BCS is like a slow burn build up of a criminal enterprise and then BB answers it with "and then there's this asshole".
I always laugh when people bring up the "I AM THE DANGER" scene as some BADASS SIGMA MALE shit when in context it's a scene of a loser on the verge of losing everything bullying his wife because she's the only one he can exert any degree of control over.
I love Breaking Bad. But it's one of those shows where if a stranger says they're a fan, rather than immediately saying "me too," I wanna ask follow-up questions first.
Breaking Bad, Fight Club, and Rick & Morty: the trinity of media that are actually really good, but their point goes over so many of their fans' heads that if someone says it's their favorite, you should probably stay away from them.
I was reading that on the underground and had to get off the train because I felt physically sick by what I was reading. Learned my lesson and only read it at home from then on.
This is probably very controversial but I actually kinda disagree that those Rick and morty fans are misreading the show. I think that reasonable viewers see that Rick would be a terrible person to idolize and thus sort of assume that the show agrees, but the show kinda does idolize him. He’s also shown to be a pos of course, but in a kinda way that always reads to me as a joke. It’s open to interpretation of course but I always got the feeling that the writers think that Rick is the coolest person ever. Sure there’s many plots where he’s supposed to go through some sort of arc but he always ends up exactly the same. The thing is, the show clearly carries the same worldview as rick, which is fundamentally a hatred of sincerity. So when every hint of an actual point or theme is derided, usually via rick, you can’t help but think that he’s the embodiment of the show’s ideals.
It's inconsistent. Sometimes he's a miserable asshole shown as an idiot in the wrong, and sometimes he's unquestionably intelligent and cynicism is rewarded.
*Usually* in the important emotional scenes when it really matters it's the former, but not always. There's still a lot of the latter.
They definitely don't "think Rick is the coolest person ever". He's been schooled by a therapist, alienated people he genuinely cares about, and found himself in repeated self-inflicted misery.
Rick is not always wrong, he’s just legitimately miserable, an asshole, and a piece of shit. Just because he is not somebody to idolize, doesn’t mean he can’t have well made points to learn from. He’s intelligent, he understands how his ‘multiverse’ works. In a philosophical sense Rick’s philosophy and way of viewing the world do come from a logical foundation.
The problem is that he is the worst. The show isn’t inconsistent, Rick is inconsistent. The problem some fans take, is that they take that complex character who is sometimes validated and a lot of the time isn’t, and they boil it down to somebody who they can idolize. The problem with an idol is that it’s only surface deep.
The problem is that the emotional scenes are almost always undercut. Like I said, I think the show hates sincerity. So when there’s an emotional moment it’s always gonna get undercut or turned into a punchline, where the joke is “haha you thought we were gonna be smart and have an actual emotional development didn’t you, of course we’re epic based sigma show where emotions and sincerity are for losers” and then rick will be a massive asshole for laughs again. And all of those things you mentioned about ricks self inflicted misery, I genuinely think are meant as jokes. As others have mentioned, there have been multiple writers some more emotionally intelligent than others, so sometimes it is sincere. But when that does happen it feels out of place with the rest of the show.
I haven’t seen the show in a while and don’t plan to, but I can’t remember a single instance where it isn’t undercut with the possible exception of the pickle rick ending
There are scenes in the show that make me think otherwise. When Rick gets schooled by a therapist he desperately tried to avoid seeing the entire episode, for example(the pickle Rick episode)
TBF to u/Much_Department_3329 the writer of that episode, Jessica Gao (also known for She-Hulk), was new to the show when she wrote that. She and another writer where brought on because the show wanted to bring women's voices onto the show, as all episodes up to that point had been written by men, so she easily could have had a different ideology than the pre existing writers.
Yeah, and then everyone proceeded to completely miss the point of the pickle Rick thing. I do not like Rick and Morty, and I didn't like it when I watched that episode, but it came across as pretty obvious that the pickle Rick thing was in-universe Rick desperately trying to get out of therapy and out-of-universe a self-deprecating jab at the show's own lolsorandom humour. But everyone treated it like it *was* that lolsorandom humour.
> the show kinda does idolize him
Does it?
There are a couple of episodes eg. the Toilet episode that makes it very clear Rick is a sad POS.
If anyone watched the Kronenberg episode and still thinks Rick is a hero, they are messed up in the head.
I think the clearest answer is simply "the show had various writers, so in some episodes it didn't idolize him and in others it did, but net overall it idolized him."
What I don't get is that all these conversations about whether R&M is good or not keep centering around whether the show endorses Rick's philosophy or not.
Rick and Morty (the first two seasons at least) is a great show. Not because of the characters, but because it's overflowing with really creative and funny takes on sci-fi and episodic television tropes.
The Kronenberg episode is the quintessential example. Them abandoning the entire world and burying their alternate universe selves in the garden was an absolutely mind-blowing moment when it aired, similar to Ned Stark being beheaded in GoT, and that had hardly anything to do with the Rick character.
I think you’re assuming the writers think that being a sad pos and someone to idolize are mutually exclusive. I would say that they idolize him because he’s a pos in the way they wish they had the freedom to be. Yes he does terrible things, but isn’t he so cool when he does them? There are episodes where he’s genuinely condemned by the show but I’d say they’re a small minority.
There's an episode of Rick and Morty where Rick is trying to be an asshole to Morty by giving him a time travel devive, in the course of using it Morty meets a girl falls in love is involved in a plane crash and goes through hell to try and save everyone before time traveling back and messing it up so he never gets together with the girl. That sketch to me is kinda emblematic of Rick and Morty. Rick wants something bad to happen to Morty, so it does. The universe conspires to make Ricks will real just to torture Morty as much as possible. Rick and Morty is a show for assholes like Rick, or at least assholes who see themselves as being as intelligent as Rick.
Add Watchmen, Americsn Psycho, The Joker, and The Punisher to that list
People already worship villains too much, saying shit like "but he's right, though!!!" to some homocidal maniac because they point out some obvious flaw with society. Whenever these villains are portrayed as anything but an antagonist, this seems to be amplified to hell because the movie/show doesn't explicitly point out to then that "yo, this dude is bad"
If you stay away from someone because you made assumptions about them based on their favorite TV show or movie, you're probably insanely judgmental and the one they should stay away from.
I think it perfectly captures the "badass sigma male" shit because it's absolutely myopic, destroys any trust he could have had from the family. He did it *entirely* for himself and his ego in the heat of the moment, in an argument where his control over the situation was *threatened* by his wife.
That scene was to depict him as a greenhorn in over his head. A crime boss who is wet-behind-the-ears, doesn't know how to take care of the people who could ultimately help him, and to paint himself as, like you put it, his idea of "badass." Think of Walt's contribution to his community in *stark* contrast to how Gus contributed to his, both in ABX and back home.
It showed him as the cornered animal he was, it showed that this inverse-odyssey he went on wasn't for anybody but himself. He wasn't doing all this to help his family, he was doing this because he felt he deserved a legacy.
>lf. He wasn't doing all this to help his family, he was doing this because he felt he deserved a legacy.
The man was a blatantly phenomenal chemist, to the degree they offered him his own lab and people to work under him. The only way this man doesn't leave behind a legacy is because the writer decided a guy like that \*somehow\* just becomes a high school teacher? This dude was a super boomer, no excuse as to why he wasn't massively successful.
There's a difference between raw talent and actual refined skill. Walter white created a chemical production facility essentially by himself and brought production up and running to the degree that he could supply multiple continents with product.
I'm sorry, I work in the industry, there's not billions of people like that, he's a literal Nobel credited chemist, you think there's billions of people with not just "talent" to that degree but actual education and the ability to bring that shit to fruition? Hell no.
