Breaking (Bad) Burts: Season 1 Diary

I've spent the last few years hearing how excellent this show has been and after finishing Twin Peaks, I was on the market for something fresh. My choices were either Downton Abbey or Breaking Bad, and I figured with the final season on the way, it wouldn't hurt to be caught up so that I could watch the final weeks as they aired and avoid being spoiled on some of the major plot points, sort of what made me give in and start watching Lost.

This show, is, AMAZING. Meena was telling me that it is crazy intense, people were telling me that I'd be saying "Oh Shit!" constantly and while I believed them, it was until I experienced a number of those moments for myself that I truly understood what had happened to everyone else.

Bryan Cranston is the man. It is hard to believe that he languished for so long on Malcom in the Middle as the goofy Dad. I honestly am in no way qualified to accurately explain or convey how phenomenal his performance has been even in just the first season. The plot has required emotion, love, fear, brilliance and even more terrifyingly, violence and anger and Cranston is flawless. Truly deserving of every award, nomination and word of praise sent his way since the show began. We are watching one man's life on the ultimate downward spiral and it is only just beginning.

The Pinkman character frustrates me, people have told me that I've grown to love him and I understand his role as Walt's foil and sidekick, but he hasn't rubbed off on me yet. I guess from my own perspective as identifying more with Walt than Pinkman, I continue to see him an as idiot who is not only failing to think his choices through most of the time, but has decided that as long as he can escape, he has no concern for the consequences. I'll be curious to see how his role develops over the next few seasons as Twin Peaks taught me that with good writing, it is difficult to truly predict where a character is going to go.

I have mixed feelings on Walt's family. I love Walt Jr. of course, portrayed with the perfect amount of charisma and sympathy. He is a boy working through his teenage years with a disability and the addition of a Father who is secretly going off the rails. Skylar, Walt's Wife though is a totalllllllllllllll ugh. The funny thing is, I can see exactly how Walt would end up with someone like her, but I do NOT like her at all. The more I see her on the screen the more frustrated I get, and it wouldn't surprise me if they try and work in some kind of plotline of her having an affair or even that the baby isn't really Walt's.

DEA Uncle reminds me a little too much of Vic from The Shield, which may or may not be intentional, given that Skylar's sister is as neurotic as she is, I sort of understand how they work as a couple with DEA Uncle being a sort of blue collar, trying to serve the community cop in the way that Walt is a blue collar, educating our youth teacher type.

While the plot hasn't been anything insanely complex, it is just masterfully written. The tension is constantly rising and falling, with crazy criminal aspects and events juxtaposed with emotionally charged family sequences leave you both drained and buzzing for more.

I can't explain to you why, but certain parts of this show caused me to spazz out so much that I had to pause and take two shots of whiskey. That is how much I love Walt White.

I also made a note that I loved how they used Gnarls Barkley's Who's Gonna Save My Soul as the finale song, and it is probably my favorite Gnarls use in television. Appropriate, poignant, and haunting.

SEASON TWO BEGINS SOON!

Coming Soon!

Power Walk With Me: My Twin Peaks Diary - Concluded

Having now wrapped up Twin Peaks, the show is definitely one of my favorites all time. I’m currently writing this without an Internet connection to refer to my last few entries, so hopefully I don’t overlap too much, but I wanted to go ahead and get my thoughts down on paper. 

So with 3 episodes to go, I absolutely loved the finale. The Miss Twin Peaks Pageant was everything I hoped for, including Windom Earle in drag as the Log Lady, Andy’s victory as the father of Lucy’s child, the inevitable repeating of Cooper vs. Earle for the life of the woman Dale loves, and more. 

Before I talk finale, I’m going to just fire off some thoughts about the various storylines:

Donna and James: I’m glad James disappeared but whoa was I not expecting the twist about Ben Horne being Donna’s real dad, especially with the cliffhanger that Doctor Hayward might have killed Ben in anger. It is too bad the show ended when it did because I was definitely curious about that plot. Especially because I don’t think they ever specified why Donna’s Mom was in a wheelchair. And do we ever really see Donna’s mythical third sister? 

The Ed/Norma/Nadine/Mike thread came to a head (lol) exactly as I thought it would with Nadine regaining her memory and being batshit crazy again. The storyline concludes with Ed hugging Nadine and Mike and Norma on the edges, so while I’d like to believe that Ed will be a grownup and go after Norma, he will probably stick with Nadine because he is a total wuss.

Audrey is truly the HBIC now having declared her love for Billy Zane and is primed to take over the Horne family business. The cliffhanger with the bomb was an absolutely mess though, leaving Pete and Audrey lost in limbo forever. :[

The finale was absolutely wild as everyone expected it to be. Once Cooper entered The Black Lodge anything could have happened and it was an interesting way to showcase how the various spirits had been participating throughout the story. Some of the visuals were absolutely maddening though, I watched it with the lights off and some of that strobe was so intense that I even I thought I might have a seizure. Cooper is the man with how damn noble he is, selflessly giving up his soul for Annie and not even to BOB, but to Earle, who then pays the price of trying to even take Coop’s soul. The final sequence with “How’s Annie?” seemed sort of obvious but was no less brilliant as Dale is a hero who will fight BOB to the very end.

The movie that everyone told me I HAD to watch, "Fire Walk With Me" I felt was absolutely disappointing though. It was nice to get a little more back story on Dale and even how he was able to call in a favor for Albert, but the parts starring Laura Palmer were.. unnecessary? And fairly boring and almost pornographic. We just got 30 episodes of having to hear about Laura being abused by BOB for years, did we really need an actual scene of it? You'd think that if they had to recast Donna and Coop barely being it in was a sign that they shouldn't have bothered. 

Overall though, I loved the show and I was pleased at how many things I was able to puzzle out on my own, both thematically and in terms of the mythology. The dwarf guy being Mike's missing arm, Laura's clothes causing Donna to act more like Laura herself, Dale's impending possession were maybe all kind of obvious things, but they make me feel good in that I was at least interacting with the show in a way that meant I was putting thought into it and giving it my attention!

I'll miss you Dale. :[