If you are novelist, playwright, or film director, you felt your breath taken away tonight. The rough edges melted into smoothness, every character arc found completion, and the entire weight of six years of story fit perfectly into the tense silence of calm sky and patient earth. If you are, like me, connected to the world of cinema and television only by means of the flat screen in your living room, the experience was almost surreal in the way it evoked emotion and recognition of events from seasons long past. Like “Two Cathedrals” (The West Wing, Episode 2.22; Season Two finale),“The City on the Edge of Forever” (Star Trek TOS, Episode 1.28), and “Made in America” (The Sopranos, Episode 6.21; series finale), “To’hajiilee,” the 13th episode of Season Five, was a flawless creation of storytelling depth and cinematic brilliance.
Tonight’s episode completed the grand, torturous circle we began riding—rollercoaster fashion—six years ago. We have returned to the series origin, where Walter and Jesse had their first cook. It is amid the quiet stones and the constant sky that untamed men from uncivilized places arrive to discover their character, test their mettle, and assert their authentic selves. Every player in tonight’s showdown sought and proved his true identity, as calm sky and patient earth demand.
The strange perfection of this episode is found in the deliberate and opposing assertions of ten angry and fearful men. All of the questions have been answered. The story is incomplete only because it is tragedy. Mr. Chips became Scarface—Walter became Heisenberg; we await only the knowledge of the manner in which calm sky and patient earth will repay Heisenberg for hubris, greed, and inhumanity. Tonight’s episode was a rare gem and solid proof of Breaking Bad’s standing as drama that will endure the ages.
Perfect Circle
In the pilot episode Walter began a video confession but then thought better of it. He pointed his gun at the approaching sirens, at himself, and finally at the ground. Killing a police officer, committing suicide, or accidentally discharging the pistol while he figured out the safety mechanism were equally valid outcomes in his frazzled, confused state. In Episode 5.13 he was not confused. He calmly surrendered his weapon and took slow, deliberate steps to comply precisely with Hank’s commands. He knew exactly what he had to do.
More importantly, and in striking contrast with his confusion in the pilot episode, he knew who he was. In the first few minutes of the series he could no longer call himself Walter White (though he attempted to do so in the video confession) because he was becoming Heisenberg. That soul-wrenching transition, and not the approaching emergency vehicles, was the nexus of his confusion. This evening he was calm and dignified, no longer in a green shell half-covering his white underwear, he was vested in a white shell half-covering his purple shirt. He had long ago assumed the name Heisenberg but now he understood and accepted his final identity as fallen lord. Ozymandias is an appropriate name, and it is the one Vince Gilligan will apply in next week’s episode.
The story of high school teacher become drug lord become fallen king and failed human being ended where it began and closed Walter White’s story arc. His character arc would be complete if he lacked connections to others, but his links to major characters were intentionally made richer and stronger than those of possibly any other lead character in modern television; simply demonstrating his fall is insufficient to the completion of the story. The details of the fall of Ozymandias constitute the core lesson of this morality play.
We have seen time and again in Breaking Bad that events of greatest moment occur far from the city, on rust soil under blue sky. Poetically, and within the rubrics of storytelling, the highest level of continuity and significance is achieved by plotting a circle that returns to its origin for the final battle and denouement. Sometimes the poetic terrain of the final conflict is conceptual. So, for instance, my science fiction novel, Deneb, begins with the death of an innocent man and ends with the death of an innocent woman.
Partial view of “The Battle of Dabtik Havtan”
Illustration by Chris Rallis, commissioned for Deneb
Circularity in the story events of Deneb gains emotional and poetic impact through the development of conceptual opposition between those who were once allies and friends. The circle is conceptually closed by the simultaneous completion of story arcs in four inter-connected timelines spanning 45,000 years. The completion of the circle, then, is made possible by ironic role reversals among the major characters.
Quite similar ironic events occurred this evening. Walter has always managed to outsmart even the most diabolically intelligent opponent. Tonight he was outfoxed by a 20-something kid and his DEA brother-in-law. As Vince Gilligan said, “Heisenberg has been out-Heisenberged for the first time in history.”
That role reversal is yet another indication of the completion of the circle, given form and substance and physical meaning by the coming together of forces at the geographic origin of the series, in the desert of the To’hajiilee Navajo Reservation.
To’hajiilee is a Navajo word meaning ‘to bring up water from a natural well’. That we have never seen water in these desert scenes may or may not have been intentional on the part of writers and directors, but to my mind the unseen water works well as a physical sign of the Unseen Judge always present at these desert gatherings. I think it’s the human process of bringing up water and the identity of the place as a natural well that carry the symbolic importance of To’hajiilee. In Vince Gilligan’s karma-directed Universe we see human processes that either conform to or deviate from the natural expectations of the Universe. Karma—the expectation-become-result of the unseen, unmoved Breaking Bad judge—is always pronounced and delivered on orange desert under blue sky.
Walter’s story arc is complete. Hank’s story arc, too, has reached its natural endpoint, as I will discuss later in this essay. My guess is that most viewers, even if they didn’t have full, conscious awareness of this idea came away from “To’hajiilee” feeling a kind of completeness, a satisfaction with events they may not have been able to pinpoint. I believe the completion of the circle was the necessary goal of tonight’s episode.
