Warning: This post contains major spoilers for all five seasons of Breaking Bad.
Six and a half years ago Breaking Bad ended with a reputation as one of the greatest television shows ever created. Walter White’s metamorphosis into meth kingpin Heisenberg over five epic seasons had audiences hooked. My last post regarding Breaking Bad’s prequel Why is Better Call Saul So Good? got my mind considering a Breaking Bad followup. There was only one thing I could focus on, the transformation of Walter White, the centre of the show. What was it that made Walter White one of the greatest characters of all time?
The Motivation
What drives a Chemistry teacher, a father and a fifty-year-old man to break bad and cook crystal meth? The pilot establishes the motivation early on, in the opening scene as a doctor diagnoses Walter with inoperable lung cancer. Leaving money behind for his family becomes a central catalyst for the story to follow. How could you not sympathise with a father trying to provide for his family, regardless of the means? Yet it is in episode five where this impetus developed and got interesting. A deus ex machina is presented, two wealthy friends offer to pay for everything Walter needs. No need to cook meth anymore, his family protected and financially safe. Walter rejects the offer and his character’s motivation develops from there onwards.
The Descent into Darkness
When Did Walt Break Bad? There’s an argument that he did so right at the beginning of the show. Faced with the choice of killing a rival dealer in a makeshift basement prison, Walt spends most of Breaking Bad‘s third episode attempting to convince himself he can safely let his prisoner go. But after realising the dealer has no intention of forgiveness, Walt violently strangles him to death, giving viewers an early taste of his capacity for brutality.
Pinpointing the exact moment that Walt finally broke bad has different answers depending on who you ask. It’s inaction rather than action that defines the scene that many view as the exact moment Walter White truly broke bad. Intent on convincing Jesse to get clean, Walt shows up unannounced at his apartment only to find both him and his girlfriend Jane passed out from heroin. It’s then that Jane gags and chokes on her own vomit. Walt rushes over to help her but pulls back, seizing the opportunity to get rid of the threat she presented.
Then there’s the moment in season three that it then becomes clear that Walt was the one who poisoned Brock, the young son of Jesse’s girlfriend Andrea, to turn Jesse against Gus and bring him back to his corner. By the time Walt is faced with figuring out how to ensure no one rats him out to the DEA in the last season, he has firmly arrived as a villain. Enlisting white supremacists to take out ten men in three different prisons in two minutes. Whenever you think Walt has hit his lowest point, his capacity for evil stretches further. Regardless of which defining moment the viewer picks as the most critical, the journey between them all was captivating.
The Acting Performance
Few shows rest so completely on the shoulders of their lead actors, and Breaking Bad would have fallen apart without Bryan Cranston’s central performance as Walter White. Could another actor have encapsulated the full range necessary for the performance? A comedic actor by trade, Cranston captured the humour and sympathy crucial to the foundation of the character alongside the brutality required later in the character arc.
A perfect cast supported the show, provided with a great depth of character to play on. One such character was Jesse Pinkman, played by Aaron Paul. The youthful apprentice is the heart and soul of the show. As much as the transformation of Bryan Cranston’s character acted as the spine of Breaking Bad, his now iconic supporting character’s roles were crucial in bringing out the best of his performance. The manipulation of Jesse in particular, the way the two characters bounced and flowed off each other, made the show. Both Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston received Emmys for their performances and one without the other is unthinkable, looking back.
The Greatest TV Character of All Time?
Walter White was one of the most consistently powerful and complex performances in television history. Illegal motivations guided almost everything he did, and yet we wanted to see him succeed. A stellar acting performance and Walter White’s gradual moral decline and power-hungry descent into the villainy of Heisenberg made him a TV character for the ages.
Want more blogs about televisions shows and in-depth analysis? Check out my archive!
You can also follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamesdammauthor/
Recent Comments