[Full of Breaking Bad spoilers, but no El Camino spoilers since I haven’t seen it yet.]
Before I watch Netflix’s El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, I’m re-watching the Breaking Bad TV series that aired on the AMC channel between 2008 and 2013.
(I have to brag that I watched Breaking Bad from its pilot episode, on an actual television as it originally aired. All you immediate gratification streamers: I watched every single show and had to wait at least one week between episodes and several months between seasons. So there.)
This is the second time I’ve watched all the episodes in order and I’m longing even more for Walt to get caught or killed early on. He’s driven by a very big — and therefore very childish — ego from the beginning and it’s disturbing to know that so many viewers have seen him as a hero.
In 2011 Tasha Robinson of The A.V. Club wrote about Walt’s character in her discussion of the third season episode “Fly” in Best TV Show, Worst Episode. She wrote:
It was also a vision of Walt that did not in any way coincide with the mental image I’d built of him over the course of the series, as a self-justifying, angry man who could be a real badass when required: Instead, we have to see him as irrational and petty to the point of rank stupidity, taking moronic action after action that clearly risks his safety and well-being… all to catch a fly.
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| Walt being a dumbass |
Did Robinson not watch the first seasons of Breaking Bad? Walt is irrational to the point of rank stupidity when he decides to cook meth, when he turns down Elliot and Gretchen’s money, when he forces Jessie to go after “breakage,” and when he forces Jessie to expand their market which draws Gus’s fire. Walt often acts irrationally, based on high emotion, such as when he goes after Tuco for putting Jessie in the hospital. That leads him to make a deal with Tuco without Jessie’s input, who would have wisely told Walt to avoid that homicidal time bomb.
Walt’s pettiness is clear every time he re-establishes his dominance over Jessie — a man whose street knowledge Walt’s ego won’t allow him to acknowledge, much less use to their advantage. And this evidence for Walt being irrational and stupid is just from what happened before the “Fly” episode, which was the focus of Robinson’s criticism.
I expect that after “Fly,” originally aired, Robinson watched the rest of the seasons, which show Gus playing Walt’s ego to get Walt to work for him (child’s play for Gus), Walt’s ego causing him to persuade Hank that Gale wasn’t Heisenberg (my god, the self-destruction), Walt’s ego driving him ever closer to blowing his whole subterfuge (such buying his son an expensive car) and thinking he can work with an Aryan Nation type of group without that going horribly wrong. Not to mention his backstory decision to storm off from his partnership in Gray Matter, which indicates that Walt has been making emotional, irrational and petty moves since well before the action of the show. I don’t understand how Walt’s stupidity wasn’t picked up on by Robinson and the legions of fans who have decided Walt is “badass.”
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| Skyler after Walt has ruined everything |
Some badass. It all turns out to be for less than nothing when, at the end of the last season, he leaves his family destitute and ostracized, with Skyler a broken woman. In a keen twist — after all that — his wife and son want nothing to do with his drug money.
Speaking of Skyler, her pride serves her badly, too. If she weren’t so horrified by the prospect of people knowing Walt is a criminal, she could call the cops on him when she first wants a divorce. She also displays bad judgment when she thinks she and her husband can stay ahead of the law with their car wash scheme. In the first season, I expected Skyler to be the moral center of the show, but actually that’s Jesse. Skyler, like Walt, will do anything for her family and — with these two — that motivation doesn’t go well (Today I feel less sympathy for her than I did in my post Feel bad for Skyler).
Walt knows chemistry so well he has an almost superhero ability to apply it, but his wounded pride (from having to live as an ordinary person and not a Gray Matter elite – boo hoo) causes him to make extremely emotion-driven, pan-destructive moves. I hated him in 2013 and I hate him even more on second viewing. It’s a wonder he survives as long as he does and I’m glad the writers finally kill him off. A Breaking Bad movie focused on Jesse is an excellent idea. One focused on Walt would be intolerable.
Oh, it's a disturbing show. There's real cruelty and even sadism to a lot of the violence. Often the killing is for survival, but a lot is calculated to evoke an emotional response and it can get very sick. I don't blame anyone who can't stomach this show.
Now I want to finish Breaking Bad… Or do I? I stopped watching somewhere around mid-season 2 because I just felt uncomfortable watch the show. At the time I attributed this to general anxiety, but perhaps the manipulative, upsetting actions of the lead character had somryhing to do with it.