I’m halfway into Season 3 (I watch on DVD).  When we entered Season 3, Walt had made his pile and given up his dealing (only to be tempted back in), was trying to provide for the family despite Skylar divorcing him, and was trying to do (semi-right) by Jesse.

Part of this was guilt over Jane, but Walt’s sin seemed to be pride at that stage (as witness his reaction to Jesse cooking).  I think you may be drawing too much of a line between “good” and “bad” here - if he’s both, and the suburban househusband life encourages him to present as “good” while the drug kingpin life encourages him to present as “bad”, then it may be making a comment about how our circumstances interact with our choices.

Your comment: After all, he’s married to a much-younger woman who is a bored housewife, and his first inclination when things go south for him is to withhold information from her and try to control her. doesn’t seem to be supported by his restrained reaction when she hissed at him she was fucking Ted.

On the Four Real TV Shows of Serious Seriousity and Artistic Merit: notice that they are, at their hearts, men’s stories and, in some sense, stories about masculinity. The drama is serious-comedy is not critical fallacy is stupid and shallow, but there’s a healthy dose of sexism in those choices, too. Because female-centered shows, even heavy, operatic dramas like Damages, aren’t considered Serious Art.* I mean, people loved Buffy, but it had the double whammy of genre and a female lead working against it, and certainly wasn’t considered the massive artistic revolution that Sopranos/The Wire/Mad Men are today. 

*I don’t love Damages, but it’s pretty similar in tone and production value to me as those other shows.

That was an out of character moment for him.  Much more like him is telling her not to ask him questions, expecting her to simply assume the best of him and take him for his word, and his quietly feeding her habit of pretending the’s a novelist while actually not doing any work.

I can’t relate to other people’s feelings about Walt. I don’t want anything bad to happen to him. I consider him likeable and have been told that he is objectively not likeable. It’s Hank who needs to get what’s coming to him, IMO.

What makes you think Skylar is much younger than Walt? I don’t get that vibe at all (and I continue to think she is too hard on him).

This got me thinking, concerning the Walt/Jesse dichotomy where Walt is bad inside and pretends to be good, and Jesse is good inside, but must do bad things because he’s a victim of circumstances.

I think that in the back of my mind, I always assumed that Jesse is Jewish, in as much as his surname is “Pinkman,” and a good deal of what Jesse actually seems remorseful about, especially Jane’s death, stems from old Judeo doctrines about fairness and righteous moral behavior.  Also, Jesse strives to sell a superior quality product at a fair price, which quality and fairness he wouldn’t even care about if he weren’t guided by a fundamental, although somewhat low-level, moral compass.

Contrast that with Walt, who I always assumed was raised Mormon, given that his surname is “White,” and a good deal of what Walt seems genuinely remorseful about is getting caught at being deceptive.  His falling out with Gus seems to further emphasize that Walt doesn’t even acknowledge the code of ‘honor among thieves,’ in that Walt is primarily concerned with getting his, no matter which of his partners and business associates gets caught up in misunderstandings along the way. It reminds me very much of the Mormon admonition to “Bleed the Beast,” that is, to do all sorts of illegal things like being in a bigamous marriage but lying to the government so the liar can collect benefits.  Doesn’t matter to them if innocent, needy people are denied benefits they are entitled to because of the behavior of a few Mormon scammers.  They only care that they got theirs, and they dismiss those other people as unworthy.  Very much the way Walt openly dismisses rival drug dealers as having access only to inferior products. 

The best scene in movie history, the cleanup in Psycho, reveals something inherent about filmmaking that is quite perverse. I don’t really even think I can summarize it, except that you just automatically become complicit in what you’re watching, almost no matter what it is. So, of course, episode 401 explicitly had a bloody cleanup scene, with mops. Both as an allusion to that scene, and because it’s about the most compelling thing you can watch.

Walt has always been more interested in being a criminal than in sacrificing his pride to allow his former partner’s company to pay for his treatment, as happened somewhere in season 1. BB is unusually interesting as a show that transitions the main character in the audience’s sympathy from good to bad, but the seeds of his true nature have been visible since the first episode.

re: #1 - Walt and Skyler have a big fight about Ted in between the events of episodes 303 and 304. We only hear about it on a recording that Mike plays for Saul. He doesn’t blow up immediately after she tells him because Walt Jr. and a friend are there for dinner.

