I’m not sure it’s designed to work that way, but it would be interesting. As it is, there is a lot of stuff in BCS that are callbacks to things in BB, which would be lost on somebody who has not seen BB. I think prequels, in general, tend to work better viewed after having seen the original work, even though events are chronologically out of order.
Not sure how Odenkirk hasn't read all the S6 scripts yet and doesn't know what happens, unless they haven't finished them yet. Would love to see a Walt or Jesse (or both) cameo, if it's not too cheesy. Getting harder to adapt them back to how they used to look in the time frame of BB S2, as seen in El Camino.
I think shows these days have contracts with their stars to not disclose anything before an episode airs, and also they withhold scripts until just prior to shooting to help ensure no spoilers get out. Watching some of the bonus material for Game of Thrones it was interesting to see that the cast had no clue how it would end until they were doing their table read for the last episode. Better Call Saul probably has the same type of policy. Please no, and thank you. Not so much a matter of cheesy as borrowed interest. The best parts of BCS have nothing to do with BB. And yes, I fully agree that the characters all look long in the tooth compared to when BB aired.
BCS just about fully became the Breaking Bad setup show after Chuck died. Don Eladio, the making of the superlab, Hank and Gomie appearing, Gus and Mike. It's as much a prequel for the villains as it is for BB itself. I've pretty much embraced it at this point and look forward to what they do.
I basically agree but the most compelling relationships for me remain Kim and Jimmy as well as Mike and Nacho. Those relationships were purely set up in BCS--no real agenda for BB--and they were a big part of the show before and after Chuck's demise. Don Eladio is of interest not only because of dovetailing with BB. But yes, the more obvious BB setup like the lab construction, Hank and Gomie, and Gus (a character that always bugged me in BB as I said above) I could do without. The most amazing thing about BCS for me was always the relationship between Chuck and Jimmy. They did a great job with that.
I don’t think a Walt or Jesse cameo adds anything to BCS, and I can only see it being cheesy. Arguably Jesse could make a little more sense, because he was sort of in that world when BB started, but Walt the family man chemistry teacher would not have had anything to do with what is going on in BCS in a way I could see not being a stretch in a nonsensical fan service-y way. He was Hank’s wife’s brother-in-law, sure, but it was clear at the beginning of BB Walt had zero involvement in anything to do with Hank’s work prior to asking if he could go on that fateful ride-along. And I really don’t see them dragging Cranston in just to be in the background for a second.
All good points—but with the flash forwards, the show obviously isn’t stuck in 2007 or whenever BCS catches up to BBS2 in the time of the show. So they could potentially have Walt appear again about any time up to the “Felina” series finale.
Maybe I'm being too semantic, but it seems a crucial point to me. It was Hank who suggested to Walt that he go on a ride-along. In one of his typical blustery, macho demonstrations, where he was not-so-subtly impugning Walt's manhood- or at least demonstrating his own superior masculinity. It's incredibly ironic that this display of machismo was what opened the door to the transformation of a milquetoast teacher into a sociopath kingpin. And the braggart may have been one of the last victims, but was the one who was ultimately played for a fool.
Yeah, but the overriding motivation for Walt was a) finding out he had potentially terminal cancer and b) underachieving his entire life.
No denying those were the big motivators- the cancer to break bad and the underachieving to enjoy his success and keep getting badder. But absent Hank's offer and info on the lucrative rewards of meth cooking, Walt wouldn't have sought that solution to his problem, would he? Who knows how he would have attempted to provide for his family? So Hank was still the catalyst that directed the reaction, so to speak...
Walt's motivation was such that he needed to make tons of money and he needed to use his knowledge of chemistry to become "the best" at something. So he went on the ride with Hank as a sort of information gathering mission. Remember, he initially had no interest in Hank's offer. Only after hearing his diagnosis did his motivations fall into place. You get the feeling that he would have broken bad in this way by himself or perhaps a different partner if Jesse didn't flee from the neighbor's window in front of Walt. Jesse was essentially an unlucky bystander, who Walt used and manipulated.
I'm not so sure Walt chooses Meth production as a solution to his cancer problem without Hank putting the idea in his head. But who knows? It's all speculation- as it played out, it was a perfect storm. Maybe it just fits my warped sense of balance that the Macho, "good guy" plays a critical role in the creation of this monster. Also fits in with my feelings that if it weren't for the holier-than-thou moralists who criminalized drugs in the 1st place- creating the black market- we wouldn't have all these psycho drug kingpins now. Nor would we have any more addicts. So often the tail wags the dog...
Part of it is Gilligan's need to have coincidences everywhere. Walt's brother in law is coincidentally a DEA agent. His student coincidentally cooks meth. His college buddies coincidentally launch a unicorn biotech startup. And on it goes.
