I probably should have been writing here on the blog all along about my love of Breaking Bad, and praising each new episode as it deserved. I found the show some time during the second season, catching up on DVD. It didn't hook me immediately in that first six-episode season. I found it "good, but not great" until partway through the season, when the episode came in which Walt's cancer was revealed to his family. I've read that some fans of the show apparently dismiss this as one of the series' weaker hours, but I was captivated by the strong performances, the realism of the reactions both in the writing and in the acting. From there, I was hooked.
The third season, the first one I watched on a week to week basis, blew me away. There was a stretch I remember of six consecutive episodes (including the also often-maligned "Fly") that I remember thinking at the end, "wow, that was the best episode they've ever done." And they kept topping themselves week after week.
In the last year or two, Breaking Bad became more than just my favorite show on television, it became a symbol of doing things right when so many other shows were getting it wrong. It was hard not to compare it to other AMC shows I watched. As The Walking Dead was imploding in spectacular fashion, making plot decisions seemingly only to surprise fans of the comic and not for any dramatically viable reason, Breaking Bad was delivering shocks in ways that always felt perfectly natural. As Mad Men would assemble a fair enough season in retrospect despite individual episodes in which it felt like "nothing happened," Breaking Bad was coming on like a freight train every week, with powerful episodes that added up to even more than the sum of their formidable parts.
And then, of course, this season it was hard not to compare the show to Dexter (no spoilers here), also ending its run, but limping across the finish line in an unsatisfying and sometimes incomprehensible way as Breaking Bad charged triumphant to its finale.
In its final hour, Breaking Bad delivered all the things I've loved about the show. The writing was brilliant, that blend of surprise and inevitability, featuring characters you can understand even if you don't like them, making choices that are completely logical even when they sometimes surprise you. (What Walt ended up doing with his former business partner a fine example of the latter.)
As always, the camera was almost a character itself by way of the clever cinematography that was a hallmark of the show. (The slow push-in on Skyler's kitchen, revealing Walt's presence during her entire phone call with Marie, was a brilliant choice that almost made me immediately want to rewind the scene to watch again with that added context.)
And of course, the acting. Though Breaking Bad itself was only recognized by the Emmys as Best Drama for the first time a week ago, its stellar cast has never been overlooked. Bryan Cranston delivered an amazing performance last night, showing us a suddenly-sympathetic-again Walt, something that would have been impossible for most other actors after the things his character has done this season. Aaron Paul was riveting in the episode; though he had very little screen time and hardly any dialogue, two wordless moments revealed the depth of Jesse's emotions so profoundly that no dialogue was needed -- the moment when he got his hands on Todd, and the moment he smashed through the gates and fled the compound. Anna Gunn demonstrated why she absolutely deserved the Emmy she won last week. Her big scene as Skyler was filled with subtext that came across loud and clear; you could feel the wind fall from her enraged sails when Walt finally acknowledged his true motivations for his crimes, and see that anger replaced with a relief telling you that even though we'll never see what ends up happening to Skyler after this, she'll be okay.
It was a top notch ending to a top notch show, a show I have no doubt I'll watch in its entirety several times in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment