Asking the Wrong Questions

When the creators of Breaking Bad announced, six or seven years ago, that they were working on a spin-off prequel series focused on Walter White's loud-mouthed, sleazy lawyer Saul Goodman, I think I wasn't the only one to roll her eyes. The whole thing reeked of a cash-in: take a well-liked minor character, with a memorable catchphrase, played by a talented comedian, from a show that had become a runaway success a little too close to the end of its run to have really wrung all the benefits out of that, throw him in some new adventures, and watch the money roll in. That Better Call Saul has instead turned out to be a heartfelt, intelligent, winning series that has surpassed Breaking Bad in almost every respect is by now a commonly-accepted view, and yet despite agreeing with it wholeheartedly, I nevertheless approached the show's fifth, penultimate season with a feeling of, if not fatigue, then resignation. I wasn't sure the show had anything new to show me. What I wa...

The most shocking moment in Breaking Bad 's final episode, "Felina," happens in its teaser.  Having spent months holed up in rural New Hampshire as his body finally succumbs to cancer, fed only by scraps of news about his family's (mostly ill) fortune in the wake of his exposure as the meth manufacturer Heisenberg, Walter White is headed back to Albequerque.  Slipping into an unlocked car, he frantically and ineffectually scrapes at the ignition with a screwdriver.  As the lights of an approaching police car begin to illuminate the car's interior, Walt--sick, tired, and cold--leans back in despair, and then speaks.  "Just get me home," he rasps.  "Just get me home.  I'll do the rest."  With less than an hour left in his show (and only a few days left in his life), Walter White is praying. At the most basic level, this is shocking because Walt has never been presented as a person who thinks about spiritual matters, much less the existence ...

"We had a name for people like you in prison.  We called you the mean clique." Community , "Competitive Ecology" The era of the anti-hero is over, so says everyone.  In TV reviews and discussion boards, there is a growing consensus that shows about white middle class men behaving badly (and often illegally) and taunting the audience with how outrageous, destructive, and toxic their behavior is have become passé, and that when Breaking Bad wraps up its story in less than a week, it'll be time for TV to come up with a new shtick (never mind that Mad Men , to my mind the most innovative twist on the anti-hero concept, still has two seasons left to run).  You could see this most clearly this summer, in the genuine contempt that seemed to waft off reviews of latter-day anti-hero wannabes like Ray Donovan or Low Winter Sun .  These shows, reviewers agreed, desperately wanted to snag the coolness points of departing series like Breaking Bad (or, hell, even De...

"I'm impressed that with 2 eps to go, #BreakingBad has produced a moment inspiring as much debate as the Sopranos finale," tweets Dave Crewe yesterday.  And indeed, Breaking Bad 's antepenultimate episode, "Ozymandias," has caused a flurry of online discussion, analysis, and argument.  Or, to be more precise, one scene, late in the episode, has spurred all this discussion.  In this scene, Walter White, cancer-ridden chemistry teacher turned drug kingpin, calls home and speaks to his wife Skyler.  The police are at the house and listening in; Walt has been exposed as a meth cook and a murderer and has lost most of his ill-gotten gains; his attempts to persuade his family to go on the run with him ended with his own son calling 911 on him, to which Walt responded by kidnapping his baby daughter Holly.  As Skyler begs for her daughter, Walt rants and raves, calling her stupid and a bitch, bragging about his criminal empire, complaining about her attempts to cu...

The golden age of television is about a decade and a half old now and going strong, and the best thing about it is also the worst--there is, quite simply, too much to watch.  Even an avid fan of the medium has to make choices about what they will and will not follow, and sometimes those choices turn out to have been wrong.  Sometimes the shows you passed on become the most talked-about, critically-lauded series of the last few years, and you find yourself with several seasons' worth of material to catch up with before you can join the conversation.  This summer, then, was dedicated to doing just that--catching up with the two series that between them have come to dominate the critical and fannish conversation about quality TV, Mad Men and Breaking Bad (actually, the original plan also included The Wire , but the time proved too short).  The problem of coming to these shows so late and after so much ink has been spilled about them is that there is already an ironcla...