Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Jun 4, 2019 14:56:56 GMT -8
It's happening.
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Post by Jeremy on Jun 4, 2019 15:14:19 GMT -8
Cool!
Um... I'd ask you to change the thread title, but if history is any indication, odds are that you'd make it something even worse.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Jun 4, 2019 16:17:25 GMT -8
"Pilot"
It's basically impossible to watch Breaking Bad in 2019 unspoiled; however, I think I am one of the few people who can really say they're watching this show from the same perspective as a hapless AMC viewer in 2008. Because while most contemporary watchers of this show look at Walter White and see one of the all-time great TV anti-heroes, all I can see is one of the all-time great sitcom dads. A lot of people have noted the superficial similarities between Bryan Cranston's character on Breaking Bad and his character on Malcolm in the Middle - neurotic suburban dads introduced to the viewers in the nude, most obviously - but I think the connection between the two shows goes deeper than this.
Malcolm in the Middle is 1) a show about a boy with a prodigal intellect, and 2) a show about a family that's always one bad break away from poverty. The core tension of the show is that Malcolm's hyper-intelligence can't propel him and his family out of the lower-middle class - and as he grows older, this fact embitters him. Walter White is very much a character in this same mold, a man who once was in contention for the Nobel Prize who's been reduced to lecturing bored high school students about ionic bonds. If Malcolm in the Middle was a drama rather than a comedy, or if Frankie Muñiz was forty years older, or if the show had ended after the Great Recession instead of right before it, the show very well could have ended with Malcolm becoming such a character. It was always floated as a potential life path that he could end up being like jackass Mister Herkabe.
So having Bryan Cranston play Walt is a brilliant bit of stunt-casting on top of being good casting in the traditional sense, because Cranston really does play the role with both humor and pathos. We do feel for the guy - working two shit jobs for his wife and disabled son is bad enough, learning he's got five years to live tops is crushing. It's almost believeable that he'd turn to meth.
Unfortunately, the pilot's a little clumsy in its contrivances. Walt just happens to have a brother-in-law in the DEA, who just happens to invite him on a ride-along, where he just happens to find out one of his former students is a meth cook? Okay, I guess. More troublesome is that Walt is able to throw two different tantrums in his "respectable" life with no meaningful consequences - are we supposed to believe Skyler and Walt Jr. really just forget that he wailed on a teenager in a department store (even with understandable motives)? Walt himself obviously wants to keep a divide between his family life and his new job in the drug trade, but the show itself doesn't have to have this dichotomy too. It really weakens Skylar and Jr. as characters. And it makes Hank's macho vanity and casual racism seem like Cool Antihero traits rather than deliberate character flaws meant to make Walt look even more pathetic.
Still, a really great start. I've barely even mentioned some of the other great stuff about the episode - most obviously, the cinematography. There are some fantastic shots - Walt literally laundering money is the one Scott mentioned in his fantastic write-ups; the pants flying overhead in the New Mexico sky are also a fantastic opening image. I personally really loved the shot of Walt teaching to a bored room, where we zoom in on his face, with a Bunsen burner flaming in the foreground. This man is too hot to handle. Watch out.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Jun 4, 2019 16:19:16 GMT -8
Cool! Um... I'd ask you to change the thread title, but if history is any indication, odds are that you'd make it something even worse. That was a typo. Honest. Because there's no such thing as too any cocks : - )
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Post by Jay on Jun 4, 2019 17:00:24 GMT -8
I figured it was an early dig at the show's being a sausage fest
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Post by Jeremy on Jun 4, 2019 17:25:03 GMT -8
That was my thought as well. I blame the Deadwood movie for landing my mind in the gutter.
Given that this is the third or fourth time that a CT forum member has started a Breaking Bad watch-and-review, I've pretty much made all my thoughts on the pilot known on the old forum. But I am absolutely fine with reviews that draw comparisons between Walter White and Hal from Malcolm in the Middle. (Early Breaking Bad episodes certainly let Cranston bridge off his Malcolm character, which both makes for good comedy and allows viewers accustomed to his old role to ease into his new one.)
