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IGotWorms

I just can't get into Breaking Bad

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I watched the first 2 seasons faithfully, and then watched the first 2 episodes this season.

 

Ultimately, I decided:

 

It's not that good

 

It's pretty unbelievable at this point.

 

It's overly dark, for the sake of being dark. Walt's wife looks like a barely passable tranny. Every time she's on screen, I wanna jump through the screen, lift up her skirt and proclaim.....I knew it!

 

I'm done with it.

 

Those were my two chief complaints, even from the first four episodes. I usually enjoy dark shows but it seemed to me like Breaking Bad just wanted to be the darkest show out there, regardless of whether it actually made the show good or not. As for the storyline, I realize that this is supposed to be a twisted "fantasy" of sorts, but it just goes way beyond the bounds of believability. If Walt is supposed to be a regular guy who got swept up in weird sh!t, then the plot needs to be at least semi-realistic for the show to work. It's not, IMO.

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Season 1, Episode 4 is exactly where I got off last time around. Christ that was a terrible episode. Maybe I just needed to get over that hump and then it would've been fine? Maybe I'll try picking it up again from episode 5.

 

It was slow, but I get what they are trying to do with the episode. I loved the episodes before with what they were going to do with the drug guys. :bandana:

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I am watching the first season now of Breaking Bad. I like it so far (even though the 4th episode was slow).

 

I liked Dexter (but wish they didn't soften him).

 

We watched the 1st three episodes of Sons of Anarchy. We were ready to give up after the 1st two episodes, but the third was really good. It is on hold now as we go through Breaking bad.

 

Wait until you get into the season with John Lithgow. Holy christ. Some seriously dark sh1t going on there.

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You mean Lithgow in Dexter? I have already seen all the Dexters. The 1st and 4th seasons were the best by far.

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You mean Lithgow in Dexter? I have already seen all the Dexters. The 1st and 4th seasons were the best by far.

 

 

Yeah, you didn't care for it? I don't recall what season it was...I watched them all in about a week so they kind of blur together.

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Those were my two chief complaints, even from the first four episodes. I usually enjoy dark shows but it seemed to me like Breaking Bad just wanted to be the darkest show out there, regardless of whether it actually made the show good or not. As for the storyline, I realize that this is supposed to be a twisted "fantasy" of sorts, but it just goes way beyond the bounds of believability. If Walt is supposed to be a regular guy who got swept up in weird sh!t, then the plot needs to be at least semi-realistic for the show to work. It's not, IMO.

 

Since the writers of the show are failing so horribly (regardless of the widespread critical acclaim), pray tell what direction you would have taken this story about a chemistry teacher turned drug dealer?

 

I don't get what the big b!tch is here. The writing is terrific, the acting top-notch, and the plot is fine IMO. You'd think they made him the head of the Medellin cartel the way people are talking. Realistically, Walt would probably have been busted or dead inside of a month, but that wouldn't have made much of a television show.

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Wait until you get into the season with John Lithgow. Holy christ. Some seriously dark sh1t going on there.

 

Lithgow was EXCELLENT. One of the creepiest but still slightly sympathetic villains on the series.

 

*SPOILERS*

 

That's the problem with Dexter, the most interesting characters always die. Doakes, Trinity etc. And besides Dexter all the regulars suck IMHO. I focking hate his retarded-faced sister, the Latino husband and wife cops, and the wacky comic relief Asian. I don't mind the new Irish guy that's currently boning Dexter's sister but Doakes was better at the part.

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Yeah, you didn't care for it? I don't recall what season it was...I watched them all in about a week so they kind of blur together.

 

I thought the 3rd season blew a bit and the 5th was so-so. They also need to insinuation of torture (like in the early episodes). Not the one jab of the knife.

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Since the writers of the show are failing so horribly (regardless of the widespread critical acclaim), pray tell what direction you would have taken this story about a chemistry teacher turned drug dealer?

