Whoa...Breaking Bad S3...insanely good
Jul. 15th, 2012 12:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatThis has got to be the best television series I've ever seen, and as you know I've seen a lot of television series, hello TV whore here.
But S3 is flawless. And the dialogue...blew me away. I laughed and I wanted to cry. Although I haven't yet.
In Full Measures - the season finale of S3:
Then there are the stories...told as monologues, that are amazing. Plus the literary references - Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, Kafkaesque...Georgia O'Keefe.
It also builds on itself. Each character neatly built and depicted, and developed fully. All the characters are. In flashbacks, after they die, before they die. And it is that rare thing - both plot and character driven, the perfect medley of both. And not really predictable. I mean - yes, you can sort of see where it is going, but not at the same time.
The plot is a thing of beauty...this well-oiled machine. No gaps. No plot-holes. The character arcs all make sense. They are complex.
We have Walt...the death of the salesman's Willy Loman meets MacBeth.
Jesse...the protegee, his student, the Hamlet of the piece, McDuff..Dante falling into the inferno
Skylar - a Lady MacBeth...Walt's wife
Hank (the DEA agent and brother-in-law) - Ahab hunting the White Whale which happens to be his brother-in-law Walt
Marie - Hank's wife and Skylar's sister
Saul - Walt and Jesse's attorney
Walt Jr/Flynn - Walt's teenage son with MS
It's hilarious in places. Dark comedy in the style of Louis and Terriers and those Vince Gilligan episodes of The X-Files (the only ones I loved). Vince Gilligan is writing and directing most of it. And there aren't as many episodes - which may explain the tight writing.
In some respects its much better than the Wire, not as preachy, cleaner, and smarter. More showing. Less telling. David Simon got on his soap-box a bit in the Wire, Vince Gilligan doesn't feel a need to. That said, it does slow down a bit in S2 - that's where I got bogged down the last time I watched it. The weakest episodes are in S2. But once you get past those...the thing begins to take off. Actually the turning point episode for me, may have been Sunset in S3, with The Fly nailing the deal. The Fly is a two man piece, where Walt becomes obsessed with a fly that is flying about the lab. The fly is a metaphor for the cartel that Walt and Jesse are working for, that plagues them. That they can't avoid. That may be the death of them. It's also a metaphor for the drugs they are manufacturing and dealing. The contaminant in their own lives. They can choose to ignore it - but they don't.
Watching this show feels a bit like watching a novel for tv. Each bit of dialogue building on itself. You get inside all the characters. You learn everything about them. You understand them. You really get to see inside another's pov, understand it. And it is hyper-realism, or exaggerated realism as is The Wire.
If you loved The Wire, Terriers or like the comedy Louis? I highly recommend Breaking Bad. But stick with it. Pick a time you are in the right mood. Don't do what I did the first time I tried it - watch it after reading Storm of Swords, GWDT, Hunger Games, and watching lots of violent movies and tv shows. Or when you have no time. It's a dead of summer series. The Wire is the same way. This is a series for hot summer nights...not cold winter ones. Watching it feels like watching Orson Wells or Patrick Stewart do MacBeth...or sinking your teeth into a gritty good character novel.
Are the characters likable? Not exactly. It's an anti-hero story. But.. They are compelling. And they grow on you. They feel deliciously real, three dimensional.
And the theme...is one for our times. About the desperation. A dark comedic tragedy.
It does feel a lot like a modern day Death of a Salesman meets Scarface by way of Mr. Chips and MacBeth. A mild-mannered chemist, who becomes a struggling and stressed chemistry teacher with lung cancer...and chooses to manufacture and sell meth, as opposed to take charity. And the road those choices take him down. Depicting in detail how our choices define us, determine who we are and change and affect those around us.
But S3 is flawless. And the dialogue...blew me away. I laughed and I wanted to cry. Although I haven't yet.
In Full Measures - the season finale of S3:
Walt: As I see it you have two options. Option A, you can kill me, should be easy enough for you, out here, no witnesses. Then hunt down Jesse Pinkman and kill him where-ever he is.
