TV – Page 8 – Chrys Buckley

Breaking Bad Episode 209 “4 Days Out”

December 23, 2012July 1, 2024 Chrys Buckley

Wow, wow, wow.

I know I say this about a lot of episodes, but “4 Days Out” is one of my all-time favorites, like for real. Definitely top five. Some of the funniest lines in the whole history of the show are in this episode. I still to this day can’t go get clumps of copper for fractional distillation (organic chem lab) without thinking to myself, “Ahhh wire.” And does anything really beat, “A robot?” Jesse’s failed chem tests are showing through.

One thing I love about this episode is that it fits into the arc of the season (I mean, talk about Walt pushing for more, and about consequences) and it also works really well on its own. It has a complete story arc within these 47 or so minutes, and could almost be a mini-movie. If someone came to this episode first, I think they’d be able to follow most of what’s going on. It advances the larger story, sets up a LOT (Walt’s going to live, they have a shitload of meth they need to sell) while still being a full story unto itself.

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Breaking Bad Episode 208 “Better Call Saul”

December 16, 2012July 1, 2024 Chrys Buckley

Oh Badger, Badger, Badger. You shoulda listened to your gut on this one. You knew that guy was a cop and you sold to him anyway. Smooth move.

In the previous episode, Walt pushed for expanding their territory, and a price hike, and in this one, there are some consequences. Actually, there have been a lot of consequences all season, but it’s funny how Walt doesn’t see it. Or sees it and wants to just push on anyway. He’s not exactly proceeding with caution. Skinny Pete got held up and in response Walt pushes Jesse to get into the whole mess deeper. Gretchen called Walt on his bullshit and he gets all Heisenberg and says “Fuck you.” Walt and Jesse got kidnapped by Tuco and Walt gets naked in a convenience store to make his cover-up of his disappearance more believable and talks to Jesse, while still at the hospital, about starting up cooking again. Jesse got all depressed after his dealings with The Spooges and Walt sees it as an opportunity to exploit their newfound power and expand the business. Walt’s family life is all a mess and he just keeps on lying and disappearing.

I guess my point is that at any point where it seems a person might decide to proceed with caution and dial things back, Walt does the opposite. He is a man on a mission and doesn’t see any of these things as warning signs. He wants that money counting thing to be going around the clock.

But Badger getting busted could be really bad. Jesse says he’s too loyal to roll, but how long will that last?

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Breaking Bad Episode 207 “Negro Y Azul”

December 9, 2012July 1, 2024 Chrys Buckley

This episode is all about new territory, literally and figuratively, on so many levels.

The previous episode, “Peekaboo” gave a much needed glimpse into the real dark and depressing and yeah, swanky, underworld that’s on the other other side of Walt and Jesse and their cooking endeavors. But it also did something else important. It set Walt and Jesse up in a position of power that they didn’t have before. As long as everyone thinks that Jesse crushed a dude’s head with an ATM machine, our dynamic duo have a new license to take new risks.

Or really, it’s just Walt who wants to. He’s kind of a greedy bastard this season. He wants to expand into other dealers’ turfs. He immediately senses the business potential inherent in people thinking Jesse killed a guy who jacked him. He knows they can feed on fear. As always, he’s real academic about it, all exponential growth and levels of distribution and initiative and nice colored maps. Walt would have made a good business shark in some ways.

But I’m not sure he knows the criminal world as well as he thinks he does. Jesse seems much more in touch with the realities of the drug dealers on the streets, and with the unspoken rules about territory and turf.

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Breaking Bad Episode 206 “Peekaboo”

December 2, 2012July 1, 2024 Chrys Buckley

This is a really important episode. And no, I’m not just saying that because I love Jesse and this is a very Jesse-centric episode. I do like that his character gets to develop here, but the real reason I think this episode is important is that we get a rare glimpse into the lives of Walt and Jesse’s customers. Aside from Wendy, we haven’t really seen this side, the reality of what they’re doing, the methheads.

In all of the criminal fun and drama and fighting and danger Walt and Jesse are having, it’s easy to almost detach from what they are doing, from the real dark side of meth. And in a way, that fits the show really well, because Walt is detached from it himself. He’s lost in the chemistry, in the bad-assery, in what he wants to do for his family, in the lab and the ego. Other than short dealings with Tuco and Krazy-8, he has no interactions with actual meth users. He talks about everything in academic, business terms. Totally dissociated from the actual long-range effects of what he’s doing.

So this episode, even though Walt is still oblivious of the actual lives of meth addicts, allows us as viewers to really see the kind of people Walt is cooking for, to not lose sight of that. And I think it’s important because it adds some heaviness, some desperation, to Walt’s endeavors. Because oh my god, the Spooges. What squalor. That apartment is such a shithole, there is no other way to say it. Stuff strewn everywhere, a little kid left there while the junkie parents are out, the parents hiding heroin and meth up their asses. Gross, yo. And such stark contrast to the chemistry and the cooking.

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Breaking Bad Episode 205 “Breakage”

November 25, 2012July 1, 2024 Chrys Buckley

Time for the boys to get cookin’ again.

So this is essentially their third go of it. Walt and Jesse are in a pattern here. They cook up some shards, as Jesse would say, try to sell it, go to a distributor who inevitably threatens their lives–first Krazy-8, then Tuco–and then have to spend a lot of time cleaning up whatever mess their nemesis made, or the mess they made in defeating him. Their stint with Tuco lasted a bit longer than Krazy-8 so overall, they may be on an upswing. After all, Walt’s time is ticking away, their last mess is behind them, and they are ready to cook.

But other things are bubbling up from under the surface in other parts of their world. Hank is having some pretty serious PTSD after his shootout with Tuco. And this is sorta what I mean when I say Walt doesn’t seem to be affected to the same degree as the others, after going through violence and trauma and murder. Of course, Walt also really believes that this time will be different, just like he did back in Season One before they started working with Tuco. With Jesse, it’s a little hard to tell. He was definitely shocked when Walt said he wanted to start up again. But they’re moving forward.

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Breaking Bad Episode 204 “Down”

November 18, 2012July 1, 2024 Chrys Buckley

I think this episode can be summed up by something Skyler says: “Obvious, desperate breakfasts” just about does it. This is actually one of my favorite episodes of Season Two.

It’s no secret that I’m a huge Jesse fan (freakin’ <3 that dude, totally Team Jesse) and whenever I think of this episode, and how much I love it, I think of my friend Lissa. When we were like thirteen or fourteen and first starting to hang out, she was telling me about TV shows she used to be really into, and how she was an “Evil Lucas Fan.” Now I don’t know what show it was, or who the fuck is Lucas (maybe Lissa can come by and clarify), but I remember her telling me that being an evil fan had something to do with loving the episodes where your favorite character is in peril, or as it applies to this case, having the shittiest (literally) day you can imagine. I’m kind of an Evil Jesse Fan here, not because I want bad things to happen to Jesse (not at all) but because I really love this episode. I think it has to do with how freakin’ brilliant Aaron Paul is at making the character of Jesse so compelling, especially when he’s crying into a gas mask in a methmobile RV and covered in blue porta-potty goo.

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Breaking Bad Episode 203 “Bit by a Dead Bee”

November 11, 2012July 1, 2024 Chrys Buckley

This is the episode in which the mess from the last one is cleaned and covered up. Even before he gets out of the hospital, Walt establishes that he wants to go back to cooking (he has extra hospital bills now, yo), and this surprises Jesse. In just a few days’ time they’ve watched a guy getting beaten to death, were kidnapped and kept in a trunk and were almost killed by Tuco. It might make some people want to take pause, but Walt wants to get back on that crystal blue horse. I think this is another turning point for Walt. It’s the second time where he really could’ve gotten out of the game but chooses instead to get back in. They have no distributor; they’ve just barely escaped their last distributor alive, but he’s itching to get back at it.

