Breaking Bad

[Era Might]

I think a fundamental element of the entire series is the freedom we have in ascribing our choice of meaning to whatever we do. Saul was probably the most honest and accurate at that. Walt was the most duplicitous, even to himself. Jesse was a fundamental failure at finding any meaning.

 

Interesting. I wonder though how much freedom there really is. One of the themes I've taken from it is, yes, we are free to choose our path, but once we do, the path sort of takes over. A man becomes a high school chemistry teacher and that determines the rest of his life. Everything he does in his life is determined by that fact. A woman gets married and has kids...that determines the rest of her life. Walt chooses to break bad, and gradually that becomes his new life, and the freedom of his original choice is kind of beside the point. But I think you're right about Jesse...he is sort of blowing in the wind, an aimless young men who gets "adopted" into various roles...first the stoner, then the two-bit meth cooker, then the apprentice, then the boyfriend, then the cartel henchman, etc. I'm at the beginning of season 5 so I still have some eps...and I don't think the second half is on Netflix so not sure what I'm gonna do.

[ToJesusMyHeart]

there are some "illegal" sites that offer the full season 5. 

[Anomaly]

Era
True, your past choices have great influence on your current situation, but you have a lot if latitude for attitude.

Walt has a choice to chose to think being a high school chem teacher is the most important aspect of his life and it sucks. He coils have chosen to accept money from his Graymatter ex partners and taken some if the burden off he and his family. It was his choice to make his pride and resentment the Star he followed.

Jesse never or rarely chose and resented and tried to ignore consequences. Then he told himself the sweetest lie. He wonders why this shi happens to him. That allows him to think he has no control. There is a wide gap between none and some.
Walt thinks he can have complete control as if some things are as predictable as a chemical reaction. He views his problems as allowing impurities taint the result fatally.

Edited November 15, 2013 by Anomaly

[PhuturePriest]

Era
True, your past choices have great influence on your current situation, but you have a lot if latitude for attitude.

Walt has a choice to chose to think being a high school chem teacher is the most important aspect of his life and it smells of elderberries. He coils have chosen to accept money from his Graymatter ex partners and taken some if the burden off he and his family. It was his choice to make his pride and resentment the Star he followed.

Jesse never or rarely chose and resented and tried to ignore consequences. Then he told himself the sweetest lie. He wonders why this shi happens to him. That allows him to think he has no control. There is a wide gap between none and some.
Walt thinks he can have complete control as if some things are as predictable as a chemical reaction. He views his problems as allowing impurities taint the result fatally.

 

You're alive!!!!

[Era Might]

Era
True, your past choices have great influence on your current situation, but you have a lot if latitude for attitude.

Walt has a choice to chose to think being a high school chem teacher is the most important aspect of his life and it smells of elderberries. He coils have chosen to accept money from his Graymatter ex partners and taken some if the burden off he and his family. It was his choice to make his pride and resentment the Star he followed.

Jesse never or rarely chose and resented and tried to ignore consequences. Then he told himself the sweetest lie. He wonders why this shi happens to him. That allows him to think he has no control. There is a wide gap between none and some.
Walt thinks he can have complete control as if some things are as predictable as a chemical reaction. He views his problems as allowing impurities taint the result fatally.

 

I don't think Walt's rejection of Graymatter charity was really about pride over money, but about righting the wrong he made when he left the company (he tells this story to Jesse in season 5 to convince Jesse not to abandon the meth business). I don't see Walt as a prideful or resentful man so much as a man whose edifice collapses around him. He hangs on to the illusion of doing everything for his family, but in the third to last episode, I thought his hateful phone call to Skyler was one of the best scenes of the series. It was after the scene where he is holding a knife and screams "we're a family!" and finally realizes the absurdity of what he's saying...the scaffold finally falls, the role he had been building his entire life of a husband and father. Heisenberg is not just an alias, it is an entirely new role which he gradually builds, the same way he built a mediocre middle class life. Which is the "true" Walt? I'm not sure, but I don't think a change in attitude is what determines the true Walt.

 

I like your line of thinking with the chemical reactin metaphor. But I don't look at a chemical reaction as "predicable" but as an uncontrollable force that can't be stopped once it gets rolling. That's kind of how life works...once we make our choices, we spend our lives becoming those choices.

 

I'm on the second to last ep so I may have more or different thoughts in a little while.

Edited November 16, 2013 by Era Might

[Era Might]

To put it another way, is any man really a "family man"? Family is a strange thing, because it is the thing we build our lives around, yet it does not really tell us anything about the man. It is the stage on which he stars in his life. But, especially for men, family is a sort of nest he goes home to, but not the battlefield where he proves himself. Some men are able to prove themselves on whatever battlefield they choose. Other men, like Walt, just create another nest (a boring life as a high school teacher). He never really applied himself to his real talents and ambition. And he didn't come to grips with that fact until cancer forced him to. And that's when he became Heisenberg.

