Breaking Bad Discussion (Spoilers)

Another convert!

My friend wants more Malcolm in the Middle references and thinks it should be renamed to The Adventures of Cool Old Guy.

Also: Breaking Bad > Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and probably everything else too).
 
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It's so awesome.

In the second episode of the second season, where Walt and Jesse are kidnapped by Tuco, I couldn't help but think it would be a hysterical episode of MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE.

Hal would totally quit his job behind Lois' back and start cooking crystal meth, and imagine if, instead of Jesse, its Reese. Or Francis. Hal would attack Tuco with the fly swatter. It would be so unbelievably funny.
 
I'm on the penultimate episode of the second season.

Goddamit, Walt.

An aside: I know that I routinely piss everyone off with my "This sucks because of [essay]." so here's an attempt to do a positive one.

I'm going to discuss major spoilers here, so please be aware of that. And by the time I read this tomorrow, I'll have finished season two and be up to date.

Right... the episode PHOENIX ends with Walt going over to Jesse's to try to save him from killing himself with drugs. He gets in through a door he broke the day before and sees Jesse in bed, spooned by his girlfriend Jane. Jane is a drug addict who got Jesse into heroine and the reason Walt gave Jesse his $500 grand despite wanting to keep it from him so he doesn't use the money to overdose. Walt pushes Jane onto her back to get to Jesse. After a few moments, with Walt trying to wake Jesse up and then sighing in frustration, Jane starts to vomit and choke on her own vomit. Walt immediately goes to help her and then... stops. And he watches her choke to death. He lets her die. She never regains consciousness. And Walt cries.

I can't stress enough just how brilliant this scene is. First of all, the event itself is just brilliant. It just plain works. But the context of the scene is so complex it's incredible.

People get the wrong impression of me sometimes. I'm not an artistic snob. I'm not someone who intellectualises art and poo-poos 'entertainment'. I hate academia. I don't want intellectual complexity. It's fine to have it; I really enjoyed INCEPTION, but intellectual complexity is boring. BREAKING BAD isn't intellectually complex. It is a very simple story.

But emotionally this show is unbelievably complex.

Walt is a mass of contradictory emotions and desires bashing against each other. He's honest, yet a calculating liar. He's meek and timid, yet he's stubbornly proud and won't accept any kind of charity. He's placid and loving, yet holds grudges for decades and capable of great hate. He's compassionate yet he enjoys making other people suffer. He's completely rational and self-righteous but is wracked with guilt and self-doubt. He's a school teacher yet he's a drug dealer. That's, what, six dimensions right off the top of my head, and there's more. Wonderfully complex.

And that scene... on the one hand, Walt letting Jane die is a bad thing. Yet on the other hand, we completely empathise with Walt. We go, "I wish there was some other way". We want to save Jesse, yet we don't want to kill this girl. One the one hand, Walt clearly wants Jane to die and probably, somewhere in him, even likes seeing her die. And you know what? I'm kinda glad she's dead. She was killing Jesse. I'm kinda happy. And yet, the guilt, the pain, the wishing she wasn't dead, that there could be another way out... that is mature, emotional complexity in dramatic storytelling, and BREAKING BAD is full of those scenes.

What an incredible show this is.
 
And that is why everyone should watch this show.

That scene made me shake.

I bet Bass hates the finale.
 
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Bass said:
I'm going to discuss major spoilers here, so please be aware of that. And by the time I read this tomorrow, I'll have finished season two and be up to date.
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Hey man, you have one more season to go until you're fully up to date. And its totally worth it.
 
Season three finished a couple of months ago. Download it!
 
Why should I since I will so hate the finale (apparently).

DAMN KIWI! I was super-stoked excited and now I am worried!
 
Now I am scared. If it turns out to be a dream I will kill you all.

Or if it just cuts out like THE SOPRANOS. Stupid ass show. Still haven't forgiven it.

ProjectX2 said:
:twisted:
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If this were NEW ZEALAND STORY I so wouldn't free your arrow-shooting ass from the cage.
 
Typical. Bass says he loves this show and EVERYONE ON THE PLANET goes and watches it.
 
ProjectX2 said:
Typical. Bass says he loves this show and EVERYONE ON THE PLANET goes and watches it.
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Good. Serves you right, you damned Kiwi.

You and Goodwill. To hell with you both.

"Oooh, Bass won't like the finale. It's different."

**** you both was it different. It was absolutely wonderful and brilliant and I don't even understand your purposely cryptic clues, you meanies. Bullying me.

I watch BREAKING BAD with my mum and I told her that you said it was "different" and I wouldn't like it. After the episode, my mum said, "You're friends are scallywags. Tell them I called them scallywags."

So I have. If I had the power, I'd change your sub-nics to "Scallywag" but you're lucky I can't.

Also, I am convinced Walt will use the crash to fake his death somehow. Season 3 can't come fast enough.

Now, onto IN TREATMENT, which is also stupidly brilliant.
 
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