At least a few commentators, I know, have expressed the feeling that the episode fell short of perfection by not showing the end of the gun battle. I disagree with that assessment, for reasons I intend to outline in this essay. I have never been shy in pointing out the imperfections of Breaking Bad. I’ve made fun of the purple-hued excesses of Marie, where I think the writers have gone a bit overboard in their visual humor. In last week’s essay I took a swipe at the development of Hank’s character, saying I was going to ask the commanding general of Fort Pendleton to invite Hank to Marine Corps basic training.
The Immortality of Achilles
Achilles, hero of the Iliad and the greatest warrior who ever drew breath, lives forever.
I suppose such a statement would not create much controversy, especially among those who’ve read the Iliad, but others may be scratching their heads. “Wait a minute, Pearson. Didn’t Achilles die from an arrow wound to the ankle? Isn’t this where the expression ‘Achilles’ Heel’ comes from?” But even those who’ve read the classics may feel a bit uncomfortable with the assertion that Achilles lives forever. “The Iliad is a record of humankind’s struggle with mortality,” we might hear them saying. “That Achilles’ death is not portrayed in the Iliad is beside the point,” they might contend. “All heroes, even Achilles, must die.”
Precisely. When I say ‘Achilles lives forever’, I mean his struggles during the Trojan War—with other Achaeans, with the Trojans, with the gods, with himself—render him an unforgettable ideal of virtue. A thousand generations from now our grandchildren’s grandchildren’s most distant descendants will read Homer and find in Achilles a superlative model of our shared humanity. I don’t mean that he is literally immortal.
Now, the fascinating thing about the Iliad is that the story focuses on Achilles but it never mentions his death. Paris’ shot to Achilles’ vulnerable ankle is a later accretion to the story of the Trojan War, first appearing several centuries after the Golden Age of Athens. But even then, the death of Achilles didn’t really tell us anything about Achilles per se. It confirmed and entrenched the Greek idea of human mortality; Achilles, after all, is not the only human being with a prominent weakness at the ankle: All of us have an Achilles Heel. The only other take-home lesson from Achilles’ death was that Paris was a real jerk, lacking in all the Greek virtues but especially deficient in honor. Achilles’ death told us nothing more about him as a human being, and it is for that reason that his death was rightfully left unportrayed in the Iliad.
The meaninglessness of Achilles’ death is one of the reasons that I consider Episode 5.13 a rare example of the perfect installment of a serialized television drama. The biggest question on most of our minds at the end of the episode could be expressed in three simple words: Did Hank die? The answer: It doesn’t matter. Hank Schrader, like Achilles, lives forever.
Orange Crush
Just as Achilles’ death is a later, unnecessary addition to his story, the outcome of the gun battle is immaterial to Hank’s character arc. The biggest question at the end of last week’s episode was, as I put it, “Is Hank going to stop wearing Marie SchraderTM purple and become the man he’s supposed to be?” The answer, as we saw tonight, was a resounding YES.
All season long I’ve been lamenting Hank’s inability to regain his moral equilibrium in the battle to bring Heisenberg to justice. Hank’s vacillations, his personal vendetta against Walter, and his dreams of personal glory were all interfering with his ability to act in a manner conducive to bringing Heisenberg down. All of that changed in this episode.
For the entire episode—and for the first time this season—Gomez backed Hank and stood at his side. He began by giving Hank a firm warning. “I’m going to tell you this up front, Hank. This guy decides that he wants to lawyer-up, I don’t care if you are my boss: I’m going to put a stop to this.” It was a fair warning, and it put Hank on notice that Gomez understood the plan to be outside the purview of the DEA. “He won’t lawyer-up,” Hank said. And he was right.
Gomez’s warning and Huell’s interrogation were the last scenes containing even a trace of conflict between the ASAC and his first lieutenant. They were also the last scenes in which the two DEA men did not coordinate their attire.
During their last meeting in the Purple Palace both of them wore almost the same shade of green.
Crucially, at the showdown they were both vested in black jackets and DEA orange shirts. Gomez never left Hank’s side, physically or figuratively. They stood together, as one.
The upshot of dressing the men as if they were twins is not only demonstration of their single-mindedness, but symbolic visual representation of Hank’s adherence to the rules of the Breaking Bad Universe. As Steven Michael Quezada noted during tonight’s Talking Bad discussion, “The cool thing about Gomez, he’s the only character on Breaking Bad that never broke bad.” Gomez’s moral purity was essential to the episode and to Hank’s character arc.
For several episodes I have been hoping, praying, pleading with anyone who would listen that Hank would find himself, stop wearing every weird color under the sun, and return to his color, which is orange. It finally happened, and with such poetic perfection as I could not have imagined. YES. Let’s hear it for DEA orange!
The characters of Breaking Bad do not fulfill personal destiny in a vacuum. That Hank has rediscovered his moral center would have proven an interesting but largely uneventful footnote to the drama if he had not use his new-found virtue to dethrone Heisenberg. That is precisely what he did, and there is no going back, as we will see.
Ozymandias
Just prior to the beginning of the second half of Season Five, Bryan Cranston narrated one of the most powerful television trailers I’ve ever heard, using the words of a poem long familiar to my ears. The poem is a simple sonnet, “Ozymandias,” written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1818:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'
Unlike heroic and virtuous Achilles and Hank Schrader, the powerful and the proud do not live forever. The greatest of vain and greedy men become dust and vapor, lost even to distant memory.
Here is “Ozymandias,” read by Bryan Cranston.
Vincent Price recorded his interpretation of the poem 40 years ago. For those unfamiliar with his work, Price’s vocal intonations and facial expressions brought terror to even the most lifeless scripts. There is no such thing as a boring Vincent Price movie.
