Breaking Bad withdrawal support society

tbh comedy actors turning in good work in serious roles is -- if not quite a cliche -- certainly not that unusual; i think many comic actors do actually have a wider, more thoughtful range than many so-called "serious" actors (who'd be terrible at comedy), but typecasting casts a harsh shadow. still, i'd never paid much attention to cranston even when watching and enjoying MitM

i was expecting it this time obviously but first time through i was quite bothered by the aircrash. it seemed a bit too (in the lol modern young people's sense as well it's proper sense) "random" -- a surreal or inexplicable alienation effect. except it isn't really surreal or inexplicable, and it has a clear structural role. it's a highly over-visible and maybe somewhat over-determined shorthand for collateral damage -- and NOT just crashing entirely in from beyond the story and its concerns, despite rogueishly suggesting that's exactly what it is. it's play-acting at being a comedic an upping of the ante in the ghoulishness stakes ("have we gone too far this time?"). but the whole of s2 is about pulling back from right in the heart of walt's rage and fear (per s1, where we get drawn into seeing his side quite sympathetically despite his extremely self-centred drives), to the damage spreading out from him, that he's actually causing, that his decisions are causing, by making some things happen, by not stopping others. not so much his immediately family yet, even including jesse as his "family", but a step or two beyond them -- and suddenly that's a big societal tremor and not cartoon domestic knockabout any longer. so it's clever -- and it does kind of work -- but it's kind of bullshit at the same, and mainly saved by arty effects (burnt plush bunny in a pool etc)

I kinda wonder how it would've come off without the flash-forwards, which clearly imply that something happened to Walt's daughter and that two people he knew were dead in his driveway. It's almost soap opera-ish, where they say "Tune in Next Week..." and preview a scene from the next episode where a character walks in on his wife cheating on him, only to have that scene actually be some sort of dream, or whatever

which is unfortunate, because otherwise I think it would've been a really awesome ending, something unexpected and extreme that's also highly symbolic

Would've liked to have seen a Breaking Bad starring Phil Hartman.

tbh comedy actors turning in good work in serious roles is -- if not quite a cliche -- certainly not that unusual; i think many comic actors do actually have a wider, more thoughtful range than many so-called "serious" actors (who'd be terrible at comedy), but typecasting casts a harsh shadow. still, i'd never paid much attention to cranston even when watching and enjoying MitM

Cranston wasn't a "comic actor" so much as he'd just done a sitcom beforehand (when Malcolm was running I used to say the casting director should just get the Emmy every year until it went off the air - the whole family, Muniz aside, were astoundingly great), but it certainly seems like they took him as a lesson in teaming Odenkirk and McKean on BCS

i think the only thing i'd spotted him in ever before that -- and i didn't put two and two together till quite recently -- is seinfeld, as the swinging dentist

You should check out the Gilligan-penned episode of X-Files he starred in, for sure.

yeah that x-files ep is great

Was just checking his imdb, and it's crazy just how journeyman his career was pre-MIM: loads of TV series one-offs with the occasional movie (That Thing You Do!). His run on Seinfeld probably the most substantive (5 episodes).

I read somewhere that he really had to fight to get the role of Walter White, as he correctly surmised the producers considered him a sitcom dad.

It’s been pretty journeyman post-bb!

I had decided he was pretty much a genius based on Malcolm & was always saying so at the time, he was amazing in that show

cranston in mitm is amazing - he’s totally willing to do whatever humiliating thing the writers ask him to do, just a remarkably ego-free performance

I read somewhere that he really had to fight to get the role of Walter White, as he correctly surmised the producers considered him a sitcom dad.

not so much that he had to fight producers, but the producer/creator/writer said "I cast him in this other thing and I wanna cast him in this, look at this other thing" and AMC said "oh yah"

he's so good in that x files episode

Is it a standalone ish ep?

no you have to sit through every other bad x files first, ie the normal kind

*and then they glimpsed the hill he would die on*

hard to pick it out from among all those other hills tbf

no this time i mean it

bookmarking this post for future reference

ANYway, yes, the ep with Cranston is a wholly standalone ep of the television series called the X-Files.

I recently read a thing about two name actors who were offered the role of Walter White before Cranston and turned it down. One was Broderick, can't remember the other rn.

Balking Brod

It’s been pretty journeyman post-bb!

