Tag: review

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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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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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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TV

Breaking Bad Episode 302 “Caballo Sin Nombre”

Chrys Buckley

eGNxc2MxMTI=_o_breaking-bad-03-02---caballo-sin-nombrepart-1mar-28“It’s like Michelangelo won’t paint.” Saul on Walt staying out of the meth game.

And Walt, so far, is still out. And being out no longer sits so well with Walter White. The last time Walt declared he was out, to Jesse after getting his remission diagnosis, he got all weird and aggro at the party and was generally bored and in need of distraction (all that fixing up different stuff in the house) until he got his Heisenberg back by telling those guys to stay out of his territory. This time, after turning down Gus’s verrrrry tempting offer, he gets all aggro and irrational with a cop. Now that Walt has somewhat become this Heisenberg guy, he’s a little lost when he gives that up.

How long can it really last?

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TV

Breaking Bad Episode 301 “No Mas”

Chrys Buckley

cousins500x351New season, new look to the teaser. Last season was all black and white with the pink bear as the only color. This year’s opener is saturated in color. They must be using a yellow filter to get the sky and landscape to look like that.

I like that this starts out visually different than the year before, because this season has a different feel, some different themes, a change in tone. And this time, we aren’t left hanging for episodes to see any elaboration on the teaser. This time it takes less than an episode. Two super scary dudes are crossing the border and if the ceremony is any indication, they are in search of Walter White.

I actually really love these characters, The Cousins as they’ll come to be called. Scary and deadly quiet but strangely elegant.

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TV

Breaking Bad Episode 213 “ABQ”

Chrys Buckley

213imagesHow does so much happen in one episode? The Earth has moved in the world of the show. So many storylines intertwine and evolve.

And we learn some key things in this one. Like, Combo stole a baby Jesus statue from a Knights of Columbus display. That might be my favorite detail of the whole episode. Also, Walt’s storing his drug phone in a plastic baggie in the toilet tank, another favorite detail.

There is also a lot–probably in part for time, because so many stories are being told at once–that we don’t see. We don’t see Jesse waking up, or the moment he discovers Jane’s body. Or when he calls her death in to the police. We actually don’t even see or hear anything Jesse says to Walt when he first calls him. All of these things can be inferred and don’t need to be shown on screen.

How did Aaron Paul not win an Emmy for this episode? His acting here blows me away. He’s playing crushing grief, detoxing, guilt, drugged out stupor, and numbness, sometimes several of these at once, and he’s so, so raw. Just like he was in “Grilled” but for much longer stretches. Just breaks my heart.

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TV

Breaking Bad Episode 212 “Phoenix”

Chrys Buckley

212indexThis is a huge episode. So much happens. Birth and Death, coupled. It’s so emotional. Watching it again, even though I already knew what would happen, it still made me cry. Powerful stuff.

I was thinking about how this episode starts out all fast and loud, and ends in slowness, quiet. And yet it’s the end that’s full of drama. It’s almost the opposite of the norm. Usually tension builds as events heat up and speed up towards the most dramatic moment. In this episode, it’s the opposite arc, the tension rises as the pace slows and the volume lowers from a scream to a whisper.

Walt made his choice, drug deal over being there for the birth. When Walt gets to the hospital, he discovers that Ted was there when he wasn’t. But Walt, I believe, loves his new baby. There has been a lot of love this season between this family, despite all the deceit and lies and the people in positions that oppose each other. As bad as Walt can be, and his heartless side has shown a bit this season, I don’t think that his love for his family, in his own mind anyway, has wavered. Just morphed in ways.

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Breaking Bad Episode 211 “Mandala”

Chrys Buckley

04-breaking-bad-jesse-heroin-sceneThe whole season has felt like a gathering storm. Like every episode, Walter and Jesse are doing things that are bound to come back in some way and just wreak havoc. Those weird black-and-white flashforwards showing all kinds of destruction and a floating eyeball and a creepy awesome burnt bear in a plastic bag help with the growing sense of dread. And up until this episode, Walt and Jesse have experienced some crappy things, some strong winds but nothing they can’t handle.

But now, the storm is here. And it’s gathering speed. Combo is dead. Jesse’s on heroin. Walt’s missing the birth of his baby for a drug deal. No good can come of this.

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Breaking Bad Episode 210 “Over”

Chrys Buckley

Screen Shot 2013-06-07 at 9.37.47 PMThis episode is a little slower and quieter than most this season, and this fits the storyline perfectly. It’s a great place to pause in, almost an uncomfortable place. Limbo. Walter White has gotten this borderline miraculous news–he’s in remission and going to live for the time being against all odds–but isn’t feeling the relief and exaltation that he should.

I think it’s a few things. One, as discussed in the post for the previous episode, he’s felt that remorse in the desert for all his deception and lies and now he has to live with it. But I think it goes beyond that. He’s created this whole new identity for himself as Heisenberg. He thinks of himself as this total badass, even though this view of himself is a bit inflated. Sure, he’s tough when calling the shots on territory and revenge on the Spooges and raising the product price, but it’s all behind the scenes. Still, he has this new picture of himself as this criminal mastermind, not to be messed with. And I think he doesn’t want to let that go.

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TV

Breaking Bad Episode 209 “4 Days Out”

Chrys Buckley

209aindexWow, 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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