I keep hearing good things about it; I’m seeing it this weekend.
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Am I the only one who never cheered for Walt? I found him increasingly loathsome over the course of the show. The scene at the end with Skylar sort of set for me what he was doing the entire time - doing it for his own masculine ego rather than for his family, like he basically claimed over the course of the show whenever he was confronted about what he was doing. I mean, I love the show and I think it’s some of the best of modern tv. I just didn’t even find him an anti-hero, but a perfect symbol of a particular kind of toxic white masculinity.
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That was the idea, his course from repressed angry schoolteacher to full blown sociopath. We were meant to sympathize with him at first to make the dive so hard to watch, I had to take several breaks from the show to get through it. But I found Skylar a pretty unsympathetic character too, she had her part in the control and emasculation he rebelled against.
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The show creator Vince Gilligan, described it as “This is a story about a man who transforms himself from Mr Chips into Scarface.”
I had sympathy for him at the start, as a victim of the system as well as his own bad decision in leaving the company he was a partner in. I admired the chess-master ingenuity with which the character dodged a variety of threats. But certainly he was a monster long before the show ended. The point at which I lost all sympathy for him was when he callously let @Mindysan33 Krysten Ritter die for his own selfish reasons.
I didn’t. She gave Walt more loyalty and support than he deserved, while trying to protect her kids and herself, even to the point of helping to launder the money once she found out what was going on. She turned out to have a pretty good criminal mind, too. Walt’s underestimation of her was a recurring theme in the series.
I agree except for the “white” part. I don’t think that attitude is particularly confined to one skin colour.
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Perhaps.
I tend to root for the underdog most of the time, and for a good portion of the series, Walt was certainly that.
I think the beauty of such a well written character is that it’s able to make us feel such a wide range of emotions, including loathing.
Hell, I hated Walt for the longest time, after he let Jane die of an overdose in front of him.
Agreed, obvs.
But even I was able to get beyond that and root for him at the end; because his modicum of redemption came from freeing Jesse Pinkman.
I was annoyed when the writers actually made me sympathize with Skyler, because she was so very unlikable in the beginning.
But by the finale, I really felt for her situation; which is a testament to some really good writing and acting.
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It was a progression of a character. I think one could cheer for him to a degree toward the beginning, but not toward the end. I think the fact that the character was someone who could have you switch your opinion of him later down the line makes it a breath fresh air and more realistic. People rarely are the hero or villain their whole lives.
Ack - skimming down, it sees other people already pointed down. OH well, I got post quotas to meet.
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No, but I do think he was specifically addressing a particular kind of masculinity related to whiteness. That doesn’t preclude other kinds of toxic masculinity, of course.
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I concur.
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I had a Prime membership for months before I clued in to the fact that I suddenly have access to a new video library. I’ve been watching Justified - I watched the first two seasons when they came out, but then I didn’t see the rest.
I’m watching it again from the start. I’m back up to season 2, and it’s even better now that I recognize “Esteemed Character Actress Margo Martindale”
Regarding Breaking Bad - I have tried to watch it twice, and I have never gotten past about 4 episodes. I know that feeling uncomfortable is part of the experience, but after a couple episodes I just bail.
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Does anyone have a theory why self-destructive behavior has become the entertainment of the moment? It seems to be at the core of most sitcoms and many dramas these days. Rather than people rising to meet external challenges they are battling themselves. I liked the now cancelled series Vinyl but found the self-destructive behavior of the protagonist hard to watch. I couldn’t take Girls either. There’s a huge difference between a screw up like a Gilligan and an entire cast of loathsome people.
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I don’t have a solid theory about why it’s in vogue, but since I just referenced Bojack Horseman, let me just say that Bojack Horseman has some of the best self-destructive behaviour of all time.
Bojack manages to walk the line between horrible and relatable so well that I just can’t stop watching. I mean, he mostly tries so hard not to be terrible. but god the ups & downs . . . with Bojack at least it feels like a badly damaged person doing his best, even when he is so obviously fucking it up so very very badly (omg season 3)
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Okay, I’ve made it through an entire season of Dicte, and I need to amend my earlier statement.