But of course, first, both Walt and Jesse have to account for their absences. This teaser is the first one this season that doesn’t play with time. One thing I like about this teaser is how it takes its time. That’s something this show does really well. Things aren’t rushed. Walt and Jesse’s desert trek takes up time on screen, and there are a variety of shots of them walking from different angles and perspectives. The time and the varied shots evoke the feeling of a lot of time passing for Walt and Jesse. Another cool thing is that when Walt gets in the truck, and when Jesse questions if he really wants to follow through with his plan, the actual plan isn’t revealed. Walt never reveals it. Instead we see it through the eyes of the bewildered woman who finds Walt’s shoes and clothes strewn around the drugstore. We get to discover Walt’s plan along with her. And Jesse was right, it’s a bold plan.

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Breaking Bad Episode 202 “Grilled”

November 4, 2012July 1, 2024 Chrys Buckley

This has to be one of the most dramatic and sit-on-edge-of-seat-biting-nails episode of Breaking Bad, although there is hot competition for that category. There’s just such high drama here. Walt and Jesse have been kidnapped by the crazy enigmatic Tuco.

And the writers make us wait. Walt and Jesse and Tuco don’t even appear until more than ten minutes into the episode. How genius is that? We’re dying to know what happens, and they just draw it out, slow, a little like torture, but in a beautiful way.

Even the scenes that do involve our dynamic duo are drawn out at the start. In the teaser, where all we really get to see is Jesse’s bouncing Monte Carlo and some blood and bullet casings, the scene opens on a wide view of the landscape with its low greenery, then moves onto other odd things, including that creepy smiley face, before focusing on the car. This is another teaser that plays with time, a flash-forward to the end of the episode, but this time there’s no lingering mystery.

Then later, when we finally get back to our boys in the desert, the opening shot is the sky. Finally we see Tuco, and then realize that Walt and Jesse are in the trunk. Even in the movement when they transition from car to inside Tuco’s place, there are a lot of wide shots, then the TV, then Hector Salamanca’s face before it gets to Walt and Jesse sitting on the couch. This lingering, building the tension slowly, making us wait? It’s very effective. Tension: Threat Level Midnight.

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Breaking Bad Episode 201 “Seven Thirty-Seven”

October 28, 2012July 1, 2024 Chrys Buckley

Before I even start this post, I want to give a shout out to @Jesus Jr (Gonzo) and @Steven Michael Quesada (Gomez), who are both in this episode, and who have both followed me on Twitter – thanks guys! Click on the links to follow them.

So, Season Two. Visually, it starts out really differently from anything we’ve seen so far, setting this season distinctly apart from the previous one. The teaser is a total mystery. Black and white. Water, and more water. The sound of sirens. A floating plastic eyeball. A pink stuffed bear that slowly turns to reveal it’s singed side. What the hell is going on here? I won’t say, in case anyone reads this before getting to the part in the show where it’s all revealed. I will say I find this teaser artistically pleasing. I like the mystery, the starkness. And I totally want a pink bear like that, but not burnt.

Another thing that sets Season Two apart from the others is that this one was planned out in exquisite detail before it started. So there’s a lot of advanced planning going on this season. And there is so much that actually comes back, from this episode and others in this season, in future seasons. Lots of reverberation.

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Breaking Bad Episode 107 “A No-Rough-Stuff-Type Deal”

October 21, 2012July 1, 2024 Chrys Buckley

Watching this episode, I was struck with the thought that this is maybe the happiest time we see for Skyler and Walter. Of course, there’s the getting frisky at the school board meeting, a board meeting which is about the lab equipment Walt stole. And then they get it on in the car. But it’s not just that. Later, there’s the scene in the bedroom that’s just so…normal. Well, except the fact that Walt is lying to her about going to a sweat lodge, but aside from that, it almost seems like they’re any normal couple. There’s something familiar and not quite sweet but warm in the room.