Thanks, Steve. Thanks to MCA-I Madison for throwing this party and thanks to ProVideo for hosting it. Steve Donovan, thanks for listening to my podcast and asking me to come to this event.
When Steve asked me to speak at this event, I immediately said yes. I told him that I always like talking about Breaking Bad. This is hands down my favorite show and I frequently and loudly proclaim that it is the best show on television. But here’s the thing: no matter how much I enjoy Breaking Bad, no matter how many discussions I have with friends, no matter how many cast interviews we’ve been lucky enough to conduct for the podcast, there are piles of people who have better, smarter, and funnier things to say about it. What I’m saying is, while I’m the one up here talking about it, I know that each of you has loads of things to say as well and I’d be happy to have a discussion after this.
I was recently eating lunch at work in a conference room and one of my coworkers asked the group, “have any of you seen Breaking Bad? I heard it’s a show about meth.” Obviously I immediately left the room and finished my lunch at my desk. The point is: while I like talking about Breaking Bad, there is one problem that I have with it. The problem is that there still exist people who don’t watch this show even though they know it exists. These people are clearly insane and probably have many other things wrong with them. These people should be pitied. We should feel bad for them.
Alright, so Breaking Bad is a great show. We all know this. But what makes the show so great?
Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan told us that when he created this show his goal was to take a character and make him Break Bad. He wanted to show Mr. Chips transform into Scarface. I think he could’ve come up with a better reference to use than Mr. Chips, like maybe a character I wouldn’t have to google, but we got the point. We were told to expect to see a person transforming from Mr. Nice Guy to King Douche. So I think that’s at least part of what the show’s about and that’s a big part of what makes the show so great.
I’ll say more about Walter White’s transformation but I want to talk about some of the other characters first.
Walt Junior reminds us of our own teenage years. In early seasons he rejects his name and adopts the nickname “Flynn.” By doing so, he shows his angst and his struggle with identity. His hero is his uncle. His parents are embarrassing. We’ve all been there. But if our teenage years were rocky, his are a roller coaster. It’s important to remember that over the past four and a half seasons, only one year has passed and he has gone through the challenges of learning of his dad’s cancer to his parents splitting up and getting back together to getting his driver’s license and going through two cars to becoming a big brother. Oh yeah, and did I mention he also has to deal with his disability on top of all this? This kid is a trooper. Fun fact: Vince Gilligan told us that he had a friend in college with cerebral palsy and the character of Walt Junior is kind of an homage to him. R.J. Mitte has a mild case of cerebral palsy in real life but he makes the symptoms more severe for this role.
When we are introduced to Skyler White, we meet a housewife who goes from clueless to intentionally obtuse to mob wife. A woman who at one point had such a strong reaction to her husband’s marijuana use now cooks the books for the family meth business and hires goons to rough up her boss when he attempts blackmail.
Marie Schrader is a complex character who hides behind the mask of a happy housewife who turns to kleptomania in an effort to regain the control she feels she loses.
Saul Goodman goes from being a clown to a tragic… clown. I don’t know. Just love that guy and I look forward to the spinoff.
Hank Schrader. We are introduced to Walter White’s buffoon of a brother-in-law in the first episode. When the news reports a big DEA bust of a meth lab, Hank Schrader hijacks Walter’s birthday party to grandstand. Hank is a man’s man who likes his cars big, his beer cold, and his bigotry subtle. We see what happens when we take a macho, “men don’t cry and pain don’t hurt,” kind of guy and knock the legs out from under him. We watch him be vulnerable and we feel his embarrassment at appearing weak. Our perception of Hank gradually evolves over the course of the show. We learn that this guy is layered. He’s smart – possibly one of the smartest people on the show. He’s earned his position with the DEA. Not such a buffoon after all.
Jesse Pinkman. I don’t know what to say about this guy. This is the character who has our sympathy. I don’t know how or why he got into drugs in the first place but the story I’ve invented is that he did it to rebel when his overachieving younger brother started getting the limelight from his parents. Aaron Paul acts the shit out of this role and there is way too much going on with this character. Jesse’s story is tragic and heartbreaking.
Let’s talk about Walter White.
I think the nature of Walter White’s transformation is commonly misunderstood. Walter White was never a nice guy. Go back and rewatch the early seasons. He tells himself that this is all about providing for his family. We know this is bullshit. If Walter White’s primary focus was on financial security, he’d swallow his pride and take the charity from his former business partners at Gray Matter. No. This isn’t about doing right by his family; it is about his own pride. A failed chemist and entrepreneur turned schoolteacher, Walter White is a man whose life has clearly not gone the way he’s intended. Breaking Bad begins with a loser with a chip on his shoulder and a low-paying job. A boring person with a boring name. He has a bland wardrobe, an ugly car, and the most impotent mustache I’ve ever seen in my life. Right? Walter White was able to take the mustache, a quintessential symbol of male virility, and make it look wussy. Bryan Cranston told us that he did this on purpose by showing up with a mustache that was trimmed to the lowest setting possible while still technically being a mustache. But despite his outward appearance, Walter White is a prideful man who feels like the world owes him something.
I submit that Walter White’s character never changed but his confidence did. He has become on the outside what he always was inside. It was never about money for him. It’s about power. Lines that have now become iconic show this attitude and his motivations. “I’m not in the meth business. I’m in the empire business.” “I am the danger.” “I am the one who knocks.” “Say my name.” And so on.
Ok, so Walter White is a piece of shit. I think we can all agree on this. But we find ourselves rooting for him.
The use of anti-hero is not unique to this show. There are other shows where the protagonist is a bad person that we like anyway. Shows like Dexter, The Sopranos, or even House are wildly popular. One of the latest iterations of this trope is the show Banshee on Cinemax.
The difference between these shows and Breaking Bad is that Walter White is so evil that we are almost ashamed of ourselves for rooting for him. I think he deserves to die. Or better yet – live in suffering. But when I saw Hank put two and two together while pooping, my heart sank a bit. I guess I still like Walter White at least a little.
In a speech he gave a couple weeks ago, John Landgraf, the network executive of FX said, “I can’t imagine a protagonist darker than Walter White. I think that’s the end of the road for out-darking each other.”
That’s how bad Walter White is. The CEO of a competing network has heralded the end of the “nuclear arms race of darkness.”
Walter White is the anti-anti-hero and the idea of a good bad guy or a bad good guy has been destroyed. This show has, in a very real way, Broken Bad.