What makes you think Skylar is much younger than Walt?

Bryan Cranston is 12 years older than Anna Gunn. More than that, they highlight their age differences, making him look older than he is by emphasizing his ragged face and by generally making her seem pretty youthful.  I assume they’re actually supposed to be 20 years apart.

Deep questions:

Did all those Germans go from being innocent and decent people to fascist murdering thugs with visions of conquest because of Hitler’s unique powers of influence, or were they really already closet fascists who just needed a nudge to bring out all that evil hidden in them into the light of day?

Were Americans in general just nice moral people who had their bedrock beliefs shattered by 9/11 and became (in many cases) self-righteous war-mongering thugs bent on revenge against Islam despite our better nature, or were we already authoritarian-worshiping fascists crammed full of unreasonable hate, but who kept that (for the most part) hidden until it was exposed by bin Laden’s Big Adventure, which gave some of us a good reason to torture and murder people and for others of us to dismiss torture and other crimes as being unimportant and fully justified?

Were the forces against legal abortion just nice average Christian people who wouldn’t hurt a fly until Roe v. Wade changed them into unrelenting haters of all things female in direct conflict with their normal, caring, giving selves?  Or were they always really virulent misogynists who barely kept their hatred of women and everything of benefit to women under wraps until Roe gave them an excuse to let it all out?

Did the Teabaggers go from being nice, average, Real Americans who just care so gosh-darn much for this country but were otherwise peaceful and thoughtful folks, or did the election of a Black Man to the Presidency just give them a good reason to unleash the beast of racism and launch new offensives in the Culture War, the War on Science, and the War on Progress, which were things they already wanted desperately?

???...

I actually agree with one of the previous commentators on here.  I genuinely like Walt and root for him.  Jesse is a pushover, Skylar wants a life that she is not inherently entitled to (she could earn it, but we haven’t seen her do that yet) and his in-laws aren’t very nice people.  The only genuinely good character is Walt and Skylar’s son who has been written out of the show in most episodes.

Walt IS Michael Douglas from the 1993 version of “Falling Down” (not the shite with the Rock in it).  He was a standup guy, trying to make it in the American worker class and have a job, family, house.  Something occurs where he can no longer strive towards this ideal and he sets out to forcibly take what he had long been denied.  The character can no longer be considered a “good guy”, nor a “bad guy” just someone who has “had enough”.  The similarities between the two storylines and characters are probably more than a coincidence.

In the end Walt, like Michael Douglas, will be justifiably murdered in what will most likely be a classic “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” homage.  Its the only trajectory that narratives like this can possibly chart their.

PS:  Love the media analyses.  Keep em coming!!!

the duck-billed placelot @2: “On the Four Real TV Shows of Serious Seriousity and Artistic Merit: notice that they are, at their hearts, men’s stories and, in some sense, stories about masculinity.”

That always bothered me about The Wire. It was such a monumentally good show from every angle, and it’s a damn shame it didn’t have more woman characters.

I’d add “Deadwood” to the list of great shows, and while it was more of an ensemble than a total sausage-fest, if you were forced to name the two main characters, it would have to be Swearengen and Bullock (at least in the beginning).

During the first couple seasons of “The Closer,” I thought Brenda Lee Johnson was finally the well-written fleshed-out woman character who would set the precedent for cop dramas featuring a female lead that wasn’t all about her romantic entanglements. Unfortunately, that show has since gone downhill, but there was promise. You know what would have been cool? If they could have introduced her semi-rival semi-ally, Captain Raydor from Internal Affairs, during the first season. A complex competitive relationship between two professional women that didn’t involve men or catfights, OMG!

I actually watched this entire show in pretty rapid succession. In the very beginning of the series, there is an episode about walt’s 50th b-day where Skyler mentions being relieved that she is still a ways away from 40.

