Digital Refrain

Illustration by Mary Grace Ewald

Digital Refrain contributors Alex Wong and Jesse Golomb exchange emails, dissecting the most recent episode of Breaking Bad.

Jesse: Tonight felt special, Alex. After queueing up episode one on my Netflix just six weeks ago, I watched my first live episode of Breaking Bad.

Well, sort of. I DVR’d it and watched the episode 45 minutes late. My NBA2K12 Knicks Association team had a elimination playoff game against the 2014 Celtics, and I just couldn’t miss it.

In case you were wondering: yes, Jeremy Lin is still on the Knicks in my alternative, less-depressing basketball universe, and no, it didn’t matter. I still got swept in the first round as the eight seed. Some things are simply past the point of salvation.

Like Walter White, for example.

That much has been pretty clear for awhile. But what hasn’t been clear is when exactly the nigh end is coming. One of the (many) many amazing things about Breaking Bad is just how safe and unscathed its protagonist has remained, even as he has dabbled in drug production and distribution, murder and serial murder, extortion and money laundering. From early on, I’ve been comparing this show to Dexter, another one of my favorite TV serials, and one I believe has not gotten nearly enough attention as it continues to glow through six seasons. That show has a criminal protagonist working under the nose of a family member in law enforcement. Finally, in last season’s finale (SPOILER ALERT), we were treated to the sight of Dexter’s dear old dectective sis catching him in the act. But whereas Dexter teased at that reveal for years, Breaking Bad has never even entertained it. I took a guess early on in my BB viewing (especially after catching a glimpse off the season five poster, where Walt seemed to be in a yellow jumpsuit) that one of the seasons would take place with Walter White behind bars. Yet despite all the battles and bruises accrued along the way, all the money won and morality lost, Walter White has barely a scratch on him. Never mind the fact that everyone around him is dead either in body or spirit; Heisenberg remains — at least for now — safe and sound from his somehow oblivious brother-in-law, as well as the King of his domain, The One Who Knocks.

It doesn’t seem like that’s going to be the case for much longer. And I don’t think any of us needed Walt’s 52nd birthday ‘party’ at the Denny’s in the season premiere to figure that out. The end is coming for Walter White, and it’s spelled out as clearly as the bacon on his breakfast plate.

The imagery was all over the place in this episode, so rampant that the final shot of a ticking clock seemed too obvious (sort of like last week’s Scarface viewing, even though I liked that little bit of meta-forshadowing — everyone dies in this movie! –  more than most). There was the clock ticking as Skyler sat, smoking a cigarette, waiting for Walt’s cancer to un-remiss. There was the fray on Walt’s Heisenberg hat, just waiting to unravel. There was Skyler’s pool stunt, which can only serve to make Hank (and Marie, and Walt Jr.) only more curious, only more prodding, only a bigger part of this grand scheme.

And oh how grand it’s been, and I’m not talking about the excellence of this series.

Like most viewers, I was thoroughly confused at the end of last week’s episode, when Walt tells Jesse that he believed Gus killed Victor because he ‘flew too close to the sun.’ Was Walt threatening Jesse? Was he implying Mike was next to go?

No. If anything, Walt was talking about himself — even if he didn’t realize it. For the entire series, Walt has done things and attempted to do things that no high school chemistry teacher — let alone any man — should think himself capable of. Not only has he been the center of this series, but he has been the center of this series’ universe. He is its god. The consequences of his actions are not only felt in the White household, where Skyler is so overcome by the chaos that the silence of the pool seems a welcome respite, but in Mexico, where the cartel is in shambles; in Texas, where several DEA agents lay dead; in Germany, where a multinational corporation is coming apart at the seems; and all over the world, where the scattered families of the victims of Wayfarer 515 grieve, unaware that a man in a hat could have saved one girl, and saved hundreds in the process.

Walt has flown too close to the sun for far too long. And as his hubris grows and his respect for logic and patience disappaites (“this train stops for nothing;” “I just know”), it’s about time he burnt up. Some have called these first few episodes, “meandering” and “procedural,” but I think — more than anything — the first four episodes of Breaking Bad’s last season have set our “hero” up for his fall. 

I’m already going long here, but a few more themes seem to popping up. These are more half-baked, but a few thoughts…

-There seems to be a switching of roles going on with Jesse and Walt. At the beginning of the series and throughout, Jesse was the impatient one, the one always wanting to push, push, push ahead, the one flying too close to the sun. Now, he is the one who preaches prudence, who is willing to give up his money to avert argument. Walt, on the otherhand, grows increasingly arrogant and ambitious.

