By John Tustin
Walter White (played by Bryan Cranston, left), is a man with cancer who transforms into a ruthless drug kingpin.
Breaking Bad is a multiple emmy-winning TV show, that ran on the AMC channel for 5 years. Saying that “Breaking Bad” is good is an understatement, because it is much more than that. The show is frankly my favorite dramatic television show of all time. Its uses of symbolism to explore narrative themes of deceit, subjective morality, etc. make it what it is.
The concept of the show is new and exciting, and its writers executed the series in a perfect manner. It’s creator Vince Gilligan was quoted as saying that his original intention with Walter White was to show how a mild mannered “Mr. Chips” could become a vicious gangster like “Scarface.”
The AMC series lasted for 5 seasons and 62 episodes, and is currently available on Netflix. I highly recommend this series to anyone with enough patience to follow a tough, complicated storyline.
Breaking Bad tells the story of Walter White, a high school Chemistry teacher (and part-time car-wash worker). Walt has a teenage son with cerebral palsy, and a pregnant wife who is unemployed. On his 50th birthday, Walter is diagnosed with cancer. This is a wake-up call to Walter that reveals how painfully dull his life is.
Walter knows that he doesn’t have a lot of time left, and even less money to leave his family. So while on a stake out for the raid of a meth lab that Walter requested to ride along on, he runs into his former student, Jesse Pinkman who is now cooking meth. Walter soon seeks out Jesse so they can cook Meth together, with Walter knowing the science, and Jesse knowing the streets.
At first, Walter does this in order to make enough money for his family. Then he discovers other, stranger motivations. Jesse, who is in his early 20’s, is a bum who just likes money, and has no desperate reason to make meth. The rest of the show tells the series of events that eventually lead to the fall of “Heisenberg” which is the pseudonym White adopts to operate as a secret drug lord.
I cannot say more without spoiling the rest of the series. But I will say this, look at the situation these characters are in from normal person’s point of view every so often. Anyway, I must admit that this series starts slow at the beginning. But, like most shows, it eventually finds its voice. I just finished binge watching it over an exact week and a half, it’s just that good.
If you enjoy Breaking Bad, I also recommend Better Call Saul, which is almost a sequel of sorts, and has its first 3 seasons up on Netflix. As one last note I would like to mention that the term “Breaking Bad” is a colloquialism that means “raising hell” and/or “turning to a life of crime”, and all I can say is that both meanings apply to this series.