Forums >Off the Beaten Path>Just Started Watching Breaking Bad...Help, Please.
I started watching it a few months ago, with my wife; she had had enough after the first season, but I was hooked.
Just watched the last episode today. Wow. Yes, it was worth watching it all.
Thanks for the comments, everyone! I think, at this point, I'm going to have to pass on watching any more episodes. ... I'm just not excited about going on, curious as I am about the development of some of the other characters (glad to hear the Hank Schrader character is developing - he was one of my favorites from the episodes I saw. Jesse, not so much.).
Thanks for the comments, everyone! I think, at this point, I'm going to have to pass on watching any more episodes.
... I'm just not excited about going on, curious as I am about the development of some of the other characters (glad to hear the Hank Schrader character is developing - he was one of my favorites from the episodes I saw. Jesse, not so much.).
Jesse gets much more interesting -- in fact, I think his is the most complex character in the series, certainly the one who goes through the most changes. In a weird way he's also the most moral character. I too wished he would just die after the first couple of episodes. I heard that he was supposed to die around the end of the first season, but the audience reaction changed the writers' minds.
rectumdamnnearkilledem
DH was just saying that he'd read that. I can't even imagine the show without Jesse. He might be my favorite character. I've found myself wanting to reach though our TV and give him a hug. Can't wait to see future Aaron Paul work.
Getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to
remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.
~ Sarah Kay
I'm deep into it near the end of season 3. Just finished the episode "The Fly". I have to say that the show has been great so far with lots to like but this particular episode wore on my patience. I sort of see how they used it to delve into some deeper psychological stuff, which I appreciate. But still, I'm hoping the next 3 episodes of this season do not disappoint. I'm reassured to hear you say "it was worth watching it all".
Just read a bit on Aaron Paul (Jesse Pinkman) via Digg Reader earlier today. I think it was a Details magazine article. Kind of interesting dude (and veerry interesting pictures, for the ladies that is). They do mention that he was supposed to be cut in the first season, like you said. The article also says something about a prequel titled Better Call Saul. You guys heard anything about that? I haven't looked into it but I'm intrigued.
The article also says something about a prequel titled Better Call Saul. You guys heard anything about that? I haven't looked into it but I'm intrigued.
There's a fake business website…it's kinda funny.
I'm deep into it near the end of season 3. Just finished the episode "The Fly". I have to say that the show has been great so far with lots to like but this particular episode wore on my patience.
I think that was the one episode in the whole series that I thought was rather pointless.
I think there were a bunch of those, including some that got too touchy feely for my taste. But the nice thing about binge watching I guess is that you don't have to dwell on the lamer episodes, you just move on to the next. We recorded all 62 episodes during the marathon they had leading up to the finale (found the exact limit of our DVR.) DW & I watched the whole series in a few weeks, we could not pull ourselves away, every night was "one more episode". One of the best dramatic series on television ever. And and extremely well done ending, IMHO. (Unlike Dexter. And this season's Homeland, although presumably not the end of the series, possibly the worst finale ever.)
I am surprised at the number of people in this thread who lost interest, or had issues with the content. Diff'rent strokes I guess. I don't think they glorified his business; he became a miserable man, hated by all, and in the end completely isolated. True they underplayed the damage the drug causes to the addicts, other than shown in a few tragic scenes (that couple in the house with the little kid -- ugh).
I think all the main characters became more interesting as the series goes on; they all start out pretty one-dimensional but get more complex. All the acting was good, but Bryan Cranston was truly brilliant. And for comic relief - better call Saul. (Yes there is a series supposedly starting in November.) I would always notice Bob Odenkirk's name in the opening credits, and think "yes, a Saul episode!"
Dave
Will run for scenery.
I enjoyed the whole series, except the last half season which I'm still waiting for on Netflix.
Funny thing, in September I ran a 50k at Mt. Taylor in northern NM, an hour east of ABQ. The whole time, people were joking about BB. The EMS crew showed up in a windowless 4wd van thingie that any reasonable person would assume is a meth lab. When I got home and watched the very next epidode, there behind Mike Armentrout (?, "dead eyes") was Mt. Taylor in all it's glory.
Stupid feet!
Stupid elbow!
The original post begs the question of whether there's any reason why there should be something redemptive.
Hollywood loves for bad guys to get their come uppance, but in real life lots of people do bad things, get away with it and have no remorse. There's nothing per se wrong with movies or TV depicting that. Art doesn't have to be about moral instruction...
What's nice about all of these new collection of good tv shows: Mad Men, Breaking Bad, etc., is that (finally) we are given plot lines that have little to do with a simplistic arc of redemption. Any identification with Walt or Jessie has to be a complex identification. We identify with the characters because we have made dubious choices in complex situations. It's sorta the zeitgeist as well: is it possible to believe in the "arc of redemption" these days? Seems to me the mark of the times is moral uncertainty, and these shows do a great job reflecting the zeitgeist back to us. In many ways, I think this is exactly the sort of art we need right now because if we are going to get our politics straightened out and learn to talk with each other, we need to give up on the simplistic narratives of redemption that the parties offer us and look to the difficult and perhaps doomed choices we have to make with respect to issues like, well, drugs, but also global warming, the economy, immigration, prisons, etc. We all sort of find ourselves like Mr. White, led by good intentions deep into a dark and bewildering world, where no choice bears the possibility of absolute redemption.