-That final scene in the dark with Walt and Skyler was absolutely fantastic. Everything that’s been swirling under the surface with Skyler since the retirement home blew up came to a head. And I think anyone who thought last week’s car wash breakdown seemed sudden felt stupid. Skyler is trapped. Her husband is a murderer, and his ‘shit happens’ routine is BS. I think she bought his “I do this for my family routine for a while,” but after he announces his willingness to institutionalize his wife instead of quitting the business, I don’t think anyone — maybe even Walt included? — could believe that. I know that’s been an excuse of Walt’s for awhile, but I’m pretty sure tonight was the first time he made a conscious choice that he would harm his family instead of harming his business.

-I hate Marie. I hate that damn character. Sorry. For a show that has five principals, she has always been the weakest link and everytime she is on screen I wince. Sorry if I offended any Marie fans.

-I also have generally hated Skyler, and frankly, I haven’t been a big fan of Anna Gunn’s performance. She was absolutely spectacular in this episode. That’s what happens when a character becomes more than a shrew.

-Walt Jr. likes breakfast.

Ok, time to go to bed so I can read 25 episode recaps tomorrow morning. I’ll hit you back then.

Alex:

Sorry for the delayed response, taking a break from reading my daily “Sanchez-Teblow” Google news alert, equally great drama happening in Jets camp I tell you.

Loved this episode, loving this season.

The best imagery of the night the close-up shot of blood dripping down Walt’s head as he was shaving. Blood on his hands, bloodshed to come. The build-up is so great at this point I wonder when it’s all going to culminate.

It might be easy to say that things aren’t going to get really crazy until the last eight episodes next year — but you have to assume that after last night’s episode titled “Fifty-One”, a “Fifty-Two” episode is coming, and I’m really hoping they’ll give us an extended “flash forward” in the finale of the eight episodes this summer.

Without all the details in between, I want to see how we get to the diner scene sooner than later. Because that machine gun in the trunk means there’s still more story to tell a year from now.

I didn’t know how to interpret the last scene from the previous episode, but I like the way you’ve choose to read it. Breaking Bad has always built itself up as the season goes along. Consider all the elements that will have to contribute to the end game somehow aside from Skyler: Jesse finding out about Walt killing his girlfriend and poisoning the kid, Hank piecing it all together, Mike plotting some sort of long con on Walt and Jesse (it’s only a matter of time before he finds a way to eliminate them to take back the business), and Lydia.

I wasn’t so sure about Lydia’s first appearance several episodes ago, but everything about her last night — the mismatched shoes, planting a tracker on the container, and just her overall uneasiness about everything. Something must’ve happened in the past to make her this way. I hope they devote some time to telling that backstory, I trust that Vince Gilligan isn’t putting so much focus on a Madrigal executive for nothing, she will figure into the end game, and she’s as much of a wild card out there as anyone.

Other thoughts:

• Still very little of Jesse through episode four, which means something is brewing. Something always is.

• Walt Jr. without breakfast? A man with no country. Underrated line of the night, when he’s leaving Walt’s birthday party and Hank tells him to slow down when he’s driving. As he walks out he fires back: “Never”.

• There’s never been much use for Marie as an ancillary character, more just there for exposition and to further the story along from a narrative perspective. Although, I felt the same about Hank in the early seasons, he was a joke, a Vic Mackey lite to me. But that might be the most impressive character development work of the whole series, now he’s smarter than everyone and always one step ahead, although that will probably be his downfall. Few have squared off against Heinsenberg and lived to tell their tale.

Last thought: Skyler smoking in that last scene when Walt comes home, possible foreshadowing? We know that ricin cigarette is still lurking.

Jesse:

Good stuff. A few things to wrap up.

I have a strong feeling Skyler’s not going to survive this season. I don’t know what her undoing is — I really love your Ricin cigarette idea, especially because I never really understood why Walt saved the damn thing in the first place (couldn’t he just make another?) — but the Denny’s scene in the premiere seemed telling, with Walt alone, looking longingly at his bacon, arranging it in the manner his wife had for so many years.

As for Jesse, I’ve read some suggestions that the watch he gave Walt either has a bomb planted in it or a tracker. It wouldn’t surprise me at all. Jesse seemed to go out of his way (not in the usual sense) to give that gift to Walt. And you’re right, Jesse simply has been too low-key for the last four episodes. Something has to give.

I don’t think Mike wants this business. Mike wants out. He understands how much shit can pile up, and let’s also remember that he was ready to fly the coop until his nest egg cracked. Mike’s goal, in my opinion: settle his debts, make some money, and get rid of Walt.