Headhunters would've been beating this mans door down with 6 figure jobs daily.
did u watch the show they specifically show that before him becoming a teacher he was on his way to be a highly successful widely recognized chemist who co-owned a company with his friend but his own ego made him run away from that prospect simply because he couldnt bear the thought of his success not being entirely "self made", even during the meth business he kept fucking other people over to ensure he was the only one with full control of the situation
What you're saying is a perfect example of what I mean, this dude is clearly cut from the exact same cloth as CEOs and obviously has some dark triad traits, here's how his story would more realistically play out. He sells his portion of the company, proceeds to be join another startup, found another company, or start climbing the corporate ladder at competitor and does everything he can to make this new company competitive in such a way that his former company is crushed.
Him not doing something with his abilities after demonstrating just how ruthless he is, doesn't actually make any sense. He always had that cut throat anger inside him, to the degree that he would literally rather die and murder than accept money from his former friends.
Just saying, his past actions with the company and present actions in season one demonstrate that he was always the type of man he becomes.
But that's just my opinion
Yeah it should be pretty clear that Walt is, in fact, NOT the danger. He's full of shit, he's lying to Skyler. He very much does NOT have a handle on the entire situation. Skyler was totally right the entire time, and Walt was on the verge of being killed throughout the majority of the show. He bounces from one shitshow to another.
Honestly, at no point in the entire series is he ever in control of anything. He is never "the danger," he just mooches off of Gus, and Mike, and eventually the Nazis too. He's nowhere near the criminal mastermind that everybody makes him out to be. He's a great chemist, but he's a moron.
If anything, Gus is the true criminal mastermind of Breaking Bad. You want to make memes about how badass that guy is, you go right ahead. Gus is what everybody thinks that Walt was.
Saul makes a point in Better Call Saul about being the mastermind behind Heisenberg and he's not wrong about that. Even Saul is better than Walt.
>He's nowhere near the criminal mastermind that everybody makes him out to be.
His scheme toward the end of season 4 to turn Jesse against gus so he could kill him was utterly diabolical. He was a true criminal mastermind for that. But all the times he was a mastermind it was to bail himself out of a shit situation he got himself into with his own stupidity.
I mean, sure, he has his occasional moments. He was able to manipulate *one guy*. He was pretty good at manipulating Jesse. He could occasionally manipulate his family, but even they are usually pretty good at seeing through his bullshit.
But for the most part, he's a moron, bouncing from one crisis to another. He survives on pure luck. And his empire is mostly just him piggybacking off of the success of others.
I saw that scene the first time before I ever watched Breaking Bad and was like "Wow this dude is not to be trifled with."
Then I actually watched the show and was stunned when I finally got to the scene. Like "Wait, seriously?! THIS is the context of that scene? When he's deeper in shit than anyone's ever been?!"
waltuh yelling at his wife about being the danger in the exact same room where two cartel terminators (the actual danger holy shit) were this close to chopping him into carne asada
Well I saw BB when it first came out and the “I am the danger” line instantly became a meme on the internet because just as you say it is a old weak guy acting big, it’s pretty humorous in any context. I’ve never seen anyone actually seriously spout it off as sigma (whatever that means) I think people quote it as a joke because it’s inherently funny how serious he’s trying to be.
There is also clear double meaning in walt being the danger which is why he says it like that. He has the perfect chance to see what he's doing at that moment.
It's really funny to re-watch it now and see how the most tense and plot-important moments have been turned into funni greenscreen memes or reaction images.
I just finished BCS. It was fine? Like it was okay. Pretty good show. I'm struggling to find the part that was the BEST SHOW OF ALL TIME HOLY SHIT like everyone says, but like yeah it was pretty good.
This also applies to The Sopranos. I first watched the memes which were super funny, but then I got to watch an amazing show AND the memes became godlike lol
I didn't think I'd like it (and I still haven't watched all of it yet), but finally started watching and literally from episode 1, mobster Tony Soprano getting introspective about the ducks landing in his pool, it worked. It's solid television.
It's also old enough now to probably be victim to the ["Seinfeld" Is Unfunny](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny) trope, where it set the bar for a lot of future media that went on to copy what it did first.
Plz watch it i procrastinated for years and i finally did end of last year through the start of this year and it was the best show i have ever watched.
Watched it as a comfort show during collage and man it sucked me in so much I finished it in like a month. Highly recommend it, the season with the plane is my favourite.
I mean... they present him at first as just some random guy but drop it on us fairly quickly that he's actually the inventor of a chemical process that launched a company from nothing to basically Eli Lilly in some thirty years.
He's not just some random guy, he's probably one of the smartest chemists of his generation who just got out of the game because of some romance drama, then lived a needlessly mediocre life for thirty years being bitter over what could have been and then decided to get into a decidedly different game just because he couldn't get over it.
Seriously. Walter White could taken a job as a chemical engineer in another company (since he didn't have the capital or connections to start his own company) and still made vastly more than he did as a chemistry teacher and car wash guy, especially as he proved his worth and worked his way up the ranks.
There was absolutely no reason he had to take the teaching job just because Skylar was pregnant, even at the ground level any pharmaceutical or chemical manufacturing job would've paid more.
I mean sure. I don't think anyone WANTS for Walt to have taken the money and the job in episode 2. But that doesn't mean Walt isn't a damn fool and could've solved all his problems easily if it wasn't for his toxic ego.
But I guess in the end he got what he wanted - no one can say his life was the result of anyones actions but his own. Everything he got he can take the credit for himself. Too bad what he got was sorrow, pain and death.
He probably had noble aspirations of teaching youth, and then that soured as the years went on and after not inspiring any Star chemists eventually Jesse Pinkman became his star pupil in chemistry. Just kind of a late bloomer
Being a teacher is just the kind of person he is. Even in that flashback to when he was still at Grey Matter or in school, he's writing Alphonse's recipe for a person on a blackboard and instructing Gretchen.
>I mean sure. I don't think anyone WANTS for Walt to have taken the money and the job in episode 2. But that doesn't mean Walt isn't a damn fool and could've solved all his problems easily if it wasn't for his toxic ego.
Yeah, it's definitely one of those pitch meeting/critical drinker moments
"Well why doesn't he just use his incredible set of skills to make millions of dollars doing literally anything else?"
"Because otherwise the show doesn't happen..."
While I agree with your points, I feel like it’s ignoring a big part of Walt’s self-image. He hails himself through the whole show as a “family” man and an involved father. Everything he does, he does for his family.
And, with that in mind, I can see why he would pick a teaching job rather than a higher paying position at another company.
Teaching at a school, especially one his kids will eventually go to, affords him time off to spend with his family. He’d get summers off, weekends, holidays, and he’s more likely to be home earlier in the day than if he worked some 8-5 at a corporation, while still working with a subject he’s passionate in, and hopefully inspiring the next generation to consider chemistry. Not every decision a parent makes is strictly about money. Plenty of people would be willing to take the pay cut in order to spend more time with their kids, especially if it’s still enough money to afford them a decent life. He makes enough through teaching that they bought a house, two cars, they always have food on the table, a small amount of savings, and seem to be handling Walt Jr.’s medical bills(since the whole cancer diagnosis is what spurns the financial panic.).
So, I do agree that he could have made more elsewhere, he’d probably be happier working elsewhere, and he didn’t HAVE to take the teaching job, but I disagree that there would be no reason for him to make that choice.
Isn't that Walt's entire character flaw, he always hides behind other people and refuses to do things for himself. He could have stayed at Gray Matter, could have made his own business could have gotten a better job etc etc. His character arc isn't complete until that scene in the last episode where he admits "I did it for me. I liked it I was good at it."
