Plot: The series follows Walter White, quiet family man and underachieving chemistry teacher. Walt is brilliant and knows chemistry but he never made a fortune out of it and he is struggling with money problems along with his pregnant wife Skyler and their disabled son Walt Jr. And worst of all - one day Walt gets news that he has stage four terminal lung cancer and at best he has few months to live. Desperate and determined to provide enough money for his family so they could live comfortably after he is gone, Walter decides to use his skills to cook methamphetamine with his former student Jesse Pinkman. Because of Walt's brilliance their meth is the purest product on the market, which soon brings with it not only a lot of money but also a lot of trouble.
Structure: Each episode picks up where the last one ended and we get a little glimpses of the future and the past in the form of clever, teasing scenes that will form the full picture by the time each season is over.
Verdict: The show is absolutely superb, that is disregarding the decline in quality visible in season 5. Not only is it flawlessly acted out - especially by Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul - but it manages to be both entertaining and bleak at the same time. The situations the characters are facing are often impossible but there are still many great moments of humour in the show. It's like Pulp Fiction and Se7en mixed together and a fascinating look at a man who had good intentions but those intentions only brought pain, suffering and crossing over to the dark side with them. The progression of Walter's character and his slow descent into darkness is just riveting to watch as with each episode, each season we see him being more and more manipulative and dangerous.
We are now only 6 days away from the follow up to one of the most acclaimed TV series of all time, Breaking Bad. I wasn't a big fan of finale, which I wrote about at length after it aired. The rewatch did make me appreciate it a bit more but it fixed none of its many problems. So for me this is like another chance to give the series the proper ending. There's the risk they will mess it up - especially since the shot of Jesse laughing as he was driving away was just so, so perfect - but to quote someone else on letterboxd - I hope Vince Gilligan won't fuck us on this.
After Breaking Bad finale was over I was left with immediate "That's it?" thought. While I don't necessarily believe the series finale has to be the best episode of the series, it should at least be one of the best finales that series had. Felina had nothing on Face Off or Full Measures. Hell, it wouldn't even be in my top 20 of the best Breaking Bad episodes.
As I was rewatching Breaking Bad recently I noticed an astonishing amount of parallels to Pulp Fiction. I'm sure the creators and the writers of Breaking Bad saw Tarantino's classic and some of these are just too similar to be dismissed as a coincidence.
Plot: The series follows Walter White, quiet family man and underachieving chemistry teacher. Walt is brilliant and knows chemistry but he never made a fortune out of it and he is struggling with money problems along with his pregnant wife Skyler and their disabled son Walt Jr. And worst of all - one day Walt gets news that he has stage four terminal lung cancer and at best he has few months to live. Desperate and determined to provide enough money for his family so they could live comfortably after he is gone, Walter decides to use his skills to cook methamphetamine with his former student Jesse Pinkman. Because of Walt's brilliance their meth is the purest product on the market, which soon brings with it not only a lot of money but also a lot of trouble.