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selenakSeason 4 of Breaking Bad will be out on dvd and available to me on March 22, so I shall valiantly try to remain unspoiled for it until then. Which makes looking for fanfiction not easy. (Not that there seems to be much.) (Which the show has in common with other tightly plotted and well written shows; it's a cliché but true that flawed shows, films, books generate far, far more fanfiction.) Meanwhile, I listened to the cast commentary of the season 2 finale which has most of the regulars plus John de Lancie in it, and the following dialogue:
*Mike the Cleaner appeas on screen*
JdL: Every time I see Jonathan Banks, I remember kissing him.
*rest of the cast*: Tell us more!
It was an on screen kiss, of course, but googling doesn't tell me where because John de Lancie and Jonathan Banks apparently were in several episodes of several shows as well as in a film together. Ah well. Anyway, on the cast commentary the Breaking Bad regulars suggested the show could bring Donald Margolis (de Lancie's character) back and let him hook up with Mike, presumably so they don't have to watch several episodes of several shows and a movie in order to get another kiss. Me, I know the ideal method.alara_r! As a John de Lancie expert extraordinaire, she must know where this happened.
Anyway, on a more serious note, de Lancie makes the same observation I did in my s2 review, that usually he playes "assholes - funny assholes sometimes, but usually assholes", so Donald was something quite extraordinary for him. And as a father, he very much identified with Donald and his reactions throughout. Something I find very real and narratively well done about Breaking Bad is that it addresses the whole "how to deal when your children do drugs" thing without offering any easy answers. In s1 when we meet Jesse's parents, it's clear that they've been through several rounds of interventions, relapses and what not. It's not that they don't love him, but that at this point, they've had it and decided there have to be consequences, genuine ones, and so they cut him off. Which as far as we can see has neither an inspiring nor a hindering effect on Jesse. (It leaves the field for Walt as the sole authority figure, but that's hardly his parents' fault.) By contrast, Jane's father Donald in s2 also went through a decade of drug abuse, interventions etc. with her, but never cut her off. At first glance, this seems to have been the better way - when we meet her, Jane has been on the wagon (or rather the drug equivalent of same) for eighteen months successfully, she lives on her own yet is in regular contact with her father who goes with her to meetings as support, she has a job she likes. But Jane's relapse happens despite all this. It's her ability to manipulate her father and his love for her that gives her the fatal one more day after his discovery of her relapse. Then again, if Donald had kept insisting on dragging Jane to rehab right then and there, would it even have worked, given that this time, she wouldn't have volunteered? There's no good answer.
The conversation between Donald and Walter at a bar after Donald discovered Jane's relapse but before her death, unknowing who the respective other is, is one of the show's masterstrokes. Walter starts by talking about his biological children and then, after finding out Donald has an adult daughter, for the first time verbalizes his increasingly complicated feelings for Jesse by calling him a "nephew" and asking Donald for advice how to handle someone who is not a child anymore and yet is, to you, a child who worries you. Donald's conclusion - not to give up on family, just to love your child no matter what - could come straight out of a feelgood movie, except for the part that it leads to Walt marching back to the drugged out Jesse and Jane right then and there and become co-responsible for Jane's death, and Jane's death in turn causes the grieving Donald to fail at his job at air control and cause the collision that kills ca. 120 people. And yet this isn't a cynical show making cheap jokes about good intentions and the road to hell. The leader of Jesse's rehab group at the start of s3 isn't presented as a self righteous and/or wooly eyed prig, as it happens quite often when portraying AA and its various subsections, especially in shows which do satire. He's a sympathetic character with his own tragic backstory and knows what he's talking about. Family love, dysfunctional as it can be, really is a strong bond - when Marie says "we're all family" to the doctor who originally intends to let only her to the barely alive Hank, she means it, and it's true, even if one family member is a secret drug producer whose fault it is that Hank got shot to begin with. Despite his increasing darkness, Walt is still capable of getting over himself and reaching out, such as when in mid s2 he talks to a PTSD ridden Hank, or at the end of the season when he finds Jesse among the various meth heads (the first time that Mike advises him to make his life easier by simply letting Jesse die); killing the drug dealers at the end of the last but one s3 episode is both a sign of Walt's skill at handing out death (the same man who agonized over two episodes whether or not to kill Crazy-8 and only did it when realising Crazy-8 was about to kill him is now able to take out two men at the same time without hesitation) and arguably the most selfless act he commits on the show (as its not for his own benefit, on the contrary, the act damages him and he knows it, but to save Jesse). Of course, in the very next episode he uses said act to convince Jesse to kill someone else for him, but that's after the fact and the way affection twists if both participants are in the drug trade. That Jesse's ability to stay clean for most of s3 doesn't go hand in hand with his life becoming better isn't invalidating rehab because rehab doesn't solve your personality problems or life decisions.