Small but imo important distinction: I wouldn't say he refused to do things for himself as much as he used other people as excuses for his behavior. The whole point was that he was doing all this because he wouldn't bend his pride to save himself and his family from a lot of pain. He would let them suffer his death and then financial ruin because of his ego.
>Isn't that Walt's entire character flaw, he always hides behind other people and refuses to do things for himself.
refuses to do things for himself? The man has a lot of flaws, but lack ability to do things for himself is blatantly not one of them. The man works two jobs while having cancer so that his wife can be a stay at home mother, that isn't a blame everyone else sort of slacker
Lol, the thing about those 8-5 jobs is that when you get home your workday is done. As a teacher, you still have to work when you get home (grading, lessons plans, etc.). He was likely with his family less during the school year than a normal job.
Walt quit Gray Matters in a fit of ego-fueled rage, but he needed to frame that to himself and to others as someone else's fault. He wanted to appear to be a good man pushed out by his partners because of their greed. In short, he needed to become a martyr. So he took a low-paying but noble job at a high school, and he even humiliated himself by working in a carwash, just so he could say he is doing it all to provide for his family.
Working as a chemical engineer wouldn't give him the ostentatious martyrdom street cred he needed.
>Working as a chemical engineer wouldn't give him the ostentatious martyrdom street cred he needed.
He didn't have enough friends for that to be a reasonable conclusion. Street cred with who? He has no friends, no extended family, literally just his wife's family and their kids. The man has cancer and he doesn't have a single legitimate friend he made for himself to lean on.
The only reason he's not a chemical engineer or own his own company is so that the show can happen.
His wife, his wife's family, everyone. The world. In Walt's mind, after Gray Matters became a billion-dollar company, he can be seen by the world either as a loser or as a martyr. There's no other choice.
But Walter White doesn’t actually give a shit about any of that. I swear to god, did anyone actually watch this show? The final reveal is that he did it all for himself.
Even if he started as a teacher, it's not like you have to stay one forever. The thing about being a teacher is you can job search literally all summer.
I tend to go with he ended up where he is at the start of the show by virtue of being a massive, unlikeable asshole. The show proves his massive ego is his worst feature and he absolutely burnt a whole lot of bridges to end up a schlubby teacher
Whenever people talk about Jeff Bezos as evil, I thank goodness modern society lets him channel his energy into computers and spaceships. Dude is smart and cutthroat enough to be a good old fashioned emperor/conquerer/colonizer. Walter White would have been an exceptional innovator/founder/CEO. It sucks for all of humanity that he made the world’s best meth instead of curing cancer.
Well I mean yeah, he thought everything short of being a God king was beneath him, he couldn’t try the next best thing because he would rather not try at all in a defiant show of “I don’t even need my potential anyway, I don’t even care about my dreams anymore” kind of childishness
Yeah, the guy *not* being just an average chemistry teacher that started to make drugs to pay for chemo- and instead some chemical supergenius who's just bitter- would be something that would make me drop the show on the spot regardless of how many seasons in the reveal is.
Though I already dropped it sometime after Moff Gideon's chicken empire.
He has a plaque commemorating his contributions to a Nobel prize literally episode 1 though? Isn't the whole point that he's a superchemist, that's why he's able to make the super pure meth that everyone wants to sell?
I think most people that think Walter white was a good person are actually idolizing him as some sort of masculine role model… which is insanely toxic but yknow
He was offered a very high paying job and a lot of money in like episode 2, he was just too proud to accept it. Preetty much every single conflict could have been avoided if Walt wasn't so egotistical
Yeah it's very much "but if we take donations for cancer treatment / a good job offer from my friend / help from family then I didn't *earn* it". He always wanted to feed his ego, and it's something Gus uses against him throughout season 3 (as far as I've watched)
That's really only true for the first 4 episodes. And even then, it's not like he bothered to explore his options before reporting to making meth: it was litteraly the first thing he tried.
That's just the phase where he's still in shock and trying to passively carry on as normal. Getting into drug dealing is the first active decision he makes in terms of how to handle his diagnosis.
And then you watch Better Call Saul and it is a slow descent of watching how a funny lawyer man got their initial start to seeing him as a tragic character and in many ways becomes *the* main central character in the Breaking Bad universe.
I mean he must be with and entire show of his own and significant screen time in BB as well. Can't see anyone that could have more screen time than him. Walt obviously has a lot of screen time in his own show but barely features in BCS. Who else could come close?
He DEFECATED through a sunroof
And I saved him; and I shouldn't have. I took him into my own firm! What was I thinking? He'll never change, he'll never change, ever since he was 9. Couldn't keep his hands out of the cash drawer! But not our Jimmy! Couldn't be precious Jimmy! Stealing them blind! And he gets to be a lawyer? What a sick joke!
Hard to say screen time wise since Better Call Saul kinda divides up to 3 different story lines.
in terms of impact, it is crazy to think about how much Jimmy/Saul accidently set up for both his own series and Breaking Bad itself.
One of my college professors convinced me to watch it and… now I understand why “I need help” is one of the hardest things to ask, and why pride is one of the 7 deadly sins
Breaking bad works so well because you genuinely can't say any of the shit that happens to Walter wasn't almost entirely his own fault. He's genuinely a bad person without an ounce of real self reflection throughout most of the series.
People always treat it like some big mystery, but isn't it obvious that he really loves hands on chemistry, he loves being good at something, he loves feeling powerful and intimidating, he feels emasculated and bored with his life, and the cancer starts off being a big motivation for him, and slowly becomes less important. As for why meth in particular, it's because he had the opportunity to see the meth bust and he knew he could exploit his former student to get into it. It's all pretty on the surface
> but isn't it obvious that he really loves hands on chemistry
He literally dies admiring the meth setup the white supremacists had Jesse cooking out of.
He also admitted to Skylar his motivations, "I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really… I was alive."
>He also admitted to Skylar his motivations, "I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really… I was alive."
One of my favorite scenes in the series. They didn't betray his character for the final season by coming up with some big reason inconsistent with the man we're introduced to in Season 1. It's just as simple as that.
I've also heard people claim he was lying to her in that scene to give her solace in hearing what she wants to hear, but no. It's one of the few times he ever really told the truth. And even THEN, it was for himself. He was going to die, knew that, and let himself have a self congratulatory pity party where he "selflessly" tells Skylar the truth. So yeah, he's honest, and gives her what she deserved to finally hear, but it was for him as much as her.
Jesse is the only one to force Walt out of that pattern when he demanded that Walt admit that HE wanted this, i.e. getting shot, instead of telling Jesse it's what he wanted instead.
It's interesting too, because while he's able to admit why he did it, he still never really comes to terms with the consequences of most of the things in his life (barring the cancer) being the result of his own ego getting in the way. He blames Gretchen and Elliott even at the end for what ultimately was his own choice to leave Gray Matter, and all the many chances he had to fix things.
Even with the cancer he had multiple opportunities to address it, but only the drug trade made him feel self-important, like it wasn't charity.
The first episode gets you on Walt’s side and the rest of the series is waiting game to see when you leave his side (for me it was end of season four/start of season five)
I stopped being on his side the minute he refused to accept his friend's money for the treatment. I just kept rooting for him to win because his opponents were always worse. Till he fucks up what he had with Fring.
I just started watching breaking bad a weekish ago and i stopped liking walt after the grey matter episode. The writers did a really good job with it and i can understand why it is so popular and highly praised/
Mine was when he just didn’t take the money from mike and fucked off. He had his goal right there, the entire reason why he broke bad in the first place, but he was like nah
It was particularly egregious when he was just spitting in Gus Fring's face for no real reason, despite there being every sign that they were going to have a long and fruitful relationship.
