Television - Breaking Bad 'Gliding Over All' mid-season finale review

In the third episode of the season, 'Hazard Pay', Walter White brings up the Icarus myth when considering whether Mike was going to prove too difficult a partner to keep alive. Mike is dead now, a common fate among Walt's associates. So many have been lured in by the promise of Heisenberg's blue meth, willing to go higher and higher despite knowing the risks. Walt is not Icarus, but Daedalus, the boy's father and the engineer who built the wings to allow his son to escape Crete. Daedalus is a genius perpetually betrayed by his own hubris: he is locked away in a labyrinth of his own construction, then later creates the instrument by which he sends his son to his death.

Walt's blue meth is a creation of equal magnificence, and bears no less deadly a curse. Watching Mike die needlessly at his hand was the first moment Walt felt something approaching awareness of the horror he had dedicated so much of himself to creating.

  

Television - Breaking Bad 'Say My Name' review

The way society perceives success is very odd. If someone is classified as successful, the term traditionally implies the person in question has plenty of money, significant status, an attractive husband/wife, many high-value properties, all the gold they can eat, and so forth. If someone lacks those things, but is fulfilled, with a stable family life and good understanding of their place in the universe, people may call that person many complimentary things, but rarely successful. Perhaps this is because material success has a quantifiable value, allowing it to be directly measured against other things and people, whereas 'spiritual' success (for lack of a less wishy-washy term) is subjective. Someone can say they're happy when they aren't, and there's not much anyone can do to disprove it, whereas no-one can claim to be wealthy when they're living on a pittance.

This materialist bias is necessary for society to function and grow: humans are tribal by nature, and if all anyone did was aim to make themselves content with their lot, nobody would strive for anything beyond the needs of them and their families. If people weren't competitive, eager to establish hierarchies and physical proof of superiority as a society or individually, the human race would either still be living in caves, or have been picked off by some bigger, deadlier animal with greater survival instincts. That desire to prove oneself and establish dominion has made humanity the planet's dominant species. Unfortunately, it also tends to create monsters like Walter White.

  

Television - Breaking Bad 'Buyout' review

'Buyout' feels like an episode which could prove pivotal in Breaking Bad's mythology, marking the moment when Jesse finally started to see through the layers of manipulation Walter White has been crushing him under, but also spinning its wheels a little as we approach the halfway point of the final season. For all its funny, tragic, and heart-stopping moments, of which there were plenty, there was a little too much which felt like the gang had returned to the breaking point they were at earlier in the season, with rebellion from the core members of the group against Walter White's unstoppable obsession with empire building.

At this stage, what seems most likely to happen is that this first half of the season will reveal the tiny cracks in the foundations of Walt's dream as they expand, before finally tearing the ground out from under him as the series enters its year-long break (boo!) until the concluding part of this final season comes to a head in 2013 and we catch up with a fifty-two year old Walt with a machine gun in the boot of his car and an unknown score to settle.

 

Television - Breaking Bad 'Dead Freight' review

I've been reading through pages and pages of internet commenters nit-picking 'Dead Freight' for liberties it may or may not have taken in the sequence when Walter White and co. robbed the freight train. Honestly, it baffles me. Not that the train drivers never thought to glance behind them, or that a car didn't turn up sooner, or that no-one spotted the digger during the preparatory phase, or that there weren't biologists out exploring the desert (seriously). What baffles me is that even when faced with a sequence so suspenseful, intense and masterfully directed - right down to the train chugging along in time with the soundtrack - all people can do is complain. Yes, it's the internet, and complaining is at least twenty percent of what people do here (with the remaining eighty given over to social media and porn), but as a writer and someone who loves good writing, it's a habit which bothers me.

One person even said they were 'willing' to give the show 'a pass this time'. Well, that's generous. Breaking Bad has delivered four plus seasons of among the greatest drama ever televised, and that's just enough to earn a single 'pass' for not living up to some ridiculous standards of what passes for realism? Here's something complainant out there should know: realism is boring. Maybe it would be possible in the real world for a train robbery to take place, but showing all the steps needed to mitigate the various security measures and possible worst case scenarios which could happen would take up most of the episode, be unspeakable dull, and all to satisfy a handful of grumblers who want to feel clever despite openly displaying their inability to grasp the concept of fiction. Yes, shortcuts were taken, but when they make the ride this much more thrilling, there's no justification for moaning.

