re: Breaking Bad: A Shot Review

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The next "villain" better be fantastic.

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What show are you watching? Walt IS the villain.

For me I watched the first two episodes and quit for a while. Then I came back to it. The show really stuck with me when Walt walked into to Tuco's place and blew the shite up.

The poster above me is right though: Walt is the villain.

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I think people that catch these shows on DVD or Netflix are really doing themselves a disservice if they watch the seasons straight through.

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i find that watching a series straight through with no breaks makes it much more enjoyable and ends up giving you a higher opinion of the show. you are really the first person i ever saw say otherwise.

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The next "antagonist," the next "force opposite to Walt."

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it's complicated.

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I can't really say anything without spoiling it for you, but let's just say someone is about to be all up in Walt's shite.

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See above. I think making Jessie "break good" is about the best thing they can do with the character. The show needs someone to root for now, it can't wallow in the characters crap for much longer.

You root for Mike

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the other best character is easily Mike

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I like Mike. However, I think people sleep on how good of a character Saul Goodman is, because he's more or less the comedic relief.

I don't know. Maybe I just don't watch many shows, but most shows just come off as cheap to me (sans ones on HBO, etc)

And for some reason with breaking bad, when I watched the pilot, that episode had more intensity and better acting than I had seen in a long time on a show on basic cable

The scene where Walt was talking into the camera, saying (what he thought) was his last goodbye was superbly acted, and the episode in general was perfectly paced for a pilot.

I was hooked on the first episode, and the qualities I liked in that episode seemed to transfer over to the rest of the episodes. Basically, the pace of the show and the character arc it has created is unmatched in most shows I try to watch.

I don't know. It's just right up my alley I suppose

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even though he's a good character, he's a killer. Not exactly someone to root for.

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that's what this show does so well

it makes us bend...even break our morals and go against everything we believe in normal life

see the love guys like Mike, Saul, Gus get

and the hate people like Skyler get

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i find that watching a series straight through with no breaks makes it much more enjoyable and ends up giving you a higher opinion of the show. you are really the first person i ever saw say otherwise.

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SPOILERS!!!!

I agree with the other guy and disagree with you here. People love Downton Abbey, for instance. Downton Abbey suffers from the same issue as Breaking Bad, in my opinion - most of the characters are fairly well flawed and, above all else, they can be annoying as frick to watch. In small doses, the show is fantastic. Watching it episode by episode right after the other, all the way through is torturous. That's the problem with Breaking Bad.

It's not a problem with, for instance, the West Wing. Each of the characters in that show, while flawed in minor ways, is likable, some more than others, but there is not one character in that show I look at and think: That guy's a piece of shite.

Breaking Bad's brilliance is found in the fact that nearly all of the characters are terrible people. Walt's decline from family man to megalomaniacal drug kingpin is beautifully done and certainly daring. No other show, that I can think of, flips the main character on its head in this way. His fall is fascinating.

On the other hand, Jesse's rise from scumbag, deadbeat drug addict and pusher to family man with true human empathy and a sense of compassion is equally fascinating. The role reversals are incremental and incredibly well done, including using juxtapositions like Jesse's reaction to shooting Gale with Walt's reaction to running over two cartel members. Jesse nearly breaks and returns from the brink a better man. Walt never breaks but slides further into the abyss.

The show is brilliant. Period. You may not enjoy it, and that's certainly understandable. Particularly given the show's insane amount of hype. But to color the brilliance of the show with your lack of enjoyment of it is unfair. Moby Dick and War and Peace are terribly boring, but are brilliant literary works.


SPOILERS ABOVE!!!!