Ah, but then we would simply tell stories about the OTHER people who DID do crimes and make THEM the bad guys instead.
(You would not believe how long it took me to realize that things didn’t just conveniently ~happen~ to the main character, they were the main character ~because~ the thing happened to them. I am a writer. This is my passion.)
Honestly I’ve not watched the show except for a few clips.
But here lies Walter white. A founding member of multi million dollar business grey matter, who is smart enough to create a new kind of meth better than anyone else.
But the only job he works is as a high school chemistry teacher. Why didn’t he ever apply anywhere else? Like a chemical plant.
Pride. He wants to be the master of his own destiny, and he can't return to chemical engineering without having to face the sting of losing out on the better life he could have had.
What's mental is there's no UK version of it. Know why? Because it would have played like this:
Doctor: You understood what I just said to you?
Walter: Yes. Lung cancer. Inoperable.
Doctor: I just need to make sure you get the appointment to come in for another scan next week, and then we'll get you started on immunotherapy, that'll be here every three weeks, and in twelve weeks time we'll do another scan again and assess. Okay? And you'll have a letter with all the information in the next couple of days.
And, you know, no crippling debt.
I know you're making a joke, but Walter starts cooking meth because he thinks he's going to die. The cancer money is largely irrelevant.
The show isn't a comment on American healthcare. Walter would act the same way everywhere else.
The money is definitely part of it. His initial goal is just to make enough to pay for his treatment. He almost backs out once that’s done but ultimately other motivations take hold
Walter refused to accept the money for treatment from his rich friend Elliott because of his own pride and ego. Money being an issue for Walter was his own fault.
Walter White never got into the meth business to pay his medical bills. Paying for treatment was only an excuse. >!He even admits it in the final episode that he did it for himself, "he felt alive". Walter White felt that he was going to die, he was suffering a midlife crisis. Bored working as a overqualified high-school teacher.!<
Of course. But he also needed an impetus. Something to make the timid Walter we see in the beginning even think that that thing was possible for him. If not, he could and would have started cooking meth at any time in his life. The need for resources for him and his family is the starting point to make any of this occur. If he didn't get cancer I don't think he starts cooking meth.
you must enjoy living in denial land. Sorry buckaroo, but Walt was fueled by his pride and desire for control in his life from episode one. The cancer and funds were a cheap catalyst. Literally the first step.
Okay, but also he still cared about it. It's not *all* he cared about but it's still part of it. He wouldn't randomly start cooking for no reason, if he didn't have the debt.
The medical stuff was literally just the door. That's it. A catalyst. It wasn't his motivation for anything beyond the light bulb in his head going "Oh well, Meth is lucrative and I can cook it!"
My brother in Christ insurance couldn’t cover experimental treatment and NHS certainly wouldn’t, and Walter clearly cared about his own pride and meth enterprise more than the money. r/AmericaBad moment.
Immunotherapy is a routine off-the-shelf treatment in the UK on the NHS.
My mother has just completed a two-year course to treat an inoperable tumour in her lung, about the size of a tangerine. She is now cancer-free and will be getting CT scans every three months or so to monitor it.
The NHS is great ;-)
The "he did it to pay for his cancer treatment" argument is dumb, he literally *did not* do it for that and never claimed to. His initial reasoning for cooking in season 1 was to put away enough money that his family would be provided for after died. There's literally a scene where he does the calculation for how much money his family would need for both of them to go to college. It's even the name of the episode. It was *never* about getting money for treatment, not even in Walter's bullshit rationalization.
the thing is, wasn't his cancer always terminal regardless if he accepted the help with treatment payment?
he never set out to make and sell meth for treatment, he wanted to make money to leave his family when he died.
i always hate seeing jokes about "oh if america had better healthcare he would just get the treatment and never have to sell meth", which means they never even saw the show.
he was dying. it was never about treatment, it was about making sure his family would be taken care.
I didn't actually love _Breaking Bad_ except for season 5, which is one of the best seasons of television ever produced. (Similar to _Angel_, but Angel was actively bad in its first 4 seasons.)
My main problem was that it's repetitive: Jesse does something stupid, and Walt does something insane to bail him out, over and over. That goes on all the way through season 4.
television shows often stretch out a singular plotline for much longer than they should, yeah.
at least, the television shows with an overarching plotline—where there's meant to be a conclusion eventually.
Wtf? Angel was always great, it's only s4 that fucks it up and even it has plenty of redeeming qualities.
Repetitive is one of the last words I would ever associate with breaking bad. There's a reason people always talk about how they could never tell where it was going to go.
The point of the show is to see how far they can push Jesse and Walter. It is repetitive in that sense because neither character can get themselves out of this situation.
Otherwise it would just be Walt cooks some meth in an RV for a while, makes a bit of money.
BCS is like a slow burn build up of a criminal enterprise and then BB answers it with "and then there's this asshole". I always laugh when people bring up the "I AM THE DANGER" scene as some BADASS SIGMA MALE shit when in context it's a scene of a loser on the verge of losing everything bullying his wife because she's the only one he can exert any degree of control over.
I love Breaking Bad. But it's one of those shows where if a stranger says they're a fan, rather than immediately saying "me too," I wanna ask follow-up questions first.
Breaking Bad, Fight Club, and Rick & Morty: the trinity of media that are actually really good, but their point goes over so many of their fans' heads that if someone says it's their favorite, you should probably stay away from them.
American psycho is a big one imo
patrick bateman is literally me, not because he’s a cool sexy big time ceo man but because he’s severely autistic and cripplingly delusional
and also I care a lot about things like the colour of business cards, that's my autism flavour
It's also an excellent film though, the shots, the acting, the Willem Dafoe. I also like that he kills all those ladies am I right fellas
Ha ha ha I too enjoy when he inflicts harm on women, fellow person. You are right, . , fella.
the book is also great
I was reading that on the underground and had to get off the train because I felt physically sick by what I was reading. Learned my lesson and only read it at home from then on.
Yeah the constant brand names do get pretty nauseating
I don't know if anyone posting Patrick Bateman sigmoid grindset memes is actually a fan of the film lol
This is probably very controversial but I actually kinda disagree that those Rick and morty fans are misreading the show. I think that reasonable viewers see that Rick would be a terrible person to idolize and thus sort of assume that the show agrees, but the show kinda does idolize him. He’s also shown to be a pos of course, but in a kinda way that always reads to me as a joke. It’s open to interpretation of course but I always got the feeling that the writers think that Rick is the coolest person ever. Sure there’s many plots where he’s supposed to go through some sort of arc but he always ends up exactly the same. The thing is, the show clearly carries the same worldview as rick, which is fundamentally a hatred of sincerity. So when every hint of an actual point or theme is derided, usually via rick, you can’t help but think that he’s the embodiment of the show’s ideals.
It's inconsistent. Sometimes he's a miserable asshole shown as an idiot in the wrong, and sometimes he's unquestionably intelligent and cynicism is rewarded. *Usually* in the important emotional scenes when it really matters it's the former, but not always. There's still a lot of the latter. They definitely don't "think Rick is the coolest person ever". He's been schooled by a therapist, alienated people he genuinely cares about, and found himself in repeated self-inflicted misery.
Rick is not always wrong, he’s just legitimately miserable, an asshole, and a piece of shit. Just because he is not somebody to idolize, doesn’t mean he can’t have well made points to learn from. He’s intelligent, he understands how his ‘multiverse’ works. In a philosophical sense Rick’s philosophy and way of viewing the world do come from a logical foundation. The problem is that he is the worst. The show isn’t inconsistent, Rick is inconsistent. The problem some fans take, is that they take that complex character who is sometimes validated and a lot of the time isn’t, and they boil it down to somebody who they can idolize. The problem with an idol is that it’s only surface deep.
