TV

Breaking Bad Episode 307 “One Minute”

Chrys Buckley

tumblr_mgzmcoJ6741qjgv9ro1_500Well, 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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Parties

Chrys Buckley

partiesindexI am albino, which means my skin and hair are paler than pale, and though I have partial vision, I’m legally blind. I grew up in a town where it seemed everyone worshiped at the same handful of churches and was white and voted Republican and wore the same clothes. I was white, but I was too white. I was an agnostic atheist, a bleeding heart, and I dressed like the grunge-rock musicians I admired. I didn’t even fit in with the delinquent kids, because my parents were too strict and my grades too good. I felt like the town freak.

Nothing emphasized my feelings of alienation like a school dance, where I’d sit at the back of the cafeteria and eat chips to numb myself. One time I tried to mingle, but a girl I’d ridden to the dance with told me to stop following her around like a puppy. I went back to the food table and tried to disappear.

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TV

Breaking Bad Episode 306 “Sunset”

Chrys Buckley

breaking_bad_print_306_535x320“This is my own private domicile and I will not be harassed…bitch!”

What an episode. Such good, classic, edge-of-your-seat drama. Walt and Jesse are about to be caught. There’s no escape. Crouching around the RV. It’s kind of nice to see Walt and Jesse thrown into a situation where they have to be on the same side. They might not be thrilled with each other but this is a situation where they’re forced to work together. Of course, Walter White comes up with a solution. As Badger would say, it’s kinda dickish of him. He feels bad, but what else can he do? Another little piece of his soul.

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Affinity for Darkness – Epilogue

Chrys Buckley

New-Amazing-Gifts-Star-Sky-Master-Night-Light-Projector-Lamp-lights-Decor-Room-and-House-1powerThe funerals for Andrea Jennings, Don Krenshaw, Justin Ryan, Jill Oberlin, Karl Muffen and Eve Clemens were held the Sunday after they were supposed to return home from a trip to Justin’s cabin in upstate New York. Andrea’s parents had returned only one day earlier to hear the terrible news of the fire in the cabin, and the tragic death of their daughter.

There were many attendants to the sad event. It had been so terrible. A fire had started in the cabin and Justin Ryan had called the police. By the time they got there, there was not much left of the cabin, and fire was spreading. They had been able to put out the fire, but no survivors could be found. Police had no idea how the fire had started.

Among the attendants was Miss Carol Bennett, a local English teacher. She was crying, she had had almost all of those kids in her classes. They were great students. They had wonderful imaginations. She was so sad to hear of their tragic end.

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TV

Breaking Bad Episode 305 “Mas”

Chrys Buckley

305_MásFINALLY! Walter White is cooking again! Things are moving and changing! Thank God, right?

I think that Season Three might be my favorite season overall, so far, but these first few episodes are just a little slow. I’m like Walt or maybe Saul, I just don’t feel quite right if he’s not cooking. The slowness makes sense in the story of the show. Walt has to take that pause, has to consider the consequences, almost burn the money, get out and believe he’s really out for good after everything that’s happened. Anything else wouldn’t serve the story. If he had jumped right back into it, the consequences–Jane’s death, the plane crash, Skyler finding out and her subsequent affair–would be meaningless.

This is Walt’s fourth time making the decision to cook. Each time, the stakes get higher, the run of cooking is longer, the consequences get bigger (Krazy-8 vs Tuco vs all the recent wreckage mentioned above), and so the decision takes longer. It’s like he’s successively being asked, do you really want to do this, and keeps saying yes. And each time, it’s a little bit darker. He knows what could happen, what has happened, the people who’ve died, and he still decides yes.

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Affinity for Darkness – Chapter Thirteen

Chrys Buckley

Starry night with Aurora and little houseThe candles beside me still burn, the guiding lights of my tale. I feel some relief in having written all of it down, but my relief is shallow. My story is not yet complete, and I don’t quite know how it will end.

I have spent hours writing. It has grown dark outside. These hours I probably should have spent figuring out what has happened, analyzing each event of this past week, but I find no answers doing this; I find more contentment in my writing than I could discovering how I would die. It makes me feel as if I have done something productive with my time.

