Modern Classics: Breaking Bad

Another new post series, Modern Classics will call out the shows whose legacies are established, or all but guaranteed, as classic examples of the golden age of television. It should surprise no one that are first inductee is AMC's Breaking Bad, currently airings its final episodes Sundays at 9pm. Whether you've seen the show or not (and if not, it should be near the top of your list), Breaking Bad is almost unanimously hailed as one of the greatest shows on TV, stealing the spotlight from network sibling Mad Men (and numerous best actor Emmys from Jon Hamm). The basic premise saw mild-mannered chemistry teacher Walter White (Bryan Cranston, solidifying himself as one the most skilled actors working today) resort to cooking crystal meth so he could pay for cancer treatments and leave his family a nest egg when he's gone. However, as viewers know now more than ever, that barely scratches the surface of both Walt and the darkly humorous drug drama filled with so much tension that it could snap a suspension bridge. Nearly every one of Breaking Bad's soon-to-be 62 episodes features a seemingly game-changing, season-finale-caliber moment, one of those edge-of-your-seats scenes that seem to go on forever as you simultaneously want it to be over so you can relax while also savoring every delicious second, wondering how our "heroes" will make it out or continue their "work." This kind of pressure alone would be enough to render Breaking Bad must-watch television (and an especially dangerous show to binge, say goodbye to whatever else you had planned before you started watching), but what truly elevates the series are the carefully crafted artistic elements of the acting, writing, and cinematography, pulled together with painstaking detail.

Cranston somehow makes us root for Walt, from his humble beginnings through his deplorable desperation, only really giving us cause to question Walt's underlying motivations towards the end of the fourth season. Its understandable that a chemist who spent his whole life following the rules and being oppressed by inferior intellects, only to develop lung cancer from secondhand smoke, would want to take control of his own destiny and finally capitalize on his vast scientific skill. However, now witnessing more clearly the role Walt's ego had on his decision to become Heisenberg, the driving force that keeps him in the "empire business" beyond his initial calculations of what was to be his original financial goal, we remember his refusal to accept charity from a former partner who made millions off of Walt's own idea for a company. It was always his pride which drew him to the illegal drug industry, his pride and his arrogance, resolutely believing that since he could make a superior product (the only crystal meth that is over 99% pure) he should also be the one to control its manufacturing and distribution. Of course it was his DEA brother-in-law Hank (Dean Norris, who developed the character from simple Alpha-male foil to sympathetically in-over-his-head lawman) who first introduced Walt to the wonderful world of meth, leading him to establish his partnership with high school drop-out Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul, balancing Jesse's hilarious comic relief with heartbreaking depth... bitch). A former student of Mr. White, Jesse is both Walt's greatest beneficiary and his most tragic victim. Its Walt's own ego that allows him to continue to act as a father figure for Jesse, going beyond merely educating and protecting him as he ultimately seeks to control him for his own ultimate benefit, ruining any other (perhaps more healthy) relationships Jesse has the chance to develop and any innocence he has left with manipulation and greed.

In fact, Walt brings about such destruction, misery, and death to those around him that he himself could even be considered the cancer, slowly spreading the increasingly painful and detrimental side effects of his mission across an unsuspecting Albuquerque. Every time Walt goes deeper into the criminal underworld and the dark amoral outlook it breeds, his body count grows as does the number of people affected by his reprehensible actions. Whether it is inevitable, as when he and Jesse bite off more than they can chew with the violently unstable Tuco, or even justifiable, as when he protects Jesse from the dealers who killed his friend, Walt is surrounded by death and suffering. Although unintentionally, Walt is also responsible for the transition of his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) from paranoid-but-unwitting bystander to active-but-disturbed participant, a woman whose priority was always family forced to alienate her oblivious sister and children. Then when Walt meets his match in Gus Fring (Guancarlo Esposito, quiet and controlled), a man who personifies Walt's self-image of a true professional and sees through his egotistical volatility, he eventually overcomes his imposed state of remission to come back stronger than ever and take control of the empire he feels he so entitled to. Even in the gorgeously sprawling cinematography, Walt is often the lone blemish on pure view of lush desert scenery. However, Heisenberg's greatest victim just may be Walt himself, as a decent hard-working man devolves from deciding whether or not to kill a low-level banger who threatened him with a pros and cons list to impulsively firing a gun on a retired former partner who merely chided him for acting out on his ego.

Of course, regardless of all the artistic depth that enhances the series, Breaking Bad offers a story that is just plain entrancing as it takes you inside a fully realized world with an abundance of unpredictable developments that are always adding new dimensions to the immense plot and intriguing characters. It provides insight into every single aspect of the drug world as we witness an amateur become a kingpin, trading not only his own soul, but the lives of every one around him. A ground-breaking show following an unfortunate, but decent antihero as he descends into the abyss and emerges the desperate monster he probably was all along. Even as we all wait with bated breath to discover the ultimate fate of Walt (and the other characters as well, Bob Odenkirk's slippery lawyer Saul actually has a potential prequel-or-sequel spin-off in the works), it seems abundantly clear where he is going when this is all over.