BREAKING DAD
THE SON AGAINST THE FATHER
As Breaking Bad winds down I am struck by what should have been obvious all along: Breaking Bad is a Gnostic drama of the Son against the Father. I have been in the habit of grouping it with The Sopranos and Mad Men as an exploration of the American man as father. And it is obviously that. But there are some crucial differences that are more pronounced in the final episodes as the drama’s focus intensifies. Don Draper and Tony Soprano, ambivalent fathers and husbands, are primarily engaged by the mother. Both men are incorrigible philanderers. But they aren’t simply dogs like Clinton. They are after a true love that lies outside of their world of home and work. They struggle with their wives. Don’s mother dies and he is raised in a whorehouse, and Tony’s mother is murderous. What makes Don and Tony fascinating as characters is the smidgeon of insight they possess, their alienation from the code of work, the laws of the world each man inhabits. The heart of their drama is their struggle with the past (the mother) and how this struggle brings them into conflict with their world. They are unsettled men able to see and understand things others around them don’t, but they are unable to change. Walt on the other hand is a faithful husband and he has no parents. The one incident from the past we know of is his friends ripping him off and making billions while he must teach high school chemistry. One of these friends is a woman he was in love with, and she has married their partner. The struggle even here appears to be with a male rival.
The action starts with cancer and time itself ceases to exist as the show unfolds a single year over five seasons. Walt’s intro to the world of meth, motivated by the need to earn enough money for his family when he dies, begins with his former student, Jesse Pinkman. Jesse at first educates Walt but Walt is a good student and the resentment he has nursed for decades blooms quickly into psychopathology. Walt becomes a gangster with few doubts. And his mission, or rather, his main rationale for all he does, is protection of his family and crucially, his ‘son’ Jesse. But unlike his actual son, Walt Junior, who is disabled, he has a full blown Oedipal struggle with Jesse. His desire to protect Jesse constantly endangers him. And Jesse’s desire to rid himself of Walt always melts as he time and again refuses to betray him, until Walt finally goes too far and poisons a child.  The rhythms of the show are defined by this struggle, and it has all come down finally to the Son and Brother against the Father, the trinity of Jesse, Walt and Hank, fueled by betrayal, love and revenge, reduced now to a small circle of cars in the desert and men with machine guns.
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So, did you appreciate the finale?
YES! I loved the finale. Other than Dennis Potter’s The Singing Detective and Pennies from Heaven, I cannot think of a show that ended better. Breaking Bad was coherent from the start, with a strong story that begins and ends the way a novel would. It is a monument of hardboiled, noir art.
BTW, there’s a similar piece about BB in the Jewish Daily Forward….well maybe not so similar but when I saw it I thought of your post (http://forward.com/articles/184881/breaking-bads-jewish-lesson/?p=all) And yeah, I liked the finale as well, satisfying. They could have used a bit more time I think. My only criticism was that his plan in the end relied too much on blind luck–Jack’s hubris provided the time and distraction to get his keys for example, but it was credible I think. Jesse, Marie and Walt, Jr. got short-shrift screen-time wise, but each one in their way got some kind of resolution. Everyone’s life in this episode is somehow destroyed or damaged, yet it’s played out in such an understated manner. I like how many things go unsaid in this, the nuances conveyed by an expression or a seemingly off-hand gesture. I’ll miss the show, but it never jumped the shark!
Yes, silences and loks. Likje Walt’s phone call to Skylar when the cops are there. She got away with her complicity! I was astonished to learn that fans hated her character. I thought she was extremely sympathetic. I’ll check out the Jewish daily Forward. I suppose that’s a Communist front?
Yes, that scene was heartrending and a relief all at the same time. Brilliant writing. Also their last scene together. All in the face. I’d heard of the Skylar hate too. People are weird. The Forward is part of the Zionist conspiracy to enslave the world, didn’t you know? 😉 Actually it’s a pretty moderate paper, I think they do a Yiddish version as well. I’ve had an opportunity to read it because they have some interesting articles related to a book I’m reading about Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel.
I think it is a famous Yiddish paper from back in the day, Socialist, or Anarchist?
Wiki sez:
The Forward (Yiddish: פֿ×ָרווערטס; Forverts), commonly known as The Jewish Daily Forward, is a Jewish-American national newspaper published in New York City. The publication began in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily issued by dissidents from the Socialist Labor Party of Daniel DeLeon. As a nonprofit publication loosely affiliated with the Socialist Party of America, Forverts achieved massive circulation and considerable political influence during the first three decades of the 20th Century. The organization today publishes two newspapers, weekly in English (The Forward) and biweekly in Yiddish (Yiddish Forward) or (Forverts) and websites updated daily in both languages.