Breaking Bad withdrawal support society

we are fallen etc

There's probably a really great book to be written about our engagement with fictional characters of ill repute

i haven't read this so I don't know if it's "really great" though I do remember reading something by kotsko that i liked (only a blog post but it was good) -- anyway i think it covers the topic generally and perhaps specifically (breaking bad keeps being mentioned in the blurb but i'm not sure whether or not he discusses it in detail)

https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41GEkk%2BGfcL.jpg

here's a quick interview to give you an idea of his angle (spoiler: he thinks there's more going on than "back to milton"):
http://scottberkun.com/2013/why-we-love-sociopaths-interview/

i like that.

this kind of goes back to something i think about a lot, that drama routinely requires its protagonists to be above or outside the law (or at least to hold special privileges in relation to the rest of us) so that they can exercise every option in attaining whatever their goals are - i.e. all the police and hospital dramas, secret agents, detectives, the nobility in shakespeare etc. - the logic running that if heroes ("heroes"?) are constrained by the same dull rules we all are then it's more difficult to generate a satisfying drama. breaking bad is no exception - it's literally about a man deciding to live outside those rules - but it's interesting to me that, partic in season 2, the stakes feel impossibly, butt-clenchingly high, but not because of walter's involvement in any public drama but because of his private relationship with his wife. we're anxious not because he might go to jail but because of how much we care about the consequences of that on his relationships. and speaking for myself because i want him to somehow be able to square his bad-breakingness with being a good guy, good father, good husband, which cannot happen, will never happen. but that's what generates the tension (for me). so i've always been baffled by the anti-skyler crew, the ones who sociopathically cheer on walt's "bad-assness" - what are they getting out of this show if they don't feel that tension?

i guess the tension is "WILL HE BECOME EL CHAPO phD?"

el quacko if you will

or the anti-skylers are all like, he broke bad! why does he still care what she thinks?? his rule-breaking runs aground in the private sphere where it's actually exactly those "rules" - honesty, integrity, respect - that he's purportedly risking it all for

This is why I was kinda captivated (surprisingly, given its star) by Men of a Certain Age. The protagonists could/would have been a trio of middle-aged antiheroes with loose morals on any other cable drama, but the central conflict was just...dealing with getting older, mostly. There was a certain 'oh, at least one of these dudes is going to go all the way off the rails any minute now, just you wait' tension that was almost stubbornly unfulfilled. Romano's character had a gambling problem and even his bookie was unbearably reasonable about not getting paid.

Naturally, it didn't last very long.

a subterranean issue is the extent to which the having-already-broken-bad *also* treat family (= their own family) as basically sacred and entirely a good reason to override badworld business sense (as per michael corleone fingerwagging at fredo): the salamancas obviously, also gus re his long-lost lover (the chilean chemist headshot by hector by the pool in past-times yellow-lens)

jesse's throughline is his alienation from his family, as jimmy's will be i guess

Thanks for the link, mark, still waking up and didn't notice it til now.

Fwiw my anti-Skylerness was entirely down to her being a poorly written and poorly acted character. Maybe thats not what ppl are referring to here idk

it's not

i thought her acting was great btw fwiw

it was

Skyler is a well written and acted character

ps since my comment on gus's smile started an interesting wider discussion i'm a bit leery of saying "actually i meant" buuuuuut

what i guess i meant -- but didn't say very precisely -- is that it's the precision of the smile that giancarlo esposito chooses (as an actor) that i love, not the character: gus is a character that terrifies me! and GE makes this teror land very precisely, bcz he can put such a charming kind face on someone as they're casually doing something deeply cruel, so that you absorb both at once

(hector is horrible obviously so the cruelty is probably merited but what gus is doing at that point -- taunting him in his ruin -- is nevertheless cruel)

Her situation and how she attempts to deal with it are the dramatic crux of the last few seasons imo, it’s def true to say she’s “underused” but that’s kinda the point, the show is from Walt’s POV it’s his wacky adventures in breaking bad

btw I have no idea how strong the #teamwalt contingent actually were during the show’s run, I just know that they’re an obligatory reference point - maybe tho we’ve got to a point where we don’t have to make such a big thing of saying that the guy we saw on two occasions enacting a marital rape scene is Actually Bad Actually

xp I guess!

breaking actually bad actually

lol chekhov's trippy-uppy carpet

but I get all fretful about how nakedly horrible a person as Fring is also the person we're happiest to see every time he appears

we can solve this by requiring that all horrible characters be played by shitty actors

I'm hoping she gets a scene in the forthcoming Deadwood movie where she finally just tears out her hair after years of thankless-wife roles on prestige dramas

the Gus thing doesn't seem terribly complex to me; it's a fascinating character played by a great actor. there's also the fact that he's written to appear mostly by proxy, and never really says much when he's on screen, so you kinda have to figure out his motivations on your own. the ruthless professionalism is fun to watch.

