Anyone into 'BREAKING BAD'? (part 3)

I think the logical reason is that it will make for good drama and also because its karma. I can't believe that with all the bad things Walt has done to Jesse, that Jesse will be Walt's friend until the bitter end.

In an interview with The New York Times, creator Vince Gilligan said the larger lesson of the series is that actions have consequences : "I like to believe there is some comeuppance, that karma kicks in at some point, even if it takes years or decades to happen." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_Bad

 

Gus was fantastic. Season 4 built up to an incredible climax. I suspect that the last season is still building up.

 

Breaking Bad is a fun show, but characters on The Sopranos live and breathe. In comparison, Breaking Bad characters are almost cartoonish. Just watching that clip I posted about character arcs, there was more humanity and truth in that three minute clip than appears in ten episodes of Breaking Bad. Now, I loved the first 4 seasons of Breaking Bad as good escapist fun, but I don't even compare them in the same way. The Sopranos is to The Godfather as Breaking Bad is to The Italian Job. One is a brilliant character study, the other is nifty, clever action movie. Both are great, but the Sopranos is high art drama; Breaking Bad is not.

I think it is weak storytelling. Every episode of The Sopranos contains a standalone story while simultaneously being another powerful vignette of its characters' lives. Breaking Bad just rolls along like a 50 hour action film. You could distill the essential story of Breaking Bad down to a two hour movie and not lose anything. Try that with The Sopranos.

 

That just sounds funny. Sorry, I'm having my own private laugh-a-thon over that one.

 

Personally I find the continuous nature of Breaking Bad is its strength. It allows the show to build up a much greater level of tension and suspense than what was achieved in The Sopranos. It enhances the story telling in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of The Sopranos, but I think the story telling style of Breaking Bad takes the TV series concept to a new level.

And I don't believe that you could distil the essential story of Breaking Bad down to a two hour movie and not lose anything. It's the length of a TV series that drives character development and our feelings towards its characters.

 

The cast, quite simply, could NOT be better! Skilled actors right down to the bit parts.
Compare this cast to say, the wooden performances of actors in shows like Criminal Minds.....not even in the ballpark!

 

If I end up getting one, I don't think I'd ever wear it for a few different reasons, including yours!

 

Escapist fun? More humanity and truth in 3 minutes of the Sopranos than 10 episodes of BB? I'm not sure we're even talking about the same shows! We're going to have to agree to disagree on this, I'm afraid.

Here's what I can do with The Sopranos -- I can distill it down to one SEASON, the first one. That season was high art, and the rest of the series tried hard to achieve the same heights, and never quite did (in my opinion, of course). Tell me, how were any of the characters on The Sopranos significantly different after Season Six compared to Season One? But I don't want to turn this into a Sopranos vs. Breaking Bad argument -- that's a topic that would be more than worth of its own thread, once BB wraps up.

 

I'm not sure you could encapsulate Gustavo Fring's character down to a 2-hour movie, much less everything else going on in the show.

 

Exactly.

 

I didn't mean that to sound accusatory. For some reason I'm having a lot of my quotes taken out of context and I now feel the extra need to clarify that I'm a huge fan of this show and in no way was I critiquing it.

 

Don't worry about it -- I just thought it was funny that my post literally started with "This isn't directed at you, bopdd..." and then you responded with "I hope that wasn't directed at me." And nobody should refrain from critiquing the show, regardless of how you feel about it -- if you're watching it, you have the right to comment about it. Just don't be surprised if some of the more extreme fans (like myself, perhaps!) get a little jumpy when we're "in withdrawal" in between episodes!

 

I suspect he, too, will be drastically changed by the end of the series (and not in a good way).

I suspect you and I have radically different ideas on what "boring" is. I think Breaking Bad is one of the most fascinating, compelling shows on TV from the last decade, and I think it's more satisfying that The Sopranos in a lot of ways. It's a different show, smaller and more personal, but I think it works very well. We'll know for sure once the series ends in a few weeks and we can look back and say, "yeah, this all built to a huge, epic climax" vs. "eh, it kind of fizzled at the end." But my gut feeling at this point is that faithful viewers won't be disappointed.

 

After a long discussion tonight with a friend and fellow fan, here's a theory:

Walt knows his life is over now that Hank knows he is Heisenberg. The last shred of humanity in Walt doesn't want Walter Jr. and Holly to know him as a criminal, nor does he want Skyler to go to prison, so Walt fakes his own death and leaves New Mexico. The problem is, Walt is in the "empire business," and he doesn't fake his own death to go live a quiet life running a gas station in New Hampshire. He contacts Lydia and tells her he's prepared to start a new operation on the East Coast strictly for export to the Czech Republic. When Lydia tells Declan she won't be working with him anymore, his goons abduct her, and torture the information out: Heisenberg is still alive. Declan kidnaps Skyler, Flynn, and Holly, and spray paints a call-out on the wall of the house: HEISENBERG. The kidnapping makes national news, and thus we see Walter in the "flash-forward", returning to Albuquerque with an M-60, intent on rescuing his family. Walter's last act will bring the show full circle: he did it for his family. He will be fatally wounded, but rescue Skyler and the kids. The End.

