Greetings, and welcome to Breaking Bad Week on Earthling Television. I am your host, Garyx
Wormuloid. Today’s artifact is Season Number Two of Breaking Bad, starring staunch pro-dentite
Bryan Cranston.
In Season Number Two, Walter White and Jesse Pink-man are still at it, despite their enemies’
best efforts. Unfortunately, the drug trade is turning out to be a real handful, thanks
to an untimely dispute with middle management. Once the federales start closing in, our boys
decide it’s time to double down and lawyer up.
While Walt distracts his family with tantalizing nudity, Jesse moves into a new apartment with
a very accommodating landlord. Guess the “B” in Apartment 23 stands for “bow chikka bow
wow.” And after crushing some tail, the best way to unwind is by crushing some head.
Jesse and Walt make their biggest batch yet, and their legal team dupes a waiter at The
Chicken Brothers into buying it all. However, Walt gets jealous that Jesse wants to hang
out with Jane all the time, so he does the rational thing and lets her vomit herself
to death. Take that, Choko Ono!
Not to be outdone, two planes vomit all over everybody.
Season Number Two of Breaking Bad finds Jesse and Walter struggling with their identities.
Big deal -- try going through puberty as part of a shared consciousness! In any case, Walter
is now both a provider for his family and a power-hungry criminal. His conflicting urges
come to a freshly-shaved head when he is forced to choose between witnessing the birth of
his daughter or perpetuating his criminal empire. He does as my father always did, and
chooses work.
Meanwhile, Jesse’s increasingly tarnished sense of self pushes him into levitation,
which is apparently very addictive on Earth. Plus, he has to get over a breakup, which
is always a total bummer. Chin up, buddy, there are plenty of other goldfish floating
in the tank.
Seeing their effect on the world around them has caused our heroes to lose their innocence.
One minute, Jesse is hanging out with Jane in her room, admiring her quirky, yet sexy
painting. The next, a hazmat crew is dragging charred toys out of a tiny, chlorinated lake.
Innocence -- and paradise -- donezo.
And the feeling is contagious. Practically the entire city of Albaquooquoo is choosing
the darker path. Even Walter’s sister-in-law, Marie, dabbles with kleptomania, or the stealing
of klepts.
And in accordance with family tradition, she uses the ends to justify the beans.
One of the only Breaking Bad characters without a dark side is Walter’s brother-in-law,
Hank -- who, in some ways, serves as a bizarro “double” for Walter White. Like Walter,
he manufactures intoxicants, but only the boring kind. And whereas Walt is more or less
unshaken by his criminal exploits, Hank gets rattled by the violence of his job, even turning
down a promotion because of a mixup at Bring Your Pet to Work Day. Despite his macho cheese
exterior, Hanks is really just a cuddly teddy bear. No, not that one! There, much better.
Throughout much of Season Number Two, Walter and Jesse find themselves separated from the
ones they love, which is hard enough without being reminded by thematically-appropriate
artwork. They yearn for the stability of the past, when thematically-appropriate artwork
was all the rage.
Sadly, neither Jesse nor Walter can turn back time, because that technology is kept under
lock and key by the Space Guild.
Instead, they find a sort of Foster Farms family in one another.
But is their co-dependence a byproduct of fate? In both Season Number One and Season
Number Two, Walt loses crucial coin flips that alter the trajectories of his life, his
business, and his facial hair. Then, when he decides it might be easier to just die
already, some quack comes along and ruins everything. For Yajj’s sake, Walt can’t
even go to a happy hour without some outrageous coincidence leading to catastrophe.
Then again, maybe we should’ve seen it coming. Take a look at the titles of the four episodes
that feature the pink bear, and you’ll discover a special warning from the show’s creators
“Seven Thirty Seven. Down. Over. ABQ” Mind blown? Well check this out: if you take
two other episode titles, they form “Breakage Peekaboo,” which is the name of my band.