He is a cancer after all.

Illustration by Mary Grace Ewald

A year or two ago, I saw the first trailer (out of what would eventually be about three million) for Sony’s now-released The Amazing Spider-Man. And along with the rest of America, I had three initial thoughts: a) Not really feeling that hyphen, b) already!? and c) I have no real burning desire to see this same movie I saw ten years ago, but I have no doubt I’ll end up seeing it anyway.

That’s the world we live in now, where entertainment for the sake of the water-cooler (as a child of the internet age, a black-and-white image of I Love Lucy devotees double-fisting Dasani comes to mind any time I hear that phrase) has been replaced by entertainment for the inevitability of Just Because.

Despite what you’ve been told, there aren’t necessarily less good movies today, just more bad ones. There’s more everything, really: so when something good — nay, discussed — manages to rise above the oversaturated stink (The Newsroom and 50 Shades of Grey come to mind as recent examples), it’s hard not be caught in the vortex. Especially when it’s 8 PM on July 4th, you’ve already had too much burger and maybe-not-enough beer, and an 845 showing of a probably-not-too-bad movie doesn’t sound all that bad.

So yeah, big surprise: I saw The Amazing Spider-Man. Over the course of its no holds-barred marketing campaign, I’d been bludgeoned into submission: trailers, late-night interviews, trailers inexplicably crossed with Coors Light ads, more trailers, trailers juxtaposing superhuman LeBron with superhero Spidey. (In the movie, Peter Parker mangles a backboard and a football goalpost. But then again, LeBron was also a multi-sport athlete; it remains to be seen who would win in a game of pickup. ) As I scrolled through movie listings, I feigned forestalling destiny, trying to talk myself into finally seeing Men in Black III or venturing into the Big Apple to catch the critically-lauded Beasts of the Southern Wild. But I knew it all along — I’d eventually end up with 3D glasses on, staring at Andrew Garfield’s mug, watching the same goddamned prequel sequel reboot remake I saw at David Faust’s birthday party in elementary school. And I did. On its second night in theaters. Prophecy, fulfilled; Marketing dollars, validated.

In all seriousness: if you were afraid that The Amazing Spider-Man is too-soon or too-similar to 2002’s excellent Spiderman, be very afraid. It’s about ten times worse than you imagine.

It’s still all too familiar, and the quick turnaround from the last set of movies is only part of the problem. Christopher Nolan’s criminally underrated Batman Begins came just eight years after the last movie in the previous canon. Yet that movie attempted something wholly original and new, a pitch-perfect shift in tone that hadn’t been seen before and hasn’t been duplicated since. It’s still probably my favorite superhero flick in the recent glut of them — maybe even more so than The Dark Knight, if only because everything felt so fresh. Risky, even.

The Amazing Spider-Man feels anything but. Swapping out actors and villains is not akin to creating something new, just as darkening the color palette isn’t akin to creating something dark. By and large, that’s pretty much all director Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer, which I haven’t seen) and screenwriter James Vanderbilt (Zodaic, which I have, and is one of my favorite movies of the last decade) have done here.

Yes, the new leads are quite good. Tobey Maguire’s bug eyes are gone, replaced by Andrew Garfield’s tear-filled ones, and it’s a welcome respite. Ditto for Emma Stone, a tenfold improvement over Kirsten Dunst. (May she rest in peace. Dunst has made only two major studio movies since the original trilogy wrapped: 2010’s All Good Things and 2008’s How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. Haven’t seen or heard of either? Check your local 7-11’s bargain bin.) And yes, this new version does the good ol’ origin story some justice, perhaps even more so than its decade-old counterpart.

But whatever this movie does well – and there’s plenty – it doesn’t do well enough, or different enough. Rhys Ifran is quite good as a high-ranking Oscorp official/father figure to Peter Parker who becomes consumed by a technological breakthrough and promptly proceeds to ravage New York City at the behest of the voice in his head. Then again, so was Willem Dafoe, starring in the exact same role a decade ago.

Then again, don’t we all. Maybe that’s why Hollywood gets away with passing off their recycled trash as treasure. Sony’s motivations here aren’t exactly the Sunset Strip’s best kept secret: reportedly, they rebooted the franchise in order to keep the film rights from reverting back to Marvel. We’re all wise to the game. But somehow, we all still manage to be played like saps, enjoying our willful ignorance while Spidey swings his way to the bank.

Jesse Golomb is the Editor-in-Chief of TheFanManifesto.com and a contributor to AthlonSports and Digital Refrain, among others. On twitter, he is @TheFanManifesto.