This is part of the poem as I am used to hearing it, read by Leonard Nimoy. The passage begins at 2:49 into the recording.
I hear Mr. Spock’s steady intonation of Shelley’s words every time I play Civilization IV and gain the Construction advance. It wasn’t until 2008, after I had been playing the game for two years, that I became intrigued enough to look up the full poem. I still remember the feeling of wide-eyed disbelief at the power of the words.
Tom Sylla created an eerie, chilling visual interpretation of the poem in 1999.
I will have much more to say about “Ozymandias” after next week’s episode, but for now, let’s take a look at the significance of the poem to this evening’s events.
Stepping Down
“Do not come,” Walter said. It was his last command as Emperor Heisenberg. He could have instructed Uncle Jack to bring extra firepower, to prepare for battle with the DEA. He called off the Nazis neither as a tactical maneuver nor out of fear of later reprisals. As we learned during the gunfight, Walter stepped down from the throne of his own accord as a way of protecting Hank and his immediate family. He was not taking a temporary leave of absence or an imperial sabbatical. He knew the game was over. There is no more Heisenberg, except as a graffitied taunt on the inner wall of a federally-repossessed drug house.
Regardless of the outcome of the shootout in the desert, we know Walter will survive not as Heisenberg, but as Ozymandias, and we know he suffered the fall of his own choice, rather than becoming the cause of Hank’s death.
I am not sure of the complete significance of Walter’s choice. Probably we can say that at this moment in time, at least, Walter retained some small morsel of humanity. He wished for a connection to other human beings, even if only to his family. His ‘confession’ wrongfully accused Hank, but perhaps he thought of the tactic as nothing more than a warning—part of his counsel to ‘tread lightly’—not understanding that it was the axe that severed forever the familial bond between Skyler and Marie and Hank and himself.
Possibly his remorse will be only temporary, but Walter’s sudden acceptance of his fall from imperial majesty opens up new roads toward understanding the ricin vial and the M60 machine gun, and sheds new light on the significance of Mr. Lambert at Denny’s.
Of Bullets and Bacon
The face we saw in the two flashforward scenes was not the commanding countenance of a conquering emperor. This was a man long defeated. The implication, in light of Walter’s voluntary surrender, is that many of the events in the 140 minutes remaining to the series will catalog moments of increasing levels of pathos, made poignant by our understanding that even in this wretched soul, probably beyond redemption, is a kernel of human empathy and willingness to sacrifice for his family.
The showdown in the desert also gives strong support to the so-called ‘Bacon Death Theory’ that has gained currency since our first look at Walter’s breakfast at Denny’s last year and the celebration of Walter’s 51st birthday a few weeks later.
“Hey, Mom, you forgot something,” Junior said 13 minutes into Episode 5.04 (“Fifty-one”). “Dad’s bacon.”
“No, that’s okay,” Walter said. “I can do it.”
“No, Mom has to,” Junior insisted.
“Well, it is sort of a tradition,” Walter said, shrugging, as if surrendering to the inevitability of it all.
Skyler would have to form Walter’s bacon into a perfect 51 because there was no alternative. So that’s what she did, even though she detested the assignment.
No, Mom has to. The implication is that if Mom doesn’t do it, there must be an extraordinary set of conditions preventing her execution of the task. Skyler was not at Denny’s a year later. There might have been any number of mundane reasons for her absence, but with Junior’s pronouncement in 5.04, we knew something important about the sad flashforward scene at Denny’s.
When Walter decided to call himself ‘Mr. Lambert’ (Skyler’s maiden name) and used his own hands to tear the bacon into a 52 we knew he did so because Skyler could not be there. If there were any possibility that Skyler could be present, even days later, Walter would have waited for her to form the bacon.
The most obvious conclusion, even last year, was that Skyler had died sometime before the flashforward scene at Denny’s. Based on the events of tonight’s episode, Skyler’s death seems all the more likely. It’s hard to envision a simple divorce or separation rising to the level of pathos required for the final scenes of the series. A corollary to the theory of Skyler’s demise is death or severe injury to Junior. This is based on a symbolic interpretation of Skyler’s removal of bacon from Junior’s plate to form the ‘1’ of ‘51’ on Walter’s plate. Walter was made whole at Junior’s expense according to this theory. Since Walter could be made whole only by avoiding death, the implication was that Junior died in his stead.
I am not convinced of the ‘Bacon Death Theory’, or its corollary. Obviously another possibility is that Skyler will not surrender her Mrs. Heisenberg identity even after Walter’s disappearance. In such a scenario the ricin may represent a kind of ‘Sophie’s Choice’, in which Walter must kill Skyler in order to protect his children. Enterprising theorists can think up dozens of plausible scenarios that do not include Skyler’s demise. But tonight’s episode does seem to favor Skyler’s death as a likely outcome.
Regardless of Skyler’s destiny, the defeated man we saw in the desert and at Denny’s stands in striking contrast to the determined man purchasing a machine gun and returning to Albuquerque to recover a vial of deadly poison. If he truly is defeated, why does he show any interest in these two deadly weapons?
Prior to tonight’s episode we might have opined that the ricin would be used to poison one of Heisenberg’s enemies—or become the instrument of Heisenberg’s suicide. But Heisenberg is defeated and gone—at least for the moment. Walter’s keen interest in saving Hank, even at risk of everything he sought to gain, indicates another possibility: The machine gun, and possibly the ricin, will be used to protect Walter’s family. This might have been counted a distant possibility last week. The family protection scenario is stronger this week. For instance, we might imagine Walter using the machine gun to protect Hank or Marie from Uncle Jack’s goons.
