Greetings, and welcome to Breaking Bad Week on Earthling Television. I am your host, Garyx
Wormuloid. Today’s artifact is Season Number Five of Breaking Bad, a show that single-handedly
kept the AMC network afloat for the next half century thanks to spinoffs such as: Better
Call Saul, The Disappearer, Chile Con Fring, Skyler: The College Years, Tsk Tsk Marie,
Flynn It to Win It, and Holly Jolly Christmas.
Season Number Five begins with drugs kingpin Walter White at the height of his power, fresh
off the murder of a fast food employee. Unfortunately for him, his wife loves fast food and gives
him the colder shoulder.
Undeterred, Walt goes about expanding his business, which involves a bit of indoor camping
and a good old-fashioned train drain. But before you know it, another kid gets killed
and Jesse starts whining again. Resident grumbler Mike Ehrmantraut puts in his two week notice
as well, but Walt can’t wait that long.
After a quick performance of the prison ballet, Walt teams up with a new distributor and conquers
the international markets like a shitty Will Smith movie.
If only he’d focused on the domestic.
Hank gets mad at Walt for having a derivative taste in poetry and starts getting all up
in his krill. Then Walt’s Nazi friends take it too far -- like Nazis always do -- by stealing
Walt’s money, murdering Hank, and locking Jesse away as their chemistry slave.
Walt retreats to a cabin in New Hampshire to unwind. But when he sees his old friends
“dissing” him on TV, his pride draws him back to Albachichi for one last episode. He
gives them some unwanted financial advice, and then pays a visit to the Nazis, where
it’s D-Day all over again. While Jesse discovers his need for speed, Walt puts on some Badfinger
and takes a much deserved nap on the floor.
Series creator Vince Gilligan once said that Breaking Bad is about a man who transforms
from Mr. Chips to Scarface. And while it’s unclear who either of those people were, it’s
safe to say that Walter White does indeed transform.
Besides his words and actions, this is most evident in his choice of wardrobe. The more
compromised his morals become, the darker his clothes. Until he gets to black, since
that’s pretty much as dark as it gets.
One of the key episodes in Season Number Five is titled “Ozymandias,” or “Ozzie”
for short. Inspired by a poem written by Percy Shelley, Ozymandias describes the barren empire
of an arrogant ruler.
The poem’s speaker boasts, “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair,” but ironically,
nothing of those works remains, only an empty desert.
The fallen statue of Ozymandias is reflected in both Walt and Gus at their greatest moments
of despair.
Despair registers as a key component throughout the season. Even though Walt may have achieved
the so-called “baller status” he’s so long pursued, he’s lost his family in the
process.
Echoing a moment from earlier in the series, Walt sees a familiar painting, a haunting
reminder of the low-quality artwork that adorned Earth’s hotels in that era.
Another reason for Walt to despair is that, like every single other job on Earth, it becomes
a dehumanizing grind.
After all this time freaking out about everything standing in the way of success, his success
itself is reduced to a repetitive, albeit groovy montage. Furthermore, by this point
everyone is just recycling old dialogue.
In fact, Walt habitually plagiarizes people he has killed, sucking up their mannerisms
like one of Spike Lee’s vampires. He cuts the crusts from his bread. He kneels on a
towel when vomiting. And as if murdering Mike wasn’t enough, Walt jacks his drink order!
Perhaps the extraordinary Walter White is merely part of a larger and endlessly dispassionate
system of cruelty.
Team Rocket blast off at the speed of burnt.
But if Walt has fully realized his position as the puppetmaster in Season Number Five,
it is Jesse who is treated like a puppet -- by Walt, by Todd, by Hank, even by a local production
of Avenue Q. When Walt urges Jesse to shoot him in the final episode, it’s not just
66% of the Nike slogan. It’s the latest in a long line of teacherly demands. And just
as Walt begins the series by breaking the chains that bind him, so too does Jesse finally
cut his strings.
With each passing season of Breaking Bad, Walter White becomes less and less sympathetic,
and yet the series received more and more critical acclaim. Did Earthling audiences
share Walt’s casual attitude toward violence? By wearing his costume, quoting his catchphrases,
and throwing the occasional pizza on the occasional roof, were they tacitly endorsing his winner-take-all
philosophy? Were they each, in their own ways, simply itching to break bad? I guess
it doesn’t matter now.
For Earthling Television, I’m Garyx Wormuloid.