewhere.

I will say that I was very jealous of Nick last week. After “Open House” (an episode I’m more and more convinced may be the I’ve enjoyed most so far since the premiere) and seeing the preview for “Bullet Points”, I thought, “Man. Nick gets the exciting episodes.” And then I realized that I would get an exciting episode as I would get to write about whatever the hell happened to Jesse and Mike on their little road trip.

I’m still jealous of Nick, but he didn’t get that great dinner scene to talk about, so I’ll say we’re even-ish. Read more »

“Maybe lying doesn’t come as easily to me as it does to you.”

Well, enough of these supporting character shenanigans. Skyler, Marie — get back in the cage with Walt, Jr.

There just isn’t enough room for the family characters when the spotlight shines on Jesse and Walt. And now that Mike and Hank jockey for a part of the glow, too, this sausage fest just doesn’t have room for developing these supporting roles. In most shows I would be a little disappointed to see the female characters take a back seat but I don’t think it’s gender-specific. There’s a reason why Bob Odenkirk is the most famous person in this cast that isn’t Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul.

As an actor, you’re not going to get a better story than them. You’re not going to play the part better than them. You’re going to take a back seat. These characters standing in the wings: their slight is not gender-specific. Their leads are just larger than life.

And now some (really long) bullet points: Read more »

“Marie, you want to go home?“

I like vegetables. Especially in the current state of climate affairs, I’ve been eating more salads and raw veggies (I love me some carrots, guys) to avoid heavier, hotter meals that just make me want to lapse into a food coma. This isn’t to say that I want vegetables all the time, as I do like a nice piece of chicken or fish along aside it, but I like to have some vegetables.

And the same is true of narratives. Episodes like “Open House” are narrative vegetables. They’re good for the story and for you, and help set up plot points and keep other things moving along (much like veggies provide you with fiber, if you get my point). So while my initial reaction to “Open House” was, “Wow. That was kind of boring.”, Breaking Bad has established this narrative pace that I shouldn’t at all have been surprised or bored by it.

With further reflection (and dodging conversations and reviews about it on Twitter, which was fairly easy (perhaps due to the lack of OMGWTFBBQ type of moments in the episode)), the episode is a solid one. It’s by no means the most exciting one, but it does important work, just like vegetables tend to do. Read more »

“It’s for defense. Defense.”

Most shows have what we in the television-snark game call a “breather” episode after a showing like Breaking Bad had last week. What Jesse ending up actually doing (I didn’t believe it until I saw the body), what Gus did in response, what showed us a normally unflappable Mike can, well, be flapped — I think we might all need an extra week to process.

But Breaking Bad is different. They don’t have typical “breather” episodes per se. This is a show dedicated to not getting too out of hand with its fantastical premise. With how far Walt and Jesse have come in the past three seasons and change, the show could easily spin out of control. So, instead, after action-heavy episodes, we get a week to see the characters try to swallow their PTSD (let’s face it: action on this this is horrifyingly traumatic) and struggle back to a stasis. Folks on this show are constantly trying to unsee what they’ve seen/done and we get to watch them suffer the consequences of their world.

So, you see, the show doesn’t really give the audience a “breather” episode like other series. It just makes a viewer suffer differently this week than s/he did last week. And I dig that about you, Breaking Bad.

Read more »

“Well? Get back to work.“

I did season one of Breaking Bad a while back, and then did seasons two and three over the course of June and just a bit of July so I would be all caught up in time for premiere.

How did you all wait an entire year for this show to come back? (“Meth” was a common answer. Oddly, no one took up chemistry or dressing entirely in purple.) I mean, I only had to wait two weeks for this episode, and while I kept my now very bad addiction to suspense fed by watching the Women’s World Cup, I still found myself jonesing (seeing Walt and Jesse on every other Web site I visited this month certainly didn’t help maters). I can only imagine what people who have been watching the show for longer than I have have been going through.

But it’s here now, so we can all exhale slowly. If only so we can suck all the air back in and hold our breath again. Read more »