Breaking Bad. There, I said it. It seems like it's the only thing people have been talking about these last few weeks. With good reason. This was an exceptional show, from the likes we hadn't seen since The Sopranos. A show that took on such cinematic value that it made us aware of just how low the quality of movies really is these days compared to cable TV. Walter White's fate became such a nationwide phenomenon that if you said words such as "Heisenberg" or "Ricin" chances are people would know what you were talking about.
The last three episodes of the series really just blew me away, starting with "Ozymiandas" which was an amazing achievement that proved that cable TV could be of the stuff deserving of Oscars, ditto the last two episodes which laid the ground for an epic finale. One that might have not been as risk-taking as say The Sopranos whatthefuckjusthappened ender or as brilliantly realized as Six Feet Under's ambitious time lapse but it kept its promise intact and used Walter White's ingenuity to tie up all the loose ends and serve up some cold blooded revenge.
What to make of this series overall? It started off with a bang and ended with a bang. Bryan cranston as Walter White is a masterful creation comparable to that of the late James Gandolfini's Tony Soprano. An anti-heroic monster that somehow had people rooting for him. I won't hide, I was one of those people rooting for White to come out on top but morally it was wrong. Here was a man that built an empire on making and dealing a drug that ruined lives. Cranston never let-up the intensity that came with his role. Walter White started off as a loser chemistry teacher, bullied by his wife, mocked by his son and ended up as a drug kingpin, feared by his wife, disowned by his son. This was a scarface-like story that had consequences that were so deep and so psychologically deep that scholarly thesis' could be written about it.
Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman was a masterful portrayal of a boy that grew up a man in such short amount of time. Paul was a no-name actor before this show -and judging by his turn in last year's small indie Smashed- this isn't the last we'll hear from him, the film world is knocking at his door. Ditto Anna Gunn who's Skyler was a -curiously- hated character in the series, even though she condemned what her crime-loving husband was doing and was the voice of reason until she got corrupted herself. Which says a lot about how far this series has come. Walter White started off as a schlub that you felt bad about but turned into this gargantuan monster that was meant to not be rooted for. The audience still did, which to me is a brilliant example of our violent-loving society. The show's creator Vince Gilligan made it clear White is not a guy to root for and the series behind him has fully condemned his behaviour yet we still cheered on.
In "Granite State", the penultimate episode, Walt is relegated to living a low-key subordinate life in a remote, snowy cabin deep in the woods of New Hampshire and of course -given that this is New Hampshire- he goes insane with boredom and hitches a ride to a local bar where he calls his son at school and, instead of having his son understand his excuses, gets an earful from Walt Jr. by being told that he's better off dead. This of course discourages Walt, a man whom from the start said he did it for his family and their own welfare. This might have also been a wakeup call to audiences who stood by Walt, maybe it was indeed time to pack it and call it a day. A phone call to the police ensues ,a defeated Walt about to give himself up, when "Gray Matters", his former partners and nemesis', appear on Television. This sparks a fire inside Walt and makes him realize that all this had to with himself more than his family. He wanted to prove to himself that he could feel "alive" as he put it. He did but with consequences.
That last episode, entitled "Felina", had Walt taking revenge on everyone in sight. The Nazis, Lydia and Gray Matters. It was a rewarding feast for the eyes that tidied up every possible tread. Skyler got one last goodbye, in a breathtaking scene that could have belonged straight out of film noir with its cigarette smoke and low lighting. In fact the whole episode was like a film noir, with not much dialogue but stark, haunting images of people that have turned into mere ghosts. Jesse, prisoner at a meth lab, dreaming of a past when making a perfect wooden box at woodworking class was the only time in his life where he had achieved a state of Nirvana. Skyler, a broken woman who's husband betrayed her trust and consequentially got her into deep trouble with her family and the law. Marie, a widow tormented by the unfound body of her dead husband.
Gilligan directs the whole episode like its his last one, it sort of is, and gives us a few nifty shots that are worth talking about for years to come. And who else but Jesse could have killed Todd, the character that ended up being most evil out of all the ones that came before him in the series. Alas, Breaking Bad and its final three episodes, 150 minutes of pure TV bliss, made high art out of a story that got more and more complicated as it went along. The 96% pure blue meth that Jesse and Walt infamously cooked up was almost a curse to anyone that dealt with it. Gilligan got criticized by some circles for giving his series "too tidy" of an ending. I understand that argument but at the same thing we've come so far and had so many surprises, shocks, twists and turns that the biggest shock of them all was that there was no shock at the end at all. The simpleness of "Felina" is what made it so brilliant and sometimes that all you need to satisfy.
Who's "they," exactly? The Illuminati? The Deep State? Hard to say. The film premiered at Italy's Matera Film Festival on November 10. No reviews have trickled in yet.