ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

11 years, 7 months ago - patrick astwood

I have only recently started watching Breaking Bad and have just finished season 3 so NO SPOILERS please. I have to say, I have found the series very entertaining and some of the very best writing I have seen on television. However, towards the end of season 3, something quite strange happened. The quality of the series seemed to dip quite noticeably with the advent of some quite improbable plots twists and character developments. I watched the series with my partner and she is of the same opinion, but I would be interested to know the thoughts of other Shooters.

For me, the rot set in with the pointless showboating of The Fly, an episode so abstract and pointless that I checked to see if it coincided with a writer's strike. My guess is that by this point the producers began to believe their own hype and encouraged the writers tendency for creative pyrotechnics. But that wasn't the worst of it.

In Half Measure, Jesse decides to kill the the two men who killed his friend and enlists Walt to help him. Walt is shocked that Jesse could be so reckless and makes a passionate plea to Jesse not to go through with what is clearly a suicidal plan. It is interesting at this point that Walt informs Gus of Jesse's plan and gets him warned off for good measure. So far so good...But then fast forward to the end of the episode in question; Jesse arms himself and decides to face-off with the assassins, because they 'used a kid'. Then at the moment of truth, Walt's car screeches into frame and having mown down the two dealers he finishes them off with a bullet to the head.

Here's where the writing began to unravel for me, which was rather disconcerting as the writing up until that point had been more or less, quite solid. One of the most important things I learnt as a writer, is that having established a character and their motivation, that their actions must be more less consistent those parameters, even if they appear to act out of character. A character's values and motivation shape their behaviour and their destiny. Which is why things started to grate a little with me. In fact their are an endless number of implausibilities that seem to concertina at the end of the series, and I was left feeling rather incredulous.

Anyhow, I found it incredible that having lectured Jesse on immorality of killing and the unspeakable consequences that would ensue, that Walt himself would kill in cold blood and openly jeopardize his relationship with Gus as well as his own life. What causes him to make that leap. Above all, why would Walt intervene to save Jesse's life? Despite their history it is never really clear, whether Walt has any real respect or affection for Jesse. In fact is a relationship of grudging convenience. There are seldom any moments of empathy or real friendship, and they seem to spend a great deal of time confounding each others interests, so why the sacrifice?

It is Gus, that articulates what most us are thinking, and that is why someone in Walter White's position would allow someone as self-absorbed, and unreliable as Jesse to sabotage their life and interests. Given the stakes that Walter is playing for would he really put himself in a position where he would have to risk his own life for Jesse? What on earth for? The problem for me, is that Jesse is hardly a sympathetic character. Funny and entertaining, yes. But Jesse's addictive personality and reckless incompetence chokes off any appeal he might have, which in dramatic terms makes him dead weight.

If art is to really imitate life then Gus would surely have killed off Walt and Jesse in a heartbeat for defying him so blatantly, but Walter somehow manages to face him down. How and why is that? Surely by that stage Walter had squandered any respect or commercial capital he had with Gus. Finally, I am no 'cook' but I've always wondered if the production of Crystal Meth is such a sophisticated process that it could not be replicated by someone with a fraction of the knowledge. Why would a powerful drug dealer be held to ransom in this way, when he has the means and power to master Walt's formula and save himself a lot of time, hassle and money. Sorry to quibble with dramatic licence, but there you go.