Skylar’s competence dealing with the Ted’s fraud and the carwash owner have revealed her to be extremely competent, intelligent woman who could have had a kick-ass career, and clearly walt could have made real money as a chemist, even if he was fucked over by his former friends at grey matter. I have suspected from early on that walt is one of those ass holes who would rather sabotage himself to make others feel bad than strive to better his situation.

walt is also way way creepy when he refuses to divorce skylar, and the way he just watched jane choke on her vomit instead of trying to turn her on his side shows that he is one seriously awful fucker.

I have never seen the show, but caught a snippet of the cleanup episode while my partner was watching. I have to say I felt almost dirty watching it, the evil seemed to almost emanate from Walt. He totally creeped me out. Of course, I have no context or anything, that was just my first impression.

Any talk of great TV must include Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Of course, it’s frequently overlooked (guess why!).

Ditto on your media pieces, Amanda. I don’t watch Breaking Bad or Mad Men, but I still enjoy reading your reviews.

Jesse is a romantic.  That’s how he managed to have an actual crew.  Walt is not just unromantic, he’s cold.  He is one of those guys who’d rather lose and have someone to blame than win with an equal or equals to thank.

The scene at the pancake house after Gus murders the guard who failed at his duty is a good example.  Walt is reflective, doesn’t want to eat, is thinking about what it all means and how he’s stuck.  Jesse is hungry.  He’s beyond caring, he was already resigned.  He knows he’s totally fucked until he dies.

Skylar wants a life that she is not inherently entitled to (she could earn it, but we haven’t seen her do that yet) and his in-laws aren’t very nice people. 
Comment #9: Buster707 on 07/26 at 08:16 PM

As alysia said, Skylar is actually quite competent at her job dealing with money.  She picked up Ted’s malfeasance very quickly.  Why would she not be entitled to a life any less privileged than Ted’s or the people at Gray Matter or any of the other men in the show?  Is she not pretty enough or something?

Skylar is legally implicated by taking drug money, but Walt’s brother-in-law is now extra screwed because one day someone’s going to find out he’s getting money from a drug dealer he was pursuing.  And he was pursuing it very seriously.  He may seem like a clown on the outside, but he has a purpose.

I like Jesse more now than I did early in the show. Hank is still a jackass. As for Walt and Skyler’s age difference, I never gave it much thought- I assumed Walt’s heavily-lined face was the result of an increasingly stressful life and cancer treatment.

Also, Nurse Jackie is another fantastic show, and I strongly believe that Homicide was ultimately better than The Wire.

Thankfully we have plenty of British comedies to pilfer.  Also, Dexter kicks all those shows asses combined.

My sympathies have slowly transferred from Walt to Jesse has the seasons have gone on. Walt letting Jane die pretty much sealed the deal. Watching Jesse struggle to get away from his circumstances, but continually fail is heartbreaking.

As for current comedies, I would have to throw Community on that list.

Any talk of great TV must include Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Of course, it’s frequently overlooked (guess why!).

Because its seven seasons are marred with dozens of terrible episodes?  Don’t get me wrong, I used to be a rabid Joss Whedon fan, and at his best he’s pretty damn good, but he’s never been playing in the same league as shows like The Wire, Breaking Bad or Mad Men.

Yeah, Alyssa R’s view makes more sense to me (and BTW, from what I can tell Grantland indulges in the worst excesses of it’s writers, which is pretty much what I expected from a Bill Simmons Joint).  Once Walter started going all Richard III early on, it became less about sympathy for him and more about “how fucked up is this gonna get?”. (Actually, for me it also became about “when are the writers going to stop making Skylar carry the Idiot Ball?”, which mercifully happened in Season Two, so not too long)

But while I think BB is a lot of fun, it’s not in the same class as Sopranos, Mad Men, or The Wire.  AR rightly points out that BB burns through stories and characters that a better show would handle in a more interesting way.  Similarly, Walter and Jesse swing from cool and calculated to selfish and paranoid and back again seemingly every episode (and only Jesse has used meth).

A current show that I think could belong to that pantheon is Treme, which has the added bonus of a better balance towards women and men’s stories.  The thing I find most remarkable about Treme is how tight the storytelling is: David Simon can convey so much information about one of the (many) story lines with just a 30 second vignette.

