Shall we anticipate the FIFTH SEASON of the AMC series "Breaking Bad"? I think I may.

I am gald David Lynch did not get a hold of this show

― Sweet Yin Yang ☯ (Latham Green), Wednesday, 5 September 2012 19:19 (1 hour ago) Permalink

Gilligan should do a show with Lynch tho

i remember some talk about them getting Werner Herzog to direct an episode

I do think the money has a subtext of "now I could afford a REALLY bad drug habit" ... not just in the audience's mind but in Jesse's. and they showed he had fallen off the wagon a bit, had the bong out on the coffee table.

― dmr, Wednesday, September 5, 2012 4:42 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Jesse was on the wagon for what, a few weeks?

― chicago rap twitter luminary (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, September 5, 2012 4:43 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he's been getting high since killing Gale iirc

xp

― chicago rap twitter luminary (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, September 5, 2012 4:44 PM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, on and off.

― I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap), Wednesday, September 5, 2012 4:45 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

guys be srs weed is not a drug

"i think her speaking style could almost be an attempt at a clipped american accent by the actress, who is scottish i believe.

― ryan, Wednesday, September 5, 2012 3:35 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink"

Yeah she definitely has a Scottish accent IRL. The american accent was made all the more difficult in the nsc ene ion her office where she was a scottish actress playing an american woman speaking fluent german on a conference call

have started watching the third season of this show, and some of the first for context (though it wasn't really necessary). i like it in the compulsive sense inspired by any good soap opera, but i don't know how i feel about it. there's a strong and rather distasteful, fight-club-like "rogue masculinity vs domestic castration" theme to the first few episodes that also seems to crop up later on. the introductory fake bacon and "did you take your echinacea?" breakfast full caps this so hard that i almost bailed at that point, and walt unbound staring down the taunting thug in the clothes shop only underlines the point. characterization of skyler and especially marie seems to support this (for ex the super condescending third season ep where skyler calls the cops on walt), but only sometimes. they're humanized and treated with respect elsewhere.

i'm sure all this has been discussed to death in this and other threads, but i'm new to the show and don't have time to play 10,000-post catch-up, so i'm dumping it here. at the very least, i wanna know what happens next.

loved Jess bashfully hiding the bong!

I think the show is pretty explicitly working with some archetypical Western themes (there's a shot I swear is a quote of the end of The Searchers in season 4) but at the same time i think it's about how Walt has internalized those archetypes as a kind of death wish (literally a cancer!) that fails to found the Home it claims to be founding but instead poisons it.

xp Whatever happens, W.W. is always the grown-up in the room, in Jesse's mind.

It makes me a bit sad when I think about happy go lucky Jesse of Season 1, and now he constantly has THE PHEAR in his eyes now.

rip capn cook

The chili pepper was taken out of his recipe a long time ago.

ha ha

I don't know why you wouldn't want to watch every episode of this show that you could?

^^ xps to contenderizer

I don't know why you wouldn't want to watch every episode of this show that you could?

Especially given that the show is about a man's transformation, and by season 3 he is pretty transformed already.

xxp Jesse has always been the Sancho to Walt's Don.

omg chili pepper ;_;

yeah I sorta don't get the "I skipped some seasons!" approach. the first couple seasons are a much more interesting show imho

I don't know why you wouldn't want to watch every episode of this show that you could?

Yeah, this is a bizarre choice, imo. Especially since you have a year to catch up before the real-time discussion picks back up. It's akin to starting a novel a third of the way in before showing up near the tail-end of a book group discussion. You don't have any real context on what's happening or what point the show is at in exploring certain themes. I mean, to each his own, but I guess don't expect your underinformed viewpoints to be particularly sympathetic?

That came off as more severe than I intended it to. Do whatcha feel, brah.

yeah I don't think there's a "domestic castration" theme really. though the show does have a problem with women, most of whom are incidental or not terribly well written.

I mean, to each his own, but I guess don't expect your underinformed viewpoints to be particularly sympathetic?

posts that effortlessly summarize etc

We had this discussion at the time but I never really understood the problem people had with Skylar. I thought stuff like 'have you taken your echinacea' was p much meant to portray humdrum life not nagging harpy. I can hardly remember those eps now though, looking forward to re-watching it all before the final stretch.

lol @ "i'm sure my total misreading of the show based on a bizarre scattershot viewing of a couple random episodes has been discussed to death in this and other threads"

Skyler's never really been a nag imho. she's been a victim, for the most part.

prior to watching Season 5 eps and hopping on this thread these were my conclusions (posted to a different thread originally):

finished season 4.

