The Amount of Thought Put into Breaking Bad is Unreal

(may contain spoilers)

    One of the few television shows I watch religiously is AMC's Breaking Bad. The show is about a high school teacher that begins cooking meth to pay for the treatment for his lung cancer. Breaking Bad is currently on the second half of its fifth and final season. 

   There are many reasons Breaking Bad is my favorite television show; not only is the plot incredibly in depth but also the camera work is next to perfect. Everything is very thought out, from the lighting, to the camera angle, and even the color of the characters clothes. 

    It is small things, like the color of the character's clothes, that I think separates this show from others. Character's clothes from most shows are picked out or designed so the character looks good, with nothing else much in mind. However, in Breaking Bad, the characters clothes are based on their mood and recent actions. For example, when the main character, Walter White, is feeling defeated, he wears a drab, khaki color. Or when he is becoming more involved in cooking blue meth, his clothes are more blue. This amount of planning is put into not only all of the characters outfits, but also other aspects of the show.  More about this theory can be read here. There is also a very helpful picture chart contained in the article. 

Best Scene I've Ever Seen

With the new season of the Office only producing one episode a week, I need to find other shows to fill the void because I've seen every other Office episode. The show I chose was Breaking Bad. This is not usually the type of show I go for because it is a drama and I am a huge fan of comedy. I believe laughter is the medicine that cures all. All this aside, I found a scene in the fifth episode of season 1 that made me realize that this show is above and beyond most in the drama category in all aspects.

The scene that I am discussing, takes place in the White's living room and they are playing cards with Walter's brother and sister in-law. His brother in-law, Hank, is a DEA agent. He has no idea that Walter is cooking meth to pay for his hospital bills. He took all of the ingredients for cooking meth from his school, where he is a chemistry teacher, to start his business. Hank has no idea that this happened, but the writers decided to create some foreshadowing of some sort into this card game. Hank was trying to get Walter to fold a hand and they way he went about it seemed as if we thought he knew. Walter seemed to think he knew, but we as an audience know that it is not.

The scene starts at 31:20 and ends at 35:10 if you have NETFLIX

This was one of the most impressive scenes I've ever scene in the drama category. Really you have to see it to truly understand. But the pure attention that I had on this scene was amazing. It is scriptwriting at his highest. It evokes so many emotions in 3 minutes.

Great work to these writers and producers and I will probably devote another post to the realism of this fantastic show.

"Breaking Bad" Should Be Called "Breaking Great"

Breaking Bad is a drama on AMC about Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher from Albuquerque, New Mexico, played by Bryan Cranston. After White is diagnosed with advanced lung cancer, he turns to a life of crime producing and selling methamphetamine (crystal meth) with a former student named Jesse Pinkman. It has been nominated for numerous awards including winning three consecutive Emmy Awards for Lead Actor in a Drama Series for Cranston. Now in it’s fourth season it is less about Walt and his cancer for he is in a way the cancer in other people’s lives. He is bringing them down with him and putting them in danger as well.

Breaking Bad is one of the most suspenseful shows in television. Most shows play it safe and never put their lead in to much danger. Walter White’s brother-in-law even works for the Drug Enforcement Agency and is at times unbeknownst to him looking for his own brother-in-law, Mr. White. Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan said in an interview that they try to paint themselves into corners that seem impossible to get out of. This forces them to be creative and new. Some of their creativity comes from editing. From the time lapse cutaways to actual unusual cuts during the scene, Breaking Bad is willing to take chances and break a lot of the “rules” to help show the effects of drugs or to make a symbolic point. A great example was in a recent episode from the latest season where Jesse is playing a violent video game and is getting haunting memories from when he had to shoot an innocent man named Gale to protect himself and Mr. White from dying.

The show also forces you to pay attention to every detail. This show is not most shows where if they want the audience to see something they will make it blatantly obvious with a cut of a close up or a musical cue. Breaking Bad is more of a puzzle. For instance in last Sunday’s episode Gus, who doubles as Mr. White’s boss and an owner of Los Pollos Hermanos, a fast food chain, attempted to poison the entire cartel in Mexico by poisoning their alcohol he gave them as a gift. To not drawn suspicious he was forced to drink to. However we did not know he poisoned it. In a scene afterwards we see him seemingly throw food or something in his mouth (it was an anti-dote) and then minutes later the cartel started dropping like flies. There is also suspicion and many freeze frames online that think that Mike, one of Gus’ men, was going to surprise and shoot Jesse in the back before he was shot himself from an alive member of the cartel. A lot of this I did not catch the first time and I can’t wait to watch episodes again and catch new things I never saw before.

Finally, there is a conspiracy online about Breaking Bad and its connections to color. My friend and I have noticed this but we went online to see if we were not crazy in thinking this. Others agree but are not quite sure yet what it all means. For example Mr. WHITE wore a lot of green and there was a lot of green in the set when he was cooking the original meth product, which omits a green gas. However after a new type of chemical was added and changed their product to blue he has wore a lot of blue and the set pieces became very blue. His wife Skylar and sister-in-law wear colors off of blue (light blue and purple respectively). Gus wears a lot of gold and forces his employees to wear a lot of gold either at Los Pollos Hermanos or even when Walt and Jesse cook meth for him. They trade in their colors for Gus’ as if Gus then owns them in those scenes. Even Jesse’s last name of PINKman is about a color. Only time will tell if this is just is fans conspiring or a deliberate detail in the genius show that is Breaking Bad.