 

Television - Breaking Bad 'Fifty One' review

The similarities between Walter White and the late Gustavo Fring were becoming apparent last week. Walt shares one of Gus' problems - an unruly subordinate who cannot be eliminated due to their vital role in the meth operation - but none of the self-control which allowed him to stay in control of a vast criminal empire for the better part of twenty years. As Mike noted: 'Just because you shot Jesse James, don't make you Jesse James.'

Gus let victory slip through his fingers due to one moment of bravado, allowing his anger to push him into declaring victory before crossing the line. That small miscalculation cost him his life. Walt is all bravado, all the time, and despite his former profession as a teacher, is not a man who learns lessons from past mistakes.

  

Television - Breaking Bad 'Hazard Pay' review

Many of fiction's greatest villains are mirrors to the protagonists who take them down, and it is becoming increasingly obvious how much alike Walter White is to Gustavo Fring. The parallels were there from the beginning, notably in Gus' origin as a once timid man who built a criminal empire in the aftermath of a personal disaster, having seen his partner executed by Tio Salamanca. Walt got started in the meth business after being told he had cancer, but it soon became obvious his reasons for continuing, despite regularly putting in danger the family he vowed to protect, were rooted in bitterness and anger at a world which had stuck him to the bottom of its food chain.

There have been numerous landmarks throughout Breaking Bad marking the deepening stages of Walt's journey to the dark side, be it his first kill, allowing Jane to drown in her own vomit near the end of season two, going full measures in season three's incredible finale, or poisoning a child at the end of last season to claim his final victory over Gus. On each occasion, Walt had circumstances to mitigate his decisions. Now, with no visible danger posed to his life or family, we are seeing how Walt's rise to the top of the drugs world has completed his descent into absolute villainy.
 

Television - Breaking Bad 'Madrigal' review

Walter White is a man with a lot of knowledge, but a complete lack of wisdom. He can restart a broken RV with a homebrew chemical reaction, blow up a car with a windscreen wiper, and cook meth purer than almost anyone on the American continent... set him a practical task and he will accomplish it without batting an eyelid. In the real world, though, Walt just doesn't learn his lessons. He's a petty egomaniac, bitter, insecure and constantly compromising his moral boundaries, what few he has left, by telling himself he has no choice. Even as the excuses dry up, with his cancer in remission, his treatment paid for, his family safe from harm following the death of Gus Fring, he keeps on coming up with new ones. Or at least, he did. Perhaps the scariest thing about the first two episodes in Breaking Bad's fifth and final season is that Walter White isn't making excuses anymore. He's lying to everyone around him, but stopped lying to himself.

He knows what he's doing, and he's proud of it.

  

All That's Left: Breaking Bad season finale review

TELEVISION REVIEW

BREAKING BAD: 'Face Off'

I'm honestly not sure how to react to 'Face Off'. By any rational standard, it was a superb episode of television, expertly paced and filled with the big moments of tension and satisfaction that are the stuff of any excellent season finale. On the other hand, this is Breaking Bad, the series which has produced episodes like Crazy Handful Of Nothin', 'One Minute', Crawl Space and which counts the astonishing 'Full Measures' as one of its previous finales. By those standards, 'Face Off' was a frustrating stumble at the final hurdle.

It is an episode of two sides, appropriate given the grizzly image which turned its title into a morbid gag, the best of which was the last move in a battle between two men who had pushed each other to their furthest limits. The less successful side was the one justifying how these events came to play out, giving an unusually cheap answer to the question central to last week's episode but which ended up having few consequences in this one. For a series which has come to be defined by surgically-precise storytelling, laying out every dramatic beat as a chemical sequence of action and reaction, the decision to leave gaps in the viewers' knowledge of how what could prove to be a vital series of events unfolded felt more like stop-gap writing than tantalising mystery.

 

Prolonging The Inevitable: Breaking Bad review

TELEVISION REVIEW

BREAKING BAD: 'End Times'

I have repeatedly referred to the events of Breaking Bad's fourth season as a game, played between three men (Walt, Gus, Hank) and their lieutenants (Jesse, Mike, the DEA) desperate to come out on top. The astonishing scene which concluded last week's episode seemed to point towards total victory for Gus, who appeared to have won the fight for Jesse's loyalty, put Walt in an untenable position and removed any need for Hank to be kept alive.