[Anomaly]

To put it another way, is any man really a "family man"? Family is a strange thing, because it is the thing we build our lives around, yet it does not really tell us anything about the man. It is the stage on which he stars in his life. But, especially for men, family is a sort of nest he goes home to, but not the battlefield where he proves himself. Some men are able to prove themselves on whatever battlefield they choose. Other men, like Walt, just create another nest (a boring life as a high school teacher). He never really applied himself to his real talents and ambition. And he didn't come to grips with that fact until cancer forced him to. And that's when he became Heisenberg.

That's what I love about sharing a good story, movie, play, book, that is well written and characters are portrayed with full depth.  Nobody ever sees it the same. 

 

Your view of people as "types"  or products of formative circumstances I can only partially agree with. Walt is a "type" or has proclivities based on his personality tendencies.  I believe almost everyone can go different than their predilection, with will and intent. The results may be different than what we anticipate. ( maybe most often different).   Married life isn't always a nest rest. We all can be comfortable and apathetic to change in any life we live. I don't recall ever getting a true story on Graymatter in the series. The story to Jesse was another justifying manipulation by Walt. 

 

I've encountered a lot of different types of people and couples who thrive on change or crisis.  It's a slow death if they don't change. We tend to live the lives we want and we can significantly change them.  I don't think Walt was trapped by outside forces to be a teacher, meth cooker, or Hiesenberg.  Those traps are mostly created by ourselves from within. 

[Era Might]

That's what I love about sharing a good story, movie, play, book, that is well written and characters are portrayed with full depth.  Nobody ever sees it the same. 

 

Your view of people as "types"  or products of formative circumstances I can only partially agree with. Walt is a "type" or has proclivities based on his personality tendencies.  I believe almost everyone can go different than their predilection, with will and intent. The results may be different than what we anticipate. ( maybe most often different).   Married life isn't always a nest rest. We all can be comfortable and apathetic to change in any life we live. I don't recall ever getting a true story on Graymatter in the series. The story to Jesse was another justifying manipulation by Walt. 

 

I've encountered a lot of different types of people and couples who thrive on change or crisis.  It's a slow death if they don't change. We tend to live the lives we want and we can significantly change them.  I don't think Walt was trapped by outside forces to be a teacher, meth cooker, or Hiesenberg.  Those traps are mostly created by ourselves from within. 

 

Saw the last eps. I wasn't expecting Gray Matter to reemerge. You mentioned that we never got a real explanation of what happened, but I think that's the point. Whatever happened, the lesson from Walt leaving Gray Matter is that he had something in him, something that didn't want to conform or get along or go along, long before he became Heisenberg. I don't think Gray Matter storyline is about Walt harboring a lifetime of resentment over missing out on a huge fortune, but about his personality.

 

I don't think this series is really about family or even Walt's cancer. I love the little Walt Whitman storyline, the great poet of individualism. In the last ep Walt tells Skyler he did it all for himself...that's the real theme of the show, I think, the audacity of claiming your right to live for yourself, to be your own person, etc. Walt's family life is just the backdrop of his life. And as a teacher he spends the other part of his life preparing other people to live...never himself.

 

I agree that not all marriages are the same. Hank and Marie's marriage is actually a pretty good one, I think. They are both their own people (and note that they don't have kids), with their own jobs. And when they go through their own crises, their marriage doesn't collapse.

[Era Might]

[Era Might]

 

haha I see Walt Jr. has a meme rep for breakfast. I think he's actually an important character. He manages to be himself and do it with the bad hand life dealt him. He's sort of the opposite of Jesse, who doesn't know who he is and doesn't really have a hand in life. But they are both fundamentally unlike their "father" Walt. Walt chooses to live for himself, but he loses himself in the process, because he takes individualism too far. Walt Jr. and Jesse never lose touch with their place in the world, they realize it's not all about them.

[ToJesusMyHeart]

so who knows where I can watch the rest of season 5...the episodes that are not on netflix yet?

[Seven77]

 I heard that the rest of the episodes would be coming to Netflix in the middle of November… I'm too lazy to look right now.

[Anastasia13]

http://youtu.be/RRgUluVGclE

[PhuturePriest]

I tried to make it through the first season. I came to the conclusion when I reached the second last episode of season one that Breaking Bad is weird, boring, and highly overrated. I'm just going to skip to the very last episode. As slow as the story progresses I'm sure I'll be able to figure out what's going on.

[ardillacid]

smh