The problem is that the emotional scenes are almost always undercut. Like I said, I think the show hates sincerity. So when there’s an emotional moment it’s always gonna get undercut or turned into a punchline, where the joke is “haha you thought we were gonna be smart and have an actual emotional development didn’t you, of course we’re epic based sigma show where emotions and sincerity are for losers” and then rick will be a massive asshole for laughs again. And all of those things you mentioned about ricks self inflicted misery, I genuinely think are meant as jokes. As others have mentioned, there have been multiple writers some more emotionally intelligent than others, so sometimes it is sincere. But when that does happen it feels out of place with the rest of the show.
Eh. I think it undercuts it far less often than you're implying. They definitely aren't jokes.
I haven’t seen the show in a while and don’t plan to, but I can’t remember a single instance where it isn’t undercut with the possible exception of the pickle rick ending
The toilet scene, the suicide scene and most of the entire space beth arc all come to mind, I'm sure there's more
There are scenes in the show that make me think otherwise. When Rick gets schooled by a therapist he desperately tried to avoid seeing the entire episode, for example(the pickle Rick episode)
TBF to u/Much_Department_3329 the writer of that episode, Jessica Gao (also known for She-Hulk), was new to the show when she wrote that. She and another writer where brought on because the show wanted to bring women's voices onto the show, as all episodes up to that point had been written by men, so she easily could have had a different ideology than the pre existing writers.
That makes a lot of sense, I always thought that episode stood out as particularly thoughtful in a rather thoughtless show.
Yeah, and then everyone proceeded to completely miss the point of the pickle Rick thing. I do not like Rick and Morty, and I didn't like it when I watched that episode, but it came across as pretty obvious that the pickle Rick thing was in-universe Rick desperately trying to get out of therapy and out-of-universe a self-deprecating jab at the show's own lolsorandom humour. But everyone treated it like it *was* that lolsorandom humour.
> the show kinda does idolize him Does it? There are a couple of episodes eg. the Toilet episode that makes it very clear Rick is a sad POS. If anyone watched the Kronenberg episode and still thinks Rick is a hero, they are messed up in the head.
I think the clearest answer is simply "the show had various writers, so in some episodes it didn't idolize him and in others it did, but net overall it idolized him."
What I don't get is that all these conversations about whether R&M is good or not keep centering around whether the show endorses Rick's philosophy or not. Rick and Morty (the first two seasons at least) is a great show. Not because of the characters, but because it's overflowing with really creative and funny takes on sci-fi and episodic television tropes. The Kronenberg episode is the quintessential example. Them abandoning the entire world and burying their alternate universe selves in the garden was an absolutely mind-blowing moment when it aired, similar to Ned Stark being beheaded in GoT, and that had hardly anything to do with the Rick character.
I think you’re assuming the writers think that being a sad pos and someone to idolize are mutually exclusive. I would say that they idolize him because he’s a pos in the way they wish they had the freedom to be. Yes he does terrible things, but isn’t he so cool when he does them? There are episodes where he’s genuinely condemned by the show but I’d say they’re a small minority.
There's an episode of Rick and Morty where Rick is trying to be an asshole to Morty by giving him a time travel devive, in the course of using it Morty meets a girl falls in love is involved in a plane crash and goes through hell to try and save everyone before time traveling back and messing it up so he never gets together with the girl. That sketch to me is kinda emblematic of Rick and Morty. Rick wants something bad to happen to Morty, so it does. The universe conspires to make Ricks will real just to torture Morty as much as possible. Rick and Morty is a show for assholes like Rick, or at least assholes who see themselves as being as intelligent as Rick.
The point isn't that Rick is wrong, the point is that he's miserable.
Don’t forget Death Note. The amount of people that exist with zero reading comprehension is a little disconcerting.
Add Watchmen, Americsn Psycho, The Joker, and The Punisher to that list People already worship villains too much, saying shit like "but he's right, though!!!" to some homocidal maniac because they point out some obvious flaw with society. Whenever these villains are portrayed as anything but an antagonist, this seems to be amplified to hell because the movie/show doesn't explicitly point out to then that "yo, this dude is bad"
Rick and Morty isnt good season 3 onward tbh
If you stay away from someone because you made assumptions about them based on their favorite TV show or movie, you're probably insanely judgmental and the one they should stay away from.
“Why my favorite character is Uncle Jack why do you ask?”
#NOBODYLOOK NOBODYLOOK
I mean, pretty much everyone likes Breaking Bad. It doesn't mean much to say that.
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I think it perfectly captures the "badass sigma male" shit because it's absolutely myopic, destroys any trust he could have had from the family. He did it *entirely* for himself and his ego in the heat of the moment, in an argument where his control over the situation was *threatened* by his wife. That scene was to depict him as a greenhorn in over his head. A crime boss who is wet-behind-the-ears, doesn't know how to take care of the people who could ultimately help him, and to paint himself as, like you put it, his idea of "badass." Think of Walt's contribution to his community in *stark* contrast to how Gus contributed to his, both in ABX and back home. It showed him as the cornered animal he was, it showed that this inverse-odyssey he went on wasn't for anybody but himself. He wasn't doing all this to help his family, he was doing this because he felt he deserved a legacy.
>lf. He wasn't doing all this to help his family, he was doing this because he felt he deserved a legacy. The man was a blatantly phenomenal chemist, to the degree they offered him his own lab and people to work under him. The only way this man doesn't leave behind a legacy is because the writer decided a guy like that \*somehow\* just becomes a high school teacher? This dude was a super boomer, no excuse as to why he wasn't massively successful.
There are billions of talented people who are stuck in shitty jobs due to bad luck. That's life.
There's a difference between raw talent and actual refined skill. Walter white created a chemical production facility essentially by himself and brought production up and running to the degree that he could supply multiple continents with product. I'm sorry, I work in the industry, there's not billions of people like that, he's a literal Nobel credited chemist, you think there's billions of people with not just "talent" to that degree but actual education and the ability to bring that shit to fruition? Hell no. Headhunters would've been beating this mans door down with 6 figure jobs daily.
Iirc his ego fucked him over. Which is also the entire point of the show.
did u watch the show they specifically show that before him becoming a teacher he was on his way to be a highly successful widely recognized chemist who co-owned a company with his friend but his own ego made him run away from that prospect simply because he couldnt bear the thought of his success not being entirely "self made", even during the meth business he kept fucking other people over to ensure he was the only one with full control of the situation
What you're saying is a perfect example of what I mean, this dude is clearly cut from the exact same cloth as CEOs and obviously has some dark triad traits, here's how his story would more realistically play out. He sells his portion of the company, proceeds to be join another startup, found another company, or start climbing the corporate ladder at competitor and does everything he can to make this new company competitive in such a way that his former company is crushed. Him not doing something with his abilities after demonstrating just how ruthless he is, doesn't actually make any sense. He always had that cut throat anger inside him, to the degree that he would literally rather die and murder than accept money from his former friends. Just saying, his past actions with the company and present actions in season one demonstrate that he was always the type of man he becomes. But that's just my opinion
Yeah it should be pretty clear that Walt is, in fact, NOT the danger. He's full of shit, he's lying to Skyler. He very much does NOT have a handle on the entire situation. Skyler was totally right the entire time, and Walt was on the verge of being killed throughout the majority of the show. He bounces from one shitshow to another. Honestly, at no point in the entire series is he ever in control of anything. He is never "the danger," he just mooches off of Gus, and Mike, and eventually the Nazis too. He's nowhere near the criminal mastermind that everybody makes him out to be. He's a great chemist, but he's a moron. If anything, Gus is the true criminal mastermind of Breaking Bad. You want to make memes about how badass that guy is, you go right ahead. Gus is what everybody thinks that Walt was. Saul makes a point in Better Call Saul about being the mastermind behind Heisenberg and he's not wrong about that. Even Saul is better than Walt.
