Woot Watches: Season 4 of Breaking Bad
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Yes, I know, it’s Wednesday and the show aired Sunday. I’m lazy. So sue me.
If you haven’t seen the show Breaking Bad, you’re missing out. I also don’t know why you clicked on this article, but thanks all the same. Anyway, the show follows high school Chemistry teacher Walter White as he begins producing methamphetamine to sock away enough money for his family to live on after he passes away from the cancer that’s slowly killing him. It’s a frenetic descent into a dark world while he clings desperately into his rapidly-diminishing morals. Season 4 just premiered Sunday night on AMC, and if you haven’t seen it you should go away right now before I spoil it for you because I want to talk about a few things…
I’m a fan. Really. The show is appointment television for me, and I don’t even get AMC (although maybe if I write enough of these I can get Woot to pay for the upgrade). But after Sunday I want to express some concerns and wildly speculate about what will happen this season, because that’s what people do when they write about TV shows on the internet.
Where’s Walter Going?
In my opinion the best moments of the show, the most nail-biting tension, and the darkest humor have come from those moments when Walter realizes he’s in way over his head and tries to overcorrect before he slides any further into the world of drug production. His cause was noble: support his family, even in death. His methods were not. But now that he’s cancer free, not to mention super rich, why’s he sticking around? Yeah, he’s tangled up in this business now, but Sunday’s episode didn’t show a man resigned to his fate. He had Gale killed to save his own skin, but rather than cutting his losses and fleeing he immediately wants to resume cooking meth for Gus.
It reminds me a little of Weeds, a show I enjoyed until somewhere towards the end of season 3, when it went from “dealing pot while keeping up appearances in suburbia” to focusing more on the ins, outs, and pitfalls of drug trafficking. The show kept its personality, and the characters were still well-written, but they weren’t nearly as sympathetic once they cut ties to real life and became full-on drug traffickers. Similarly, I’m not really interested in Breaking Bad becoming just another gritty show about drugs.
I want Walter White to keep digging his nails in the ground and trying to claw his way back to his normal life. Ordering a hit on his lab assistant is the sort of thing that the Walter of season 1 would have found unconscionable and even season 3 Walter would have lost his mind with panic. At first I thought we’d see a switch: Jesse’s remorse at killing Gale turned him into little more than mute scenery for almost the entire show. “Ooh,” I thought, “is Jesse going to become the duo’s moral compass, navigating Walter back from his depravity?” Then at the end we see him happily munching pancakes with a sociopathic grin as he explains to Walter that he’s learned they have a sort of drug dealer diplomatic immunity because they can kill anyone who messes with them. We saw Skyler acting pretty morally-ambiguous as well. Did everyone fall from grace?
Hank’s Hell
I have to admit, Hank was my least favorite character when the show started. Not that he’s a poorly-written character, necessarily, but his gratuitous back-slapping, “Hey buddy,” piggish personality was so grating I cheered when he was shot. Now that he’s suffering, though, he’s really developed some depth. I was glad to see he wasn’t just “magically recovered” at the start of the season (although that would’ve been impossible since they picked things up literally seconds after season 3 ended).
He still doesn’t seem to know where the money for his medical bills is coming from, though. And once he finds out Walter and Skyler are footing the bill, how long before he starts digging into where their money comes from? I’m guessing he’s going to stay morose and depressed about his injury for about half the season, at which point he’ll discover the truth (or a hint at the truth) about Walter’s involvement in his shooting and use it to push himself through physical therapy and back to fighting shape. Look for him to be your main antagonist at the end of the season or maybe at the beginning of next season. Of course that will last until he has a change of heart because of Walter funding his hospital stay and lets him go if he promises to never do it again.
Gus Goes Nuts
I haven’t really liked the character of Gus, but it’s not really his fault. It’s just kind of a stale archetype for me at this point: the calm, collected businessman with a double life who’s willing hack people to pieces if it serves his means. His introduction felt a little too convenient, also. He just happened to have an enormous, state of the art lab, too. Still, his demand for results and the sometimes-literal gun he held to Walter and Jesse’s heads to get what we wanted were great for moving the plot forward.
But after we see the flashback in which he tells Gale he wouldn’t work with Walter because he “comes with too much baggage,” I couldn’t really understand why he would murder his nameless (did that guy ever get a name?) Mexican thug. After all, the guy seemed to have Walter’s meth recipe down pat. I thought the stage was set for a tension-building episode in which Walter has to somehow sabotage this guy’s perfect cook, while under Mike’s constant supervision, in order to save his own skin. Instead, he didn’t even get to finish cooking his meth before his throat was slit. I’m sure the writers have something on deck to explain it, but it felt a little like “we wrote ourselves into a corner.” I found myself saying not only “WTF?” but “WHY TF?”
Was he supposed to intimidate them with just how crazy he is? Sure, he couldn’t kill Walter and Jesse, but he was angry and needed to kill SOMEBODY to make a point. Still, why kill the guy who learned to cook meth? From Gus’s perspective it doesn’t make any sense. Why not at least find out if the guy can make a decent product? It would certainly solve the “too much baggage” issue Walter comes with. Like I said, the show hasn’t steered me wrong yet, and I’m confident this is just my own grasping at the bigger picture rather than a sudden slide in the quality of the show, but it left me scratching my head.
So what do you think? Is this season living up to your expectations already? What do you think is going to happen this season? Who’s your favorite character? Let us know in the comments!
Pictures are promotional photos from AMC and since we’re using them to pimp their show we hope they don’t mind.
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