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Post by Jeremy on Jul 5, 2019 13:43:31 GMT -8
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. Ah, but "Bowling" does have a conventional plot - it's the format that's unusual. The two "family goes to the bowling alley" plots are (by themselves) fairly routine; it's the way the show intertwines them in Sliding Doors style that makes it stand out. If I recall, Reese joining the army was the storyline that put me off the show. I still watched occasionally after that, but that plot went on too long, wasn't funny, and crossed the line into mean-spirited too many times. (That was also around the time the show phased out Francis, one of the show's funniest characters. Losing him didn't help.)
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Quiara
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Post by Quiara on Jul 5, 2019 14:11:18 GMT -8
Your loss! Season 6 has a lot of the funniest episodes of the show ("Pearl Harbor," "Stilts," "Billboard," "Opera" ...) and doesn't suffer from Francis' absence at all.
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Post by Jeremy on Jul 5, 2019 14:36:21 GMT -8
I've seen "Pearl Harbor" and "Stilts." They were okay, although the latter is one of the first things that come to my mind in terms of the later seasons' overly kooky plots. (That climax...)
I don't mean to knock the show too much; it definitely deserves more attention than it's given. I just found it more effective before it went overly bananas. But by all means, compare it to Breaking Bad as much as you can on this thread.
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Quiara
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Post by Quiara on Jul 5, 2019 14:52:09 GMT -8
I've seen "Pearl Harbor" and "Stilts." They were okay, although the latter is one of the first things that come to my mind in terms of the later seasons' overly kooky plots. (That climax...) Man, that climax has me in breathless laughter every time I see it. Kooky? Yes. Hilarious? Hella.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Jul 5, 2019 20:45:03 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.
As far as I know, "Crazy Handful of Nothing" is remembered as a high point of the series, the moments when the series really comes into its own. I think that's just because of the one scene where Walt intimidates Tuco. The rest of it is, as you say, unremarkable. This happens several times throughout Breaking Bad's run-an otherwise average episode is vaunted for a specific element or scene-"Cornered", "Say My Name", and "Dead Freight" all come to mind. Curious to see if you'll agree when you get to those.
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Quiara
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Post by Quiara on Jul 20, 2019 13:09:36 GMT -8
Shit. I spent an hour writing on the first three episodes only for my computer to eat it all.
They're good though.
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Quiara
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Post by Quiara on Jul 23, 2019 11:36:17 GMT -8
"737" [2x01]So this episode follows up directly from the ending of the previous, but it feels like less of a retread than the beginning of the Tuco arc despite being a literal retread. I think this is because of Hank and Gomey, and how they become a sort of audience surrogate in a Mystery Science Theater way, riffing on the methylamine heist and the aftermath of the junkyard deal. What else? Skylar gets some good material for once! Actually, I'm not sure Skylar is ever particularly poorly written when she gets a focus. I never was on the "Skylar sucks" train in large part because her explosions are 100% warranted in my opinion. She has problems as a character but that's not for this episode. The real MVP in the White household, however, is the box of diapers with Walt's stash and gun in it. What a great metaphor - on the surface it's a source of comfort for Walt's daughter-to-be, but when you unfold it it's obviously going to endanger everyone in its vicinity. Between the vent and the Tampico crib this is a very subtextually dense room. Other note: the color grading in this episode is really bright for some reason? Maybe Schindler's Grizzly at the start of the episode is just making me focus on color contrast. "Grilled" [2x02]So one of the real joys of this season so far (but not for much longer, alas) is reading along with Scott's Breaking Bad blog posts, which contain this wonderful explanation of why BB is such a good show, using "Grilled" as an example: This is a really succinct explanation of how to make stakes matter, even if you've never seen Breaking Bad before. But weirdly, I think this is not why "Grilled" is so scary on a structural level. I think what makes it scary is that Tuco and Tio are not hardened criminals so much as they are Abbott and Costello with guns. The climax of the episode, where Tuco is trying to interpret Tio's bell rings and pointing with Walt's ""help"" is pure "Who's on First." A lot of dramatic stakes in fiction are built around miscommunications of some sort, and a lot of the time they feel contrived - but here, it feels totally in-character. And totally scary! Because the moment Tio says "yes! not the pronoun, but a player with the rather unlikely name of Who, is on first" Walt and Jesse are dead. "Bit by a Dead Bee" [2x03]Oh no, it's the Mayor! But that scene is fantastic, as Walt lays out the real reason he "disappeared" (read: started cooking meth), namely the escape it grants him from a dead-end life with a job he hates and family he also hates but won't admit he hates even now. I think this scene also hints at the underlying theme of BB, which I'd like to run by you all. All the characters on this show are constrained in some way. Some of these constrictions are quite literal, e.g. Walt Jr's palsy and Walt's terminal cancer. But you could also argue that suburbia is a constraint, or that Hank's masculinity is restraining him, etc. For most people, the elimination of constraints and barriers is not merely desirable but a social good - this is the basis of civil rights movements, and most political ideologies (although, e.g., socialists and libertarians would disagree on just what those constraints and barriers are). By Walt's own admission, cooking meth liberates him from the constraints he feels. Does this make meth dealing... good? More on "Down" later maybe.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Jul 23, 2019 12:13:21 GMT -8
I think this scene also hints at the underlying theme of BB, which I'd like to run by you all. All the characters on this show are constrained in some way. Some of these constrictions are quite literal, e.g. Walt Jr's palsy and Walt's terminal cancer. But you could also argue that suburbia is a constraint, or that Hank's masculinity is restraining him, etc. For most people, the elimination of constraints and barriers is not merely desirable but a social good - this is the basis of civil rights movements, and most political ideologies (although, e.g., socialists and libertarians would disagree on just what those constraints and barriers are). By Walt's own admission, cooking meth liberates him from the constraints he feels. Does this make meth dealing... good? More on "Down" later maybe. Maybe, but as the show goes on, Walt sinks deeper and deeper into a moral abyss. The same thing that allowed him to break from the banality of everyday life makes him feel good, sure, but it also blackens his soul-and contrary to what certain fans say, it's never portrayed as a good thing. Ultimately though, I think Vince Gilligan and his team were focused on telling the best story possible more than saying something profound-I think many of the themes in the show are, while not necessarily incidental, not that essential to what makes the show excellent.