Authenticity
Walter’s posture during the surrender scene is provocative and fascinating, with undertones obvious to anyone who attends liturgical churches on a regular basis.
The decision to put Walter in a traditional priestly posture may have been written into the script or it may have been a little ‘extra’ thrown in by the director, Michelle MacLaren. I know practically nothing about her, but I do know, from several interviews, that Vince Gilligan grew up as a practicing Roman Catholic and has since become agnostic in his beliefs. If Gilligan added posture instructions to the scene, the undertone could not have been accidental.
Another explanation is that Gilligan was drawing not from liturgical rubric but from the way the Roman Catholic Mass was ritualized by parishioners of the time. The arms-outstretched posture was often adopted by Roman Catholic parishioners during recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in the late 1970s and 1980s, when Vince Gilligan would have been attending Mass. The posture is still used today, though the practice has fallen out of favor since the liturgical reforms of the last twelve years. The stance indicates not only openness to the Deity, but communicates the idea of humble submission, penitence, and contrition.
I believe it’s that very personal experience of the Mass that the writers or the director chose to inject into this scene. I believe the intention was to convey the idea that Walter was coming forward as his true self, not as Heisenberg, not as High School teacher Mr. Walter White, but simply as Walter, the now defeated man. What we saw in this scene, I believe, was the authentic Walter White, stripped of every grain of artifice or falsehood.
I don’t think he’s consciously seeking forgiveness. Not yet. I don’t think the concept has entered his mind. But perhaps in outstretched arms, in hands subtly turned, in fingers reaching out as if in hopes of grasping something precious, some suppressed aspect of Walter’s inner self—perhaps the part of him that insisted on Hank’s safety above Walter’s personal gain—is yearning to find expression in Walter’s thoughts, in his words, in what he could do, in what he might now refuse or fail to do. Maybe the posture represents a kind of subliminal, pre-penitential Confiteor, as it were.
I believe we are to understand through Walter’s outstretched arms that he carries within himself the potential to beg forgiveness. Whether any such forgiveness is possible in the Breaking Bad Universe is another matter entirely. My own thinking is that Heisenberg’s fall to desert sand and wind is inevitable, that the karma-driven world of Breaking Bad offers no quarter to the likes of Walter White, and that his miserable descent to become the Ozymandias who once was is as certain as the coming end of the series.
I'm not sure I buy Walt's panic. It worked for Hank and it was a great idea, but one of the reasons Walt made it this far was attention to detail.
ReplyDeleteWhy wasn't the possibility that Jesse could be working with Hank even considered by Walter? He sat there an episode ago staring at the pool seems like that thought would at least cross his mind. Was that a pride and hubris thing? Speaking of pride and hubris, wouldn't Walter call Jesse's bluff and ask questions that would help him determine whether he really knows where the money is?
I guess I don't buy the carelessness that would lead everyone straight to the site where he hid his money. Not Walter. Were it me, and I'm no criminal mastermind, I might have intentionally driven straight to the other side of the hill and then climbed it to see if anyone was at the sight. Even if the rental place had GPS, why would they turn that data over to Jesse unless L.E. was involved?
That's all water under the bridge now. Now Walter has completely lost control. I've mentioned on another post that he's screwed no matter what the outcome of this shootout is because he no longer has any leverage in anything, least of all with the neo-nazi "vamonos" guys.
It will be interesting to see -- but it would make sense for Hank's status to be unknown for most of, if not all of the remaining episodes. Sure other characters may believe he's dead, but the audience might not know for sure. All I know is that there's no other possible outcome but total failure where Walter is concerned. The only question in my mind is "how far-reaching is the damage"?
I think that's the point. We have seen through the series that Walter has this soft spot for Jesse. And we know that he cares about that money going to his children.I mean if he lost all his money he did everything for nothing. I think the suspension of logical thinking is because of those two things. "I see Jesse as family" he said. And we see tonight that he didn't want the Nazis to come and kill Hank, even though Hank was dead set on arresting him and bringing him down.
ReplyDeleteAlso "Heisenberg" was not the one calling the shots. But the mild mannered Walter White we saw in the first season(Stained and scarred from the previous 4 and a half seasons). "Heisenberg" would have thought of those things and picked apart Jesse's story. But Walter White wouldn't have. Now I'm not saying it's a split personality, but I see Walter White and Heisenberg as split aspects of thinking. His humanity and total logic minded doppelganger. Imagine the difference between Spock and Captain Kirk in that regard. Emotion and perhaps he was also naive that Jesse could ever outsmart him and play him like that so it clouded his judgement.
True. As viewers, we sometimes know critical details to the story which a particular character may not have. We also have hindsight and a couple days to chew on things while they must respond.
ReplyDeleteWhich is why I've decided that I'm overthinking things.
I agree with 24601. Remember Walt from season 1,2,3,4,5a? That Walt wouldn't fall for such ruses. He would have checked van for gps (he checked it before confronting Hank, after all, on his own car, with much less at stake). The man who made a battery almost out of thin air would have been more skeptical about the barrel. He would not have mentioned everything that he did. After all, real person would naturally say 'everything I did, was for you', not enumerate. And while some previous slips (mentioning that Gale's notes are not one of the master, but one of the pupil) were motivated by hubris, mishap with the gps van is pure and simple slip on his part. And that cheapens everything, as there can be no possible organic motivation for it (unless his lung cancer has spread to his brain). It just goes to show that characters are, in the end, puppets in the hands of their gods - the writers. if need be, they will move according to external, not internal demand. The episode was fantastic, but this is a serious dent. I would love to hear your thoughts on it (I anticipate you will disagree). Great essay, as always.