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Post by Zarnium on Jun 4, 2019 19:03:02 GMT -8
I didn't like Hank much at the beginning either, but he grew on me as the show went on. Perhaps even moreso than Walt, he's a good example of how being pressured into masculine roles against one's natural inclinations can damage a person.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Jun 10, 2019 15:20:15 GMT -8
"Cat's in the Bag"
It's interesting that this show is basically a comedy so far, and on two separate axes. You have a classic slobs vs. snobs thing going on with underachiever Jesse slacking with brilliant/refined Walter (and to a lesser extent, uptight Skylar); you also have the irony of a hardened drug dealer like Crazy-8 thrashing around in the Albuquerque suburbs, totally at odds with the artificial safe space of whitepeopleland. Many Weeds vibes, or it would be, if I'd ever watched Weeds. (Then again, Gilligan didn't either, or he wouldn't have made this show in the first place, allegedly.)
Jesse gets a lot of great material here in spite of being a total caricature - I even found the scene where Skylar chews him out for selling Walt weed funny. In general this episode has a lot of great physical comedy - Crazy-8 thwacking into a tree, or the slow "slide him every nicety he needs while we debate killing him" shot which is great, or Jesse trying to contort himself into a plastic bin. The character work could be better, probably.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Jun 11, 2019 19:40:59 GMT -8
"Cat's in the Bag" It's interesting that this show is basically a comedy so far, and on two separate axes. You have a classic slobs vs. snobs thing going on with underachiever Jesse slacking with brilliant/refined Walter (and to a lesser extent, uptight Skylar); you also have the irony of a hardened drug dealer like Crazy-8 thrashing around in the Albuquerque suburbs, totally at odds with the artificial safe space of whitepeopleland. Many Weeds vibes, or it would be, if I'd ever watched Weeds. (Then again, Gilligan didn't either, or he wouldn't have made this show in the first place, allegedly.) Jesse gets a lot of great material here in spite of being a total caricature - I even found the scene where Skylar chews him out for selling Walt weed funny. In general this episode has a lot of great physical comedy - Crazy-8 thwacking into a tree, or the slow "slide him every nicety he needs while we debate killing him" shot which is great, or Jesse trying to contort himself into a plastic bin. The character work could be better, probably. The comedy pretty much disappears at a certain point in the show, which made sense for the story and worked.....but I kind of liked the show as a pitch-black comedy as well as a harrowing drama. Ah well.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Jul 3, 2019 20:03:15 GMT -8
"And The Bag's in the River" [1x03]
What a wonderful little episode. Max Arciniega and Bryan Cranston play so well off one another that it's a shame the former can't live. His "why should I spare Crazy-8" list is pretty fantastic. Have you guys seen the Malcolm episode where he has to decide whether to pull the plug on a comatose neighbor, and he fills up the entire living room with flowcharts of what he should do? This episode reminded me of that, and unintentionally made it very funny.
Let's talk about the real MVP here - Marie Schrader. Okay, maybe not. But I am bemused by her kleptomania - she hates her orthopedic nurse shoes, which to her symbolize her dissatisfaction with her station in life, so she steals some nice Louboutins. Tis a cute touch hinting that she's not so different from Walt. For the most point the show is continuing to struggle to make the non-Cranston characters interesting - the whole scared straight interlude is just oof - but hey, not a big problem when the A-plot is so solid.
"Cancer Man" [1x04]
Wow, does Jesse's family suck. In the sense that they are awful people, but also in the sense that they are not good characters either. Jesse's material this episode is just awful. This is not an unforgivably bad episode of television, because Walt's guilt over killing Crazy-8 turning into a sort of suicidal ideation is really great. And the rest of the supporting cast is very very good for once.
"Grey Matter" [1x05]
Really fantastic character-driven episode here. Walt's desire not to be a charity case is at once totally understandable and really awful. But both the party scene and the intervention have great character material for nearly everybody. Thank god for good writing and acting.
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Post by Jeremy on Jul 4, 2019 11:57:14 GMT -8
"Grey Matter" was the episode that sold me on the show. The first four eps are primarily focused on forward momentum - one of the show's great strengths throughout its run - and they set up the story and characters impressively. But "Grey Matter" (the first episode not written by Gilligan) proves that the series can produce slower, more character-driven storylines just as well as high-stakes action.
