Breaking Bad Is Peaking Early

Published on by D. G. Hart

The cats have been sleeping through a lot lately, especially the little hellion (Cordelia) who now that the wood burning stove is running cooks until she almost turns soggy. We have watched, for instance, Margin Call (a well done movie about Wall Street on the eve of the 2008 meltdown), Newlyweds (pretty good movie about modern romance even if borrowing too much from Woody Allen as Edward Burns is wont), Whistle Blower (a decent English movie about intelligence and the Cold War that pines for an England innocent of espionage and mightier than the U.S.), and Republic of Love (a lame movie about modern romance unless you like seeing Bruce Greenwood’s naked chest — I am not that metrosexual). But the subject of discussion between the missus and me of late is the television series, Breaking Bad. Having spared Mrs. Hart of the ghoulish opening episodes and the indelicate elimination of bodies (I believe in eschatological discontinuity but I hope the resurrection won’t be so radical), we are now into the second season and the era of Walt’s shaved head.

The early returns are that the series has transgressed the line of suspension of disbelief. The reason for the trespass may be the writer’s sense of needing to keep viewers’ attention with a fairly minimal set of characters. Compared to The Wire which had all of the resources of Baltimore at the creator’s disposal, this is supposed to be the story of one man’s struggle to survive.

Whatever the reason, the episodes with Tucco, while entertaining and dramatic, are simply implausible and make the prospects for another three seasons after this one even more unbelievable. How is Walt going to keep this a small operation? Or will he need to become an Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell in order to pay his medical bills? But to come as close to being killed (by Tucco) and discovered (by his DEA brother-in-law, Hank) and live to see a return to cooking seems just too much. These tensions would have been more appropriate at the end of Walt’s tenure as meth dealer, not as the beginning of a new stage in his evolution.

The most unbelievable part was Tucco’s father failure to ring the bell on Jesse while being interrogated by Hank. If this had been a stand alone instance of remarkable providence, maybe it would have been plausible. But it was part of too many other very strange circumstances that had to break not bad but right for Walt and Jesse to live to see another batch. And the problem with cutting it so close to being discovered — can we really believe that Hank doesn’t know what’s going on — is that the writers don’t have the backup that David Simon did in The Wire. If Walt goes to jail, the series ends. When Avon went to jail, The Wire became even more interesting.

This doesn’t mean that Breaking Bad is bad. It only means that so far the Harts are not hooked. After season one, episode five of The Wire, we were all in.

29 thoughts on “Breaking Bad Is Peaking Early”

  2. Liked “Margin Call”. HBO’s “Too Big to Fail” is even better. I thought Margin call failed to challenge the audience enough to understand the technical side of what went wrong. Michael Lewis’s “The Big Short” is the book to read thus far on this topic.

    I’ve stuck with “Bad” all the way to the present break and have not been disappointed. I do agree you need to suspend disbelief from time-to-time. You’ve not seen the last of Tio Salamanca’s bell ringing or Hank’s not figuring (or figuring) things out. Still working on season one of “The Wire”. I keep having to take it back to the library after a week, which irritates me because I own the next 4 seasons.

    The show you to need to master, is, of course “Hart to Hart” from the 80s.

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  3. Strange view of the bell or not to bell ringing of Hector, DGH. Why would he work with the feds? That would not make any sense given his back story, which is explained in more detail as he becomes an important character later on. Breaking Bad became, for me, a fantastic show towards the end of the second season, and thought the 3rd was almost perfect and quite unique.

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  4. Count me among the three above, especially your comments Erik & Rob. You do have to occasionally suspend disbelief (in fact, pretty early on, imo), but stick with it. Tio doesn’t ring his bell for good reason. That part wasn’t hard to believe at all, and he does have a bigger role to play on into the series. Hang in there, Dr. Hart.

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  5. These are fair points. Still, the Zrimecs have not quite shared the Hart’s incredulity. Though it was tempted in the finale of season four when Gus stepped out of Hector’s hospital room—a scene in which the bell makes up for what it didn’t deliver during Hank’s interrogation.

    PS Hector is Tuco’s tio, not his papa.

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  6. After the awful first couple of episodes of Breaking Bad I came back to it later because everyone talked it up so much, I thought I must be missing something. I finally lost interest completely somewhere in the third season. It’s just not good story writing. The plot lines are thin and predictable (one impossible situation after another is escaped); Albuquerque might be the single most uninteresting place in the country; and the characters are boring. And they aren’t finished with dissolving bodies, by the way. The Wire was a masterpiece; Breaking Bad is just Malcolm in the Middle for cable. I’d like to have the hours back from watching as much as I did.

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  7. Rob and Gregory, thanks for the tip on the bell. If Tucco’s dad is more involved than it looks by 2.3, that’s fine. But that too seems a bit of a stretch given what we already have seen and know — which is Walt’s life. One of the things that swore me off Ron Howard films was the narrative surprise — Cocoon and Beautiful Mind. No fair bringing in information, characters, or plots that aren’t organic or naturally related. Just my opinion.