The individual plots are okay, as far as crime dramas go, but I’m really getting sick to my stomach watching the romantic subplots - which really make no sense at all.
Everybody knows what Dicte’s ex (Torsten?) and her co-worker Bo are like, yet they fall in bed with them at a moment’s notice.
“Oh, you got a paper cut on your finger/the barista screwed up your coffee order? Here, let me slide my penis in your vagina and make it feel better.”
As for you, Anne (the character), you’re by far the most intelligent person on the show. I am very disappoint. You fell for one of the dumbest psychologists ever written for the screen.
Surprised nobody has mentioned babylon 5 in regard to satisfying the fans and not degrading into ever diminishing returns but going from strength to strength. That’s what you get with one person’s creative vision i guess, plus doing the majority of the writing. There are two kinds of people in the world - babylon 5 fans and those who haven’t tried it yet.
Oh i agree about not having sympathy with walt in the end, he was a complete and utter evil bastard. I think i remember vince gilligan being quite dismayed at the character being held up as some sort of folk hero.
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Don’t forget the spin off ancient aliens.
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I cheered for him a little at first, because I felt sorry that the insurance industry screwed him over. I also liked how he used science to solve his problems. But it quickly became apparent that he had been a bitter and entitled arsehole long before the cancer, and after that the enjoyment of the show came from seeing how the toxic white masculinity you mention led to an escalating cascade of bad decisions.
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The common theory is that the wider range of uncensored outlets for serialised TV has allowed showrunners and writers to explore the dark themes and the non-positive or non-existent or ambiguous resolutions that they couldn’t before 2000. “All in the Family” was edgy and still holds up, but Archie still had to be somewhat loveable and episodes had to be resolved in a clear way, happy or sad.
Combine that with the bill for decades of Reaganism and neoliberalism coming due after 2001 and there was plenty of societal malaise and attendant self-destructive reactions to mine. “The Sopranos” was hammering at it in 1999, and “The Wire” really ran with it starting in 2002.
Since then it’s been extended to historical dramas (showing that the “good old days” weren’t all that good) and comedy (because awful and selfish people being allowed to display their horribleness in all its glory is funny).
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Crusade? I never saw that and from reading a bit about it it doesn’t sound like it was given a chance to shine before they cancelled it.
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THIS.
It was especially riveting to watch, because it was Walt’s own hubris that created a helluva lot of the problems he faced.
If he had just told his wife the truth from the start; or if he had just been more patient with Pinkman after blackmailing him into cooking with him… but no; that massive ego of Walt’s wouldn’t allow it.
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Absolutely. There were so many times where he had the perfect opportunity to “get out.” But his greed, hubris, and addiction to his lifestyle did him in over and over again.
He really said it best at the end when he finally admitted he had no real altruistic motives; he just liked being a criminal.
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It was the same massive and passive-aggressive ego that had prevented him from reaping the benefits of the company he co-founded with his friend years before the events of “Breaking Bad.” If he hadn’t been such an insecure prick he’d have had plenty of money and an executive healthcare plan when he was diagnosed.
More than that, he just liked being a kingpin, a boss. Whatever talent or expertise got him to that point, it all went by the wayside when the prospect of being the big man in charge emerged. And in his twisted view (normalised by late-stage capitalist American culture) to be a boss you have to act like an alpha male with a gangster’s ethics (i.e. an arsehole).
Problem was, he was nowhere near as ruthless as he liked to think, whether in comparison to the soft-spoken killer Gus Fring or the Latino meth gangs or the neo-Nazis. You can see his seething resentment at anyone who was already powerful or wealthy thanks to their ruthlessness. Instead we see him acting as a small-time bully, expressing his anger and assuaging his self-doubt by preying on those around him who were weak-willed or vulnerable or who bought into whatever BS he was peddling – including the family he claimed to love.
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