I can’t find a show with the Rock in it named Falling Down.

Michael Douglas in Falling Down was a “stand up guy” trying to make it in the working class??????  His wife was terrified of him, but because he hadn’t done anything outrightly violent to her or their child, no one believed her.  This is a man who holds a gun on innocent people trying to eat at a fast food restaurant because they stopped serving breakfast, who trashes an immigrant’s store because he charges too much, who blows up construction equipment with a bazooka, and who eventually plans on murdering his family and committing suicide.  We might understand when he attacks the white supremacist or the gang bangers, but let’s not be confused here.  Douglas’s character is a murderous psychopath, and his wife knew he was dangerous long before the pressures of his job and his life made him “snap.”  Robert Duvall’s character is the “stand up guy” who’s just trying to do the right thing.  It actually makes me a little sick to see how many people idolize Douglas’s character in that movie.

“Michael Douglas in Falling Down was a “stand up guy” trying to make it in the working class??????”

I figure that D-FENS behaves the way many Teabaggers would love to behave, self-righteous in their anger over the fact the world is not the way they want it to be.  He’s a man-child throwing a temper tantrum that happens to involve baseball bats, guns, etc., and screw anyone who gets in his way.

“It actually makes me a little sick to see how many people idolize Douglas’s character in that movie.”

I’ve never been quite sure what the film-makers intended for us to feel toward D-FENS, but he sure is one seriously disturbed individual.  Certainly no hero, except to a narrow spectrum of Americans who are probably proud members of the Insane 27%, and who are right now demanding the Republicans shut down the government or else…

@20 & 21:

It’s entirely possible that person is posting from an alternate universe in which Michael Douglas’s murderous psychopath was actually the hero of the movie.  Perhaps the Jaws in that universe also told the heartbreaking tale of a shark who just wanted something to eat, and those beachfront-clearing bastards are depriving her of sustenance.  Also in this universe, The Rundown was released under a different title?  Maybe?

My sympathies have slowly transferred from Walt to Jesse has the seasons have gone on.

Mine too.  Though he’s not a particularly good guy, he’s not as bad as Walter, or Hank.  Hank is pretty clearly set up as a parallel to Hank; he’s also controlling, abusive, makes narcotics in his garage, etc.  Taking Walter Jr. to Wendy established pretty clearly on what Hank’s really like.  Ditto keeping the grill.  Marie is maybe a little more ambiguous, but I think it’s mostly because she’s more tertiary - the shoplifting & gifting arc doesn’t paint her in a good light.  Skyler’s a bit harder to gauge, because she’s mostly reacting to bad people.  Really only her interactions with Walt, Jr. are clean.  Everything else is too polluted to see clearly.

There are times when watching Dexter or Breaking Bad that I fully expect the theme music from “Three’s Company” to start playing, usually around the 119th time coincidence or willful misunderstanding has prevented a secondary character from discovering what’s going on with the main character. I’ll have to admit, it’s some pretty cheap shit and devalues the great acting in both shows.

I think it’s a mug’s game to figure out the best of those shows while two are still on the air and are explicitly banking on what’s going to happen when the main character’s luck runs out. If Mad Men doesn’t handle Don meeting the 60’s head on, then that’s going to mar every prior episode. Breaking Bad also has to have an endpoint, Vince Gilligan has said as much.

What Breaking Bad has done, and done brilliantly, is bring two existing elements into “serious drama.” Walt is so often reduced to pathetic circumstances that he provides the kind of cringe comedy that The Office, Freaks and Geeks, and Curb Your Enthusiasm pioneered last decade. It’s also inherited the visual horror of the X-Files, where Gilligan got his start.

The best scene in movie history, the cleanup in Psycho, reveals something inherent about filmmaking that is quite perverse. I don’t really even think I can summarize it, except that you just automatically become complicit in what you’re watching, almost no matter what it is. So, of course, episode 401 explicitly had a bloody cleanup scene, with mops. Both as an allusion to that scene, and because it’s about the most compelling thing you can watch.

