Thoughts About “Breaking Bad”…

There have been very few shows as of late that deal with the American male mythos.

You may disagree: as of this writing there are the newest TV shows on the block, situation comedies that aim for lowest-common-denominator chuckles that parlay into the worst attributes of masculinity.  Even some of the returning shows which had promised some closure are nearly unwatchable (I’m referring to HIMYM).  Ever since Al Bundy and Homer Simpson found comedic chops in subverting the family sitcom paradigm (and–to be fair–at the times they started, it was a fresh, mostly untested idea), most television has gone out of its way to subvert a family dynamic and downplay the role of the father in the family household.

Breaking Bad, certainly, doesn’t do the father-mythos any favors, but it does transcend its limitations.  It is different.  Although it is a drama, there are moments of dark humor interspersed throughout.  At the heart of it all is Walter White’s (Bryan Cranston’s) need to provide for his family, no matter what.  And if that means “turning into Scarface”, then so be it.

I had held out on commenting on Breaking Bad (or any other television show) for the longest time, because it’s shows like this that are all about the ending.  After five seasons, the best you could hope for was that the ending wouldn’t be some cheap cop-out over all the open threads throughout the entire run.  And by “threads”, I most certainly mean recompense for all the pain and agony that Walter White had brought into hundreds, perhaps thousands, of delinquent lives.

I, like most every other person on the planet, came into BB rather late, binge watching the show between its fourth and fifth seasons, on Netflix.  I had read the reviews, which were rhapsodic, and late in the game, I had decided to give it a try.  To be honest, I’ve been telling people that if you watched up to episode 1.,3, and then stopped, that could be enough for you to know whether or not this show is for you.  By then there would be enough surprises and story to last the length of a full motion picture.

It wasn’t enough, of course.  In watching the show, you are simultaneously angered by Walt’s decisions, while also empathizing as to why he had done so.  And there was something admirable about his form of self-sacrifice–demented as it was–that employed the full use of his talents while discovering he had new talents, dormant, that had transformed him from some wimpy, put-on to the most powerful drug kingpin in the American Southwest.

And the themes of responsibility, courage, fortitude, all came to the forefront in Walt’s life, albeit in the service of a heinous scheme that, while it provided him enough money to care for his family, was really more about him, and satiating his pride. For once, he was the “guy who knocks”, the one who does things to others, instead of having things done to him.

My only complaint about the finale is that the screenwriters had spent upwards of an hour closing up loose threads with all the major characters, so that the final showdown between Walt, Jesse, and the Nazi gang, had to be wrapped up in just ten minutes.  Further, this showdown didn’t involve chemistry, but some sort of technical mechanical know-how that we didn’t know Walt had in him.  That said, Walt’s admitting to his wife that his whole empire was built, not for the family, but for him alone, was powerful television.  I remember how I teared up a little when watching the finale of Lost, when Benjamin Linus had a similar, quiet piece of dialogue where he shared his sins with Locke.  I don’t know if the writers had been following my thoughts all along, and it’s celebratory when they can see through their characters with the eyes of traditional morality.

So, in short, if you’ve been avoiding Breaking Bad because of its lurid subject matter, I can understand the trepidation.  But it is most clear that this is not a television show that promotes such reprehensible behavior, but rather, endorses traditional morality by means of showing the consequences behind their actions.  And in doing so, they begin scratching the surface over weightier themes, the psychology of the modern male, the need to prove oneself, and that nefarious self-perpetuated fatal wound called pride.

What were your thoughts on the finale?  Leave them in the comments.