Greetings, and welcome to Breaking Bad Week on Earthling Television. I am your
host, Garyx Wormuloid. This week’s artifact is Season Number Three of Breaking Bad, co-starring
Aaron “Chris” Paul of the Los Angeles Lakers.
In Season Number Three, everyone is still reeling from the plane crash, most of all
Walter White and Jesse Pink-man, who at this point can’t seem to agree on ANYTHING.
Walt tells Skyler about his little side project, and she tells him about her side project.
To cheer him up, resident chicken brother Gustavo Fring gives Walt a job in his basement
and a brand new coffeemaker. Skyler decides she’s fun now, and gets Saul to help her
launder Walt’s money, presumably with Tidal if she wants it lossless.
Meanwhile, the creators figured they needed more bald characters, so here come Tuco’s
cousins to avenge his death. Hank has a showdown with them, leaving him paralyzed below the
holster. Or at least, mostly paralyzed.
If you’re wondering what Jesse’s up to, stop freaking out -- this part’s for you.
Jesse has another junkie girlfriend and immediately adopts her interests, namely kids. He finds
out Gus has a thing for kids too -- killing them. Jesse throws a temper tantrum, and Walt
has to save him by getting some new hood ornaments.
Walt realizes Gus wants to replace him with the coffee guy, so he gets Jesse to slow roast
his ass.
By the end of Season Number One of Breaking Bad, Walt has cast off the shackles of society
and fashioned them into charm bracelets of self- reliance. But Season Number Three finds
him right back under the opposable thumb of a powerful superior.
Walt’s sense of futility mimics the stories of German author Franz Kafka. After striving
for advancement or acceptance, Kafka’s protagonists often find themselves obliterated by cold,
bureaucratic structures. Or, as the Germans called them, “structures”. Germany, ya
burnt! Several thousand years ago, along with rest of your planet.
With his masculinity on the line, Walt is confronted with potential displacement by
two beta males, both on the work front and on the homefront. He turns to school -- the
only remaining front -- but everyone knows you can’t shit where you teach.
Ultimately -- like a supportive pair of briefs -- it’s Gus Fring who sets the terms for
Walt’s manhood. Through Gus’s validation and security, Walt begins to recognize himself
as the formidable man he seeks to become. And yet for some reason he still drives that
Pontiac Aztek.
Meanwhile, the true alpha male of the series, drugs cop Hank Schrader, keeps his fists flying
on the reg, but only to mask his own lack feelings on inadequacy.
With Hank injured, Walt’s quote-unquote “fat stacks” put him in position to pay
for his treatment, something Walt himself once rejected. But is making it rain enough
to make Walt feel like a big man? Well there you go.
Instead, Walt compensates for his faltering masculinity by seeking obsessive control over
the little things, like this band-aid. Throughout Season Number Three, he focuses on removing
“contaminants” from his home life and at the office. In the episode “Fly,” Walt’s
desperate hunt for the titular contaminant parallels his effort to cleanse his soul,
It is only by sharing his fears and regrets with Jesse in a conveniently nonspecific way
that Walt begins to repair their frayed relationship and removes the contaminant that has haunted
him most: his conscience. But then what do you know, he sees another fly! Earth was known
for having hundreds of flies.
Walt’s obsessive need for authority over his surroundings actually runs counter to
the “Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle” from which he derives his nom de plumage.
This scientific principle, introduced by German physicist Werner Heisenberg, acknowledges
imprecision and unpredictability as essential aspects of quantum physics and, therefore,
of all life. And say what you will about Walt’s control issues, but he definitely knows a
thing or two about collision.
The interplay of rigid science and larger, mystical forces is also explored in that nerd
guy’s favorite poem, “The Learn’d Astronomer”. Written by ZZ Top guitarist Walt Whitman for
their album Tres Hombres, this little ditty suggests the universe is built from more than
facts and figures and mathematical proofs. And as we all know, he was right -- there
is more to life. Something beyond the comprehension of power-hungry narcissists like Walter White.
A little something called transdimensional bodysurfing.