ReplyDeleteAndy,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind comments about the essay. I find Walter's behavior in this episode more than plausible. As many have noted, the Heisenberg persona is actually more emotional than the Walter persona. Walter greeted the news of lung cancer with ho-hum shrugged shoulders. Heisenberg didn't have reactions like that. Walter thought he was guided by logic, and he often was, but the most important decisions of his life, going back to his sexual affair with Gretchen and the founding of Gray Matter, were made on the basis of emotional reaction to events. Those tendencies to follow an emotional trajectory were only exacerbated in the last year and a half of Walter's life, in the Heisenberg period. If he was emotional about the things that mattered most, he was certainly emotional about and extremely protective of the place "where he really lives," as Jesse aptly put it: his money. Walter has been attacked as never before, by Skyler, Lydia, Jesse, Hank, Marie. His only remaining friend is a neo-Nazi who could turn on him at any moment. The situation was becoming increasingly grim for him. That Jesse would have found his money was a shock, but it was piled on top of the shock that his protege was collaborating with Hank. Under the circumstances of a double-whammy like that Walter's emotion took control as never before. To my thinking the reaction was plausible in every respect. I'm sensitive to these things as a writer myself. I consider Hank's behavior this season in some sense implausible, but whenever I think hard enough about it, my internal BS meter tends to dismiss my objections due to the multiple constraints on Hank's activities at his office, the fact that he would probably be dismissed as ASAC if brother-in-law Walter were outed, and Hank's not-so-good relationship with the SAC. All in all, my feeling is that the writers have done an extraordinary job working within the narrow confines of real-world constraints.
I know the moment would be overwhelming -- the pic was pretty stinking close to what Walter had in the actual barrels. Hank admitted to him that it was a grill in the backyard. Interestingly enough, earlier in the series, Walter started burning a wad of cash on his grill.
ReplyDeleteBut my objection to the frantic drive directly to the location where Walter hid every physical manifestation of his effort centers around one idea -- the location itself. I don't believe that Jesse, or anyone else would be able to walk up to the rental clerk/rental owner and ask them about the GPS data from a previous rental if they were not the renter. The claim that that's what happened, would have set off some red flags in my mind. There are two ways that information would be available. A relationship with the rental place clerk/owner, or a warrant.
In any case, the story had to play out this way. I'm sure they could have tossed some line in there about how Jesse and Walt did business with this particular rental place and they know the owner, but that would risk taking the steam out of the developments.
It's just that I can't agree when V.G. says "Heisenberg was out-Heisenberged". Respectfully, he just screwed up. He's not on his game because he's been trying to walk away from it. As he attempts to distance himself from it, he's less involved, less connected, and has less control.
Walt has done inherently irrational things before (mainly out of hubris). And that is fine. But, nothing he did in this episode was irrational. It was a-rational. It was not thought-out properly. These were the actions of an ordinary man caught up in things much bigger than him. But Walt fared much better in intellectual department when he didn't even know what he was doing than now when he is all too experienced.
ReplyDeleteNow, I am not saying there isn't any kind of motivation that writers managed to convey for current Walt's behavior. These are some of the best writers on TV, after all. I am just saying they may went one step too far in explaining Walt's proneness to slipping up than they should have. When Walt is at top of his game, he is unstoppable. Thus, to be stopped, he has to be rattled, and that is all right. Jesse can rattle him, but there are two big miscues on writers' part that I still can't explain away:
1) Walt was smart enough to check his own car for GPS, how come that, merely days later he wasn't smart enough to learn all the info about company he rents vans from?
In one case we have a mane sensible enough to do one thing, and shortly after a man, in full control of his intellectual capacities who 'forgets' to basically do the same thing?
2) Listing what he did over the phone. I understand that he wanted to refer to it and say that he did things for Jesse, but I though it was very unnatural piece of dialogue for him to list it point by point (I killed x, I ran over y, etc). It just seemed like something that would have happened on Law & Order.
24601,
ReplyDeleteExcellent observations! I agree: We do need to factor into our analysis the fact that Walt has been trying to distance himself from every aspect of the drug business, and the effort to throw up mental walls would certainly have degraded the quality of his thought processes.
Andy,
ReplyDeleteTop-notch analysis here. I don't see any problem with Point #1, and I will explain. As for #2, I think the detailed listing of a few crimes is kind of weird if taken by itself. If we had a written transcript it would look strange, very much out of place. But we don't have a written transcript. What we see in the 100 mph flight down dusty roads is Walt's desperation. He's doing at least three things in this scene we've never seen him do: Losing complete control of himself, risking being pulled over for dozens of traffic violations, and listing specific crimes over a medium subject to recording. The tone is not like Law and Order in my opinion. The feds only need probable cause, not proof. Walt is giving proof--with 140 minutes (without commercials; 3 hours with commercials) left in the series. Law and Order does this to complete the logical circle and to demonstrate guilt. Remember, Law and Order is always from the POV of the 'good guys'; we know of the bad guy's guilt only because of the dogged determination and superlative skill of investigators and prosecutors. In BB we already know Walt's guilt and we don't need proof. Since the feds don't need proof either, the over-the-phone confession is over the top, unnecessary to establish legal A --> B --> C. The point of the confession is not the same as the crumbling of the witness under Perry Mason's grilling in the witness stand so that we know his punishment is justified. The point is to show the unraveling of Heisenberg and to heighten the contrast between Scarface and family man Walter who gives the command to Jack to stand down. At this point, anyway, the writers have made the decision to show Walter stopping short of complete selfishness. He could have told Jack to come in with heavy artillery to wipe out Hank, but he told him the opposite: Stand down. If they continue with this, the effect will be devastating. Walter is going to suffer the worst possible punishment, as he should, but we will know he still carries within himself a kernel of humanity. The confession is art, in other words, and I think it works. As far as Point #1, Walter isn't in full control. He ceded control. For instance, he didn't rent the van. He trusted Saul's goons to do it right. But he had to because he feared Skyler would tell Hank. And so on for every other objection I can think of. This episode was a rare piece of art.
