Thoughts about life, crap, training, and stuff - Breaking Bad Edition

I posted these on Facebook a while back but I though I'd share them here as well since there are so many Breaking Bad fans, and because I also finally took everyone's advice and watched the series.

Here are my thoughts.......

SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!

Hank - I don't care that "Hank was doing his job". Suck my nuts.

He knew Walt was done. He knew Walt was dying of cancer. He knew that Walt paid for him to walk again. He didn't care. He didn't care that he'd tear Walt's family apart, and let him spend his final days dying in prison. He didn't give Walt the courtesy of a sit down talk to explain everything. He just decided to go after him like he was any other meth dealer. Fuck him. I did a fist pump when Todd put a bullet into him to end his shit.

Marie - I did a second fist pump when I got to watch her break down once she found out Hank was dead. My only wish is that Todd and his gang would have knee capped her and left her to die out along side Hank. I don't know that I've ever hated a bitch so much on any show ever. EVER. Why did she make everything in Skylar and Walt's life her god damn business? Why did she think it effected her so much when it literally had no bearing on her life? God damn I hated that bitch with the force of 10,000 suns!

Jesse - I understand that Jesse didn't get much of a say in things from the start. Walt told him to help him cook meth or he'd turn him in to the DEA, but Walt constantly put his life on the line for Jesse, and in the end Jesse never really showed any appreciation for it. Ratted him out to that piece of shit Hank. I am torn on Jesse because I think that Jesse was a tortured soul. A guy with a good heart trapped in an addicts body, but Jesus...you don't rat out your partner. I don't care that Walt poisoned that kid. He wouldn't have had to go to such measures if Jesse had been LOYAL to Walt throughout all of it. Seriously.

Skylar - I hated this bitch for most of the show. I mean when Walk was going through cancer did she ever strike you as the most supportive wife in the world? All she ever did was badger him about what he was doing with his time. His response at that time was that he liked to take long walks. Well she didn't buy it. Not only that, she ended up tracking down Jesse to tell him not to sell pot to Walt. She then fucked Ted because well, she was mad at Walt. She had the cops called on Walt because well, Walt was in his own fucking house. Yet she had no problem throwing 620 grand at Ted to keep him shut up, or another 114 grand at her cunt sister and dickhead brother in law.

Not only that, her taking the moral high ground at the end made me sick after she hinted to Walt that Jesse should be killed. She laundered money and even devised the scheme for it. She cooked the books for Ted. Yet in the end, she was devastated because Hank, who was only walking because Walt paid for his god damn medical bills, got killed for not following protocol on the job.

I didn't hate her as much as Marie because when she bought into the business with Walt she was pretty cool, and smart, and when she wasn't in her bloated phase she wasn't too hard on the eyes. But overall she was a horrible wife and completely self absorbed about her own happiness. Even when her husband was dying of lung cancer. Clearly her and her sister grew up in a dysfunctional family.

Walt Jr - I liked Walt Jr. I can't get anyone hating on him. He was disabled yet never felt sorry for himself. He was a smart ass (in a good way..."Mom, this isn't the right kind of cereal. It says it right there on the box. I mean, it's not that hard."), he supported and loved his dad. He started a fund raising effort through paypal for Walt to try and help pay his medical bills, told his mom she was a complete bitch when she turned her back on Walt, etc. I thought he was pretty lovable actually. In the end he only turned on Walt because he mistakenly thought Walt killed Hank, and like any good man would do, he tried to physically protect his mom. Walt Jr was perhaps the only character in the show that was a good person top to bottom.

Mike - Mike was perhaps my most fave character on the show. Mike knew what his job was, so whenever he was put in a position to kill Walt or do something, you knew his motives. It was never personal with him. Mike also was smart in a way I enjoyed and could identify with. He wasn't the genius Walt was of course, but he had an uncanny sense of intuition. His only mistake was underestimating Walt in the end. But even then he told Walt to fuck off and just let him die in peace. He was salty and unapologetic for who he was. But I also got from Mike that he still adhered to a code underneath his cold bloodedness that would have kept him from doing certain kinds of jobs. Just my hunch.

