I just finished Season 2 of Breaking Bad. I think the show is wonderful. And one thing I like in particular is its satisfactory plotting. (Because when it comes to Matt Weiner, I don’t get that feeling at all…) Even when it’s an episode about Walt and a water-pump, it ends with a crushing moment. There’s something creepy, real, and awfully unsettling about the show. And the cinematography is so gorgeous. (The episode with the junkies and the little boy is one of the most excruciating hours of TV. Remember, if you haven’t watched Breaking Bad before: don’t do it before bed. You will thank me.)
1) Thank god for Bryan Cranston’s wrinkled, unbotox-ed face. Can you imagine what the show would be like if he couldn’t emote with the worried folds of his skin? Thank goodness he was a journeyman TV actor that got a shot and not a fading movie star. If he was the latter, or the role was for a lady, I’m afraid that the complexities would be lost in the Botox.
1A) Cranston’s awesome, isn’t he? I love that guy.
2) The show sticks with you in awful ways. Last Sunday my SO and I were driving to a waterfall and we got lost. He ends up pulling over in front of this motel with some big bros sitting on the front porch. He’s looking at a map, trying to figure out where we went wrong, and this wiry tattooed dude in no shirt and jeans starts stalking down the front walk towards our car. I tell Stu to go and we speed away. It just didn’t seem like a good scene - and I thought that maybe he could’ve been trying to be a good neighbor, or whatnot, but I feared the worst, and for that, I blame Walter White.