I remember Rob Farley from LGM talking about experiencing that while watching “United 93.”

I’ve never been quite sure what the film-makers intended for us to feel toward D-FENS, but he sure is one seriously disturbed individual.  Certainly no hero, except to a narrow spectrum of Americans who are probably proud members of the Insane 27%, and who are right now demanding the Republicans shut down the government or else…

I feel for him to the extent that he was sold a bill of goods and then had it yanked away. DFENS brought it on himself by supporting Reaganism and what he thought he was buying was partly the distasteful idea that as a white, middle class American who worked hard and waived the flag, he was always going to be put at the front of the line. But I feel for him, or at least people like who aren’t violent assholes.

I don’t think you cast Robert Duvall as the antagonist to DFENS if we’re supposed to ultimately root for Douglas’ character. Who could root against Robert Duvall in that movie? He’s got plenty of his own problems, but he’s going miles out of his way to try to bring DFENS in alive.

Because its seven seasons are marred with dozens of terrible episodes?  Don’t get me wrong, I used to be a rabid Joss Whedon fan, and at his best he’s pretty damn good, but he’s never been playing in the same league as shows like The Wire, Breaking Bad or Mad Men.

Where Buffy beats all but The Wire in my mind is that it was a.) often hilarious and b.) made me love those characters so much. I don’t think it’s a coinkydink, I think Whedon created characters that were that lovable on purpose. Buffy having clunky episodes in every season is partly a function of the form. Whedon was making 22-episode seasons instead of 12- or 13-episode seasons and still had to adhere to the idea of episodic TV in a way that Simon and others didn’t.

It’s too bad his masterpiece got canceled after 13 episodes. It’s worse that he’s off wasting his time making an Avengers movie. The best superhero movie in the world isn’t worth half a season of a Whedon show. Even “Dollhouse” had some great episodes.

I always wanted Kirk Douglas to be in Falling Down, the sheer decibels he would have added to the “I’m the bad guy?” realization would have been worth the price of admission.

<blockquote<There are times when watching Dexter or Breaking Bad that I fully expect the theme music from “Three’s Company” to start playing, usually around the 119th time coincidence or willful misunderstanding has prevented a secondary character from discovering what’s going on with the main character. I’ll have to admit, it’s some pretty cheap shit and devalues the great acting in both shows.</blockquote>

I’m getting pretty much done with “Dexter” on this issue. The suspense is just not suspenseful anymore and the potentially interesting element of keeping Julia Stiles’ character around as Dex’s partner in murder and life was jettisoned in the season finale. I’ve never loved “Weeds,” but they deserve huge props for being willing to evolve the show.

Aside from the salient point someone else brought up that these shows are all on some level about masculinity, “The Four Big Important Shows That Make TV A For-Real Art Form” are also shows that have really unsympathetic protagonists.  (And, of the three of them that I’ve watched, I fizzled out on all of them within a couple of episodes because I just couldn’t like the characters enough to commit 20 hours of my life to watching them for a full season.  It may be shallow of me to say this, but I just don’t *enjoy* watching mean people do mean things—it’s an unpleasant head-space and I don’t want to spend much time there.  I can admire the craft of the storytelling involved in these shows, but at the end of the day I seem to only want to watch people I like.)

But, so, is that what TV needed before it could be considered a for-real art form?  Antiheroes?

Also, Nurse Jackie is another fantastic show, and I strongly believe that Homicide was ultimately better than The Wire.

Yeah, ha, no. 

To the poster questioning the makeup of the casting of The Wire:  Felicia Pearson.  Who, incidentally, is the real thing.  Not an act.  She was convicted of 2nd degree murder when she was 14.  Do you think the makeup of illegal drug organizations from the top to the street are populated primarily by men or women?  Should a fictional television show conform to that reality in it’s portrayal or choose a different mix to appease the notion that “there should be more female characters?”

My big significant piece of evidence for why Walt was always evil : his reaction to when his son makes a website to get money for him. So basically, Walt is making money hand over fist with the meth trade. His son makes a website with a paypal button to ask money for his treatment. His lawyer goes “great!”; they use the website to launder all the money. Walt Jr. sees all the money coming in, he’s amazed and gratified, everybody is complimenting him and Walt.

