So I've wanted to write something about Breaking Bad for the last couple of months, but it is truly the insurmountable task. I could write a book about it (any publishers out there who would be willing to sub me an advance, I'm very reasonably priced and just desperate enough to be mildly taken advantage of) but it's not something that you could really jot down in a blog post. So I'm just going to go through a couple of reasons why BREAKING BAD IS THE SINGLE GREATEST SHOW OF ALL TIME AND YES I'M LOOKING AT YOU THE WIRE/THE SOPRANOS/NEIGHBOURS.
1. Every single character is, essentially, a total arsehole. Completely hideous in nature, but drawn in a way that isn't the usual clumsy cartoonish depictions we're so used to seeing. Walter White is slowly morphing into a meglomaniacal psychopath with every episode. Jesse, although arguably the conscience of the show, is a petty thug - a drug dealer, who puts his friends at risk of being jailed or shot on street corners. Skylar is a money-laundering, deceptive, deceitful (and complicit) fraud. Marie is a freaking kleptomaniac. And Hank is the biggest prick of them all - waving his gun around at a family party (although it is set in America, so that might just be what goes on), pressuring his innocent (ahem), terminally ill brother-in-law to ferry him round on stakeouts - he seems to be completely at ease about being a selfish douche. And yet somehow, Vince Gilligan has managed to make every one of these characters a real, rounded human being; they all have the motivation and their reasons for their behaviour. Very little of the protagonists behaviour is borne out of a sense of entitlement, or a sense of greed. It's utter desperation, and terror that drive them forward; the inability to drag themselves out of the rabbit hole they've somehow fallen into. An audience can empathise with that desperation and that humanity. This is where I couldn't watch The Wire; I found every character revolting but had no empathy for any of them. (Disclaimer: I only made it through 45 minutes of episode one. Don't judge me, okay?)
2. The writing is completely immense. How in this day and age can you get an entire audience of viewers to start shouting "Science, bitch!"? It's such a lovely change to have a program where the creators don't treat their audience as completely inept thickos. So much of the detail comes back to pay off later - sometimes much later - in the series, and manages to do so without the imagery and the detail being unnecessary. The small details of the program - the pan over to the Lily Of The Valley plant in Walt's garden, the pink bear in the pool after the plane crash - it's all there so that the creators DON'T have to sacrifice the quality of the writing to allow the main characters to break the fourth wall and explain, "Oh, so you see, the whole thing there was that Walter saw Jane die, and could have saved her, but chose not to as she was blackmailing him, and therefore is indirectly responsible for her death, unbeknownst to Jesse! Mmmkay?" to the audience like it was story time on CeeBeeBeebies. Hurrah for brain activity! It's been quite a while.
3. IT HAS AN END. I rarely watch any US television because, quite frankly, I don't have the time or energy to expend on a program that is going to suck up 22 hours of my life a year, for 8 years, and either gets cancelled and leaves you high and dry without an ending, or resolves itself in the manner of Lost, which, I think we can all agree, was reason enough to throw your TV's into the nearest skip and live a life from that point forward where the high point of your electronic entertainment of an evening was tuning into the shipping forecast. How that show was allowed to a) rip off their viewers like that and b) let a pretty good opening storyline turn into such utter crap is beyond me. If I cared enough, I would be more than happy to launch a class action against the producers for compensation for the 8 years of our lives we can never get back. Knowing that Vince Gilligan has the ending allows the scripts to be tighter, sharper, and even though I will be utterly bereft for months after it finishes, I would prefer 5 incredible seasons to 14 mediocre ones.
4. Jesse Pinkman is fit. Well, he is now that he seems to have slightly better dress sense than in the first season. Those trousers, man. Seriously. Hats off to you, wardrobe department, because I certainly haven't seen a leg width like that since Kriss Kross. They looked like a child's bedsheet that had been sewn down the middle.
5. Finally, Gus Fring. The most unlikely villain you will ever see. Sure, there are some question marks about how he would actually be able to get away with what he's doing - do none of his employees ever go into his office? How does he have time to go home and make dinner for Jesse when he's working 26 hours a day running a successful international meth operation as well as eleven outposts of Los Pollos' delicious fried chicken outlets? What exactly is in the secret Los Pollos recipe? Is it as good as KFC? But (and anyone who hasn't seen the final episode of S4, you have a treat coming your way) any villain - however meek or mild or businesslike - will struggle to match up to the end of Mr Fring's reign where, for a few split seconds, you turn to the person next to you and breathe in quietly, "Oh my God. Gus Fring is a REAL-LIFE FREAKING ROBOT."
