Breaking Bad: Crazy Handful of Nothin’
By fred | March 4, 2008
(S01E06) Okay, so this episode aired on Sunday but I didn’t get to see it until a few minutes ago, and I have to say I was panicking when I first realized things went wrong for me, and that I didn’t have the episode right there, waiting for me to watch it. I’ll be honest, when the show premiered on AMC, I don’t really think I was especially excited about it. “I know!“, as would say Craig Ferguson.
I wasn’t, and I even seem to remember not watching it right away. No I let the pilot sit on my DVR for almost a week before I finally took the time to watch it, and it’s a mistake I never repeated since, because one episode is all it took for me to get completely hooked on the show ! Oh yeah, it’s that good.
And man, this episode was freaking amazing!! I remember before the show started and after the first episodes still, it wasn’t uncommon to compare the show with Weeds. Easy comparison to do, because both shows dealt with the member of a family resorting to selling drugs in order to make some money, money needed for his or her family. But that’s about all they got in common, and by now I don’t think anyone would ever think of comparing the two series, because they’re really nothing alike, Breaking Bad is everything Weeds is not.
It is not a light comedy with somewhat unrealistic plots and silly characters, it is not dealing with drugs in the same way they’d deal with anything else, like it wasn’t illegal or didn’t include some very nasty people, it is not having his character going into the drug business and being sucked in, yet never changing or having to face any real consequences and changes in their life. Sure, Weeds had a disappointing season, but that’s got nothing to do with it : Breaking Bad is freaking awesome !
When this episode started, Walt was back into Pickman’s van and he decided to set up some rules they’d have to work by from now on : the cooking was Walt’s job, he would be the only one to deal with it. The selling was Pinkman’s world, and he’ll be the only one dealing with it. Walt was not to be involved in it, and not to be brought up to the clients. Walt was the silent partner of the operation, an operation that was to have no more bloodshed, no violence.
And as he was laying down those rules, we got to see a glimpse of the future. In what we would now call some sort of flash-forward, we saw a completely bald Walt walking down the streets, a bloody bag in his hands, and chaos everywhere around. Much like the first episodes used to do, this episode opened with what was going to happen, before going back in time and getting us there.
And once again, I enjoyed the ride. We got to see how Walt had to go to chemo, and suffer the effects from it. It was getting harder and harder for him to do his job and teach his classes, it even got in the way of his “cooking”, and soon he had to let Pinkman took over and finish the job. No, it didn’t take long before cracks started to show up in the original plan.
And while Walt had to deal with his family and their feelings within some of those pretty awkward meetings that may have reminded you of those saw in Fight Club (best.movie.ever.), when everyone talks about his cancer, how they feels and how to deal with it, Walt was going through the same changes as the unnamed character jack in the movie : he was turning into someone else, he was slowing learning how to free himself from the world and its constraints, how to let himself go and feel alive.
Posted in Reviews
Shows: Breaking Bad