So is Walt happy to be paying his own way in secret while giving pride and joy to his son, bringing them closer and basking in parental reflected glory ?

Of course not. He’s pissy that his son is getting all the credit. WTF ?

And don’t tell me it’s just the begging thing he’s got a problem with. At the beginning I could buy it, but after the solution proves perfect for laundering his money and everybody starts praising Walt Jr and Walt Sr is STILL seething in the background ? Gimme a break.

“It may be shallow of me to say this, but I just don’t *enjoy* watching mean people do mean things—it’s an unpleasant head-space and I don’t want to spend much time there.”

For me that’s really only particularly true of dramas, though.  A lot of comedies work very well with mean people doing mean things, generally because there’s a lot more room for the universe to punish them in ridiculous ways or pair them up with people who have it coming and will then dish it right back out (30 Rock comes immediately to mind.).

I don’t see Walter White’s character as always bad, with the veneer now cracking, or as once good, but going bad.  I think (whether it’s the production, writing, fantastic acting, or, most likely, combo of all) that Walter White was an average lower-middle class American, with above-average intelligence, when he was struck with a cancer diagnosis he thought would soon be fatal.  Rationalizing that he’s doing it for his family (and you can validly question the presence of other motivations—proving his superiority/intelligence, etc.), he decides to enter a life of crime.  Once he makes this decision, he consistently compromises his conscience in increasingly worse ways as he goes from rather naive schoolteacher to more and more calloused meth manufacturer.  One of the ways he tries to salve his conscience (which I believe does exist, explaining his inability to eat after the killings of Gale and Victor and evidenced by his recent attempts to convince Mike and himself that what he did was self-defense and defense of others), is to allow/propel others to be the agents of death—inaction with Jane, prompting Jesse to kill Gale.

I think he started himself down a slippery slope.  He’s going faster and farther downhill than he ever thought possible, and he’ll end up in at the bottom under a landslide.

Just as an interesting sidenote, because I think a lot of what they do on Breaking Bad is intentional, I recently noticed the prevalence of men without hair.  Walt shaved his/chemo.  Hank’s naturally mostly bald.  A lot of the other characters are shaved/bald or nearly bald.  What’s up with that?

Seconding NY Expat’s recommendation on “Treme.” It tells much smaller stories than any of the Four Great TV Shows (only one of which, “Mad Men,” I’ve really been able to get into. I don’t think it’s coincidence that the stories “Mad Men” tells are, out of the four, the least traditionally epic and dramatic in scale, or that it has the best female characters.).

But anyway, “Treme”: Realistic, sometimes uplifting, frequently brutal storytelling, a diverse cast, stories about women given equivalent or greater dramatic weight to stories about men. It’s intriguing to me that Klosterman’s article singled it out as aesthetically great but dramatically shallow; methinks his dismissal is a symptom of the literary phenomenon where the stories of poor people, people of colour, and women are considered less serious than those of middle class white men.

“Breaking Bad,” has always struck me as a show about survival.  It starts with Walt wanting to survive cancer without being a burden on his family.  The method he chooses to survive, making meth, leads to other threats to his physical survival, and the physical survival of his partner.  Walt is very loyal to the people around him. 

Many of the problems that he encounters have to do with the fact that drugs are illegal. Prohibition of drugs allow people like his boss to flourish.  Gus is a businessman with the ethics of a businessman.  Profit comes first.  If drugs were not against the law he would be just as ruthless in his other businesses.  Walt has made decisions for his own survival at the expense of others, but businessmen make those decisions everyday.  It’s capitalism at street level. 

His wife is upset enough to leave him because he makes meth, but then she uses the money he has made from that when she needs to help her sister and brother-in-law.  Hank is another victim of drug laws, although one who has made his living as a result of the war on drugs.  All these people are victims of capitalistic health care.  Walt’s inability to afford cancer treatments leads directly to Hank’s injury, and even though he is covered by pretty good insurance, Hank needs Walt’s money to recover, because the physical therapy he needs is not covered.  Capitalism is rough on the people at the bottom, and most of us are at the bottom. 