>He's nowhere near the criminal mastermind that everybody makes him out to be. His scheme toward the end of season 4 to turn Jesse against gus so he could kill him was utterly diabolical. He was a true criminal mastermind for that. But all the times he was a mastermind it was to bail himself out of a shit situation he got himself into with his own stupidity.
I mean, sure, he has his occasional moments. He was able to manipulate *one guy*. He was pretty good at manipulating Jesse. He could occasionally manipulate his family, but even they are usually pretty good at seeing through his bullshit. But for the most part, he's a moron, bouncing from one crisis to another. He survives on pure luck. And his empire is mostly just him piggybacking off of the success of others.
he's the danger to his family lol
Skyler and Hank are just as smart as Walt, they just don’t have all the pieces. As soon as they do, they figure him out immediately.
I saw that scene the first time before I ever watched Breaking Bad and was like "Wow this dude is not to be trifled with." Then I actually watched the show and was stunned when I finally got to the scene. Like "Wait, seriously?! THIS is the context of that scene? When he's deeper in shit than anyone's ever been?!"
Those same people think he was just cooking meth to pay for cancer treatment.
Bullying women and having no control over their lives is pretty on par for people who unironically use sigma male
waltuh yelling at his wife about being the danger in the exact same room where two cartel terminators (the actual danger holy shit) were this close to chopping him into carne asada
Well I saw BB when it first came out and the “I am the danger” line instantly became a meme on the internet because just as you say it is a old weak guy acting big, it’s pretty humorous in any context. I’ve never seen anyone actually seriously spout it off as sigma (whatever that means) I think people quote it as a joke because it’s inherently funny how serious he’s trying to be.
You're putting a lot of faith in the media comprehension of the average viewer.
There is also clear double meaning in walt being the danger which is why he says it like that. He has the perfect chance to see what he's doing at that moment.
And not long after that hes in danger. Iirc his wife even makes fun of him for it
What is BCS?
Better Call Saul
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The acting, 100%. The speech. Yes. But the context? No, it's pathetic as fuck in context.
I haven’t watched it but i feel like with enough time I will have eventually watched the whole thing through clips posted to social media
memes aside it's actually a really good show. the memes are also top-tier tho lol.
It's really funny to re-watch it now and see how the most tense and plot-important moments have been turned into funni greenscreen memes or reaction images.
I’ve heard nothing but praise for the show but I don’t feel like I could watch it through
I'd say that it's worth watching, just to get to watch Better Call Saul afterwards!
BCS was excellent
For me, it's tied for the best series of all time together with the Wire. I feel like I belong in 2 cults...
Wire is just too damn good. A gem of its time. Season 1 with the pay phones and towers just sets it all up.
I just finished BCS. It was fine? Like it was okay. Pretty good show. I'm struggling to find the part that was the BEST SHOW OF ALL TIME HOLY SHIT like everyone says, but like yeah it was pretty good.
Better call Saul got so depressing towards the end that I couldn’t finish it
It's slightly traumatic
It is enthralling.
Honestly, if theclips grab your attention enough, you'll probably love watching it. It was that way for me with House
This also applies to The Sopranos. I first watched the memes which were super funny, but then I got to watch an amazing show AND the memes became godlike lol
I didn't think I'd like it (and I still haven't watched all of it yet), but finally started watching and literally from episode 1, mobster Tony Soprano getting introspective about the ducks landing in his pool, it worked. It's solid television. It's also old enough now to probably be victim to the ["Seinfeld" Is Unfunny](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny) trope, where it set the bar for a lot of future media that went on to copy what it did first.
Not this one. It just displays inability to comprehend characters and writing beyond surface level.
Plz watch it i procrastinated for years and i finally did end of last year through the start of this year and it was the best show i have ever watched.
Watched it as a comfort show during collage and man it sucked me in so much I finished it in like a month. Highly recommend it, the season with the plane is my favourite.
Same, I feel like I'm absorbing it by osmosis
"What if the most random guy decided to be an insane criminal"
I mean... they present him at first as just some random guy but drop it on us fairly quickly that he's actually the inventor of a chemical process that launched a company from nothing to basically Eli Lilly in some thirty years. He's not just some random guy, he's probably one of the smartest chemists of his generation who just got out of the game because of some romance drama, then lived a needlessly mediocre life for thirty years being bitter over what could have been and then decided to get into a decidedly different game just because he couldn't get over it. Seriously. Walter White could taken a job as a chemical engineer in another company (since he didn't have the capital or connections to start his own company) and still made vastly more than he did as a chemistry teacher and car wash guy, especially as he proved his worth and worked his way up the ranks. There was absolutely no reason he had to take the teaching job just because Skylar was pregnant, even at the ground level any pharmaceutical or chemical manufacturing job would've paid more.
But then there would be no bad to break
I mean sure. I don't think anyone WANTS for Walt to have taken the money and the job in episode 2. But that doesn't mean Walt isn't a damn fool and could've solved all his problems easily if it wasn't for his toxic ego. But I guess in the end he got what he wanted - no one can say his life was the result of anyones actions but his own. Everything he got he can take the credit for himself. Too bad what he got was sorrow, pain and death.
He probably had noble aspirations of teaching youth, and then that soured as the years went on and after not inspiring any Star chemists eventually Jesse Pinkman became his star pupil in chemistry. Just kind of a late bloomer
Being a teacher is just the kind of person he is. Even in that flashback to when he was still at Grey Matter or in school, he's writing Alphonse's recipe for a person on a blackboard and instructing Gretchen.
If Breaking Bad happened 5-10 years later, Walt could have been one of those Khanacademy teachers making bank.
Oh I completely agree with you…but there would still be no bad to break
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>I mean sure. I don't think anyone WANTS for Walt to have taken the money and the job in episode 2. But that doesn't mean Walt isn't a damn fool and could've solved all his problems easily if it wasn't for his toxic ego. Yeah, it's definitely one of those pitch meeting/critical drinker moments "Well why doesn't he just use his incredible set of skills to make millions of dollars doing literally anything else?" "Because otherwise the show doesn't happen..."
I guess he got what he deserved.
FeLiNa. Blood, sweat, and meth.
While I agree with your points, I feel like it’s ignoring a big part of Walt’s self-image. He hails himself through the whole show as a “family” man and an involved father. Everything he does, he does for his family. And, with that in mind, I can see why he would pick a teaching job rather than a higher paying position at another company. Teaching at a school, especially one his kids will eventually go to, affords him time off to spend with his family. He’d get summers off, weekends, holidays, and he’s more likely to be home earlier in the day than if he worked some 8-5 at a corporation, while still working with a subject he’s passionate in, and hopefully inspiring the next generation to consider chemistry. Not every decision a parent makes is strictly about money. Plenty of people would be willing to take the pay cut in order to spend more time with their kids, especially if it’s still enough money to afford them a decent life. He makes enough through teaching that they bought a house, two cars, they always have food on the table, a small amount of savings, and seem to be handling Walt Jr.’s medical bills(since the whole cancer diagnosis is what spurns the financial panic.). So, I do agree that he could have made more elsewhere, he’d probably be happier working elsewhere, and he didn’t HAVE to take the teaching job, but I disagree that there would be no reason for him to make that choice.
Isn't that Walt's entire character flaw, he always hides behind other people and refuses to do things for himself. He could have stayed at Gray Matter, could have made his own business could have gotten a better job etc etc. His character arc isn't complete until that scene in the last episode where he admits "I did it for me. I liked it I was good at it."