 

I don't get what the big b!tch is here. The writing is terrific, the acting top-notch, and the plot is fine IMO. You'd think they made him the head of the Medellin cartel the way people are talking. Realistically, Walt would probably have been busted or dead inside of a month, but that wouldn't have made much of a television show.

 

Sorry pal, I didn't realize you had a personal stake in the show. :unsure:

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Lithgow was EXCELLENT. One of the creepiest but still slightly sympathetic villains on the series.

 

*SPOILERS*

 

That's the problem with Dexter, the most interesting characters always die. Doakes, Trinity etc. And besides Dexter all the regulars suck IMHO. I focking hate his retarded-faced sister, the Latino husband and wife cops, and the wacky comic relief Asian. I don't mind the new Irish guy that's currently boning Dexter's sister but Doakes was better at the part.

LOL something about the sis is hot and not hot at the same time.

She does a fair amount of panty scenes...which is nice. :-)

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Sorry pal, I didn't realize you had a personal stake in the show. :unsure:

 

No personal stake, but I think it's a great show that consistently delivers the goods so most of these criticisms ring hollow for me. You say it's too unrealistic, and I'd like to think that you aren't being contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian, so you must have some ideas about how you would make it more realistic, yet still as entertaining, right?

 

If you want a realistic show about meth dealers, watch COPS. :dunno:

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No personal stake, but I think it's a great show that consistently delivers the goods so most of these criticisms ring hollow for me. You say it's too unrealistic, and I'd like to think that you aren't being contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian, so you must have some ideas about how you would make it more realistic, yet still as entertaining, right?

 

If you want a realistic show about meth dealers, watch COPS. :dunno:

the "realism" is what's great about it - the show is exploring every "real" nook and cranny that is affected by his illegal actions - the whole idea about the money/laundering/carwash/etc is terrific!

The most "unrealistic" part of the whole series so far had been the plane crash - just too many coindicences/2-degrees of separation there.

 

this is another show that has realistically blurred the line between "Good" guys and "Bad" guys - is Walt a good guy? Jesse? Skyler? Gus?

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No personal stake, but I think it's a great show that consistently delivers the goods so most of these criticisms ring hollow for me. You say it's too unrealistic, and I'd like to think that you aren't being contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian, so you must have some ideas about how you would make it more realistic, yet still as entertaining, right?

 

If you want a realistic show about meth dealers, watch COPS. :dunno:

 

Let me qualify this by saying that i am currently only about halfway through season 2.....

 

I dont have a problem with a show being unrealistic in order to be interesting. I can suspend my disbelief along with the best of them. The plots of Dexter, Sons of Anarchy, Lost, Battlestar Galactica and Game of Thrones arent/werent realistic. But the characters....their personalities and motivations, their strengths and weaknesses, were/are all pretty believable. I can put myself into the characters of these shows place, and believe that i could possibly make the same decisions that they make. But with Breaking Bad, i just cant get past the fact that Walts extremely wealthy friends/ex-partner gave him an out, and he chose to ignore it. Now, i understand that the writers needed some way for Walt to be able to explain how his medical bills were getting paid, and that him lying to everyone that the ex-partner was paying them was a plot device. But for me the show would have been so much better if he didnt have this explanation, and he had been forced to let medical bills mount and mount, all while sitting on a stack of cash in the baby nursery.. I think that the point the show is trying to make is that sometimes truly desperate people do truly desperate things. The writers go through all the trouble of making Walt this guy whose life just cant get any worse....dead end job, disabled son, controlling pregnant wife, lung cancer, blowhard brother in law, bitchy whiney klepto sister in law,,,,, and then just when his life cant get any worse, and you think "OK now THIS guy i could see doing something truly desperate", they let him off the hook by giving him a super rich friend who is going to make all the financial problems go away. And so now he isnt truly desparate. And then he turns them down so that he can cook meth anyway? No one...and i mean not one single person in the entire world...would make this decision. Not one.

