TV – Page 6 – Chrys Buckley

Breaking Bad Episode 402 “Thirty-Eight Snub”

May 5, 2013July 1, 2024 Chrys Buckley

“You won, Walter,” Mike says. “You got the job. Learn to take yes for an answer.” These quotes will resonate, one at the end of this season, one in the next.

In the season premiere, Marie mentions to Hank that she really likes the new PT guy, and it’s easy to see why. The guy is encouraging but not overly so. He seems to really be helping not just with Hank’s body but also with his emotional state. Hank puts on a good face around the guy. So much so that Marie wants him to move in. Marie is really overdoing the cheeriness here, which understandably irritates Hank. Both of their dispositions–Marie’s over-the-top optimism (bordering on patronizing at times) and Hank’s gruffness and grouchiness–have amped up since the premiere. I still really feel for both of them.

They have a strong marriage, despite little blips here and there, but now Hank is in a place Marie has never seen him, that we the viewers have never seen him. His PT is going, but it’s so slow and he’s in so much pain and he has this new mineral obsession and there’s no DEA or detective work to speak of. He takes some of it out on Marie but he also tries to pull back some. I think that neither of them know what to do with this new Hank, with the fear that the old Hank, in body and in mind, may not return.

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Breaking Bad Episode 401 “Box Cutter”

April 28, 2013July 1, 2024 Chrys Buckley

So, I think there may be something seriously wrong with me because after finishing this episode, which is brutal and hopeless, I went about my day but couldn’t shake it. And I didn’t want to; I almost wanted to just live in this world and not my own a little longer, stay in that superlab with our guys. Disturbing, huh? I mean, of all episodes to feel this way about, this one’s a little…traumatic.

This episode may break some records for characters going the longest time without speaking. These long stretches without dialogue allow for other sounds, especially the creaking of the chairs in the superlab, Gus’s footsteps, Gus changing clothes, putting on his glasses, but mostly it’s the chairs.

So Saul got himself a bodyguard, Huell. He’s always glided over things before but not now. He’s terrified, looking around his office for bugs (hilarious detail that the columns move), speaking on a payphone, asking Huell if he has a passport. And I gotta say, I usually love Saul’s ridiculous outfits, usually find something aesthetically redeeming about his crazy color combinations, but this time? No way. Worst Saul get-up ever. Gross.

I love when Skyler says to Saul, “He carpools…to his job…at a meth lab?”

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Breaking Bad Episode 313 “Full Measure”

April 21, 2013July 1, 2024 Chrys Buckley

All I want to do is gush.

If it came down to it, you know, gun to my head, or desert island and I can only take one episode of Breaking Bad, I think this would be it. It seems like half the episodes would be on my top five list (the show is just too good), but if we are talking absolute favorite, not one of, not a handful of choices, well, “Full Measure” is in first place.

I’m not exactly sure what it says about my psychology or twisted mind that I love this episode so much, an episode where the sweetest, most innocent (aside from being a meth cook) character gets shot in the face. But I love this one like no other.

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Breaking Bad Episode 312 “Half Measures”

April 14, 2013July 1, 2024 Chrys Buckley

Jesse’s going off the rails and Walt’s getting his Heisenberg mojo back. And Jesse’s sobriety is over.

There is so much going on here it’s hard to know where to start. Guess I’ll mention a few visual details first. The neon green in some of the scenes with Wendy inside the Crystal Palace is ominous and haunting and beautiful. I like how the teaser ends with Jesse in a car and the first act opens on Walt in a car, and they’re in such different situations. During Mike’s “half measures” speech I couldn’t stop looking at how his ears are backlit.

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TV, Writing

Breaking Bad: Chekhov’s Ricin

April 10, 2013July 1, 2024 Chrys Buckley

It’s been awhile since a full Breaking Bad post, and I do plan to still do posts on the remaining episodes, just not on the schedule I originally thought.

Beware: This post will contain mentions of things that happen in Season 2, Season 4, and last summer’s episodes from Season 5. Continue at your own risk.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the ricin on BrBa lately. Today, in a memoir writing class, my prof mentioned Chekhov’s gun, and it got me thinking about Walt and his ricin once again. For those that aren’t aware, Anton Chekhov was a Russian short story writer (and, I just learned from wiki, a physician). He said in several different instances and ways that if you plant a gun somewhere in your scene early on in a story, it must eventually go off, or there’s no reason to put it there in the first place.

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Breaking Bad Episode 311 “Abiquiu”

April 7, 2013July 1, 2024 Chrys Buckley

“Never make the same mistake twice.”