Gus: And Option B.
Walt: You can let me live. Forget Pinkman. I'll continue to work for you and we can treat this as a hickup in the road as it were.
I prefer Option B.
Saul: My own PI threatened to break my legs, that's so messed up - that's like that..Hawaiiain dude detective with the mustache beating up the little prissy guy with the smaller moustache.
Then there are the stories...told as monologues, that are amazing. Plus the literary references - Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, Kafkaesque...Georgia O'Keefe.
Jesse: It looks like another Vagina. She has a thing for vaginas.
Jane: That's Georgia O'Keefe.
Jesse: Nice vagina.
Jane: It's a painting of a door.
Jesse: Why would anyone paint a door?
Jane: She did repetitions of a door, one right after each other.
Jesse: Still, why would anyone paint a door?
It also builds on itself. Each character neatly built and depicted, and developed fully. All the characters are. In flashbacks, after they die, before they die. And it is that rare thing - both plot and character driven, the perfect medley of both. And not really predictable. I mean - yes, you can sort of see where it is going, but not at the same time.
The plot is a thing of beauty...this well-oiled machine. No gaps. No plot-holes. The character arcs all make sense. They are complex.
We have Walt...the death of the salesman's Willy Loman meets MacBeth.
Jesse...the protegee, his student, the Hamlet of the piece, McDuff..Dante falling into the inferno
Skylar - a Lady MacBeth...Walt's wife
Hank (the DEA agent and brother-in-law) - Ahab hunting the White Whale which happens to be his brother-in-law Walt
Marie - Hank's wife and Skylar's sister
Saul - Walt and Jesse's attorney
Walt Jr/Flynn - Walt's teenage son with MS
It's hilarious in places. Dark comedy in the style of Louis and Terriers and those Vince Gilligan episodes of The X-Files (the only ones I loved). Vince Gilligan is writing and directing most of it. And there aren't as many episodes - which may explain the tight writing.
In some respects its much better than the Wire, not as preachy, cleaner, and smarter. More showing. Less telling. David Simon got on his soap-box a bit in the Wire, Vince Gilligan doesn't feel a need to. That said, it does slow down a bit in S2 - that's where I got bogged down the last time I watched it. The weakest episodes are in S2. But once you get past those...the thing begins to take off. Actually the turning point episode for me, may have been Sunset in S3, with The Fly nailing the deal. The Fly is a two man piece, where Walt becomes obsessed with a fly that is flying about the lab. The fly is a metaphor for the cartel that Walt and Jesse are working for, that plagues them. That they can't avoid. That may be the death of them. It's also a metaphor for the drugs they are manufacturing and dealing. The contaminant in their own lives. They can choose to ignore it - but they don't.
Watching this show feels a bit like watching a novel for tv. Each bit of dialogue building on itself. You get inside all the characters. You learn everything about them. You understand them. You really get to see inside another's pov, understand it. And it is hyper-realism, or exaggerated realism as is The Wire.
If you loved The Wire, Terriers or like the comedy Louis? I highly recommend Breaking Bad. But stick with it. Pick a time you are in the right mood. Don't do what I did the first time I tried it - watch it after reading Storm of Swords, GWDT, Hunger Games, and watching lots of violent movies and tv shows. Or when you have no time. It's a dead of summer series. The Wire is the same way. This is a series for hot summer nights...not cold winter ones. Watching it feels like watching Orson Wells or Patrick Stewart do MacBeth...or sinking your teeth into a gritty good character novel.
Are the characters likable? Not exactly. It's an anti-hero story. But.. They are compelling. And they grow on you. They feel deliciously real, three dimensional.
And the theme...is one for our times. About the desperation. A dark comedic tragedy.
It does feel a lot like a modern day Death of a Salesman meets Scarface by way of Mr. Chips and MacBeth. A mild-mannered chemist, who becomes a struggling and stressed chemistry teacher with lung cancer...and chooses to manufacture and sell meth, as opposed to take charity. And the road those choices take him down. Depicting in detail how our choices define us, determine who we are and change and affect those around us.