Breaking the Silence

“Breaking Bad” is the only show for which I have ever demanded complete silence. I’m hooked on a lot, including obsess-able “True Blood”, but I’m going to finally admit to myself and others that “Breaking Bad” is the best show on TV. I only started watching the show because of the big advertising push before the new season for this supposedly great show I didn’t know existed. I like to have re-runs of a TV show loaded up on the Tivo for an impromptu marathon in an off-season, so I chose “Breaking Bad”, with the expectation that I would probably cancel the Season Pass after an episode or two, when I could say I was no longer oblivious about its existence, and, if it became a huge hit, wouldn’t kick myself if I had never given it a shot. I didn’t have high hopes, because people have a tendency to exaggerate the quality of “gritty” material, and I couldn’t care less about drug dealer stories, despite having seen plenty of great ones. Also, I’ve been aware of Aaron Paul for years – WHATEVER IT TAKES with James Franco always stands out in my mental resume for him, but I’ve seen him even in a UCLA short film – and I’ve honestly never been a big fan. Dean Norris, playing Hank here, has been around for years without sparking my attention – I recently caught him (with hair) in the background of LETHAL WEAPON 2. Bryan Cranston had a Clark Griswold intensity that I enjoyed on “Malcolm in the Middle”, but I certainly wasn’t endeared enough to him to watch something just because of him. Cranston’s character Walter White having cancer and a son with Cerebral Palsy were groaners too, and I braced myself for the sentimentality. I think I intended to fold laundry during the pilot episode.

After episode one’s half-naked RV car chase bookends, and the catchy concept of a chemistry teacher becoming a meth manufacturer, partnered up with one of his worst former students, I did not cancel the Season Pass. But after the acid-body-bathtub incident, the drug dealer hostage, goofy Badger’s arrest, Combo’s murder, and crazy Tuco?! I started filling in anyone who would stand still on all of the developments and how they had to start watching now. Since El Tortuga (Danny Trejo buying turtle tchochkes out of Sky Mall Magazine on the DEA’s bill), Gus (you better be able to hear a pin drop in my house when “the Chicken Man” is onscreen), Saul Goodman, and Saul Goodman’s Hall of Presidents-esque office décor (as a general rule, if Bob Oedenkirk has even grabbed a bagel on the set of a show, you should be watching it; see “Arrested Development”, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job”), I’ve found I have to save up episodes again for mini-marathons, because I can’t be expected to wait a week between new installments; I’d rather wait four weeks at a time and gorge on it.

The tone can seem a little dour and slow in passing, but it is only so you are blown off your seat whenever the cartel shows up. Feels like years since I’ve seen so many genuine bad asses, most of them silent, and I mourn the state of film for not having the restraint for action sequences like those on “Breaking Bad” – I had to rewatch the showdown between Hank and the scary cartel brothers three times. Not to sound like an old codger, but most modern movies would have used a scratchy, colored filter, crazy editing, and loud whooshing sounds, and I wouldn’t have had a clue what was happening, destroying any suspense. Instead, the scene played out almost silently, except for essential sounds and an ominous hum toward the end, or maybe that was my racing heart. Silence is important on “Breaking Bad”. Sometimes, the most intense moment of an episode for me is just Mr. White or Gus responding to some affront with silence, because inside, I’m saying, “Uh oh.” (Actually, lately, I’ve been shaking my fists at the TV, pacing, and screaming “yes!” or “no!” – I’m past the dignity of internal monologue for this show.) Those two quiet, stuffy, bald guys’s intelligence and caution are just as sharp and scary as the cartel hitmen’s axes.

Still, as with most TV, the characters are the real appeal. Initially, I was attached to Mr. White’s chemistry superhero quality, and then to how he was discovering power he didn’t know he had, appreciating how a lifeless, strict chemistry teacher really could be a formidable enemy. I wanted him to outsmart bearish, good old boy Hank, who acted so superior. Now, I see that Hank, deep down, is a sensitive, good guy, who does what he thinks is right, always helping others, despite an exterior attitude that can be off-putting, but really comes with the territory of his job. Conversely, Mr. White has the air of sensitivity, meekness and doing the right thing, but is deep down a bad, bad, selfish man. And lately, he’s been acting a little cocky and sloppy, which can only lead t more blissful hours of television for me. As much as Mr. White may be among my favorite characters of all time, in the showdown between Hank and Mr. White that has to be the series’s climax, however long it ends up running, I recently decided that I want Hank to win. The same is true for their wives, who are sisters. I didn’t like kleptomantiac Marie (that character quirk seems to have disappeared), and felt bad for Walt’s wife Skyler for having to deal with all these crazies. Now, I see that Skyler is as much of a selfish bad ass as Walt, and therefore his rightful match, regardless of whether they stay together. Walt, Jr.’s Cerebral Palsy isn’t even a factor except that we want to pat him on the back for putting up with all these adults who are so much more confused and conflicted than he is when he has much more of a right. I not only appreciate Aaron Paul’s talent now, but I am painfully compassionate toward his hapless character, who can’t help but throw a “bitch” onto the end of everything he says out of insecurity, and who mostly hates Mr. White, but has nothing else and needs his approval.

 “Breaking Bad”’s rarest quality is its symbolism; you don’t see much of that in television. Never will you have seen so many bald guys, baldness being a symbol for simultaneous weakness and humanity (when caused by cancer) and raw danger (when part of a drug lord’s style); in one symbol, we get the entire emotional brew of “Breaking Bad”. It doesn’t hurt the show’s rich symbolism that the cartel is all about sending overtly symbolic messages. Aside from baldness, my favorite trend is brothers. The cartel hitmen are brothers, Gus’s chicken restaurant is Los Pollo Hermanos, and the motif is leading up to the main point that secret enemies Hank and Walt are brothers-in-law – feel free to add some meaning to the “law” part of that term too, if you like.

I have failed to get any immediate friends or family to make the effort to get hooked on this show, despite their trust in my enthusiasm, and I’ve figured out why. They’ll watch an episode here, a scene or so there, but that’s not how you do it. It needs to be treated like a movie, not a show, as it follows more rules of the former than the latter. Buy or rent the series on DVD, Tivo as many episodes as you can, and only when you have enough to make a day disappear, should you start watching... in silence. Otherwise, it’s like thinking you’ve watched quiet, intense movies like THE SHINING, or THE GODFATHER, PART II when you were doing dishes and talking on the phone during them. True to the nature of its hero, Mr. White, you must respect “Breaking Bad”’s chemistry (and keep Funions out of the RV).