 

This is my overall take on Breaking Bad based on every episode I've watched is this: It's about a half great show. When the crime stuff is onscreen, it's well done and riveting. But that's the nature of crime/action dramas. One of our screenwriting teachers at USC challenged us to write a riveting scene that doesn't entail someone standing with a gun in his hand or a fist poised to strike. A great dramatist can pull that off, a lesser writer has to put "a gun into his actor's hand" to keep the audience's attention. As I said, the crime stuff is extremely well done on Breaking Bad - slick and stylish, and who doesn't like drugs and money? -- but the family drama and the secondary characters are dull as dishwater. And, to me, that makes David Chase a far greater artist than Vince Gilligan. Because of his inability to write non-action, I find myself tuning out whenever Gilligan isn't turning up the heat onscreen. And that's about half of your average show. That's the big difference between the Sopranos and Breaking Bad for me. The Sopranos, even though it was a "gangster" show, probably had less violence than your average episode of Desperate Housewives if you think about it, but great characterization and performances kept it fascinating drama -- all the time. But when there isn't action on the screen, Breaking Bad just can't sustain my interest.

I also don't think Breaking Bad has anywhere the same quality of performances. Walt's wife and Hank's wife are both mediocre characters and actresses (Anna Gunn seems to have one "stunned" look she uses for every situation), and they're a big part of the show. I also do not find the show the "deep, penetrating character study" that some critics are claiming ... to justifying their wanting to tune into some slick, violent fun (or help sell soap flakes, or whatever TV sells these days). There's been no "descent into sociopath" arc that people are claiming. That's just baloney. What show are they watching? Honestly, Bryan Cranston has played the same stodgy, stick-up-his-you-know-what since day one on the show. And the show is just isnt as much fun as it used to be. Jesse and Walt's interplay during the first season was combative and amusing. As things got serious, that fun fizzled and the show lost a lot (I also bemoan the loss of Jesse's goofy friends, they were some of the best bits). There's just too much banal about how Gilligan writes his human drama.

As far as a climax. Honestly, I really don't care what happens because what could happen? Walt gets caught, Walt goes to Jail, Walt dies of cancer? Walt gets shot? Zzzzzz. Whatever. I take my enjoyment minute by minute from shows -- the acting, the story, the emotion, as it goes along. I've seen every payoff and every finale. They're all anti-climaxes in the end. How about that Sopranos ending? Maybe David Chase felt the same way. Does everything have to end with a BANG! to satisfy the groundlings?

But, hey, I'm not completely trashing Breaking Bad. I like the show. I think it's taking a hell of a long time to tell a small and simple story, but I've enjoyed it's entire run. But I've also enjoyed it like a the Sunday matinee cliffhanger that it is, and not the second coming of American Playhouse (boy, will anyone get that reference?) And compared to all the other teenage vampire and reality Kardashian crap on TV, it is practically a revelation. But as a someone on another forum said: "Breaking Bad is the best show currently on television. The Sopranos was the best show ever on television." I agree with that.

 

Comment: And a lot of the family stuff and the therapy stuff on the Sopranos was boring too. But when the gangsters were a bashing and a killing, it got more interesting as well!

Comment: I recall Mrs Soprano often having a stunned look on her face. If you were married to Tony/Walt bad-ass, wouldn't you?

Comment: It's not about the what. It's about the how. And the how continually surprises on Breaking Bad. And it was the same in The Sopranos - you knew that a character would get whacked sooner or later, but never the how of the whack.

All in my opinion of course!

 

Yeah, they've pretty much written him out of the series, which surprises me because I thought they had him headed a couple of seasons ago toward delivering a kharmic kick in the pants to his father. He was upset over his parents breakup and becoming a bit rebellious and I thought it would be kind of ironic if he began using meth himself. It seems unlikely to happen now with only seven episodes to go. His character has become nothing more than a baby holder.

 

PS The exact lines was:

Walt to Hank: “If you don’t know who I am, then maybe your best course would be to tread lightly.”

 

Aww, c'mon!
The better comparison would be The Sopranos is the The Godfather as Breaking Bad is to Goodfellas!

 

There's no way Breaking Bad can possibly end more poorly than The Sopranos. Well, I guess what I should say is that given what Gilligan has stated in terms of what he considers acceptable closure for a show, there's no way.

Or put another way, I do not believe the show will end in the middle of another Squeeze song, while the family eats turkey bacon.

 

Yeah. If they would just take the scenes where there's no crime stuff happening and add zombies to them, it would be WAY more exciting. I don't know why they don't see this.

 

I like this, but if you turn out to be right, I'm gonna be PISSED.

 

I'm not going to say one is better than the other, but I do think both reach the same heights. As far as your comments above, it almost sounds like you're watching a different show than I am. Chalk it up to personal opinion, I guess. BB isn't for everyone--I wouldn't make my elderly parents watch it, for example--but for many people it's the greatest TV show in history.

 

I was just talking with my wife about the feeling that I get while watching Breaking Bad, as we finished up a back-to-back viewing of season 5, episodes 1-8 in preparation for the ep. 9 premiere. I can't think of another show in memory that gives me the feeling of lurking potential dread like Breaking Bad does, even in it's most quiet, "boring" scenes. I haven't found any of the slow, or quiet scenes/episodes boring in any way - the tension is always there with this series in a way no others that I've watched have accomplished - not even The Sopranos.

I can't explain it, but the tension is always palpable for me with Breaking Bad. That makes it one of, if not the, best TV dramas I've ever seen.