The show wrote Walt in a way that he had a whole plethora of neuroses ready to go: inferiority complex, narcissism, obsessive personality disorder, and a general chip on his shoulder. Personally I’ve never bought the notion that Walt was the perfect family man or passive husband pre-diagnosis; he had deep-seeded resentment about Gray Matter and tons of other stuff the whole time, and they make that clear from episode 105. They even show him pushing Skyler around in s03e13 in the flashback to when they bought their house. So by the events of the pilot, he hadn’t turned to crime yet... but he was clearly a highly dysfunctional person before s01e01. And the writers of the show definitely played up his macho-ness inferiority complex throughout season 1 and later, with Hank as the most obvious avatar of that particular neurosis. It's not a coincidence that Hank had bullied Walt at his birthday, literally the day before his cancer diagnosis, and then Walt decides to dip his feet into something that could best Hank.
Agree with all this. And I'm not sure the notion you mention is bought by many. He wasn't a perfect family man, but he was an everyman- we all have our issues. Were it not for the cancer, he would have continued in his quietly dysfunctional life and never turned to crime. I'm sure he would have found some passive-aggressive ways to get back at Hank. But he would have only done small damage in this world, as opposed to the carnage he ended up creating. But then maybe the cancer was inevitable. Maybe all those issues eating away within him with little agency to vent them is the kind of thing that causes cancer.
I don't consider them coincidences- VG always seemed to have a reason for everything, even minor details. To me they're just plot points. All the pieces are necessary for the story to play out like it did. In retrospect they all seem coincidental, but isn't that true of all stories? Pretty convenient that a rather inconsequential Hobbit happened upon a certain ring of power- that it was lost just at the time he appeared- that brought it to the Shire, where it came to the attention of an all-mighty wizard who could recognize it and it's danger and orchestrate it's destruction- and it ended up in the hands of one pure enough of heart to be able to complete that mission of destruction.
Yes, I probably haven’t been relying too heavily on us seeing resolution to the flash forward stuff, but of course we will, and Walt could possibly show up there. I’m not sure how the timelines work out, though.
I dunno. I've worked as a professional writer among other things for 30 years and I understand the difference between good writing and bad writing. The Hobbit is invariably good writing. In the world created by Tolkien, the encounter with Golem was believable and purposeful to advance the plot in some significant way. That was our intro to Golem and the ring; we didn't already know it from a previous character or encounter. In contrast, Walt's chance encounter with, for example, Jessie's girlfriend's father and his appearance in Jessie's room at the moment she starts asphyxiating on her own vomit--that kind of thing is bad writing. The world used by Gilligan was supposed to be the real world, where it is not believable to have multiple coincidences stack up in the way they did, where Walt goes to a bar and meets someone we already know from a totally different location and relationship, which just happens to tie into the other coincidence where Walt shows up to watch the daughter die. Then of course this results in a chance airline disaster where debris from the planes rain down upon Walt's house--it's just so cuckoo and unnecessary to advance the plot using these tertiary character relationships that come together out of supposedly sheer coincidence. And then in a later season, the writers actually have Walt waxing philosphic about what an amazing coincidence this was--just bad writing upon bad writing by people who were not challenged to come up with better ideas. The plot could have been more effectively advanced in many other ways. When Chase produced The Sopranos, for example, his policy was to rip up the first two drafts of the script and challenge the writers to come up with something better. Not a bad way to do quality control, and I wish Gilligan had done it for BB. You get the sense that the writers were flying by the seat of their pants.
This! We've seen it in the real world. We saw it on Breaking Bad. How many lives have been senselessly lost over lil' ol' reefer, compounded thousands of times over by what followed? Hell, how many lives were destroyed in the USA by the prohibitions of alcohol?
Can't deny that many of the plot points stretch credulity. Not just the coincidences, but many of the "solutions" to problems and Walt's crazy schemes. I wouldn't call them bad writing- the show was entertaining enough that we were willing to suspend disbelief to extremes. But I grant your point. Too many far-out occurrences not to call them coincidences. But they bothered me not at all and all served to make for good drama as well as illustrate good points imo. E.G. despite all the many incredible coincidences, Walt's decision to let Jane die shows how small acts of evil can often lead to huge catastrophes completely unintended or foreseen. And I still find Hank's part in Walt's breaking bad a great illustration of how superficially "good" forces can contribute to creating evil- and a key part of the story. But I'll also concede that mine is a layman's opinion and as a writer you likely have a more informed perspective. But I/m still stubborn enough to not be dissuaded into thinking BB had bad writing. I just enjoyed it way too much.
All I know is that I've enjoyed the unfolding world of BCS, which has provided a just as satisfying, but completely different atmosphere, than BB. Season 6 is sure to be a wild ride.
IKR! You'd have thought we would have learned our lesson from Prohibition and the mobs and violence that resulted. But no, we create even bigger black markets and allow even worse evil and violence to be unleashed. But then the "Powers that Be" aren't concerned with Peace and Stability. They actually thrive on chaos to maintain control and operate unseen. Divide and conquer; fear is the most effective tool...
BB Season 2 is the worst offender in what you're talking about for sure. I think all the other seasons of the franchise are far better though.
