When I first heard about the show, my first instinct was that someone had done a show about my first driving test. I mean I heard the show was dark and scary and full of accidents. Watching the first season I was casually entertained. I got the Weeds-like side show trip into the drug fueled suburbs. So what? Move on. But something compelled me to keep watching mainly because everyone I knew on the planet kept insisting that it was the greatest thing on TV since Howdy Doody exposed himself. (Nothing like Peanuts Gallery envy). And somewhere in the middle of season two... the wow factor started. And that kept building until I watched the entire forth season in ONE DAY. Here's the thing: the show is made of crystal meth and it makes you a fucked up obsessive compulsive junkie. But it's not drugs that your addicted to. You are addicted to FEELINGS (caps appropriate). We all have a Walter White side... and a Walter Black side. Isn't that what Lost was all about? That was a treatise, to me, on the the ruminations of the Catholic Church. It was about choices, destiny, making black or white choices and ultimately: salvation. And here we are again: This time: Breaking Bad, which is the darker side of Dexter which flirts with the very same theme -- especially, I believe season 6 -- the Colin Hanks sloppy season. That was all about God too.
The fact that Walter White is played by the actor Bryan Cranston just makes things intolerably brilliant. A funny guy is suddenly malcolmtent in the middle class. Cancer is kicking the funny right out of his ass. He made billions for others and is nothing more than a $43K a year, embittered living for vengance chemistry teacher who stumbles into hell... and keeps growing until he is Satan himself. Final season: retribution. He must pay for his sins. Now he is Heisenberg named after Werner Karl Heisenberg who was a German theoretical physicist and one of the key creators of quantum mechanics. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: To know the velocity of a quark we must measure it, and to measure it, we are forced to affect it. The same goes for observing an object's position. Uncertainty about an object's position and velocity makes it difficult for a physicist to determine much about the object.
And all this is shot in GORGEOUS often meth blue COLOR -- as if we're enhanced by drugs too. The camera work is GENIUS. I heard an interview with Downton Abbey's Julian Fellowes and when asked about the show's access he credited the actors but most of all the fact that there was NO studio, producer or studio interference. The show was PURE and unaffected therefore unspoiled by committee.
The only time that the network interfered with Breaking Bad? When it came to a debate when Walter turned away from Jesse's gf when she was about to die by asperating on her vomit. Said the network: do you really want to go there? Because once you do, there is no turning back.
The solution: clever editing and performance that enhances the struggle that Walt goes through by THINKING... while she dies. Brilliant.
But now, at the end game, Walt's soul has become even darker than the Cartel's or even Gus. Gus was driven by the death of his probably homosexual lover who the Cartel blew away. Walt has nothing now -- even though he has untold millions stacked to the ceiling in a storage bin.
Evil is his chemo. It is surging through his veins, slowly killing... or healing him. But it is not up to him. He has traded in his destiny for a handful of silver.
Along with Hank, Jesse Pinkman is now the moral center of the show. Jesse took his millions and delivered it like newspapers to houses in the barrio. Surging through his veins: guilt . The death of a child. All the terrible things that they did. He is corrupted youth who has all the riches and wants none of it. He even mourns the death of an older gangster who became a father figure to him.
The end game has begun. Tread lightly Walt tells Hank -- after trying to play the I have cancer/I'm dying card. The result: a fist to the face.
End game now. The moment that we all live for. The moment when inevitable death will come.
We already know that something has gone very, very wrong. Walt's house? It looks like Jesse's did, when he went through his period of self loathing -- and the Heisenberg writing is most defintely on the wall. The empty pool -- which was meth blue -- is now empty and full of ragged skaters. The neighbors look at him like he's a pariah. Something has gone very, very wrong.
The end is near.