Gus - Gus was one of my favorite characters on the series. For people who want revenge they could really pay attention to his character. Gus, all along, was going to avenge the death of his brother (?). But he had to establish himself first. He had to build his empire and build enough money and loyalty and make himself "worth" enough so that he wasn't expendable. In some ways Walt was the missing piece in that he gave Gus a product that started taking over the scene. He also was great at thinking many steps ahead, and had an intuition that was uncanny, and kept him alive for all of those years when he should have been taken out.

But Gus' downfall came from losing his brother as well. In that, he learned never to be truly loyal to anyone again. The loss of his brother, IMO, made him so that he removed all emotion from the business and saw people as chess pieces on the board. He moved them here and there for what was best for him, and furthering his business. I say this was his undoing because rather than developing a true relationship with Walt (who was just as smart as Gus), he tried to use Walt as a pawn. And well, that didn't turn out so good. Walt knew Gus was using him to "learn" his method and then his life would no longer be worth anything.

Gus forgot the all important lesson of knowing true loyalty. That lesson is what kept Jesse and Walt alive when each others lives were in the other ones hands.

Walt - Ok so my write up for Walt.

Everything has a genesis. A starting point and a catalyst for a larger series of events. For Walt, it was selling his part in Gray Matter and then watching that company grow and expand into an empire, while most of it was built off of his ideas. All the while, he was teaching high school and washing cars. Yet Walt was a genius. He felt belittled and scorned, and he watched bills pile up and the family he loved so much struggle underneath the burden of it, and he felt helpless.

So when Walt initially started cooking, it was indeed with nothing more than the intention of making sure his family was taken care of after he passed from cancer. However Walt found that he was highly appreciated for his work. He was sought out. Held in high regard. He even had a name....Heisenberg. He told those two mother fuckers in the Home Depot parking lot "get out of my territory" and they split like bananas.

He made one of the largest distributors in the entire southwest "say my name" in the middle of the desert. In front of his goons, no less. He routinely outsmarted seriously smart mother fuckers. Walt was relevant now. Mostly, to himself. He had money, fame, power, and respect. Everything he felt he lost out on when he opted out of Gray Matter.

Walt also loved Jesse like he was his own son. He called him "family" on more than one occasion. He pulled him out of crack houses, blew up Tuco's "fort" for having Jesse beat down, ran over two drug dealers and executed one right in the middle of the street to save him. Even when he finally agreed to have Jesse killed it was because he was so hurt that Jesse ratted him out, and as CS Lewis once wrote..."anger is the fluid love bleeds when it's cut".

Walt's face when they brought Jesse in from slave labor is all you'd ever need to know about his love and loyalty to him.

Walt lost his way of course, drunk in all the money and power, he too forgot what it was he was fighting for. And little by little, he lost all the parts of who he was that made the people in his life love him. He unstitched himself with the very thing he was trying to save his family with.

I still liked Walt. In the end I feel he came full circle. He became aware, and stop lying to himself. He saw the damage he had done with his ego...his pride. He couldn't make amends for everything, but he could accept his part in why he was where he was, and do things that maybe, just maybe, reflected a bit more positively later to the people who were left in his wake of destructiveness.

Breaking Bad vs The Wire -

I have thought about this a lot, and I feel that if I HAD to pick a show, The Wire is SLIGHTLY better. And by slightly I mean it's fairly insignificant. The Wire was more realistic. But Breaking Bad was probably more interesting at times. The Wire had intentional slow moments to make it more realistic, and to allow time for more character development, but sometimes you just want some shit to go down too.

Either way, IMO it's literally the best two shows to ever be on television. The Soprano's aren't even in the discussion. Please do not insult Breaking Bad or The Wire with that garbage.