I don't think I've seen that Malcolm episode; I missed a lot from that show's last two seasons.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Jul 4, 2019 17:02:43 GMT -8
Yeah, the entire intervention scene is wonderful: Hank and Skyler and Marie all genuinely love Walt but struggle to express it, all in three separate but equally believeable ways. I think it's a turning point as the first moment that convinces me the show can use the supporting cast just as well it can use Walt.
This is an unpopular opinion, but I think MITM is a stronger show in its later seasons than it is in its first, largely because the first couple seasons are a little too hesitant to give Dewey and Reese real plotlines. I still think it's a serious contender for "best sitcom ever" any way you slice it (quality of the ensemble cast, formal innovations - and arguably bringing back single-cam).
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Post by Jeremy on Jul 4, 2019 18:44:03 GMT -8
I prefer the early Malcolm seasons (particularly S2-S4) mainly because the show feels more genuine and down-to-earth, putting an oddball family in ordinary situations and letting the humor play out. Whereas the later seasons (a la the later seasons of The Simpsons) feature increasingly ludicrous plotlines that often outshine the ludicrousness of the characters.
That said, it is surprising how rarely the show gets brought up when discussing the best sitcoms of the 2000s. Especially considering the show's influence in bringing single-cam to network TV. (Sports Night narrowly beat them to the punch, though I hesitate to call that show a sitcom.)
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Jul 4, 2019 19:33:13 GMT -8
"A Crazy Handful of Nothing" [1x06]
Oh no, Hugo! Is he the first person to get f'ed over by Walt's actions - sorry, "Heisenberg" (great joke) - who did nothing to deserve it?
THe drug dealers on this show are still kind of a weak point - Tuco is cray cray in a way that's mostly just silly, honestly. He's the new Crazy-8, as Jesse puts it, which hints at the real problem with this episode, which is that after a slew of character-driven eps the show is trying to make up for lost time by retreading the pilot, up to and including the chemistry lecture where Walt talks about change and chemical reactions, which is a metaphor for his arc but also foreshadowing for a scene at the end of the episode where he uses the chemical compound he writes on the whiteboard towards violent ends. This makes the episode drag a little. Could be worse I suppose. Arguably the least compelling episode so far - maybe "Cancer Man" is worse, since it doesn't start the show's plot in earnest?
"A No Rough Stuff Type Deal" [1x07]
And so Breaking Bad ends its first season with not much of a bang. This is very sensible when we keep Freytag's pyramid in the back of our minds, because the season has been a very solid introduction to our key players - Walt, Skyler, Hank, Marie, Jr, and Jesse.
And Holly, the little cutie. Jr's home movie of the baby shower is a very apt metaphor for the show itself, where Walt tries to keep a straight face as everyone around him hams it up. Likewise, Walt's attempts to stay serious are at odds with the tone of the show itself, which is dedicated to being as slapsticky as possible. Portapotty heist? Sure. The ignorant realtor telling future suburbanites that Jesse's house has "solid bones" (unlike Emilio, ell oh ell)? Don't stop there, have her set up an open house while they cook meth in the basement. It's rather odd that so far, the show has seemed to be decreasing in stakes from the pilot to the present. Or perhaps it just feels that way because so much attention is devoted to Marie's klepto subplot, which is some very weak tea, or Anna Gunn channeling Meg Ryan in Katz's. Good show so far.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Jul 5, 2019 11:10:31 GMT -8
I prefer the early Malcolm seasons (particularly S2-S4) mainly because the show feels more genuine and down-to-earth, putting an oddball family in ordinary situations and letting the humor play out. Whereas the later seasons (a la the later seasons of The Simpsons) feature increasingly ludicrous plotlines that often outshine the ludicrousness of the characters. This is a very understandable opinion. It is also a wrong one, unless you'd like to argue for the gritty realism of "Bowling." I think the only time the show really veers into ridiculousness is the Reese-joins-the-army plot.
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