What's nice about all of these new collection of good tv shows: Mad Men, Breaking Bad, etc., is that (finally) we are given plot lines that have little to do with a simplistic arc of redemption.
Any identification with Walt or Jessie has to be a complex identification. We identify with the characters because we have made dubious choices in complex situations. It's sorta the zeitgeist as well: is it possible to believe in the "arc of redemption" these days? Seems to me the mark of the times is moral uncertainty, and these shows do a great job reflecting the zeitgeist back to us.
In many ways, I think this is exactly the sort of art we need right now because if we are going to get our politics straightened out and learn to talk with each other, we need to give up on the simplistic narratives of redemption that the parties offer us and look to the difficult and perhaps doomed choices we have to make with respect to issues like, well, drugs, but also global warming, the economy, immigration, prisons, etc. We all sort of find ourselves like Mr. White, led by good intentions deep into a dark and bewildering world, where no choice bears the possibility of absolute redemption.
I started watching BB about 6 weeks ago on Netflix (I'm 3/4 through season 4) and now I understand and agree with this post. Although the one thing I was surprised about was how quickly I turned against WW. I expected to be more ambivalent just based on what I had heard about the plot line, i.e. 50 year old extremely overqualified high school chemistry teacher with a disabled so and an unplanned baby on the way gets lung cancer and has shitty health insurance and no life insurance and makes a bad decision. But early in the first season I was already rooting against him.
Strangely I find Jesse, who starts out as a meth dealer/cook, much more sympathetic. That's pretty brilliant character development.
I'm absolutely hooked on the show.
Runners run
Strangely I find Jesse, who starts out as a meth dealer/cook, much more sympathetic. That's pretty brilliant character development. I'm absolutely hooked on the show.
By midway through season 5 I expect you'll sit there nearly sobbing for Jesse's lot. I hope there isn't something in the next 4 episodes to make me change my opinion on the guy. 3/4 through season 5 he's my favorite character. Aaron Paul is a helluva actor.
The original post begs the question of whether there's any reason why there should be something redemptive. Hollywood loves for bad guys to get their come uppance, but in real life lots of people do bad things, get away with it and have no remorse. There's nothing per se wrong with movies or TV depicting that. Art doesn't have to be about moral instruction...
You're exactly right. I think that art can be used as sort of a tool to come to some understandings about yourself and your past experience or as instruction as how to maybe interpret future experience. And, when done well, to convey an idea from one person's mind to another even if only bits make it across the gulf. A grand tranlational tool. Requiring that there be moral instruction to one's experience of art suggests that the receiver of the art doesn't have the intelligence to use the tool.
Exactly. I'm not a teenager…I don't need every drama to be an after-school special!
I've got a fever...
Los Pollos Hermanos of Albuquerque has a Yelp page.
On your deathbed, you won't wish that you'd spent more time at the office. But you will wish that you'd spent more time running. Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.
Doc, my tooth hurts
I read somewhere about that episode and how it tied into the whole series and how it served it's purpose. I think it had something to do with Walt's obsessiveness and wanting to win all of the time.
To be perfectly honest this isn't a show that I feel can be summed up in a post on the internet. There are too many levels too it because of all of the interesting character arcs throughout. I think the show does an amazing job of making you change your mind of how you feel about a character. Many people have commented that "yeah I didn't really like it or I find it boring." Obviously not everyone is going to like the same type of show or what the same things out of a show, but man the characters really don't start taking off until season 4 in my opinion. Then it's obvious throughout the rest of the 3 seasons why the first 3 seasons were crucial. It's a gradual build, just like anything.
I thought the show was boring at first too and didn't particularly care for any of the characters on the show. By the last half of the last seasons I cared about what happened to almost everyone on the show. The last season is probably up there with some of the best TV dramas ever, but only time will tell how it actually holds up.
In the original post you it was addressed that walt does "dumb things" throughout the show. It is addressed towards the end of the series a couple of times. I'll address this below at this point if you don't really want to know some of what happens stop reading
******SPOILER ALERT BELOW********
During the final episode (or 2nd to last) Skylar realizes that Walt is too far gone and is never coming back. He goes to Skylar to say goodbye and she asks him why he did it He responds with "I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really... I was alive," Keep in mind this is a guy in the first episode who had really nothing to lose. I think it ties into what Jeff posted about making us look at ourselves a little bit also, especially us as runners. Running isn't in the same category as a meth cook, but the idea is there. How many times do you think other people think you are crazy for doing something you like/love and can't imagine doing the same. Dedicating a whole weekend to a race? Missing out on events for running? Getting up early in the morning to run 20 miles? All of it's dumb right? this can be applied to anything people love doing and feel that they are good at.
I'm surprised it took so long for a breaking bad thread to pop up on here.
Better call Saul!
marathon pr - 3:16