I don’t believe that Walt is a bad person.  He is an average person who has had to make decisions of life and death.  Most of us don’t have to make those decisions.  I know that I will choose my life over death, because I believe that this life is it.  I haven’t been placed in a position to find out how far I’d actually go to preserve my own life, and I hope I never am.  So far, circumstance has allowed me to keep my humanity.  Walt hasn’t been that lucky.

I love “Treme” but I can see people not liking it honestly. It is episodic, knockabout and not about obviously dramatic things. I mean, the most popular dramas are procedurals with mostly bland leads investigating interchangable victims and suspects. A mystery that’s not too hard to solve in 40 minutes is the most popular kind of TV storytelling right now. You could watch the “The Wire” as the best-done police procedural ever, especially for the first three seasons. “Treme,” you can’t watch it as anything but a novelistic portrait of New Orleans.

Interestingly, I enjoy dramas about bad people much more than comedies about bad people.  Mainly because I like seeing the speeded-up consequences of bad people’s bad acts on themselves.  I live in a world defined by the cruelty of awful human beings.  I grew up in a world just as much so, only with less power.  I very much appreciate validation of my worldview that the mindset which produces bad acts is certain to turn outcomes bad as well.

Long years ago, I knew a guy who often wore a button that said: “Theatre is Art, Movies are Entertainment, TV is Furniture.” I’ve always kinda wanted to look him up and see if he still believes that—as far as I can tell, the categories have completely switched around…

To the poster questioning the makeup of the casting of The Wire:  Felicia Pearson.  Who, incidentally, is the real thing.  Not an act.  She was convicted of 2nd degree murder when she was 14.  Do you think the makeup of illegal drug organizations from the top to the street are populated primarily by men or women?  Should a fictional television show conform to that reality in it’s portrayal or choose a different mix to appease the notion that “there should be more female characters?”
Comment #31: ShamrockBaby on 07/27 at 11:46 AM

The world’s “cast” is 50 percent female.  Women are not always the drug dealers but they are in those neighborhoods, in fact in larger numbers than the men because so many of the men are in prison.  They have lives affected by drug dealing in numerous different ways.  Why are you thinking all this can’t be interesting?

It starts with Walt wanting to survive cancer without being a burden on his family.  The method he chooses to survive, making meth, leads to other threats to his physical survival, and the physical survival of his partner.  Walt is very loyal to the people around him.
Comment #36: G Porgey on 07/27 at 01:27 PM

The Gray Matter people wanted to give him enough money to pay for all his treatment. 

He refused.

But anyway, “Treme”: Realistic, sometimes uplifting, frequently brutal storytelling, a diverse cast, stories about women given equivalent or greater dramatic weight to stories about men. It’s intriguing to me that Klosterman’s article singled it out as aesthetically great but dramatically shallow; methinks his dismissal is a symptom of the literary phenomenon where the stories of poor people, people of colour, and women are considered less serious than those of middle class white men.
Comment #35: sabotabby on 07/27 at 12:45 PM

I like how, for example, the relationship between the widowed lawyer and the police chief is going.  It’s none of that “ooh she’s a hot sexxay police fighting firebrand he has to pursue her” like for example in Hill Street Blues.  They are friends and may evolve into more, in an adult way.

The only part of the show that tires me out is Davis.  If someone told me they had him in there to pacify the white boys in the audience, I’d believe them.

Great literature rarely is about the “great men” or even the comfortable men of the age.  It’s usually about people on the edges.  I wonder how well the last 50 years worth of self-pitying white man literature will age.

The world’s “cast” is 50 percent female. Women are not always the drug dealers but they are in those neighborhoods, in fact in larger numbers than the men because so many of the men are in prison.  They have lives affected by drug dealing in numerous different ways.  Why are you thinking all this can’t be interesting?

Because that’s not what the story is about? If you’re doing a show about drug dealers and the cops, the vast majority of your characters are probably going to be drug dealers and cops. To get a show that’s representative of the population, since most people aren’t dealing drugs or wearing a uniform, practicality means that the crime action is going to have to be background.