Thank you for taking the time to provide counterpoints and context. I will cede as well, and regardless of my qualms, I agree fully with the last sentence. This episode is not only among the best of BB, but it is the height of what TV as a medium can offer (as opposed to movies that can't give you the same time with characters for one to invest in). I have long thought that if the novel represents the best that literature as a medium can offer, its natural parallel is TV, not movies (that is why filming novels generally fails). Though, if I am hones, if I had to pick a specific shot from the entire series, so far, it would be the parallel scene in 1x03, when Walt is enumerating elements in the human body and scrubbing Emilio off the floor, putting what's left of him in the bucket, and flushing it down the toilet, with parallel comment that there is no soul.
ReplyDeleteAs to the subject at hand, I accept the explanation that Walt is not in full control. It was inevitable, I suppose, and I agree, it is fully motivated. Maybe it was just my expectation that if anyone would have brought him down, it would be when he is at top of his game, similarly to how he brought down Gus (though again using the one thing that Gus didn't have intellectual control over - his decade-old and personal feud).
Thank you again for discussions provided. It is a rare example of a writer so thoroughly engaging with replies in the comment section, at least in my experience.
Much has been made about the drive out -- but this episode is the beginning of the end -- it has to happen this way because he can't keep getting away with this right?
ReplyDeleteI like the comparison of Hank to Achilles. I was kind of wondering about it at first read, but I've had some time to think about it and the comparison is absolutely correct. Uncertainty about Hank's fate could either not matter, or it could be a sleeper element to a mind-blowing finale. Time will tell.
Thanks again for a wonderful essay. I loved the comparison of Hank to Achilles, though I admit I want to know if he survives or not. The fact he was able to have the call with Marie, and told her he might not be back home for awhile, leads me to think he will not survive. I have to admit that, to me, as harrowing as the shootout scene was, it was a bit laughable that in all that hail of bullets, we didn't see anyone get wounded. I guess we'll see the final outcome later.
ReplyDeleteThe comparison of Walter to Ozymandias was wonderful, too. You have such a wonderful ability to remember these cultural and literary touchstones. I've read the poem, but would never have brought it out of the depths of my feeble memory to apply it to the analysis. I saw Walter, in the scene leading up to the shootout as in a state of resigned fury, which came out against Jesse. The hopeful look on Jesse's face as the demon Heisenberg was being cuffed, the thought that perhaps Jesse would finally be safe, was almost heartbreaking, because we all knew what was coming. But, yes, Ozymandias has been dethroned, now it is left to see the collateral damage. And, as they have hinted that perhaps Walter White still has some vestige of humanity in him, like you said, it will be a tragedy for him to see what Heisenberg wrought.
Andy,
ReplyDeleteYou brought up the scene that was critical to my involvement in discussing Breaking Bad. I didn't like the pilot. Hated it. But I had asked Nikki Stafford when I met her in New Orleans (we were at a LOST convention), she recommended the show, and I promised to give it a try. So on that basis I watched the second episode. Hated it. Obviously, I thought, Nikki is more open-minded than I am about the kinds of television shows she watches. But we both loved LOST, both wrote about it (you're not a real LOST fan, in my mind anyway, unless you've read Nikki's books). Well, you know, I respect differences of opinion, respect her as a woman who can tolerate life in the big city. So, resigned to some kind of cultural or philosophical divide between the thinking of two people interested in television drama, I half-heartedly punched the 'play' button for Episode 1.03 and there was the brilliant juxtaposition of cleaning human glop off the floor intercut with a chalkboard discussion of human beings as collections of atoms. Wow! Nikki was right about Breaking Bad. Her mind hadn't been poisoned by the big city after all! A Toronto girl and a fellow who dreams of living in Guelph (a large town/small city in Ontario) might have common interests after all! So 1.03 is maybe the most important episode in BB for me, but for very personal reasons.
As far as my interest in replying to comments, I really see writing as just part of a discussion. Your views on an event are as valid and interesting as mine and being able to read your comments is as important to me as writing the book or the essay. All of it's the same in my mind. Some writers want to impress you with their great command of the language, or their unique expression of ideas. I might be a little jaded, but I've created too many processes in the laboratory, hold too many patents, to see raw ideas as having all that much value. Ideas are a dime a dozen. The discussion's the thing, and that's why you see me responding to nearly every comment. I wrote over 100 essays on LOST, but I also banged out nearly one thousand responses to comments on those essays. I write novels, sure, but it's the discussion of ideas that really attracts me, and thus my interest in television drama, which is something that you and I can both appreciate and therefore discuss. At various times in life I've taught. Fifth grade through seventh in Milwaukee, ninth grade through 12th in the Peace Corps, graduate-level separations science to pharmaceutical scientists across North America. I probably enjoy teaching more than anything else I've done, again because of the discussion component. The discussion's the thing.