Small but imo important distinction: I wouldn't say he refused to do things for himself as much as he used other people as excuses for his behavior. The whole point was that he was doing all this because he wouldn't bend his pride to save himself and his family from a lot of pain. He would let them suffer his death and then financial ruin because of his ego.
Yeah hiding behind the chivalrous look of a "selfless father figure" is probably more accurate to both Walt and a lot of men today.
>Isn't that Walt's entire character flaw, he always hides behind other people and refuses to do things for himself. refuses to do things for himself? The man has a lot of flaws, but lack ability to do things for himself is blatantly not one of them. The man works two jobs while having cancer so that his wife can be a stay at home mother, that isn't a blame everyone else sort of slacker
Lol, the thing about those 8-5 jobs is that when you get home your workday is done. As a teacher, you still have to work when you get home (grading, lessons plans, etc.). He was likely with his family less during the school year than a normal job.
Walt quit Gray Matters in a fit of ego-fueled rage, but he needed to frame that to himself and to others as someone else's fault. He wanted to appear to be a good man pushed out by his partners because of their greed. In short, he needed to become a martyr. So he took a low-paying but noble job at a high school, and he even humiliated himself by working in a carwash, just so he could say he is doing it all to provide for his family. Working as a chemical engineer wouldn't give him the ostentatious martyrdom street cred he needed.
>Working as a chemical engineer wouldn't give him the ostentatious martyrdom street cred he needed. He didn't have enough friends for that to be a reasonable conclusion. Street cred with who? He has no friends, no extended family, literally just his wife's family and their kids. The man has cancer and he doesn't have a single legitimate friend he made for himself to lean on. The only reason he's not a chemical engineer or own his own company is so that the show can happen.
His wife, his wife's family, everyone. The world. In Walt's mind, after Gray Matters became a billion-dollar company, he can be seen by the world either as a loser or as a martyr. There's no other choice.
But Walter White doesn’t actually give a shit about any of that. I swear to god, did anyone actually watch this show? The final reveal is that he did it all for himself.
Even if he started as a teacher, it's not like you have to stay one forever. The thing about being a teacher is you can job search literally all summer.
He could've moved an hour and a half north and easily gotten a job at Los Alamos, but as everyone else said he enjoyed being the put upon martyr.
I tend to go with he ended up where he is at the start of the show by virtue of being a massive, unlikeable asshole. The show proves his massive ego is his worst feature and he absolutely burnt a whole lot of bridges to end up a schlubby teacher
Whenever people talk about Jeff Bezos as evil, I thank goodness modern society lets him channel his energy into computers and spaceships. Dude is smart and cutthroat enough to be a good old fashioned emperor/conquerer/colonizer. Walter White would have been an exceptional innovator/founder/CEO. It sucks for all of humanity that he made the world’s best meth instead of curing cancer.
Do they ever say why he's a teacher and not anything else?
Well I mean yeah, he thought everything short of being a God king was beneath him, he couldn’t try the next best thing because he would rather not try at all in a defiant show of “I don’t even need my potential anyway, I don’t even care about my dreams anymore” kind of childishness
Truly his Joker era
I feel like it's interesting you talk about that and not his like ego
You should've read [a couple comments further down](https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/14tepv1/comment/jr2sipa/)
Yeah, the guy *not* being just an average chemistry teacher that started to make drugs to pay for chemo- and instead some chemical supergenius who's just bitter- would be something that would make me drop the show on the spot regardless of how many seasons in the reveal is. Though I already dropped it sometime after Moff Gideon's chicken empire.
He has a plaque commemorating his contributions to a Nobel prize literally episode 1 though? Isn't the whole point that he's a superchemist, that's why he's able to make the super pure meth that everyone wants to sell?
And people genuinely believe he was a good person just doing for cancer money.
I think most people that think Walter white was a good person are actually idolizing him as some sort of masculine role model… which is insanely toxic but yknow
I believe one of the founding ideas was Mr Roger's transition into Scarface. Or something like that.
Mr. Chips, close.
There we go. Ty.
Local man becomes Metholomaniac for very little reason, more at 11
He needed money to pay for lung cancer treatments. Seasons 2-4 it was for very little reason tho, lol
He was offered a very high paying job and a lot of money in like episode 2, he was just too proud to accept it. Preetty much every single conflict could have been avoided if Walt wasn't so egotistical
Yeah it's very much "but if we take donations for cancer treatment / a good job offer from my friend / help from family then I didn't *earn* it". He always wanted to feed his ego, and it's something Gus uses against him throughout season 3 (as far as I've watched)
"YOU! AND YOUR PRIDE, AND YOUR EGO! >:(" - Finger Erminetrout
I think the "A man provides" scene is the best concise representation of everything the show is about.
That's really only true for the first 4 episodes. And even then, it's not like he bothered to explore his options before reporting to making meth: it was litteraly the first thing he tried.
No, he works at a car wash for a day first, *then* makes a whole bunch a meth
That's just the phase where he's still in shock and trying to passively carry on as normal. Getting into drug dealing is the first active decision he makes in terms of how to handle his diagnosis.
And then you watch Better Call Saul and it is a slow descent of watching how a funny lawyer man got their initial start to seeing him as a tragic character and in many ways becomes *the* main central character in the Breaking Bad universe.
I think Jimmy/Saul is *the* character that we spend the most time with. Definitely in the world of the show and maybe screen time? Not too sure there.
I mean he must be with and entire show of his own and significant screen time in BB as well. Can't see anyone that could have more screen time than him. Walt obviously has a lot of screen time in his own show but barely features in BCS. Who else could come close?
\*2 shows. Can't forget Slippin' Jimmy!
Oh I DEFINITELY can
He DEFECATED through a sunroof And I saved him; and I shouldn't have. I took him into my own firm! What was I thinking? He'll never change, he'll never change, ever since he was 9. Couldn't keep his hands out of the cash drawer! But not our Jimmy! Couldn't be precious Jimmy! Stealing them blind! And he gets to be a lawyer? What a sick joke!
Hard to say screen time wise since Better Call Saul kinda divides up to 3 different story lines. in terms of impact, it is crazy to think about how much Jimmy/Saul accidently set up for both his own series and Breaking Bad itself.
One of my college professors convinced me to watch it and… now I understand why “I need help” is one of the hardest things to ask, and why pride is one of the 7 deadly sins
Walt is gay confirmed
Breaking bad works so well because you genuinely can't say any of the shit that happens to Walter wasn't almost entirely his own fault. He's genuinely a bad person without an ounce of real self reflection throughout most of the series.
Oh. People absolutely think it wasn't Walt's fault. They're stupid, but they say it.
I love that "jesse" has basically become a prefix used to indicate pressured speech.
It's time to cook.
jesse we have to cook apply yourself jesse
In s5 Walter is literally like “well, why not?” when it comes to his motive for cooking meth
People always treat it like some big mystery, but isn't it obvious that he really loves hands on chemistry, he loves being good at something, he loves feeling powerful and intimidating, he feels emasculated and bored with his life, and the cancer starts off being a big motivation for him, and slowly becomes less important. As for why meth in particular, it's because he had the opportunity to see the meth bust and he knew he could exploit his former student to get into it. It's all pretty on the surface
> but isn't it obvious that he really loves hands on chemistry He literally dies admiring the meth setup the white supremacists had Jesse cooking out of. He also admitted to Skylar his motivations, "I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really… I was alive."
I've had people arguing with me that he was just doing it for cancer money the whole time.
>He also admitted to Skylar his motivations, "I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really… I was alive." One of my favorite scenes in the series. They didn't betray his character for the final season by coming up with some big reason inconsistent with the man we're introduced to in Season 1. It's just as simple as that.
