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!
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