24601,
ReplyDeleteGilligan intentionally left Hank's fate up in the air, but we do know there's going to be some kind of aftermath in addition to body count. Gomez took Walter's car keys, for example, so the keys will play into someone's escape or contribute to some unexpected reversal in the next episode or in 5.15. But, yeah, when we heard Hank tell Marie he loved her, and Marie said she loved Hank, that's a well-worn sign of horrible things to come. That scene virtually *requires* Hank to die in the shootout. But Walter and Skyler parallel Hank and Marie; if the writers can create a reversal in the W-S relationship that development would allow an H-M reversal, allowing Hank to live. There are other ways to overcome the "I love you" road to death, of course, and I count the possibility pretty high that we'll see Hank again. For instance, there are not two groups at the shootout, there are *five*: Jesse, Walter, Hank-Gomez, Jack-goons, and Todd. If I had to guess, I'd put Jesse out there as the odd-man-out who destroys the polarity in the DEA/Neo-Nazi shootout. After all, the only reason Jack is there is to put a bullet in Jesse's brain, not to kill DEA agents. We shall see!
Diane,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your thoughtful comments on my essay. Ah, yes, the hail of bullets. I outlined that in my essay, had it all ready to go, but it didn't fit well into the context of what I'd written, so I left it out. The whole shootout sequence could be an essay in itself, and I will try to do it some justice in Breaking Blue. Food for thought: Watch the shootout scene a couple times, maybe once in slow motion. Pay particular attention to the facial expressions. Any idea what the director is trying to say? I found it absolutely fascinating!
Incidentally, I had identical feeling about the first two episodes. Then the third happened. I actually got relatively late into Breaking Bad (I binged first four seasons), so I didn't have much opportunity to re-watch every episode. I wonder if the first two would fare better in hindsight.
ReplyDeleteAs for the merit of discussion, and as someone who has been teaching Medieval and German philosophy to undergraduates for the past six years, I can absolutely sympathize. I prefer seminars to having ex-cathedra lectures precisely because of more ample opportunities for discussion. I also find conferences immensely valuable. Three books can't teach you as much as two pointed conversations, at least that is my experience.
In short, keep up the great work, and thanks for having so much energy. I suppose that many people feel too exhausted to enter any additional discussions upon posting their pieces. Glad too see that is not the case with you.
Philosophy prof, eh? You fit my reader profile. Not that there's any such thing as a 'representative' reader of my essays, but of the university professors who use my books in their class, probably a third are philosophy profs, only a third or so are film or literature professors. Maybe because I have no training in film but kept taking philosophy courses even in grad school? I've most enjoyed those professors who drill down to a philosophical system's essential idea and demonstrate the consistency (or lack thereof) in corollary aspects of the system. In shows like LOST and Breaking Bad I'm always looking for the thesis and exposition of themes around the core philosophy. That kind of thing is maybe not so interesting to cinema profs, I suppose, but completely fascinating to me. It's good to find a kindred spirit in the Breaking Bad world. Thanks so much for contributing to the discussion!
ReplyDeleteHi, thanks for the essay. I'm particularly impressed with the last part. Lately I've been thinking there was no hope of redemption for Walter. But here it is: He was able to stop his "highway to hell" when defending his interests would cost Hank's life. He hadn't stopped for Jesse's life (even if I really believe he cares deeply for the guy, but he just didn't know what he might do and it felt really dangerous). His decision to kill Jesse is the most heartbreaking for me. But then Walt is able to regain his humanity when realizing that taking Hank's life is beyond the line, something he just can't do.
ReplyDeleteSo the new idea that I hadn't realized before is that stopping right there and giving up everything out of his love for Hank (for his family) Walter is able to gain some perspective, and as you say, he might be opening to regret and a need of forgiveness. My hope is that this situation might heal Jesse's and Walt's relationship. I don't care so much if Walt has to die or go to jail at the end, but I really would appreciate a reconciliation between these two. And that might come at the price of Hank's death and subsequent Walt's devastation.
Aaronia,
ReplyDeleteThank you for joining the discussion. I'm glad you enjoyed the essay!
You point out a possibility I had not considered--that there might be some kind of reconciliation between Walter and Hank. I think it's a particularly attractive idea for several reasons: because I haven't thought of it, because trying to do something like this, from the perspective of a writer, seems virtually impossible, but mostly because such an occurrence would bring substantially more depth to the ending. I have no idea whether they're going to attempt something like this, but we need to be looking for cascades--not so much logical cascades, as with traditional crime drama, but relational and emotional cascades that deepen the plot. Walter murders Skyler which causes Marie, in her grief, to murder Jesse--things like that. We can be pretty certain that the birthday bacon tradition and the M60 machine gun will figure into one or more of those cascades. It's going to be rough from here on out, but it should be nothing short of compelling in every way.
The thing about Lost and BB is that it is developed around questions that are especially prominent in philosophy. They are serialized pieces of fiction created around fundamental questions and properly executed. No wonder why there are volumes of essays like 'Lost and philosophy'. I didn't know that your books were used in classes, that is excellent, congratulations. It is a no small feat.
ReplyDeleteTalking about systems, both scholastics and German Idealists were great system-thinkers. They believed that no idea, no answer to some particular question, can be separated from a whole. An interesting tidbit: during the 19th century, if one was to be qualified for having a professorship at any German university, he had to have an original system. It is a sentiment that has long since subsided and philosophy now mainly revolves around particular questions and particular answers, for better or worse.
