BREAKING BAD Series Finale Musings

WARNING: Mild spoilers below...

Somewhere around the fourth season of Breaking Bad, I was already convinced Walter White wouldn't be able to turn things around and redeem himself. By then, it was clear to me that greed (and perhaps even pride) were at the core of his motivation for doing the things he kept doing.

Calling him "evil", or "sociopath", or "evil sociopath" --- just for conviction and emphasis that he was that baaaaaad! --- was still putting it mildly. He was beyond all that, if that's even possible.

And yet, unlike other TV characters I've developed seething hate for (such as this guy), all I felt for Walter White after he... well, broke bad... was fascination. How oddly complex did his character grow?  However, not once did I feel any sympathy.

Until the series finale.

And all of a sudden, I was on board Team Walt. And crying for him 15 minutes into watching the last episode.

I was in tears partly because I was sentimental about the show ending. But also hugely because I've come to realize how awfully sad, sad, sad this character was.

That moment with Elliot and Gretchen Schwartz was a pivotal one for me. I admit I've forgotten about the Schwartzes, what with everything that's happened on the show. But here, their presence was a glaring reminder, defining where it all actually started. Or where Walter would've been, if his fate had been different. (But we wouldn't have Breaking Bad then, would we?)

Grudge, rejection, falsehood, betrayal, charity case, pride, ego, millions. I could see the striking contrasts of all of that in the scene.

And that made me really sad for Walter White.

(I can't break down the scenes so much because I would want you to watch it, and especially feel it --- FEEEEL!!! --- without getting spoiled!)

In the end, how it came together was befitting.

Walter White did right by the people he hurt. He went the way he thought he should, and somehow, this was his redemption. And despite all the tragic circumstances he got himself and his family into, he was, in the end, a fulfilled man.

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Thank you to the writers and cast for this wonderfully bitchin' ride!!! Congratulations, Bryan Cranston... for blowing us away, playing a character with so many layers so, so well!

Breaking Bad S1 E1 Pilot

The role of Walter White, in AMC's new series Breaking Bad is a big leap from the Bryan Cranston I used to watch on Malcom in the Middle. In this new series, Cranston plays a chemistry teacher who is experiencing the crappiest time of his life. He's 50 and he still hasn't quite made it. With his wife newly pregnant, a teenage disabled son to take care of, and a terminal cancer to endure, he hopes to change things for his family (at least before he dies).

Through his policeman-brother in law, he saw an opportunity. While watching a video of a drug bust, he learns that there is a big amount of money involved in this illegal activity. With his knowledge and deep understanding of chemicals, Walter White decides to partner with one of his former students, a meth dealer and together they cook the purest crystal meth in town. Predictably, things do not go too well and it gets bloody and violent.

The series attempts to show how people make terrible judgments in the moment of desperation. A midlife crisis at its worst, people do make bad choices when they're at the pits. It's something we see in the news everyday.

But the strongest element to this series so far, is not in the story, but in Bryan Cranston, who did a terrific job "breaking bad". He was repressed yet funny, emphatic but not exaggerated.

Hopefully, the series extends to more than the seven episodes it already has produced, for the sake of this guy. He deserves the big acting break, since I now can honestly say, he's so good at it.