when stars go blue.

duemilaquarantasei:

Day 08 - A show everyone should watch: Breaking Bad (AMC, 2008)

If I had just lived right up to that moment and not one second more… that would’ve been perfect.

To be honest, I don’t know if “everyone” should watch Breaking Bad. What I do know is that Breaking Bad is possibly the best piece of television of the last few years. I didn’t start watching it when it premiered because I am an idiot and I thought “why would I give a fuck for a high-school chemistry teacher turned into a meth cook?”. I HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE WRONG. The first season was good, very good, but not unbelievable. The second one was much better, with such heartbreaking moments and nail-biting bits. And then the third season began. And it was mind-fucking-blowing. Where heartbreaking becomes heart-stopping, and the good guys are no longer so good, but you keep on rooting for them because you can’t do otherwise. There are at least five hundred shows with anti-heroes and such, but Breaking Bad is not that simple. All the characters have so many undertones, without necessarily being open to interpretation (what I mean is that when the previously good guys start doing bad things, that doesn’t necessarily need an explanation - sometime being bad is enough of an explanation and it stands on itself).
What you have is these two men: on one hand there is a middle-aged chemistry teacher, married with a son, who is diagnosed with stage III lung cancer; on the other hand you have one of his former students, who became an addict and who doesn’t seem to give a damn about anything. They are both, even if in different ways, hopeless men, who gave up on life and who end up working together, starting from a point of distrust and diffidence in each other, to extend to caring and, kind of, even loving each other in a father/son way that never goes unnoticed. Between season two and season three, there are countless scenes that remark what I’m saying. The growth of the relationship between Walter and Jesse is one fine example of how good the writers are, and how immense Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul are.
Aaron Paul notably stands out during the third season, but even before that you can’t help but notice that he truly is amazing (I think of episodes like Peekaboo and my heart does funny things).
The main problem is that pretty much everybody seems to pale next to Bryan Cranston, and yet, Aaron Paul accomplished something great in the past year.
You know, what kind of consecrated Breaking Bad in my heart was the bottle episode in season three. “The Fly” is one of the best episodes I’ve ever watched, and the fact that it is a bottle one is astounding (Vince Gillian implied that he would have made an episode like that one even without considering the financial reasons, because he feels that a good showrunner should explore his characters and, I think, there is no better way of doing that than by keeping the main leads closed in a single room talking about life).
I haven’t mentioned Dean Norris, Anna Gunn, Betsy Brandt or RJ Mitte, but they all are key to the plot. Also, Giancarlo Esposito, Bob Odenkirk, Jonathan Banks, Mark Margolis and the Moncada brothers. THEY ARE ALL AWESOME.
Breaking Bad is the one show everyone should watch because, otherwise, it would be like voluntarily missing something great and who does that?
(Congrats if you read all of this and you still like me.)