Breaking Bad: Season 1 (2008)

Near the end of the first season of Vince Gilligan’s AMC drama “Breaking Bad”, Walter White (played by the underrated Bryan Cranston) is offered a Cuban cigar. Despite suffering from life-threatening lung cancer, he takes the opportunity to enjoy the taste of this “imported” item. This leads directly into a conversation with Hank, his brother-in-law and a DEA agent, about the validity of illegal drugs. Walter uses prohibition as his example, observing that one day there were people on the streets breaking barrels open into the gutters, the next day; it became a staple to this country. Hank fires back that harder drugs (like cocaine or meth) could be a greater detriment to society than liquor [or even Walt’s supposed addiction to pot]. In this short three minute scene, the entire thesis statement for “Breaking Bad” is questioned. Is smoking an illegal Cuban cigar any different than becoming a meth chemist? “Breaking Bad” takes this grey line and pushes the envelope further. Walter White is not a bad guy. He isn’t a dead-beat dad fighting bills and a troubling home life, but instead merely a scientific man who has been handed a difficult question. How do you make sure that you can provide for your family even after you have died?

The answer in “Breaking Bad” is to cook meth, to break the law for the sake of the common good - to break the law because you want to protect your family. Despite the common architecture of this story found in several films and television series, “Breaking Bad” feels unique and compelling due to organic-real acting and Gilligan’s detailed writing. Discounting the wobbly feeling of the first episode, “Breaking Bad” picks up pace with its second episode entitled Cats In the Bag… in which Walter and his meth-counterpart Jesse must decide what to do with two bodies in their RV, one living and one dead. Imagining that this was merely going to be a gritty series chronicling the unexpected rise of meth developers, my mindset quickly changed when Gilligan slowed down, and introduced us calmly to his lead, Walter White. Dressed in beige and driving a white Pontiac Aztek; Walter resembles the man next door, with a simple wife and a son who suffers from cerebral palsy, his life is not riddled with chaos numbers or symbolic ducks in the pool, his only crime is being a statistic in middle class America. With flashbacks of his prior life before becoming a teacher, a small glimpse into the future he could have had (with Grey Matter), and the horrors of modern medicine ($5000 merely for the initial consultation), Gilligan doesn’t make “Breaking Bad” into a story about the drugs. It is a story about Walter, and about choice. It is about the choice to fight cancer, the choice to let Crazy 8 go, it is about rediscovering one’s self amongst the rubble. While Gilligan paints Walt’s family well, at this point in the season they are merely there for dramatic effect. It is Walt that we are following, it is his cough that we feel each episode, and it is his humble nature that we applaud when the credits roll.

“Breaking Bad” understood its limitations in its initial season. This isn’t a series about immediate gratification, but instead about the long story. It isn’t a television series that tries to make you “gasp” around each turn. This is a character development story. While each episode contained elements that were compelling to the story, it is Walt’s transformation/personality that pulls you back to another episode. How? See: Cranston’s ability to make Walter White more than just a money hungry drug maker, but a family man struggling to keep it together. One of my favorite episodes came early, when Walt had a diabolical run in with a man merely known as KEN WINS (located in episode Cancer Man). This demonstrated to me (better than the long dialog between Cranston and Crazy 8) what Walter White was capable of, and what I should expect in the episodes/seasons to come.

Finally, “Breaking Bad” has a message. It has something to say about healthcare in our society, it has something to say about casual drugs in America, and it has something to say about family values. I began this review with a detailed scene between Hank and Walt (whose words still haunt me), but an even stronger analogy of the “Breaking Bad” core message can be seen in the episode A No-Rough-Stuff-Type Deal in which another equally bad crime questions the value of family. This is the type of writing that is missed in modern television, “The Sopranos” tried it but it became too muddied nearer to the end, and “Deadwood” became too visually heavy. “Breaking Bad” takes those lacking elements and chemically creates a stronger series. It takes modern working-man concerns, and allows Walter White to do what he does best – survive. With the tilt of his black hat in the junkyard, he best represents what many of us face daily – fear.