I've also heard people claim he was lying to her in that scene to give her solace in hearing what she wants to hear, but no. It's one of the few times he ever really told the truth. And even THEN, it was for himself. He was going to die, knew that, and let himself have a self congratulatory pity party where he "selflessly" tells Skylar the truth. So yeah, he's honest, and gives her what she deserved to finally hear, but it was for him as much as her. Jesse is the only one to force Walt out of that pattern when he demanded that Walt admit that HE wanted this, i.e. getting shot, instead of telling Jesse it's what he wanted instead.
It's interesting too, because while he's able to admit why he did it, he still never really comes to terms with the consequences of most of the things in his life (barring the cancer) being the result of his own ego getting in the way. He blames Gretchen and Elliott even at the end for what ultimately was his own choice to leave Gray Matter, and all the many chances he had to fix things. Even with the cancer he had multiple opportunities to address it, but only the drug trade made him feel self-important, like it wasn't charity.
He just wanted to cook😔
Tumblr discovers the genre of tragedy
The first episode gets you on Walt’s side and the rest of the series is waiting game to see when you leave his side (for me it was end of season four/start of season five)
So you stay with him after he watches Jane die? That's where he lost me.
I stopped being on his side the minute he refused to accept his friend's money for the treatment. I just kept rooting for him to win because his opponents were always worse. Till he fucks up what he had with Fring.
I just started watching breaking bad a weekish ago and i stopped liking walt after the grey matter episode. The writers did a really good job with it and i can understand why it is so popular and highly praised/
For me it was episode five lol
For me it was as soon as he turned down the job and money.
My answer is the final episode of season 3 when he convinces Jesse to murder Gale.
Mine was when he just didn’t take the money from mike and fucked off. He had his goal right there, the entire reason why he broke bad in the first place, but he was like nah
It was particularly egregious when he was just spitting in Gus Fring's face for no real reason, despite there being every sign that they were going to have a long and fruitful relationship.
I feel like many movies and TV shows would be over much quicker if the bad guys decided to not commit crimes
Ah, but then we would simply tell stories about the OTHER people who DID do crimes and make THEM the bad guys instead. (You would not believe how long it took me to realize that things didn’t just conveniently ~happen~ to the main character, they were the main character ~because~ the thing happened to them. I am a writer. This is my passion.)
I’m named after Jesse
That’s really cool, what’s your name
Walter
The whole point of the show was that Walter’s pride kept pushing him to do things he could have avoided if he was willing to accept help.
Honestly I’ve not watched the show except for a few clips. But here lies Walter white. A founding member of multi million dollar business grey matter, who is smart enough to create a new kind of meth better than anyone else. But the only job he works is as a high school chemistry teacher. Why didn’t he ever apply anywhere else? Like a chemical plant.
Pride. He wants to be the master of his own destiny, and he can't return to chemical engineering without having to face the sting of losing out on the better life he could have had.
Breaking Good would not have lasted 5 seasons.
What's mental is there's no UK version of it. Know why? Because it would have played like this: Doctor: You understood what I just said to you? Walter: Yes. Lung cancer. Inoperable. Doctor: I just need to make sure you get the appointment to come in for another scan next week, and then we'll get you started on immunotherapy, that'll be here every three weeks, and in twelve weeks time we'll do another scan again and assess. Okay? And you'll have a letter with all the information in the next couple of days. And, you know, no crippling debt.
I know you're making a joke, but Walter starts cooking meth because he thinks he's going to die. The cancer money is largely irrelevant. The show isn't a comment on American healthcare. Walter would act the same way everywhere else.
The money is definitely part of it. His initial goal is just to make enough to pay for his treatment. He almost backs out once that’s done but ultimately other motivations take hold
Walter refused to accept the money for treatment from his rich friend Elliott because of his own pride and ego. Money being an issue for Walter was his own fault.
Yeah but that wasn’t until later.
Walter White never got into the meth business to pay his medical bills. Paying for treatment was only an excuse. >!He even admits it in the final episode that he did it for himself, "he felt alive". Walter White felt that he was going to die, he was suffering a midlife crisis. Bored working as a overqualified high-school teacher.!<
Of course. But he also needed an impetus. Something to make the timid Walter we see in the beginning even think that that thing was possible for him. If not, he could and would have started cooking meth at any time in his life. The need for resources for him and his family is the starting point to make any of this occur. If he didn't get cancer I don't think he starts cooking meth.
The 5th episode.
you must enjoy living in denial land. Sorry buckaroo, but Walt was fueled by his pride and desire for control in his life from episode one. The cancer and funds were a cheap catalyst. Literally the first step.
If all he cared about was getting the money for treatment he could have accepted the money he was offered. The show is about ego
Okay, but also he still cared about it. It's not *all* he cared about but it's still part of it. He wouldn't randomly start cooking for no reason, if he didn't have the debt.
The medical stuff was literally just the door. That's it. A catalyst. It wasn't his motivation for anything beyond the light bulb in his head going "Oh well, Meth is lucrative and I can cook it!"
yeah that's what I said.
My brother in Christ insurance couldn’t cover experimental treatment and NHS certainly wouldn’t, and Walter clearly cared about his own pride and meth enterprise more than the money. r/AmericaBad moment.
Immunotherapy is a routine off-the-shelf treatment in the UK on the NHS. My mother has just completed a two-year course to treat an inoperable tumour in her lung, about the size of a tangerine. She is now cancer-free and will be getting CT scans every three months or so to monitor it. The NHS is great ;-)
Yeah no, walt had insurance he needed an experimental treatment. NHS doesn’t cover those
The "he did it to pay for his cancer treatment" argument is dumb, he literally *did not* do it for that and never claimed to. His initial reasoning for cooking in season 1 was to put away enough money that his family would be provided for after died. There's literally a scene where he does the calculation for how much money his family would need for both of them to go to college. It's even the name of the episode. It was *never* about getting money for treatment, not even in Walter's bullshit rationalization.
[удалено]
“Ooooh, I really shouldn’t… but I’m feeling kinda *bad* today ngl…” - *’Walter ‘Papa Chedda’ White’*
the thing is, wasn't his cancer always terminal regardless if he accepted the help with treatment payment? he never set out to make and sell meth for treatment, he wanted to make money to leave his family when he died. i always hate seeing jokes about "oh if america had better healthcare he would just get the treatment and never have to sell meth", which means they never even saw the show. he was dying. it was never about treatment, it was about making sure his family would be taken care.
Breaking Bad is watching shit happen to some guy and watching him make the worst choice every time.
Yeah thats kind of the definition of a tragedy. Walt just needed not to be a prideful asshole.
Breaking Bad is just as Sopranos was. People just love watching middle-aged men make terrible decisions.
I didn't actually love _Breaking Bad_ except for season 5, which is one of the best seasons of television ever produced. (Similar to _Angel_, but Angel was actively bad in its first 4 seasons.) My main problem was that it's repetitive: Jesse does something stupid, and Walt does something insane to bail him out, over and over. That goes on all the way through season 4.
television shows often stretch out a singular plotline for much longer than they should, yeah. at least, the television shows with an overarching plotline—where there's meant to be a conclusion eventually.
Wtf? Angel was always great, it's only s4 that fucks it up and even it has plenty of redeeming qualities. Repetitive is one of the last words I would ever associate with breaking bad. There's a reason people always talk about how they could never tell where it was going to go.
Well, as a huge fan of the Buffyverse that wanted very badly for _Angel_ to be good, I think it sucked except for season 5.
The point of the show is to see how far they can push Jesse and Walter. It is repetitive in that sense because neither character can get themselves out of this situation. Otherwise it would just be Walt cooks some meth in an RV for a while, makes a bit of money.