SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
Breaking Bad thoughts: Season Two finale
* Well well well, look what we have here: a show about my favorite and most dreaded subject in fiction, mistakes from which we can never ever recover or atone.
* I mean, Christ Jesus, talk about upping the ante this season, and in this episode alone. The relentless focus on Jesse’s grief and Jane’s father’s grief was almost unbearable at times. Major, major kudos are due to Aaron Paul for sobbing as well as I’ve ever seen it done, just for example. And cutting from that poor sweet man talking about what a lovely dress he picked out for his dead daughter’s funeral to the infant daughter of the man who murdered her? Sticking the knife in and twisting.
* But the plane crash itself — that’s the big one. I don’t just mean in terms of the planning involved, since I’m past the point where “Wow, they had this all planned out from the beginning!” is anything but a trivia item. I mean the reliance on the power of imagery to make thematic connections that aren’t strictly tethered to the demands of the plot. Could anything that directly happened to or because of Walt personally been a more powerful indictment of his moral rot? Could some personal plot twist he understood as a ramification of his actions said more about where he is as a person and what his actions have set in motion than his look of abject horror as two planes collided in the sky and rained debris and death around him? For all I know Jane’s dad becomes a regular cast member and half of season three is dedicated to Walt and Jesse dealing with the fallout of their involvement in her death and her death’s involvement in the death of everyone on those planes. But it doesn’t matter at all if he does or if they do, any more than it matters for us to ever see Saul’s Mister Fix-It again to understand what his appearance in this episode says about Saul, Walter, Jesse, their world, the world. The images and the ideas make the point on their own.
Tags: breaking bad, reviews, TV, TV reviews
There has never been a show I get more vicarious thrills out of then someone discovering this show for the first time. And I can safely say that Season 3 and 4 are my single two favorite seasons of a show on the “oh my god is this ever horrible and fun at the same time” factor alone.
Oh, and now you can safely watch this Breaking Bart mash up without any fear of spoilers (It was made pre-season 3): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4Qv2hCprbs
It’s been a challenge holding back in the comments here because S3 and S4 are just so good, I don’t want to give anything away by accident. I suspect that might be why there hasn’t been as much back and forth in the Breaking Bad discussion as there was in, say, the Mad Men comments.
I will say that the end of S2 hits me differently now than when I saw it initially. The first time around, I thought it was a tad too…over-the-top, even for Breaking Bad, which can shove subtlety out the window when it wants to (see Walt torching the DB’s car in S1, for example). I’ve seen that final S2 episode three times now, though, and in light of what comes later and how the whole series works together, it meshes beautifully. What sells it for me, ultimately, is that it comes right on the heels of Skyler leaving Walt. That’s an apocalyptic moment for Walt and the mid-air collision is the Universe mirroring that, really.
And that moment with the dress, Sean, is my favorite in an episode full of great moments. How rich with real truth and how utterly devastating it is.
Oh, and another thing about that final moment, unless I’m mistaken, Walt is wearing a sweater that’s exactly the same shade of pink as that burnt and mangled bear that ends up in his pool.
It took me a while to come around to the plane crash. At first, it seemed to me to be too random and disconnected from the actions we’d been focused on. Of course, it’s a direct result of everything that happens in the season, but it’s also a little out of the blue, because we don’t find out what the dad’s job is until that episode. But what bothered me about it the most was the teasers we’d seen throughout the season, all of which were deliberately made to imply that something would happen to Walter and/or his family, including what appeared to be his glasses in an evidence bag, and later the two body bags in his driveway. I was a little angry at first at having been manipulated into thinking something would happen to his family and then finding out that in fact the people who died are nameless characters we know nothing about.
But I think I was missing the point. I still think the red herring with the body bags was a little too manipulative, but with some distance I can see how powerful it is as a symbolic representation of how nearly cataclysmic the consequences of Walt’s actions can be. In a way, being responsible for all those deaths is a much heavier burden than if something had happened to Skyler or Walter Jr. It’s certainly on a larger scale, anyway.
So I’ve flip-flopped on this finale. I think it’s pretty brilliant now.
I’m of the opinion that this is the shark-jumping moment of the season. It’s still a good show in Season 3, but I think Season 2 was as good as it gets.
I meant the shark-jumping moment of the series, not of the season.
Yikes, I couldn’t disagree more, Basque, but for obvious reasons I’ll have to wait to explain why. Suffice to say the S3 has four of not just my favorite BB episodes but a couple of episodes I’d rank as the best television I’ve seen.