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  11. I think you’re right that Walt and Albuquerque are meant to be boring. That car of his cracks me up – even the interior is camouflage. But it seems like there should be some sort of pathos to go along with the nondescriptness of everything; a sense of Walt’s own internal need to be something more than he is, or more of a focus on the vast stretches of land you see around ABQ that make one feel lonely and small. The one place they almost do this is by showing us what is outside the window behind the cancer doctor’s desk. It’s this bleak wasteland that looks hopeless. It’s a good shot, but then they don’t carry that through into other areas. I guess I want them to bump up the artistic side a bit; make me feel the connection between Walt’s car and his soul.

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  13. I am gonna go out on a limb here and surmise Steve is no fan of the show.
    Think happy thoughts Neo, you’ll survive.

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  14. Wow, you guys actually sit around and watch tv?

    Not trying to sound pious, just an interesting observation.

    I chucked my tv in 1995.

    We just got television for the first time this summer to watch the Summer Olympics.

    I couldn’t stand it….television that is. The ad segments are longer and more abundant. On some channels they even pop up while you’re watching something. Unbearable! Good thing we got a DVR….we didn’t even know what that was. Wish that was around when we were kids! I remember being out somewhere and my dad deciding to go and do something extra and I’d be thinking, “bummer, I’m going to miss Battlestar Galactica”…..

    But the shows. They were all terrible! We ended up watching old stuff like Columbo and then of course the old standby programmes like Jeopardy. There just was nothing on. I didn’t like any of the new shows….I can’t stand the frenetic cinematography. I literally can’t stand it. I end up turning it off.

    Does this mean I’m just an out of touch loser? We went back to having movies and we watch stuff online. All in the Family is still great even after all these years.

    The Whistleblower was a great movie. I love the movies from that era. The French Connection, All the President’s Men, Marathon Man, The ODESSA File.

    So someone tell me…..what shows am I missing? Is there something really worth watching?

    Well sign up again in 2014 to watch the Sochi games.

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  15. Other than live sports you can get it all online, with Netflix, or on DVD. “Breaking Bad”, “Downton Abbey”, “Justified”, “Mad Men”, “Boardwalk Empire”, “Damages”, “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, “Episodes”, and “Nurse Jackie” are the best series I have been following. “Downton” is the cleanest, watcher beware on the others.

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  17. Protoprot., don’t worry about cable. Get Netflix of find a good dvd source. The Wire, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Office (British), Larry Sanders, Forsyth Saga, Downton Abbey — those are all worth seeing, rated R in some cases.

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  18. Darrryl, you had better answer Dr K over at Cosmic Eye. He has asked you to resoond in a very polite way, you need to stand and deliver. For some time, I have felt that Dr Kline’s intrusion ethic and his unconfessional view of the Mosaic Covenant was one of the main problems with your R2K theology. We have evidence that Scott Clark has denyed that the Mosaic Covenant was the same in substance as the New Covenant.

    How about shedding some light, as to where you stand, and why?

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  19. the first season was rough to get through, but the 2nd and 3rd season had me hooked. But now I’m realizing i just watched the first episode of season 4…Is the whole season 4 already on Netflix?

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  21. Is anyone else here a “Mad Men” watcher? I think it’s a brilliant show. I think it honestly captures the boredom & despair that people who otherwise appear to have it all often feel. A profound statement on the state of modern men & women living in a post-Christian America. People were still going to church in the 50s & 60s (even in Manhattan) but the Mainline churches had stopped having much to offer in the way of true Christian religion a generation prior to this time. One of the best shows ever on T.V.

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  22. I think “Mad Men” also takes the working world seriously in a way no other show has. How many other shows take place in the workplace as much as this one does? I guess Tony Soprano spent a lot of time on the job, but that was different…

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  23. I haven’t been here for months, I stop by and see this drivel? Sheesh, is there anything you’re not wrong about, Darryl? 🙂

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  26. Finished rewatching Richard Linklater’s “Dazed & Confused” along with his commentary track. A really well-made movie. Cost $6 million to make in 1992, made $8 million in limited release. A hit on video. Matthew McConaughey’s Wooderson was a star-making performance. Debuts for McConaughey, Ben Affleck, and Parker Posey. Linklater has made several other good movies – “School of Rock”, “Before Sunrise”, “Before Sunset”, “Fast Food Nation”, a not-bad “Bad News Bears” remake. “Before Midnight” with Ethan Hawke & Julie Delpy is in post-production.

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  28. “Pulp Fiction” is back in the theaters on 12/6. I knew I had married the right woman when my wife saw it for the first time a few months ago and liked it. Definitely not for every taste, but a one-of-a-kind.

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  29. [audio src="http://www.mbird.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/06-Walter-White-vs-Raylan-Givens_-The-Two-Hats-of-American-Law-1.mp3" /]

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