Yet there was a subtle change in Gus that suggested something might be on the turn: the man who tormented the paralysed Hector Salamanca was not the same as he who had so calmly and methodically manipulated the board to what looked like his check-mate. It was a man burning with the thrill of vengeance, revelling in his victory. When he told Walt in the desert that he was prepared to slaughter the entire White family, his voice crackled with fury. Did the Pollo Hermano count his chickens a little too early?

 

Ha Ha Ha: Breaking Bad review

TELEVISION REVIEW

BREAKING BAD: 'Crawl Space'

I know that there are still eighteen episodes of Breaking Bad to go. At this point, the arrival of each new one is as much a joy as a tragedy: a joy for the phenomenal quality of the series, a tragedy for the knowledge that every passing hour moves us closer to the series' end. I suppose that's true of anything, but when you know when that end is, it changes your perspectives a little bit. Walter White discovered that to his considerable cost back in the Pilot.

It also changes a viewer's relationship with a programme. Especially for serialised dramas such as this one, strongly revolving around a single character, a viewer can reassure themselves that no matter how bad the conflict becomes, the main character will survive until at least the end of the season. I can't think of any television programme which has had the courage to completely dispatch its lead, let alone in mid-season - classic Doctor Who has a case, but regeneration is a bit of a get-out clause. The trick is to get viewers thinking 'how on earth is [the character] going to get out of this one?'

Some of Breaking Bad's greatest moments have come when posing that question. Last night may have beaten them all.

 

Business Is Business: Breaking Bad review

TELEVISION REVIEW

BREAKING BAD: 'Salud'

If last week's Breaking Bad hinted at end-games to come, 'Salud' provided pay-offs in spades. I usually like to comb through these episodes and find some theme linking the various storylines together, but this week was all about the big moves forward. For sure, there was an undercurrent about memory and how it makes people the way they are - consider Walter describing his highly revealing relationship with his father as an attempt to salvage how his son might remember him, or how Don Eladio fails to realise that the vivid memories he left with Gustavo Fring proved the cause of his downfall, or Skylar again getting burnt by her rose-tinted view of Ted - but having that as the main discussion seems to be missing the point.

There are three episodes to go this season and Breaking Bad is kicking off in a big way. I have complained before that the build-up to this has been a bit too long in coming, but now that it appears to have arrived, the result was one of the best episodes of the season. Not a second was wasted in an hour by turn tragic, tense, exasperating and thrilling.

 

Never Come Back: Breaking Bad review

TELEVISION REVIEW

BREAKING BAD: 'Bug'

I have to admit that, as much as I have loved this season of Breaking Bad, a slight sense of frustration has been creeping in that there has been a lot of compelling build-up with no sense of impending pay-off. As I have said before, the slow-build is one of Bad's defining trademarks, but only really works when it feels as though everything could boil over at any moment. For the last few episodes, my worry was that Vince Gilligan and his writers were dragging the build-up out just a little too long. Of course something was going to happen eventually - explosive climaxes are as much a Bad staple as the build-ups - but no matter how big it was going to be, the idea that it might take all thirteen episodes to reach that point was a little wearying.

Although it didn't provide anything on the scale of Hank's confrontation with the killer cousins in 'One Minute', which is still in my opinion one of the most thrilling scenes ever put on television, 'Bug' put my fears to rest, taking several big strides towards the end-game of the Gus/Walt/Hank/Cartel showdown. In keeping with the rest of the season, which has tended to avoid big shocking moments in the aftermath of Gus Fring's demonstration with the box cutter, the tone was deceptively low-key. Or as low key as you can be when featuring a sniper attack and two men pummelling each other into a bloody mess.

    

Blood For Blood: Breaking Bad review

TELEVISION REVIEW

BREAKING BAD: 'Hermanos'

All season long, we've been seeing parallels and divisions drawn between the lead players in the game for supremacy between Gustavo Fring, Hank Schrader and Walter White. They have shared metaphorical problem dogs and a need to open up closed houses, but also been split between the romantics and the scientists, and those who do the driving and those riding shotgun. In that thematic respect, 'Hermanos' felt a little overfamiliar: there wasn't much need for another episode to drive such points home any more than they already have been, even using a new analogy about brothers. Seeing where Gus came from is a fascinating diversion, played out in a scene that manages to be tense despite a predictable outcome, but showing the similarities between how he and Walter got their respective careers off the ground didn't give us anything we didn't already know about who these characters are and why they play the games they do.