I started at the place you ended up at with regards to this episode, Basque, but that’s a really good description of it.
We’ll see what I end up thinking of the rest of the show, but I felt like it could have ended here pretty comfortably, if it had to. So I’ll at least understand what you mean, even if I don’t agree with it.
That’s what I’m saying, Sean, about the plane crash and how it functions for Walt. Thinking about it some more, it felt very Coen Brothers, as in how they like to end their serious movies. Don’t want to list examples for obvious reasons, but if you’ve seen them you probably know what I mean.
I noticed the pink sweater, too.
It *was* very Coen Bros now that you point it out! In fact, I’m seeing some other similarities in terms of balancing tone and how both BB and the Coen’s use imagery that’s kinda eye opening in a film geeky kinda way.
On the mistakes-from-which-we-can’t-recover tip, have you seen The Shield, Sean? There’s a scene in season 3 (I think; it might have been 2) where the full weight of something the main characters have done finally comes fully down on them, the realization so clear, that I actually felt sick to my stomach with worry–which is saying something for a TV show. The first few seasons of The Shield are pretty amazing in terms of holding characters accountable for the consequences of their actions.
I haven’t seen The Shield and probably won’t, Sam — I heard about a scene I’d probably have too much trouble watching.
I was disappointed the first time I saw this. I was watching and speculating week-to-week so I’m sure my expectations played a part in this, but I thought that all of the ominous black-and-white grim flashforwards cheated a bit? that they’d made a sort of implicit promise that wasn’t delivered on. It looked like things were leading to a cartel hit or a lab explosion and that the two bodies in the bags were characters we knew, and then it felt like a copout when it turned out to be something out of left field completely different than that. I got over it, offhand that little structural nitpick is the only part of the series I haven’t liked, but I’m still not sure they played fair.
I second a recommendation of The Shield! for me it had its highs and lows for a while, but the second half of that series is as amazing as anything I’ve seen. I’m not sure what scene you’re referring to but I can’t remember anything more extreme than, say, the HBO shows you’ve seen- and FX has more content restrictions than HBO does for both language and how explicitly things can be shown.
James, I’ve heard the bait-and-switch complaint about the flashforwards from a couple of people now, and because that makes perfect sense I’m surprised that I didn’t feel even a trace of that myself. I think that’s because, well, it’s not as though there weren’t horrific consequences for Walt and Jesse by season’s end — they just didn’t happen to be the reason for the debris, the hazmat-suited cops, the body bags, etc. But Skyler finally caught on to Walt’s lies and threw him out; Combo was shot to death, and Jesse became a junkie to numb the pain; and Walt essentially murdered Jane, completely crushing Jesse and, it seems, having more of an impact on Walt than any of his previous killings. So what I was clumsily trying to articulate above was that I still got the emotional payoff I was expecting, just from a different direction. That’s fairplay in my book.
The thing about The Shield isn’t violence per se, but violence against a specific target. A furry four-legged target.
I do still question that one structural element leading up to the finale, I second Basque’s use of the word “manipulative” even though in hindsight I see what they’re doing. But I still love the episode itself for all the reasons you’ve mentioned, the actual content was never an issue for me- all the emotional payoffs one expects from a finale absolutely are there.
Ah gotcha. If it helps I remember that one scene from The Shield happening off-camera (they show a close-up of the guy’s face), but to each his own! Plenty of other worthwhile shows out there.
That Shield scene you’re worried about is pretty tame, I think. It doesn’t compare to the human-on-animal violence in GoT.
(Edited your comment just in case someone reading this thread hasn’t seen Game of Thrones yet…)
Yeah, but in the case of that show, I was prepared thanks to having read the books. This would be new to me in a story sense, even though I know it’s out there somewhere.
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the FX series Justified. I’m well aware that I’m in the minority, but I prefer it to both Breaking Bad and Mad Men.
If this season is anywhere near as amazing as the masterpiece that was Justified season 2, I’ll be right there with ya Joe. I think I did enjoy watching that season more than Breaking Bad or Mad Men (though why choose, all three are great), but season two was so amazingly great and so much better than the still-very-good season one, I’m worried it was a fluke. Another season like the last one and they’ll have proved they’re the real deal for me.
I agree wholeheartedly with this list (CONTAINS SPOILERS):
http://www.buzzfocus.com/2011/12/28/justified-14-dos-and-donts-season-3/
Joe, i had to hide your Justified comment — I can’t bring myself to host spoilers for shows I haven’t seen yet!
Fair enough!
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