I find that the two shows you mentioned, more than any other (or most of other shows), have a particular core worth exploring in a way philosophy generally does. What I am glad to find in your essays, especially now, knowing that you had ample contact with philosophy, is grounding and structure. Too many people believe that philosophy deals with abstract free-flow musings. It is, as you say, something quite different, and far more worthy of one's time.
Now, I wanted to go back to one of your points about Skyler's possible demise. Do you think that the following scenario is possible: the entire family moved via Saul's vacuum cleaner guy, but now Walt is dying and he has to take care of things in order for his family to be permanently safe. They are currently in NH, Walt doesn't expect to return (that is why he wouldn't wait for Skylar), but he couldn't have stayed either because it was only a matter of time before his enemies located them.
In that scenario, I can surmise why he needed a gun. But, gun and ricin? the one is the means of violent resolution, the other of effective, quiet elimination. Why would he need both?
So, in this scenario, everyone's alive, but endangered. It is slightly less catastrophic than some predictions, but it seemingly fits and it also puts Walt into position to do two things: 1) manage to make his family safe even when he is gone and 2) try to redeem himself by (presumably) taking out guys that are even worse than him.
Andy,
ReplyDeleteRegarding Skyler, I suppose virtually anything is possible. I learned the hard way with my prediction of the resurrection of Locke (LOST) that the full statement of the thesis may not occur until the final minutes of the final episode. The significance of this is that one cannot know a priori that a particular event is necessary to support of the thesis--that is to say, we cannot predict with accuracy any particular event in Breaking Bad because we do not have the full thesis statement. Until recently I might have thought I was able to predict with a measure of confidence that Walter would take some action demonstrating lack of regard for even family members. This is because I was taking at face value the idea that "Mr. Chips becomes Scarface." BB is telling us in the most recent episode that we need to be open to a specific definition of Scarface, and the definition may not include complete selfishness. But it still could. For example, the gunfight out in the desert goes nowhere, or Hank and Gomez run out of ammunition. We might imagine a ceasefire and negotiation taking place. "I have no beef with you," Jack might say to Hank. "Give me Jesse." But Walter does the calculus, realizes he becomes accessory to murder if that happens. All Hank has at this point is the money, no proof of murder. If he gives Jesse, he becomes a murderer, so he says, "Jack, kill Hank and Gomez." That's just one example. With five distinct groups at the shootout, any number of complicated negotiation scenarios could arise, as long as the central thesis supports them. Anything involving Skyler is pure supposition at this point, and I raised the 'Bacon Death Theory' in my essay only because the turn of events in 5.13 seemed to support the scenario. But I stated unambiguously that I do not support the theory. It's not that I don't believe it can happen. I do believe that. But I'm not here to make predictions or offer up 'theories'.
The question revolves around the definition of Scarface. At this point it looks to me as if the writers are playing with Mt. 12:32. That is to say, Walter may end the series with a certain amount of sympathy for or even love of others, but it could be that he crossed a line that admits of no return--his crimes may be so severe that forgiveness is impossible, even if he gets on his knees and begs forgiveness, even if his own heart tells him his actions were wrong. This possibility constitutes the genesis of the essay title: *Pathos* and Perfection. Pathos, because it now seems to me part of Walter's story may be the Unforgivable Sin, that he seeks forgiveness but will never obtain it from anyone, least of all from the Universe (Vince Gilligan's word for Karma, used 3 times so far in the series). So he may even end the series alive, but if so, it would be a Job (the Biblical Job, I mean, from the Hebrew Scriptures) scenario where he has lost absolutely everything, including every member of his family and he dies alone, in a sewer or in a ditch, penniless, almost naked, and he dies not from the cold or from hunger, but from cancer. The worst cancer, you see, is the disease that took away his soul. That's just one possibility, but this episode makes it viable.
As far as the machine gun and ricin, multiple plot threads must be addressed. The story has to deal with Todd, Jack and his goons, Lydia and Madrigal, Jesse, Hank, Marie, Skyler, and Walter's children. All of them could potentially be dealt with in different ways, so we could devise dozens of scenarios requiring both an M60 machine gun and a vial of ricin. Different threats require different responses, nicht wahr?
Well, of course, Hank and Walter's reconciliation would be great and some fabulous thing to behold if they do it right, but I'm kind of assuming Hank is going to be dead really soon. I used to think the end of the series was going to be a great tragedy, with escalating horrors as you describe. But you know, your essay gave me hope, that after one devastating death (whichever one) the dynamics would change.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, if Hank dies during the shootout, and Jesse and Walt survive. Walt will feel horrible and unable to face Marie, Skyler, Junior... ever again, I believe Jesse will forgive him and help him cope with it, because this young guy has a great heart, and will understand that this kind of suffering is enough payment for what Walter did to Brock. At least he would feel he has paid some kind of price. And Jesse might even feel a bit guilty about the possible Hank's death (you know, because he was a rat, even if the shooting wasn't his fault at all, just Walt's and Jack's).
Yes, the dynamics will certainly change, in most cases in ways we will not have considered. "Everyone dies," Junior says as they're watching Scarface. It's hard to believe such a statement is accurate foreshadowing. But I find it almost impossible to believe that several of the major characters will not die. It will seem strange if Jesse, Hank, and Gomez walk out of the desert alive. We shall see!
ReplyDelete