As I said at the very start, I know great fear. As I sit here in anxiety, my fear is really all I know. The darkness contributes to my fear, I know. It adds a sense of mystery; I don’t know what, or who, may be lurking in the shadows. I don’t know where Justin is.

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TV

Breaking Bad Episode 304 “Green Light”

Chrys Buckley

304imagesHoly crap, Hank knows about the RV!

Jesse is using the RV to cook again. The teaser for this episode is a perfect example of Jesse taking the “I’m the bad guy” and his no-nonsense acceptance of that fact too far. Jesse has never been a pusher before, using his charm to get a girl to trade him free gas for a baggie of meth. Maybe he’s resigned to the bad guy role. Maybe he believes that’s who he is. It seriously makes me question the philosophy at that rehab place with those amazing plush green robes and shirts. Jesse’s not using anymore but something’s off and Jesse’s actually more of a bad guy since accepting this “fact” about himself than he ever was before.

Walt is, as Mike puts it, a disaster over this thing with his wife. Man, Mike is sooo deadpan. When Saul asks is this a good thing or a bad thing, Mike plays a bit more of the recording and then says, “It’s a bad thing.” It’s kind of hilarious. Gotta love Mike. He’s just as good later when he tells Walt the reasons he’s definitely removing all the bugs from Walt’s house.

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Affinity for Darkness – Chapter Twelve

Chrys Buckley

afd13imagesI woke up shaking. The images I had seen had been harrowing. I tried to wash them away by rubbing my eyes. It did not completely work, but at least the horrid smells and tortured cries had subsided. Suddenly I realized there were people standing near me. I opened my eyes fully to see Justin and Jill peering down at me, and to see that I was lying on one of the couches. Oh no, I thought. Were they waiting for me to awaken so they could break some more bad news?

“What’s wrong?” I asked, instantly worried. “Is everyone OK?”

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TV

Breaking Bad Episode 303 “I.F.T.”

Chrys Buckley

Screen Shot 2013-06-16 at 8.43.35 PMEven though Walter “the maestro” White still isn’t cooking, things he’s set in motion are still managing to spiral out of control on so many fronts at once for just about everyone.

In the last episode, Walt broke into his own house and in this one he stays, even when Skyler comes home and calls the cops. Walt’s been consistent on this–he cares more about getting his family back more than he cares about getting turned in, that if he doesn’t have his family, it’s all been for nothing.

Walt says to Skyler in their talk later in the episode that he’s made sacrifices. At first, it seems a little disingenuous. What has he really sacrificed? Yeah he’s gone through hard times, but overall, he’s been the one causing harm, killing, lying, and sometimes he has thoroughly enjoyed being Heisenberg. But I do think that in doing these things, Walt chose to sacrifice pieces of his soul. He’s sacrificed his conscience. His ability to truly believe he’s not the bad guy. He has to know, every day, that he let a girl die, a girl who the person that’s like a son to him loved more than anything. As Walt says, he has to live with the choices he’s made. It might not be the same kind of cost others have had to pay or suffer, but it’s still something.

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Affinity for Darkness – Chapter Eleven

Chrys Buckley

Here’s the next section from the “novel” I wrote one winter in high school. It’s now at the part where it’s getting really mortifying and difficult to post.

To start this story from the beginning, click here

3794472944_a4bda326c3“Oh God,” Jill moaned.

“What!?!” Karl exclaimed, shocked.

“Not again,” I breathed.

“What do we do?” Karl asked.

“We just can’t have another burial,” Jill said.

“How did it happen?” I inquired.

“I don’t know,” Justin answered, distraught. “I just went in there and saw him, slumped against the far wall, bleeding. At first I thought he cut himself, so I called his name and asked if he was OK. No answer came, so I moved closer to get a better sense of what was going on. It was then that I noticed his glazed eyes and the small pools of blood surrounding his body. And his skin . . . his skin was disgusting. He died from a knife wound, as Eve did.”

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