Breaking Good… or why is Breaking Bad such a great tv show.

By Looney Barbosah

Is it me or is this tv show a great one?

I was just having a time remembering all the full episodes and came to this scene where Bryan Cranston talks about Chemistry.

I believe that scene holds up the entire reason for the Breaking Bad series to exist inside Vince Gilligan’s mind.

“Chemistry is the study of matter, buyt I prefer to think is the study of change”

Scriptwriting… I mean good and great scriptwriting is about change.

And Vince Gilligan knows it. Vince must be one of the greatest screenwriters of all time.

Breaking Bad is for me the most interesting storyline I have ever seen on a tv show. I admit, I haven’t been a tv show consumer for the past 15 years or so. I wasn’t caught in the Lost fever, nor I was caught into any other show.

I confess I also didn’t saw Br Ba when it first came out, but I do have to acknowledge this one friend (who I believe he knows who I am talking about), who offered to come to my house and bring Breaking Bad series along so we can have a beer and watch them all.

He really never came to my house.

But then I got into this series by having one night extra time to sit and watch something. I usually pick on some interesting film or some cult classic, but this time I was trying this Netflix account (service I love and worship by now) and saw they had Breaking Bad, so I decided to give it a try.

BAM! Bitch! I was instantly engaged.

I found out that quality was one of the first things that really came out from the tv set.

Great interesting plot, set up marvelously in a few seconds just as Mr. Walter White presents himself through some scenes shot as camera footage. I loved it. I also loved Bryan Cranston acting skills instantly, but everyone knows great comedy actors can be wonderful actors.

The setup was excellent. I went through the whole series in a couple of weeks of overkill. I came home to finish work and then sit and watch three to four episodes every night. I was into this great script the series have, I am into this GREAT characters the series have.

So I got to see that Vince Gilligan’s intentions where to draw this great story arc in which all that matter is change. Through Walter White we are able to “Break BAd” as his character has this great motivation to do what he does, and it is an engaging one. We all fear death and we all have someone we love the most. So we are taken on this downward spiral trip with no boundaries just to find out we have part of Walter White living inside of us.

As a person with a wonderful woman and a wonderful kid, I know the love one can have for this home-family thing Walter has. And also as mortals and humans, we are vulnerable to this sickness White has. so it sets off with a great solid engagement premise.

Is this a good screenplay or what?

I think of myself as a screenwriter. I have written some scripts in the last few years, and also intend to become a screenwriter who sells. Not screenplays, I’d love to sell good stories. So I pretty much get the work behind this series. As soon as I was into the first season, I knew why this is one of the greates tv shows of all time, (it has become for me THE greatest show I have ever seen). I got addicted to it.

I also consider myself to be an actors lover. Bryan Cranston is up in the great actors heaven. He gave this amazingly complex character everything that he needed. It shows once again that the work in comedy is always a way to building extra points in the range of acting levels and character knowledge.

Vince Gilligan is certainly a great writer. From my heart I really believe that the last season went a little fast, as I would have loved to see all that events unfold in couple of seasons instead of just one.

I actually went through the special features and discovered that probably Vince was standing in between the comedy and the drama with such a harsh tale. It might have been hard to keep up with the comedy set in the minisodes and somehow some action and real intense situations are not to be taken from certain tones of comedy as one might fall into the slapstick or something similiar in between a heavy plotted story. Comedy in Breaking Bad has that dark tone and very corrosive POV. It starts taking us to a world which bears an adorable set up of very bad things in a light tone that is almost enjoyable.

I then make a pause and talk about the series being “enjoyable” as some rather dramatic expression of what would be to enjoy a story in which the star is a man who has no future.

As in many classic trhillers like the beloved Sunset Boulevard or the gorgeous American Beauty, there is a serious time lock over the main character life. Somehow we all know they are to be dead soon and is just a great matter of evolution of things to get there.

So it is a very dark story that has no real happy ending or will ever have something like that (at least in the direction Vince Gilligan took it) and it always leaves a bad taste, or maybe more like sour taste, as it never truly gets you to be “happy” about things happening around Walter White in his way to become Heisenberg.

It is truly a tale of dark and deadly events. So it is hard to keep up with the story without getting into horrible places.

Vince has said that he wanted to create a series about the rise of a kingpin like Scarface.

Apparently, Pinkman was on the brink of dying and thus Vince kept him going into a very bad direction as he is somehow the one who gets the worst out of the relationship with Mr. White.

Although Walter really loves and cares for him, Pinkman is so emotionally weak that keeps crumbling and pushing himself up against everything that surrounds his actions and life. He doesn’t really know what to do with the things that result from his choices.

As Walter White grows into what seems to be a cold hearted evil man, Pinkman goes on trying to be a better human and not really getting near it.

The story unfolds in such ways that it really keeps you glued to the screen as you want to know what happens next.

A very violent series with something very hot in its heart that knows well about the human condition.

Touching the lines between good and evil is the duality of human mind.

Criminal studies through visual narrative have become an important market in today’s world. Making it a product that has to deal with certain standards and get into the collective mind is somehow difficult to achieve. It takes fully fleshed human characters to provide a good level of interest and then come the interactions that can go into some crazy, twisted ways. The series does this in a great way since all of its characters are available as GREAT characters all by themselves.

I would have seen the story through every important character’s perspective and it would be great anyway.

I find interesting all the merchandise and things that came with the series. Like the page featuring Saul Better Call Saul or that great site about Walter White’s Cancer fundraiser.

Not to mention I’d buy candy done in Blue meth style.

A great series that can go straight to the collection. The DVD features are very good and the Boxed set offers all together for a good price.

It is sad to know there is no more Heisenberg.

If you like what I write please let me know about it!

Looney Barbosah is Creative Director at Barbosah Creative Solutions

www.barbosah.com