I have many, many television shows I need to watch or catch up on. Knowing this I immediately decided to add a new one when I saw that the Sundance channel was going to start showing Breaking Bad. For anyone who has no idea about the show, it’s about Walter White. A chemistry teacher who finds out he has terminal cancer and decides to make meth as a means to leave his family much needed money. It’s critically acclaimed and I’ve never heard of anyone who has watched it and not liked it. I have always been sad that I missed out on it in the beginning and knew this start could be mine too. Breaking Bad comes on every Wednesday at 9/ET on the Sundance channel and for the first week they decided to show the beginning four episodes. I binged, I binged hard. I ended up watching them all in a row and these are my thoughts on the beginning of the series. Warning: spoilers in case you haven’t seen it.

We start out being introduced to Walter. I wasn’t sure what to expect out of him. I had saw commercials for the show before and knew he could be a violent man. I expected much the same now. I was surprised by how very ‘square’ Walter was in the beginning. A nerdy chemistry teacher that seemingly none of his students really respect; you can tell Walt has real passion about chemistry, but that his students’ lack of interest puts a big damper on him. Life in general has beaten Walt down. He has a second job at a car wash where the owner with the most amazing and terrifying eyebrows imaginable talks down to him and forces him to do menial tasks. Even Walt’s wife, Skylar, talks down to him and doesn’t take his opinion seriously.

We also find out that Walt’s family life hasn’t been easy. He has a teenage son, Walt Jr., who has several disabilities and that he and his wife are expecting another baby soon. No wonder Walt has a second job. Skylar is very much in charge of the family and expects them to fall in line with her way of thinking. While she generally has the best of intentions and definitely loves them she comes off as brash and irritating. There are several times throughout the four episodes we see that she also takes Walt for granted or berates him for meaningless things such as being late to his own surprise party. Seriously, how can you be late to something you didn’t know was happening? Another time she is painting the baby’s room and mentions how Walt should be doing it. While it probably should fall to Walt as she shouldn’t and Walt Jr can’t, she is basing it on her timetable and without his input. It’s rude at best. One thing that shouldn’t be discounted about Skylar is her intelligence. That woman is very smart. Even Walt mentions how she’s smarter than him. She even figures out who Jesse is with minimal information although the entire truth isn’t divulged to her. I don’t think Walt’s going to have it easy keeping secrets from her.

This is not to say that Walt doesn’t have his own faults. Walt also wants what’s best for his family, but doesn’t get their input either. When he finds out he has terminal lung cancer, he doesn’t even tell them; which is very much not cool. In fact you can tell through the episodes that Walt doesn’t want to deal with this at all. He always tunes out people who talk about it. Walt’s way of dealing with dying is to ignore it. Walt knows he needs to take care of his family in the future though, even if he’s not there. So he has to make money somehow. Most people I know would probably do insurance fraud or rob a bank in desperation, but not Walt. He sees a video bust over a meth lab and decides then and there to do that instead.

Making meth is a skill set that Walt does have being a chemistry teacher, but breaking the law is not. Walt is about as straight laced as they come and you can tell through his actions how nervous he is to be doing this. He knows he needs help and goes for a ride along with his brother in-law who is a cop. Nice way to keep the family in the drama Breaking Bad creators. He sees a bust and finds that one of his former students, Jesse Pinkman, gets away. He doesn’t tell and instead chases him down and blackmails Jesse into helping him or he will turn him in. Damn Walt. Jesse agrees.

Jesse is an interesting character as well. He is a drop out junkie who makes meth, but mostly smokes it. He has no real friends, no goals, no anything. Despite all this, he’s still likable. Jesse is street smart too. He knows there has to be something going on for Walt to suddenly ‘break bad’ but doesn’t get an answer. Yet. Book smart is something Jesse is not, and luckily he has Walt there to help him out. Not that Jesse always listens, like with the bathtub and the acid. Worst home remodel of all time, just saying. We also find out that Jesse does have parents and a brother. His parents are the exact opposite to Jesse and those two kinds of lifestyles don’t mix, so Jesse is generally estranged from them. Jesse’s younger brother acts straight laced, but actually isn’t. Jesse doesn’t tell on him and takes the blame for when the maid finds pot. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing more of Jesse’s family in the future.

I found it surprising that Walt and Jesse are very funny together. It’s generally dark humor, but it’s still hilarious. They both do things that make the other aghast and lash out; such as Walt refusing to wear anything but his tighty-whiteys and apron to make meth or what to do with the dead and not dead dealers. I liked it best when they were fighting in the bathroom and were kicking at each other and when Jesse was trying to find a tub big enough to fit a person in at the store, in front of other people who probably thought he was crazy.

To go back a little, both Walt and Jesse are relatively innocent to being hardcore criminals. Jesse is small potatoes and Walt is a noob. Making the meth is easy for them. Jesse knows the recipe and Walt gets the proper equipment and perfects the recipe. In fact they are so good at making meth its some of the highest quality anyone on the show has ever seen. This gets them a lot of good and bad attention. The customers love it. The other dealers and the cops don’t.