 

And in the end, if he was so set on cooking meth, couldnt he have accepted the money, AND still been a drug dealer? Wouldnt that have covered his bases even better? Wouldnt his family have been that much better off?

 

That is why i am having trouble LOVING Breaking Bad. I like it. I watch it. Its entertaining. But the show wont ever be superb in my opinion, unless something is revealed later giving a reasonable explanation as to why he turned the money down.

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Let me qualify this by saying that i am currently only about halfway through season 2.....

 

I dont have a problem with a show being unrealistic in order to be interesting. I can suspend my disbelief along with the best of them. The plots of Sons of Anarchy, Lost, Battlestar Galactica and Game of Thrones arent/werent realistic. But the characters....their personalities and motivations, their strengths and weaknesses, were/are all pretty believable. I can put myself into the characters of these shows place, and believe that i could possibly make the same decisions that they make. But with Breaking Bad, i just cant get past the fact that Walts extremely wealthy friends/ex-partner gave him an out, and he chose to ignore it. Now, i understand that the writers needed some way for Walt to be able to explain how his medical bills were getting paid, and that him lying to everyone that the ex-partner was paying them was a plot device. But for me the show would have been so much better if he didnt have this explanation, and he had been forced to let medical bills mount and mount, all while sitting on a stack of cash in the baby nursery.. I think that the point the show is trying to make is that sometimes truly desperate people do truly desperate things. The writers go through all the trouble of making Walt this guy whose life just cant get any worse....dead end job, disabled son, controlling pregnant wife, lung cancer, blowhard brother in law, bitchy whiney klepto sister in law,,,,, and then just when his life cant get any worse, and you think "OK now THIS guy i could see doing something truly desperate", they let him off the hook by giving him a super rich friend who is going to make all the financial problems go away. And so now he isnt truly desparate. And then he turns them down so that he can cook meth anyway? No one...and i mean not one single person in the entire world...would make this decision. Not one.

 

And in the end, if he was so set on cooking meth, couldnt he have accepted the money, AND still been a drug dealer? Wouldnt that have covered his bases even better? Wouldnt his family have been that much better off?

 

That is why i am having trouble LOVING Breaking Bad. I like it. I watch it. Its entertaining. But the show wont ever be superb in my opinion, unless something is revealed later giving a reasonable explanation as to why he turned the money down.

 

I don't want to give too much away, but I think as you go along you're going to notice more and more how much of the decision was about Walt's ego. Walt's a brilliant guy, and he knows it, but as a teacher he doesn't get a lot of opportunies to demonstrate it. Once the idea came to Walt, he wanted to make meth, and prove that he could make the best meth there is, even if very few people know who he is. The cancer was the way for him to rationalize it, to break bad, while still seeing himself as essentially a good guy. :dunno:

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The most "unrealistic" part of the whole series so far had been the plane crash - just too many coindicences/2-degrees of separation there.

 

 

I agree, that was super, UBER far-fetched, but I was never really bothered by it. I guess I just got what they were trying to do there with illustrating the ripple effects of the decisions we make.

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There is a logical explanation for why he didn't accept the money. I'll give you a hint, it's one of the 7 deadly sins. Sure he started from a place of necessity, but somewhere in the process it brought out all his inner demons.

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I don't want to give too much away, but I think as you go along you're going to notice more and more how much of the decision was about Walt's ego. Once the idea came to Walt, he wanted to make meth, and prove that he could make the best meth there is, even if very few people know who he is. The cancer was the way for him to rationalize it, to break bad, while still seeing himself as essentially a good guy. :dunno:

 

OK i can buy that. Chemistry is his thing, and teaching snot nosed kids is a waste of his prodigy-ness, and maybe he wants one more chemical blaze of glory before he dies. I can see that. Even only up to where i am its pretty obvious that Walt is a guy who has been making the safe decision for a long time, and not taking any risks has put his life in a sinkhole.