Yet the brotherhood that joins Breaking Bad's characters together isn't real. It's a business brotherhood, a bond based on a contract of assumed trust, rather than blood. Like the Pollos Hermanos, as the cartel Don pointed out, these characters are red and white meat - sitting together to give the impression of family and togetherness, whilst actually only business partners rather than genuine brothers. A family built on deception: the restaurant isn't really selling chicken as its primary source of income, and it doesn't say much that the birds used to symbolise family ties on the logo are the same breed being slaughtered and served up inside. These characters may have a lot in common, even a shared 'parentage' for Gus and Walt in terms of how they came into the meth business, but unless bound in blood, to call them brothers would be a fatal mistake.

 

The Wrong Guy: Breaking Bad review

TELEVISION REVIEW

Breaking Bad: 'Problem Dog'

I've read a lot of people complaining about this season of Breaking Bad, saying that nothing is happening and the plot arc doesn't seem to be going anywhere. I wouldn't want to dismiss those concerns out of hand - on the latter score, there's a fair point to be made that the previous few episodes have mostly focused on showing Walt's frustration manifesting itself in various ways without anything particularly significant coming of it yet - but I wonder whether those claiming that nothing has been happening have seen the programme before, or are at least aware that one of its principal pleasures is the slow-build. It's even vaguely ironic, in a way, since when I was reviewing the first season a while back, my main fear was that the stories would be moving too fast and forgetting to stop for breath every now and then. Watching the pilot again recently, the difference in pace between then and now is remarkable.

For those who haven't been happy with how things has unfolded thus far, 'Problem Dog' roughly marks (no pun intended) the centre point of the season, when Bad has previously chosen to light the fuse carefully prepared by previous episodes. The programme shares more in common in that respect with Gustavo Frings than its anti-hero Walter White: Fring is methodical, calculating and exact, but when the time comes, he strikes out quickly and to phenomenal effect. Think the box cutter, or the coup against the cartel. The series is much the same: slowly moving the pieces to where they need to be, before setting them into sudden, violent conflict. The battle for supremacy between Gus and Walt has been the fuel keeping this season moving, and last night's episode might not have set it alight just yet, but the matches are most certainly out.

 

Choices I Have Made: Breaking Bad review

TELEVISION REVIEW

BREAKING BAD: 'Cornered'

Has there ever been a character so dislikeable whom an audience has been asked to root for than Walter White? Some would immediately argue Tony Soprano, yet for all his cold-bloodedness, he had his sympathetic side: the exposure of his vulnerabilities in therapy, his love for animals, and so on. Walter White? All he has are excuses. He had cancer once, as this episode reminded us through the appearance of his conspicuous scar when taking a shower, but to all intents and purposes, that has long since been forgotten. He started cooking meth to support his family, but it soon turned into his own personal mission to justify his delusions of self-importance.

Now he's just a hateful narcissist, being slowly driven mad by the constant danger hanging over his head. He continues to tell himself that he's still the one in control, burning every bridge that may lead to his being forced to face the truth. In 'Cornered', the sixth episode of Breaking Bad's remarkably tense fourth season, Walt finds himself more isolated than ever. He's not completely wrong when thinking aloud in front of Jesse that 'this is all about me', but fails to remember that he's not the only one involved in his own story. Walt has left quite the trail of devastation on his way to Gustavo Frings' laboratory, and he's going to need the help of those who got him there to also get him out. Unfortunately, asking for help is not something Walter White seems able to do anymore.

  

Not The Guy: Breaking Bad review

TELEVISION REVIEW

BREAKING BAD: 'Shotgun'

First off, some good news: Breaking Bad showrunner Vince Gilligan has reportedly been locked in difficult negotiations with network AMC for some time now over the programme's future, but it was confirmed last night that he has finally got his wish: a sixteen-episode final season which will bring Walter White's story to its end.