Their other criminal activity could use some work. After Jesse blabs to the wrong dealers about his new product he’s forced to take them to Walt by gunpoint. They try to run and fail miserably and hilariously at it (although I did like Jesse telling Walt to run, maybe he is a good guy, sometimes) and Jesse is knocked unconscious. They tie him up and catch Walt who is still in his underwear and apron. Walt makes a deal to show them how to make the good meth and then tricks them. He makes phosphine poisonous gas instead (a dangerous byproduct of making meth) and shuts them up in the RV.

This is the first time Walt does something really bad. It’s dressed as Walt had to do it to live, which is technically true, but Walt wouldn’t be in that situation if it wasn’t for his prior choices. He takes care of Jesse, which he didn’t have to do and then they’re left with two dead dealers and what to do about it. Walt wants out and so does Jesse. They know they have to deal with this first though. Things are then complicated when they find out one of the dealers didn’t die. Neither Jesse nor Walt want to commit cold blooded murder, but something has to be done. This is when the infamous bathtub remodel happens to get rid of the dead dealer.

The alive dealer slowly gets better and Walt makes the mistake of talking to him and feeding him. He even cuts the crust off of his sandwiches when he finds out the dealer doesn’t like them. Walt is super bad at being a bad guy right now. Walt gets to know the dealer and finds out he bought his sons crib from the dealer’s dad. He finds out the dealer went to college but wanted to go to Berkley for music. He makes it almost impossible to kill the guy. He even finds out his real name is Domingo. These are all things that make Domingo human and not a target that needs to be gotten rid of and it’s a big mistake on Walt’s part.

Domingo even tells Walt that this line of work isn’t right for him. That he’s not a bad guy. That he’s not a cold blooded killer. Walt isn’t so sure he’s right though. I think that’s very interesting. Of all the people, Walt should be the one that would think he was a good guy doing bad things for a good reason. But Walt’s not so sure himself anymore.
What puts Walt over the edge is when he realizes that a plate he broke earlier in front of Domingo has a piece missing. Domingo stole it and is going to use it on Walt if he gets the chance. Instead of freeing Domingo (who is already starting to pull the shard out to stab Walt with) he chokes him to death instead. It’s violent and disturbing to watch. People don’t instantly choke to death, it takes a few minutes and the show doesn’t shy away from this.

When Jesse gets home later he finds Walt gone and any evidence of their meth making. Most importantly Domingo and any sign of his body are also gone. It doesn’t show what Walt does with it, but we can assume he used the acid properly and then disposed of the remains. We go through a short separation period of Walt and Jesse then. Jesse goes to his parents’ home and finds an old drawing of Walt and a test paper telling him to apply himself. He does in the worst way possible when an acquaintance wants to buy all the good meth he has. Applying himself indeed.

Walt has to come clean to Skylar. Not about the meth, but about his cancer finally. She then is very dramatic about it during a family dinner when Walt tells how he wooed Skylar when they were younger and then they all know. Walt’s brother in-law tells him he’ll take care of the family and his wife and sister in-law will hear nothing but positivity over Walt’s diagnosis. Walt goes along with it, but you can tell he is unhappy. He tunes them and the doctor out most of the time. One time he even tells Skylar he doesn’t want treatment because it will be so expensive and if it doesn’t work he doesn’t want to leave her in that kind of debt. Because welcome to America, that’s completely true.

His son doesn’t want to hear any of it and tells his dad that ‘if he wants to die, then to just give up and do it already.’ He seems to of seen the Shawshank Redemption too many times and taken the saying ‘get busy living or get busy dying’ too seriously. He also asks Walt why he acts like nothing is wrong, but he doesn’t get an answer.

Jesse decides to act decent and goes to Walt’s house. Walt is very unhappy to see him, but Jesse still gives him his share of the profit of what he’d sold previously. Walt is surprised as he thought Jesse was only a junkie that smoked all their profit away. It’s unsaid if the two will make more, but Jesse gives him the opening that if Walt wants to he’s willing and they have a customer base. Plus Walt knows that his bills are getting higher with the treatment costs.

The last episode ends with Walt doing something bad. Something the old Walt never would have done. There’s a rude man named Ken that Walt keeps seeing. He’s a money hound, misogynist, shallow, and drives a douche car with the plates ‘KEN WINS’. He’s the embodiment of what everyone hates. He’s the living symbol of everything that keeps people like Walter White down and Walt’s had enough of it. Where before he would have humped up and taken it, this time he purposefully sneaks over and in some Hollywood pseudo-science he lifts the hood of the BMW and puts a squeegee on the battery and closes it. Somehow this makes the entire car blow up. It’s a badass scene I can appreciate, dubious science or not. It also shows that Walter is done being the victim. He is done being reactionary to the world around him. Walter White is going to be in charge now and he isn’t going to let anyone, especially Ken, get in his way.

This was a great episode to end on and I can’t wait to see where Walter takes it from here. Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul are both great actors that have great chemistry between them. I couldn’t resist that and I’m not sorry. The story is smartly written and I can see some many possible story lines that could happen. Knowing that this show was a great success only heightens my anticipation as I don’t think I will be disappointed at all as one can sometimes be with new shows. I really like the show so far and hope to enjoy it every Wednesday from now on.

Did you watch Breaking Bad yesterday? What did you think about it? If this is your first time watching it as well make sure to look me up on twitter @quietlikeastorm. I love hearing from you guys and live tweeting with you. Remember I’m a total noob to this show, so please no future spoilers in the comments section or on my twitter!

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See you in 2016.