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Breaking Bad: season two down, three to go
Oct. 3rd, 2022 08:10 pmHaving just finished season two of Breaking Bad, I found the backstretch of the season much easier to handle than anything earlier. This was partly down to the introduction of a breather character in the figure of Saul Goodman and partly from getting to see Giancarlo Esposito (who played one of my two favorite characters on the deeply flawed Revolution) again. Hopefully his character won't get upstaged by wonky nanobot shenanigans this time...
There was also the last episode appearance of Jonathan Banks, who I know as Mako from Highlander (one of my favorite single-shot Immortals) - sadly he's lost the western duds, facial scar, sword and hair (Breaking Bad has the highest percentage of bald men I've ever seen on a TV show), but it's still nice to have him around.
However, the main change was in my own interpretation of what I was seeing on screen. Since the "tragic storytelling" of this particular show was a no-sell for me, I made the effort to switch out my genre glasses from "tragedy" to "noir" and suddenly the horror diminished by roughly 45%. The show itself hasn't changed, but classic noir themes (corruption spreading from person to person, vice as the key to hell, Walt as the delusional James M. Cain protagonist who thinks he can carry off the perfect crime, Hank as the battered-yet-morally-upright investigator) all fit Breaking Bad to a tee. Even the subplot of Skyler's return to work and the discovery she makes there would fit into the genre nicely. If the show were set in a coastal city this might have occurred to me earlier, but at least this way I am in harmony with what I'm watching rather than subconsciously battling against it.
Final episode ABQ gave me a lot of the same feelings I remember from Six Feet Under, dealing primarily with grief over a sudden death and extreme family dysfunction. Aaron Paul just killed me in every scene. In terms of emotional impact, this was the best episode so far.
So, this might count as me "enjoying" the impossible to enjoy.
There was also the last episode appearance of Jonathan Banks, who I know as Mako from Highlander (one of my favorite single-shot Immortals) - sadly he's lost the western duds, facial scar, sword and hair (Breaking Bad has the highest percentage of bald men I've ever seen on a TV show), but it's still nice to have him around.
However, the main change was in my own interpretation of what I was seeing on screen. Since the "tragic storytelling" of this particular show was a no-sell for me, I made the effort to switch out my genre glasses from "tragedy" to "noir" and suddenly the horror diminished by roughly 45%. The show itself hasn't changed, but classic noir themes (corruption spreading from person to person, vice as the key to hell, Walt as the delusional James M. Cain protagonist who thinks he can carry off the perfect crime, Hank as the battered-yet-morally-upright investigator) all fit Breaking Bad to a tee. Even the subplot of Skyler's return to work and the discovery she makes there would fit into the genre nicely. If the show were set in a coastal city this might have occurred to me earlier, but at least this way I am in harmony with what I'm watching rather than subconsciously battling against it.
Final episode ABQ gave me a lot of the same feelings I remember from Six Feet Under, dealing primarily with grief over a sudden death and extreme family dysfunction. Aaron Paul just killed me in every scene. In terms of emotional impact, this was the best episode so far.
So, this might count as me "enjoying" the impossible to enjoy.