I usually avoid reporting news, but apart from the fact that the announcement is something all Breaking Bad fans should be celebrating (there were rumours about having to change networks, or drag the story out by at least one more season than Gilligan wanted), it seemed timed to ominous perfection to coincide with Walter White taking another big step towards his inevitable self-destruction. Every step of the way, pride has been Walt's downfall. Remember all those times he could have saved himself and escaped the meth business, with minimal damage and money in the bank, yet pride has pulled him back in. Now that same character flaw isn't just keeping him trapped, but calling in the predators to finish him off once and for all. Why? Because Walter White's ego can't handle being forced to ride shotgun.

 

Look Down At The Floor With Remorse: Breaking Bad review

TELEVISION REVIEW

BREAKING BAD: 'Bullet Points'

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

- Walt Whitman, 'When I Heard The Learn'd Astronomer'

There are two kinds of stars. The stars that reside in the romantic's soul, and the entity that can be measured and observed in the notebooks of scientists and astronomers. You can see things as you would like them to be, or as unfeeling fact. Neither is perfect. The scientist has forgotten the importance of beauty to the world, which is now seen only in numbers. The romantic is so entranced by idealism that truth becomes blinkered. Do the two necessarily have to cancel each other out? Is there a middle ground between heaven and earth? Will Walter White find it before it is too late?

  

Extra Careful: Breaking Bad review

TELEVISION REVIEW

Breaking Bad: 'Open House'

Breaking Bad likes to hide secrets and in-jokes in its episode titles. In particular, recall the trick in the second season when all the episodes with foreshadowing for the finale conveyed a message of how the situation would play out ('Seven Thirty Seven', 'Down', 'Over', 'ABQ'). I was having a bit of trouble decyphering this week's episode until I considered the meaning of the title. 

Ostensibly, it would appear to refer to Marie visiting a number of houses which were up for sale, allowing her to imagine a different life for herself than the one she is presently stuck with. Or, at a stretch, it might have been Walt having to let Huell, Saul Goodman's muscle, use his bathroom for a 'stomach thing'. Either way, the central theme this week seems to be the need for these people to open the doors that the action of the past few weeks have made them lock up firmly.

 

Ton Of Bricks: Breaking Bad review

TELEVISION REVIEW

BREAKING BAD: 'Thirty-Eight Snub'

In my review of Breaking Bad's fourth season premiere last week, I speculated that the pieces were being put in place for a major power-shift between the footsoldiers and the generals. As Walt and Gus were busy trying to beat each other down in order to secure their own positions, Jesse seemed the calmest of everyone who had witnessed Victor's death. Hank, slowly but surely, was getting stronger. Skyler was becoming increasingly confident in her ability to break bad. Mike The Cleaner saw what his boss was truly capable of.

That may not yet come to pass, but one thing which is definitely true this week is that everything that went down in the meth lab last week has thrown the programme's characters and relationships into turmoil. If last week's theme was one of powerful men losing their grip on the worlds they ruled over, this week concerned itself with the aftermath of what those men do when threatened, and what makes one man run and another fight back. Gus went into hiding. Walt bought a gun that wasn't strictly for defence. Where previous seasons have Breaking Bad have predominantly dealt with Walt alone trying to manage the demands of his unstable kingdom, the two episodes of this fourth season are hinting at a four-way game of chess where one player's bad choice can destabilise the entire board.

  

Back To Work: Breaking Bad review

TELEVISION REVIEW

BREAKING BAD: 'Box Cutter'

Last week, I concluded my retrospective look at Breaking Bad's first season. There, watching as his psychotic new business partner drove away with a battered corpse left in his wake, Walter White realised that his transformation into the ice-cold meth pusher Heisenberg wasn't going to be as simple as first appeared. Just over two seasons later, on my hundredth post no less, that's a lesson Walter still hasn't learnt. At the end of last season, he took full measures to protect himself, even at the cost of a good man's life and the soul of the partner and friend he had earlier risked everything to save.

Yet where Heisenberg is prepared to commit the gravest atrocities to keep himself alive, Walter White remains the same short-term thinker he has been from the start, ignorant to the greater cost of his actions. At the end of the first season finale, he realised that the meth dealing which had started out as a break from the prison of his everyday struggles had trapped him just as much as his old life. Last season saw him lose control of the drugs empire he was starting to build and turned into a glorified worker bee. In the first episode of Breaking Bad's fourth season, Walter's prison is fully rebuilt, stronger than ever, and the worker is being turned into a slave.