I dunno about that--he's had loads of starring roles and vehicles, seems pretty bankable. He's even written a memoir! It's just amazing to me that had he not landed Malcolm (much less BB) he'd have just been another one of those "Oh, that guy..." utility character actors.

there are a few fleeting moments were Walt channels Hal - the part in S3 E1 where he says to Jesse "I blame the government!" was hilarious to me

also kinda funny that Walt's hairstyle in the S1 flashback (when he was presumably around 30) is the same that MitM used in flashbacks, and also the same style he had on Seinfeld

(when Malcolm was running I used to say the casting director should just get the Emmy every year until it went off the air - the whole family, Muniz aside, were astoundingly great)

to be fair Muniz really did nail the character he was given, maybe b/c Malcolm was so close to what he was in real life

I started working through the Darin Morgan and Vince Gilligan standalones (plus a few others) between S1 and S2 of Better Call Saul. Still have three years of X-Files and one of The Lone Gunmen to go, but these Gilligans are good:

S2e23: Soft Light (starring Tony Shalhoub) - one of the only cold pitches from a freelancer to get bought by the show
S3e17: Pusher
S4e04: Unruhe
s4e10: Paper Hearts (continuity: apparently it's a thing that Mulder believed his little sister was abducted by aliums)
S4e12: Leonard Betts
S4e20: Small Potatoes (starring Darin Morgan!)
S5e01: Unusual Suspects (Lone Gunmen origin story, set before The X-Files)
S5e12: Bad Blood (starring two Luke Wilsons)
S5e19: Folie a Deux
S6e02: Drive (the Cranston ep)
S5e04/e05: Dreamland/Dreamland II (starring Michael McKean)
S5e10: Tithonus
S6e14: Monday
S6e20: Three Of A Kind (sequel to Unusual Suspects)
S6e21: Field Trip

Most of these are funny, like Breaking Bad is funny.

xpost: yes, I meant to add that Muniz absolutely does not harm the show or bring down the ensemble - the way Malcolm is written as at once immediately sympathetic, and more cartoonish and simple than the other characters, suits his level of performance perfectly.

Yeah, when I was cranking through the X-Files again a while back (kinda stalled out where you did, sic), I was baffled that I hadn't paid attention to Gilligan as a writer the first time around. His eps were pretty much up there with the Darrin Morgan joints.

Morgan's hitrate is higher, but he hardly wrote any episodes (and Gilligan did loads of workhorse last-minute cowrites, whereas Morgan's one rewrite is uncredited) so that makes it easier. I included his two Millennium writing/directing eps in my watch, too, one of which is a sequel to one of his X-Files.

The best Gilligans are up there with most of Morgans, and it's really cool to see Chris Carter quickly make an attempt at writing a Morgan-style-episode in Sysygy, and high-concept Gilligan-like episodes after Gilligan gets established, eg How The Ghosts Stole Christmas.

(ah, two of those S6es up there should be S5es, obv)

I would love to see someone make an documentary episode of Forensic Files or some other true crime show of that style using Breaking Bad's storyline as the backdrop. It would be awesome for them to re-cast actors doing scenes from the show and then use stills and interviews with the "survivors" looking back at the story.

I could easily see that being used, it would be hilarious to have Gene watching it from his living room.

lol walt's speech abt why the planecrash actually wasn't so bad, so awkward and agonising to watch i've had to stop it abt six times even tho it's only a couple of minutes long

is that the one in the school gymnasium? i literally watched thru my fingers, could not deal

yep, where he freestyles a top ten terrible air disasters you've forgotten to demonstrate they'll get through this

Really was a Larry David moment

an episode of larry david takes me abt three hours to watch as well

great shot in the reveal scene when walt realises saul and mike have been bugging his house, saul points out that skyler has not talked so it doesn't really matter that she went "off the reservation" for a little "down deep and dirty", an enraged walt jumps on him and they wrestle wildly -- shot out of focus in the foreground with mike sat watching them for a while, not moving but in focus, before coming to break them up. the comedy rhythm and balance between these three -- even tho odenkirk's conception of jimmy hasn't quite landed yet, the core of his competence isn't really established and he's a touch too clownishly sleazy -- is so great! mike's disgusted respect for jimmy *is* already there but haven't really been shown why yet*: mike seems so obviously much more on top of things, why does he tolerate this patently ridiculous figure?

*maybe it takes the bsc backstory to get to this?

Gilligan has confirmed that the BB movie will be Pinkman-centric.

well that pretty much confirms I won't watch it haha

The Phantom Meth-Head

jesse pinkman went on to live a long, happy and drama-free life after overcoming five seasons of intense trauma and no damn movie is gonna tell me different

the film is set during JP's time at school, much of it during an illicit "day off" of some sort

"the 39-yr-old actor's performance as a stoner in his mid-teens furthers gilligan's experiments with flashbacks, time-jumps and busting the norms of age-conventional casting"

has he learned how to act yet?

u just deliverd a wikked sick burn to 'actor' aaorn paul, i bet hes crying now

oh stop xpost

I don't know man he was easily the worst part of that show to me -- the storyline with jane was probably his best moment but overall he was a pretty one-note guy especially in the earlier seasons from what I remember

you remember incorrectly bcz he's good from the start

K3v I was just re reading another few BB threads and you shat all over them saying you hated the show only half to one season in!

kevin is right that Jesse is p boring and not particularly well-acted character BUT he's wrong that he was easily the worst part because Skyler (and her sister) were 100x worse

no they are good too, everyone's memory is worrying poor i blame trump