 

 

But i still dont get the money thing. It would actually have been easier for him to hide his drug money if he accepted the help. In the episode where his ex girlfriend confronts him about the money, even though he offers up an excuse for turning the money down (That he felt betrayed when she and his ex partner forced him out of Grey Matter) i got the impression that he was lying just to force her to leave. If anything being forced out should have made him feel entitled to that money. So im thinking that its going to be revealed that Skylar was the reason he left Grey Matter, that she convinced him that GM was too risky, or whatever, and that he should get a good safe job and a house in the 'burbs, and have 2.3 kids etc etc.

 

And now 20 years later he subconsciously blames Skylar for his predicament, and is appalled that the person who convinced him in the first place not to take the risk, is all too eager to spend the spoils. So turning the money down becomes a sort of subliminal F*ck You to Skylar and her idealized American Dream. And so becoming a drug dealer is less about money for his family, and more about finally 20 years later making decisions for himself.

 

 

Or at least thats how i would fix this show.

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OK i can buy that. Chemistry is his thing, and teaching snot nosed kids is a waste of his prodigy-ness, and maybe he wants one more chemical blaze of glory before he dies. I can see that. Even only up to where i am its pretty obvious that Walt is a guy who has been making the safe decision for a long time, and not taking any risks has put his life in a sinkhole.

 

 

But i still dont get the money thing. It would actually have been easier for him to hide his drug money if he accepted the help. In the episode where his ex girlfriend confronts him about the money, even though he offers up an excuse for turning the money down (That he felt betrayed when she and his ex partner forced him out of Grey Matter) i got the impression that he was lying just to force her to leave. If anything being forced out should have made him feel entitled to that money. So im thinking that its going to be revealed that Skylar was the reason he left Grey Matter, that she convinced him that GM was too risky, or whatever, and that he should get a good safe job and a house in the 'burbs, and have 2.3 kids etc etc.

 

And now 20 years later he subconsciously blames Skylar for his predicament, and is appalled that the person who convinced him in the first place not to take the risk, is all too eager to spend the spoils. So turning the money down becomes a sort of subliminal F*ck You to Skylar and her idealized American Dream. And so becoming a drug dealer is less about money for his family, and more about finally 20 years later making decisions for himself.

 

 

Or at least thats how i would fix this show.

 

I have to admit I don't remember the specifics of just what went down with the business and the offer of the money all that well. I like your whole Skylar angle though. Like we need one more reason to hate Skylar.

 

As far as a simple reason for not taking the money and still making the meth, I just go back to the idea that Walt needed to be able rationalize the decision to himself.

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There is a logical explanation for why he didn't accept the money. I'll give you a hint, it's one of the 7 deadly sins. Sure he started from a place of necessity, but somewhere in the process it brought out all his inner demons.

 

There are seven? :blink:

 

 

Greed......Sloth......Lust......ummmm........Gluttony.....errr......Spontaneity......Sleepy.....Doc....and the pyramid at Giza. Is that right?

 

 

OMG HER HEAD IS IN THE BOX!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

Wait...what was the question?

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There are seven? :blink:

 

 

Greed......Sloth......Lust......ummmm........Gluttony.....errr......Spontaneity......Sleepy.....Doc....and the pyramid at Giza. Is that right?

 

 

OMG HER HEAD IS IN THE BOX!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

Wait...what was the question?

 

I like to practice Slotthony on Sundays. :thumbsup:

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See we do agree on some things. :cheers:

I thinks EVERYONE agrees on that one. If Skylar doesn't end up dead by the end of this...

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I like to practice Slotthony on Sundays. :thumbsup:

OMG I totally read that as sluttony!

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I like something about his wife, but I can't quite figure out why. I do think she's an important character.

You REALLY want to go dark, kill off the crippled kid.

 

I see Walt's bro in law as being short lived too...but that could just be a huge set up.

 

Gotta mention again how totally awesome I think Gus is. :banana:

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I like something about his wife, but I can't quite figure out why.