Another thing I admire about Breaking Bad is that so far (again: don't spoil me for s4), it managed what Dexter managed in its early seasons but not anymore in s5 and s6. In both shows, the very premise as laid out in the pilot - cancer-ridden chemistry teacher decides to produce meth, serial killer kills "only" other killers - means the main characters commit crimes on an ongoing basis, and not "light" crimes (no Robin Hoodesque thievery here, or cons) but really reprehensible ones. The narrative challenge is to make the audience want to follow their stories (which inevitably means they won't get caught until the show is over) without starting to excuse what they're doing or losing sight of the dimension of it. Dexter originally managed this by not only giving the main character awareness he wasn't killing for greater justice but to gratify his own needs but by fleshing out its ensemble, most of whom consisted of policewomen and -men set on catching serial killers and definitely not regarding murder as the right thing to do. Unfortunately, by the time s5 rolled along the show had started to buy into what it satirized in an s2 subplot, the idea of Dexter as a vigilante hero, and it jumped the shark from there. Breaking Bad's method isn't dissimilar in that here, too, the police aren't treated as worse-than-gangsters or caricatures but by and large as a dedicated force for for good, and one of the regulars, Hank, is a DEA agent and shown to be really good at his job (he already nearly caught Walt twice and did take out other dealers). However, where Dexter the character starts out regarding himself as a monster (with an ongoing arc of learning he's not so dissimilar from the people around him as he originally thought and can form emotional relationships, which unfortunately leads to, see above, instead of any other interesting direction that story could have taken), Walter White starts out regarding himself as a good man brought low by circumstance and just going for desperate measures in a desperate situation. That the audience while initially sharing at least part of this self assessment increasingly disagrees and that this is the intention of the narrative, and yet doesn't lose interest in Walt's story (on the contrary), and yet never can dismiss the (increasing) human cost is where the narrative skill really shows off. I think another key difference is that we never get to know most of Dexter's victims, other than the seasonal antagonist. Some even within their one episode are fleshed out enough to make them more than just the villain-of-the-week and even in some ways sympathetic (I'm thinking of the policewoman in season 3, for example), but still, most of them, while often reflections of a trait of Dexter's or one of his problems, aren't really given narrative sympathy. Plus, you know, killers. (See: premise of the show.) Whereas the damage Walt causes on Breaking Bad isn't "just" to worse-than-him killers, it's to everyone who buys what he produces (see: premise of the show), and the results of meth addiction are shown drastically. Moreover, there are the long term effects his actions have on the other regulars the audience has also learned to feel for. And all of this means we're not in a second rate Quentin Tarrantino knock off (there's a lampshade joke in late s1 when Jesse makes a comment about Walt's still-new-to-the business idea of how and where dealers meet) where cinematic violence and quips never allow the reality of what the characters live from to sink in.
In conclusion: Vince Gilligan, I think I must check out what old X-Files episodes I still possess and whether one of yours is among them. I am in increasing awe.
*Mike the Cleaner appeas on screen*
JdL: Every time I see Jonathan Banks, I remember kissing him.
*rest of the cast*: Tell us more!
It was an on screen kiss, of course, but googling doesn't tell me where because John de Lancie and Jonathan Banks apparently were in several episodes of several shows as well as in a film together. Ah well. Anyway, on the cast commentary the Breaking Bad regulars suggested the show could bring Donald Margolis (de Lancie's character) back and let him hook up with Mike, presumably so they don't have to watch several episodes of several shows and a movie in order to get another kiss. Me, I know the ideal method.
alara_r! As a John de Lancie expert extraordinaire, she must know where this happened. Anyway, on a more serious note, de Lancie makes the same observation I did in my s2 review, that usually he playes "assholes - funny assholes sometimes, but usually assholes", so Donald was something quite extraordinary for him. And as a father, he very much identified with Donald and his reactions throughout. Something I find very real and narratively well done about Breaking Bad is that it addresses the whole "how to deal when your children do drugs" thing without offering any easy answers. In s1 when we meet Jesse's parents, it's clear that they've been through several rounds of interventions, relapses and what not. It's not that they don't love him, but that at this point, they've had it and decided there have to be consequences, genuine ones, and so they cut him off. Which as far as we can see has neither an inspiring nor a hindering effect on Jesse. (It leaves the field for Walt as the sole authority figure, but that's hardly his parents' fault.) By contrast, Jane's father Donald in s2 also went through a decade of drug abuse, interventions etc. with her, but never cut her off. At first glance, this seems to have been the better way - when we meet her, Jane has been on the wagon (or rather the drug equivalent of same) for eighteen months successfully, she lives on her own yet is in regular contact with her father who goes with her to meetings as support, she has a job she likes. But Jane's relapse happens despite all this. It's her ability to manipulate her father and his love for her that gives her the fatal one more day after his discovery of her relapse. Then again, if Donald had kept insisting on dragging Jane to rehab right then and there, would it even have worked, given that this time, she wouldn't have volunteered? There's no good answer.