That’s not to say a show about that sort of thing wouldn’t be interesting, but it would be a fundamentally different show.

So is Walt happy to be paying his own way in secret while giving pride and joy to his son, bringing them closer and basking in parental reflected glory ?

Of course not. He’s pissy that his son is getting all the credit. WTF ?

Mmm?  I read that as being deeply uncomfortable with the whole situation - not pissy at his son per se, but actively disliking all the praise being showered on him.  Being told “this proves everyone loves you” when you know it’s a scam grated on his conscience.

Because that’s not what the story is about? If you’re doing a show about drug dealers and the cops, the vast majority of your characters are probably going to be drug dealers and cops. To get a show that’s representative of the population, since most people aren’t dealing drugs or wearing a uniform, practicality means that the crime action is going to have to be background.
Comment #43: KeithM on 07/27 at 03:53 PM

But the show *isn’t* “about” drug dealers and cops.

It’s about the drug trade and its effect on every part of society, from policing to politics to schools to trade to families to the media.  ALL those things were shown in The Wire. 

That was its greatness, to show the big picture, not just bad drug dealer good cop maybe bad cop who uses drugs or is on the take. 

That doesn’t put drugs in the background.  It puts it where it is. Everywhere.

That’s not to say a show about that sort of thing wouldn’t be interesting, but it would be a fundamentally different show.

The Wire WAS that kind of show.

The Gray Matter people wanted to give him enough money to pay for all his treatment.

He refused.
Comment #41: oldfeminist

Walt felt betrayed by the owners of Gray Matter.  He believed, probably correctly, that he had been cheated out of his fair share of the company.  Half of the millions that Gray Matter Technologies made should have been his.  He wanted what he thought was his by right, not their’s out of charity.  He later pretends that Grey Matter’s owners Elliott and Gretchen are paying for his treatment, but he feels that if he actually took their money he would be betraying himself.  Later Skyler finds out that he lied and this adds to her anger and resentment. 

The offer from Gray Matter Technologies isn’t a true offer because he thinks that it would require even more of Walt’s self than manufacturing meth, at least at that point in the plot line.

The Gray Matter people wanted to give him enough money to pay for all his treatment.

He refused.
Comment #41: oldfeminist

———————————————————————————————————————-

Walt felt betrayed by the owners of Gray Matter.  He believed, probably correctly, that he had been cheated out of his fair share of the company.  Half of the millions that Gray Matter Technologies made should have been his.  He wanted what he thought was his by right, not their’s out of charity.  He later pretends that Grey Matter’s owners Elliott and Gretchen are paying for his treatment, but he feels that if he actually took their money he would be betraying himself.  Later Skyler finds out that he lied and this adds to her anger and resentment. 

The offer from Gray Matter Technologies isn’t a true offer because he thinks that it would require even more of Walt’s self than manufacturing meth, at least at that point in the plot line.

But Phoenician, in that episode he throws this huge-ass temper tantrum about how it is HIS money that HE earned. The episode starts out making it seem like he had moral qualms about laundering money through his kid’s site and creating a false impression about the goodnes of humanity and quite possibly getting some real donations too, once the press picked up on the story. And you go along with that feeling because that is how a normal person would probably feel, but by the end they made it clear walt was just a selfish dick. (this is further evicenced when walt refuses skylar’s offer to work even though she is later shown to be a very compotent accountant) I think that is the true genius of the show; walt, and in a different way hank, show how a truly vile person can appear to hold the mores of an ethical society.

And wrt grey matter, he risked his family’s safety and broke the law in order to protect his pride. He also seems to be self-sabotaging because rather than use his genius to work for some other company, he chose to be miserable and financially insecure as a piss poor high school teacher. Even if he did get screwed over by grey matter, he made a decision to sabotage his career and his family’s well being out of spite.

But Phoenician, in that episode he throws this huge-ass temper tantrum about how it is HIS money that HE earned.

*sigh* I GOTTA stop trying to watch these things when I’m so tired I drift off before the end of the episode.