 

 

Maybe the huge juggs? :banana:

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Maybe the huge juggs? :banana:

 

That and face cream on the refrigerator and she gets a pass for all the bitchy self absorbtion. Too bad this show wasnt on HBO or Showtime. We'd have seen those puppies a million times by now.

 

 

Anyway i watched 3 more eps last night and its starting peak my interest again. Walts motivation for the whole drug kingpin thing is obviously not solely about the money. The scene at the end of s02e10 (when Walt confronts the big muscle dude in the parking lot) hooked me back in. The guy is totally getting off on the power.

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Funny story, all seasons became instant on Netflix recently. So, upon a multitude of recommendations, decided to watch it. I am on episode 11 now, I am hooked. But, here is the funny part, as it turns out I started with season 3 instead of season 1. What I thought they were going to do is have season 2 be a prequel to 1, where it shows how he got started up until the start of season 1....which is actually season 3. I actually thought this would have been brilliant.

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Walt is p!ssing me off - we need more Heisenberg and less "kick me I'm Walt"... at this point, I'm rooting for Gus and Jessie, not Walt and Skyler.

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Walt is p!ssing me off - we need more Heisenberg and less "kick me I'm Walt"... at this point, I'm rooting for Gus and Jessie, not Walt and Skyler.

This

+1 for team Gus.

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This

+1 for team Gus.

Gus was a "Walt" a long time ago - but he's smart (Jessie - "he thought of EVERYTHING!") and tough (endless examples proving this).

 

Jesus H. even Hank's surpassing Walt at this point!

 

The final shot last night of Walt looking up thru that opening, laughing madly - was reminiscient of a classic comic book Villain's "Creation" story - I'm hoping Walt has "cracked" and been re-born (again) as a "don't care" "bad ass".

 

WE NEED MORE HEISENBERG DAMMIT!

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More Saul. :banana:

yeah - yeah - so what! it's a Vacuum Cleaner Repair Shop, just ask for the Hoover Deluxe 587 Filter Replacement kit and he'll take care of everything *IF* you have the cash, betta' be packed and ready to go.

:doublethumbsup:

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"OK now THIS guy i could see doing something truly desperate", they let him off the hook by giving him a super rich friend who is going to make all the financial problems go away. And so now he isnt truly desparate. And then he turns them down so that he can cook meth anyway? No one...and i mean not one single person in the entire world...would make this decision. Not one.

 

 

I see the refusal to accept help differently. First, there was some bad blood between Walt and his rich friend. Walt felt he was passed-over unfairly to his detriment and the friend's benefit, so accepting help is repugnant to him.

 

Also, as I recall the friend offered to pay Walt's medical bills. Walt was mainly motivated by a desire to provide for his family. Initially, he was going to refuse treatment, and keep his cancer a secret. Making meth was his alternative to a life insurance policy. He was going to just make as much money as he could until he died. Eventually, Walt had to spill the beans about the cancer to explain some of his lies. The friend's offer to pay medical bills doesn't address his primary goal of providing for his family.

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Funny story, all seasons became instant on Netflix recently. So, upon a multitude of recommendations, decided to watch it. I am on episode 11 now, I am hooked. But, here is the funny part, as it turns out I started with season 3 instead of season 1. What I thought they were going to do is have season 2 be a prequel to 1, where it shows how he got started up until the start of season 1....which is actually season 3. I actually thought this would have been brilliant.

 

I have to go back to season 1 after a cliffhanger like that. FML.

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Just watched the season four finale. Probably the single greatest hour of TV I have ever watched. :cheers:

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Just watched the season four finale. Probably the single greatest hour of TV I have ever watched. :cheers:

was that the Gus Face one?

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was that the Gus Face one?

 

Yep.

 

The show should have ended there. No way you can top that.

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i kinda like it... could never really force myself to continue to follow it... i thought that it took itself a little too seriously... like a soap opera on meth

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