With every season, there’s a storm of bad stuff brewing that hits full tilt by the finale. This episode, like 211 “Mandala” last season, is setting the stage for that storm. The clouds are gathering and growing ominous. As tragic as last season’s end was with Jane’s death and the plane crash, the world of Breaking Bad is somehow darker now.

So many stories are going on at once. Hank is officially off the Heisenberg trail by now. He’s in incredible pain, struggling with PT and with not walking, and being rude to everyone around him, very real for his situation. At least for now, Hank has other things to focus on or wallow in that don’t involve looking for the blue meth mastermind. So that monkey is off Walt’s back.

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Breaking Bad Episode 310 “Fly”

March 31, 2013July 1, 2024 Chrys Buckley

Oh shit. One of my all-time favorite episodes of this show EVER. I noticed that, last season, I was just saying that about too many episodes, which is natural when a show is this good, so I purposely held off this season and plan to only say it about two Season Three episodes (possibly three, the last half of Season Three may be my favorite part of the entire series). And “Fly” is one of them.

I know it’s a real fan divider. People love it or hate it. And I LOVE it. You know why? Because this is the only episode, ever, in the whole show that I almost turned off because I just couldn’t keep watching. So many episodes have been so intense that I would have to soothe myself by naming the elements during the credits or something–a sign of a really great series, no doubt. But this is the only episode that I thought I couldn’t watch. It was that good.

I still remember the first time I saw this one. It was late at night, I was binging on this amazing new show, watching it on Netflix, laying in bed with my iPad and Walt and Jesse and the fly in the superlab. And I was thinking this is the dumbest episode ever, did the writers accidentally start using Walt’s product or what? A fly, seriously? This is totally on crack. And then it turned.

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Breaking Bad Episode 309 “Kafkaesque”

March 24, 2013July 1, 2024 Chrys Buckley

Walter and Jesse may be working together again, but they’re still at odds with each other. They’ve been on separate trajectories this season, and at this point, I think they still are, at least on the surface. They’re having such different reactions to the job in the superlab. It’s like a regular job, with regular hours and a quota and you can even pack a brown bag lunch if you want. From the teaser, you get a sense of the superlab as part of one big assembly line. You also get a global sense of how Gus’s operation works, how organized and orchestrated it is, in just a few minutes.

Jesse misses being a criminal, feeling like a criminal. He’s also figured out–and it’s pretty funny when he says how he calculated it so many times–that though they’re getting paid extremely well for what they do, in Walt’s words, percentage-wise, not so much. They’re getting a lot of money but not a big piece of the pie. Oh I am dying to connect this to Season Five, but out of not wanting to spoil anything for those who may not have seen it yet, I won’t. Just, how funny is it to see this scene, after watching 506? Everything on this show comes back in different ways.

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Breaking Bad Episode 308 “I See You”

March 17, 2013July 1, 2024 Chrys Buckley

This is a quieter episode than last week. It has to be. There’s a natural fallout period after what happened to Hank last week. The characters all have to take the time to react and deal.

But I must say, my favorite ever Jesse “bitch” line is in this episode. Outside the hospital, Jesse is told he can’t smoke this close to the building and he says, “So, roll me further, bitch” in this perfect matter-of-fact tone. He’s not hurling the word as he sometimes does, and I think it’s actually funnier this way. LOVE IT!

Skyler continues her turn back towards Walt that’s been slowly developing all season. She has no patience when he’s all, “Do you know who that was?” re: the phone call–she knows enough to know that whatever he’s about to tell her is bullshit. But when Marie starts to blame Walt, she defends him. And later she’s sleeping on him. Such a nice turn, to see the ice between them start to thaw.

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Breaking Bad Episode 307 “One Minute”

March 10, 2013July 1, 2024 Chrys Buckley

Well, this sure is one drama-filled hour of television.

Walter, Jesse and Hank all face some big decisions in this episode. A lot of it is about loyalty, and trying to do the right thing and deciding what they value most.

First of all, though, poor Gale. Gale is just so earnest, so hopeful, so ass-kissy but well-meaning. Gale dressing more like Walt is the perfect detail. It shows so much about his character, and about the power dynamic. Walt is in charge, Gale is the supplicant. But it annoys Walt. And I totally get that. Gale just has to top it off with “This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.” Oh it’s just too much for Walt, who needs to find a way to appease Jesse, as a way to appease Skyler. I don’t think Gale actually messed up the batch. He’s too meticulous, too ready to attune the lab setup, and himself, to Walt’s every whim, that I just don’t believe he screwed up the temperature. Walt just wants to make him feel bad so that he can have an excuse to fire him. I think it’s one step more than that though. I think Gale is a little too smart for Walt. Making Gale feel like crap, like he turned a badge into ruined sludge, makes Walt feel better, the superior alpha chemist.

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