Feel like this show is about one thing and one thing only, really: being addicted to the tension that comes from high risk behavior. This applies to the major characters, who all engage in dangerous behavior against their better judgment under pretexts of varying degrees of flimsiness, but also to the viewers, who are jerked through one long intense standoff after another. It's fun and it's interesting but it feels very self-contained and almost RPG-ish in it's construction and the way the characters are constantly being played against each other - it doesn't seem especially concerned with versimilitude or finely developed characters or anything really beyond OMG WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT/WHICH SUPPORTING CHARACTER IS GOING TO DIE

― Shameful Dead Half Choogle (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, August 16, 2012 3:44 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

liked it best when Jesse and Walt were low-level losers and there was some tension between Walt's extracurricular activities and his "normal life", before the question of whether or not he was doing this because he was going to die/had cancer had been so clearly resolved - by the time we get to season 3 it's essentially an OTT crime dramedy and while it's fun I find it sort of less engaging

― Shameful Dead Half Choogle (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, August 16, 2012 3:47 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Somebody really likes their own posts. Now we know who.

I'm looking forward to the forthcoming Shakey Mo Almanac

The Molemanac

I think the 'nagging harpy' scenes may have been carefully selected as part of Giligan's master plan to make the viewer complicit in Walter's transformation. Like, we're presented with those exchanges and then are allowed to choose for ourselves the extent to which Walter's reactionary behavior is justifiable or not. Some people discuss with their spouse the extent to which they're feeling nagged at, some people buy a car and torch it out of spite.

Right, but I didn't really see any nagging myself. I thought she was quite trusting and reasonable considering on telly people fly off the handle at nothing. Anyway, need to watch again.

the show is pretty explicitly working with some archetypical Western themes (there's a shot I swear is a quote of the end of The Searchers in season 4) but at the same time i think it's about how Walt has internalized those archetypes as a kind of death wish (literally a cancer!) that fails to found the Home it claims to be founding but instead poisons it.

― ryan, Wednesday, September 5, 2012 2:35 PM (1 hour ago)

yeah, this is the sense i'm starting to get. esp as it becomes clear that whatever his goals may have been, walt's choices have put his entire family in terrible danger. most interesting aspect for me at this point is skyler's complicity.

She nags sometimes, but she is also pregnant and has a disabled child so it's not surprising that she is a bit of a control freak.

don't see skyler as a nagging bitch, but maybe i just haven't seen enough. see her as a character whose domesticity and incomprehension are often played for laughs. e.g., her confrontation w walt's "marijuana dealer". there's at least a whiff of contempt for the "female type" she seems intended to embody. goes double for her sister.

it's true that the female characters' cluelessness/powerlessness is routinely played for laughs. like I said, this show has some er problems dealing with women. which is a little odd given how many women work on it but what do I know.

and i know it's weird to jump in at the halfway point, but five episodes seemed like so much televison to absorb, and some friends were watching season three (and were kind enough to rewatch half of season 1 with me). i'll catch up as i go, and i'm not characterizing the show so much as putting my admittedly ignorant initial impressions up for critique.

five episodes five SEASONS

maybe let's not introduce the word 'bitch' into the debate

sorry, my bad. i thought i was quoting old lunch, but switched out "harpy" for, you know...

But I also think a lot of the perception of Skylar just comes from contrast --- we know from the outset that Walt is 'doing all of this for her' so that when he comes home and she's going through her normal household routine, it *seems* to a lot of viewers that she's a pain in the ass. But she's not. And she's mostly pretty smart and in control of a lot more than she's given credit for.

Within the confines of the narrow character type she's been given, I think she's a pretty good version of a suburban wife.

I don't have any problem, personally with her portrayal. I think the problem is in the perception of the role itself. (I dunno if I'm conveying this at all well though so ...)

no, that's a really good point, and something i was thinking about while watching the show last night. "am i noticing the show's contempt for the character, or projecting my own onto the writers?" can't answer that with complete conviction, but i don't think it's all me...

Well, it's like I said: I think there is an intention to let the audience see Skyler within the frame of Walter's skewed perspective. Taken out of context (or within the context of Skyler's skewed perspective of their marriage for the first half of the show), those exchanges are pretty innocuous. But those scenes are tucked within many other scenes wherein we see Walter's life becoming this whole other thing that's no longer compatible with his domestic life and, as such, we're able to see them as Walter sees them: constraining, confining, stifling. But because those scenes are presented relatively objectively (clearly, the show is always centered on Walt), the audience is given the choice to decide whether Skyler's a decent and reasonable spouse or an overbearing obstacle to a more exciting life.

fucking ted and laundering money for him really took away a lot of the audience's potential sympathy.

with good reason, really

that's when the character became a lot stronger imo; she was pretty one-dimensional for the first two seasons

I fail to see how skylær is or ever was a nag. she's never been the most sympathetic character going, but she has always commanded a fair degree of influence and control (even going so far as to help walt launder once she found out what he had become – entirely her decision btw). she's walt's conscience. also tbh I don't think I've ever seen walt even respond to her as a nag – in every disagreement they've ever had, his respect for her has palpably been far greater than her respect for him.

With respect to your last sentence, I feel as if you're maybe confusing this with another show...?

Re: the first part, no, he didn't directly respond to her as if she were a nag, but his body language etc. clearly telegraphed his feelings...which he would then project on some other (self-) destructive endeavor. Re: the second part, Walt hasn't had respect for Skyler for a long time, and his decency finally slipped away this season, as well.

I dispute that he no longer respects her. pushing her out of his life, yes.

(to the extent that she's not pushing him out of hers obv)