I think Gilligan & co. intentionally steered the audience to pooh-pooh a flawed but ultimately upright character like Hank while they whooped and hollered for Walt and Gus

in the first season maybe...I think from S2 on Hank is a much more well-rounded and sympathetic character, but you don't really root for him because if he "wins" then the show is effectively over. as for Walt...its sorta like watching "Who Wants to be a Millionaire"...you may not like the character, but he's the crux of the show and there's still a part of you rooting for the guy to just walk away while he's ahead rather than continue to risk it all, over and over again

I just mean...even recently itt people have been keen on picking apart Hank's character flaws. I think it's interesting that people were/are often quicker to nitpick Hank's dude-brah-isms or call Skyler a nag than to, say, be creeped the eff out by Gus's ice-cold sociopathy.

I'm enbarrased to admit I dont think I ever twigged that the murdered Pollos Brother was his love interest partner. Does this suggest he also had a thing for Gale?

Him = Gus there, obv

Me either

Oh here we go, in an interview with Vince Gilligan:

Gus is a man who had one Achilles Heel, as far as we know: His burning desire for vengeance against the people who killed Max, who was very important to him. We don’t tend to nail things down on Breaking Bad. It’s fun to be a little mysterious, and it’s nice to have the audience come up with backstories on their own. Having said that, I personally think Max was more than just a friend to Gus. I think they probably were lovers. And therefore it was understandably a very crushing, terrible loss for Gus, one that he would never forget. That one bit of emotion that he allowed himself ultimately proved to be his undoing.

never picked up on that either tbh!

yes it isn't directed said out loud on-screen but rewatching the scene where max is killed i feel gus's reaction is too extreme not to be about a lover or actual family: he pretty much throws himself at hector (smoking gun still in fist) in grief and rage, as if to say "if you don't kill me i'll kill you" -- it's so out of (later) stone-cold controlled character that i felt the off-page emotional math was allowable, given they're plainly not actual biological brothers. so this might be esposito's on-set improvised reading on the day, as much as gilligan's pre-written backstory

the thing i couldn't decode in the same scene tho is when don eladio says to gus, "i didn't kill because i know who you are" (or "what you are"): who or what is he? is this a ref to his mysterious chilean past or his actual identity? (is this something explained later? i am slowly rewatching but it's interesting that i don't remember the exact unfolding of the story, so much as the gathering dread that any given scene i'm watching is going to end horribly… i mean lol many of them do but i feel like i'm intuiting a half-recalled awfulness more than remembering the actual narrative outcomes

directed s/b directly

Weird, I could've sworn it was explicitly stated/very strongly implied that they were lovers, but perhaps mine was just one of several possible interpretations.

I assume the "mysterious Chilean past" meant that Gus was ex-Pinochet regime, another reason not to be fooled by his surface fabulousness

Frank Pembleton is a good counterpoint to "devil always gets the best tunes" theory: great actor, fascinating character, flawed but totally one of the good guys

in the max-killing scene -- a few moments before max is killed -- gus says "i love this guy" (or something like that), but at that point it isn't clear (i don't think) that it's not just an expression of extreme buddyness with his cooking pal to convince don eladio how serious they are as business partners with the cartel

fairly sure max has never been mentioned before this scene -- haven't rewatched far enough to recall if he's subsequently mentioned (or appears in flashback)

I wish Skyler had gotten more iconic moments than "I fucked Ted" (which is admittedly the best)

Yeah I got the impression Gus's past was explicitly not explained and just left a menacing idea hanging.

^^^ yeah it was never explained

my mind immediately went to Pinochet too but eh who knows

Did Gus mention a wife and kid(s) at some point? I feel like it came up when Walt went to dinner at his place. Not that this precludes anything involving his former partner, and might have been for respectable businessman cover story reasons but still.

think vince gilligan's take is pretty definitive. gus and max were very close, probably lovers, though this isn't spelled out

Well, hector does say they should be called “the butt brothers”

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/breaking-bad-movie-is-a-sequel-starring-aaron-paul-1159128

there is absolutely no need for this but if Gilligan has a great story to tell then oh well

when Better Call Saul was announced people had the same reaction and that turned out pretty well

I have a hard time figuring out what sort of interesting storyline they could pull off given the way BB ended - I mean, the last three episodes closed the book about as hard as it possibly could. still confident they'll pull off something brilliant though, that's what they do

people had the same reaction

I was totally down for an Odenkirk / Gilligan half-hour sitcom

I can't believe I only just found out about this! And there probably is no need but it should be totally worth watching based on what Gilligan did with BCS

I had never made the connection that Tuco was also in the Chupacabra episode of the X-files until today.

*googles* a Shiban ep!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqG8Li86_uI

oh god I forgot the birthday handjob in the first episode

new trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JLUn2DFW4w

If this one's good I want the Francesca Liddy movie.

momentarily wondered if Mike Francesa had been cast as G. Gordon LIddy