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Post by Jeremy on Jul 23, 2019 15:48:08 GMT -8
Breaking Bad, like many antihero dramas, wants viewers to sympathize to some extent with its protagonist. And it's probably easier to sympathize with Walt than, say, Tony Soprano or Vic Mackey because the show opens with him as a modestly good (if self-centered and egotistical) guy - whereas The Sopranos and The Shield open by portraying their lead characters as deeply immoral, and then invites audiences to develop sympathy for them as time goes on. I wouldn't say that Breaking Bad intentionally portrays meth-cooking as a good thing (especially given the long-term consequences of Walt's actions), but it definitely wants the audience to rationalize his doing so.
Also, I'm hitting the imaginary Like button on your post for the "Schindler's Grizzly" comment.
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Post by otherscott on Jul 24, 2019 10:44:14 GMT -8
I think the constraints aren't really a narrative theme as much as they are a device used by the writers to build sympathy, or at least play with the viewer's loyalties. I feel like they could do the exact same series without Walt having cancer for instance, and the themes would be mostly the same, but I don't think the viewer would go along with it nearly as well.
But you bring up a good point on the freedom that meth cooking gives Walt. Walt has always considered himself a genius and it feels wasted in the school he's teaching at. With his current life he's trapped, but he's trapped in normalcy. He has a normal family, a normal couple of jobs, normal extended family. And secretly he loathes that because he wants to be special, he wants to be the genius.
And that's where I think the experience of watching Breaking Bad from a certain perspective can almost border on dangerous, at least in the early going. Because there is a lot of viewer wish fulfillment playing out in the series. There's too many viewers who saw themselves as Walt, trapped in this normal life that they want more from. I think that's where a lot of the Skyler hatred came from, she was standing in the way of Walt being his most exceptional self and trying to trap him back into that normal box. And early on, the show DOES support that idea. The show does say at times "cooking meth good". Once again though, that's not a theme, I think that's a device to install the viewer in Walt's corner. It's where they go from that point that matters - I would say the show doesn't really truly show you its hand and its real themes until Season 4.
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Quiara
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Post by Quiara on Jul 25, 2019 10:51:53 GMT -8
And that's where I think the experience of watching Breaking Bad from a certain perspective can almost border on dangerous, at least in the early going. Because there is a lot of viewer wish fulfillment playing out in the series. There's too many viewers who saw themselves as Walt, trapped in this normal life that they want more from. I think that's where a lot of the Skyler hatred came from, she was standing in the way of Walt being his most exceptional self and trying to trap him back into that normal box. And early on, the show DOES support that idea. The show does say at times "cooking meth good". Once again though, that's not a theme, I think that's a device to install the viewer in Walt's corner. It's where they go from that point that matters - I would say the show doesn't really truly show you its hand and its real themes until Season 4. The thing is, I do think this is a theme because nearly every character wants more from life - Skylar wants to be an artist and not an underappreciated mother and wife, for instance, and I suspect Jesse wants a life on the up-and-up but struggles to fit into polite society. The exceptions to this are the people who are all-in on the drug trade, many of whom for all we know were like Walt at some point - or people like Crazy-8, who gave up their artistic dreams for financial reasons.
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Quiara
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Post by Quiara on Jul 28, 2019 8:36:40 GMT -8
Hi all. So I spent most of the past 48 hours in the ICU after my appendix burst, and I'm going to be popping prescription oxy on the daily for the rest of the week, so as you can imagine I'm not super in the headspace for Breaking Bad for the foreseeable future.
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Post by ThirdMan on Jul 28, 2019 13:44:53 GMT -8
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Post by Jeremy on Jul 29, 2019 11:37:04 GMT -8
Ugh, that’s awful. Get well soon.
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Post by Zarnium on Jul 29, 2019 15:09:12 GMT -8
Oof. That's rough. Get well soon.
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