The conversation between Donald and Walter at a bar after Donald discovered Jane's relapse but before her death, unknowing who the respective other is, is one of the show's masterstrokes. Walter starts by talking about his biological children and then, after finding out Donald has an adult daughter, for the first time verbalizes his increasingly complicated feelings for Jesse by calling him a "nephew" and asking Donald for advice how to handle someone who is not a child anymore and yet is, to you, a child who worries you. Donald's conclusion - not to give up on family, just to love your child no matter what - could come straight out of a feelgood movie, except for the part that it leads to Walt marching back to the drugged out Jesse and Jane right then and there and become co-responsible for Jane's death, and Jane's death in turn causes the grieving Donald to fail at his job at air control and cause the collision that kills ca. 120 people. And yet this isn't a cynical show making cheap jokes about good intentions and the road to hell. The leader of Jesse's rehab group at the start of s3 isn't presented as a self righteous and/or wooly eyed prig, as it happens quite often when portraying AA and its various subsections, especially in shows which do satire. He's a sympathetic character with his own tragic backstory and knows what he's talking about. Family love, dysfunctional as it can be, really is a strong bond - when Marie says "we're all family" to the doctor who originally intends to let only her to the barely alive Hank, she means it, and it's true, even if one family member is a secret drug producer whose fault it is that Hank got shot to begin with. Despite his increasing darkness, Walt is still capable of getting over himself and reaching out, such as when in mid s2 he talks to a PTSD ridden Hank, or at the end of the season when he finds Jesse among the various meth heads (the first time that Mike advises him to make his life easier by simply letting Jesse die); killing the drug dealers at the end of the last but one s3 episode is both a sign of Walt's skill at handing out death (the same man who agonized over two episodes whether or not to kill Crazy-8 and only did it when realising Crazy-8 was about to kill him is now able to take out two men at the same time without hesitation) and arguably the most selfless act he commits on the show (as its not for his own benefit, on the contrary, the act damages him and he knows it, but to save Jesse). Of course, in the very next episode he uses said act to convince Jesse to kill someone else for him, but that's after the fact and the way affection twists if both participants are in the drug trade. That Jesse's ability to stay clean for most of s3 doesn't go hand in hand with his life becoming better isn't invalidating rehab because rehab doesn't solve your personality problems or life decisions.
Another thing I admire about Breaking Bad is that so far (again: don't spoil me for s4), it managed what Dexter managed in its early seasons but not anymore in s5 and s6. In both shows, the very premise as laid out in the pilot - cancer-ridden chemistry teacher decides to produce meth, serial killer kills "only" other killers - means the main characters commit crimes on an ongoing basis, and not "light" crimes (no Robin Hoodesque thievery here, or cons) but really reprehensible ones. The narrative challenge is to make the audience want to follow their stories (which inevitably means they won't get caught until the show is over) without starting to excuse what they're doing or losing sight of the dimension of it. Dexter originally managed this by not only giving the main character awareness he wasn't killing for greater justice but to gratify his own needs but by fleshing out its ensemble, most of whom consisted of policewomen and -men set on catching serial killers and definitely not regarding murder as the right thing to do. Unfortunately, by the time s5 rolled along the show had started to buy into what it satirized in an s2 subplot, the idea of Dexter as a vigilante hero, and it jumped the shark from there. Breaking Bad's method isn't dissimilar in that here, too, the police aren't treated as worse-than-gangsters or caricatures but by and large as a dedicated force for for good, and one of the regulars, Hank, is a DEA agent and shown to be really good at his job (he already nearly caught Walt twice and did take out other dealers). However, where Dexter the character starts out regarding himself as a monster (with an ongoing arc of learning he's not so dissimilar from the people around him as he originally thought and can form emotional relationships, which unfortunately leads to, see above, instead of any other interesting direction that story could have taken), Walter White starts out regarding himself as a good man brought low by circumstance and just going for desperate measures in a desperate situation. That the audience while initially sharing at least part of this self assessment increasingly disagrees and that this is the intention of the narrative, and yet doesn't lose interest in Walt's story (on the contrary), and yet never can dismiss the (increasing) human cost is where the narrative skill really shows off. I think another key difference is that we never get to know most of Dexter's victims, other than the seasonal antagonist. Some even within their one episode are fleshed out enough to make them more than just the villain-of-the-week and even in some ways sympathetic (I'm thinking of the policewoman in season 3, for example), but still, most of them, while often reflections of a trait of Dexter's or one of his problems, aren't really given narrative sympathy. Plus, you know, killers. (See: premise of the show.) Whereas the damage Walt causes on Breaking Bad isn't "just" to worse-than-him killers, it's to everyone who buys what he produces (see: premise of the show), and the results of meth addiction are shown drastically. Moreover, there are the long term effects his actions have on the other regulars the audience has also learned to feel for. And all of this means we're not in a second rate Quentin Tarrantino knock off (there's a lampshade joke in late s1 when Jesse makes a comment about Walt's still-new-to-the business idea of how and where dealers meet) where cinematic violence and quips never allow the reality of what the characters live from to sink in.
In conclusion: Vince Gilligan, I think I must check out what old X-Files episodes I still possess and whether one of yours is among them. I am in increasing awe.
