Balancing Out in Breaking Bad, S3, E10, Fly

One think I noticed a while ago is that Breaking Bad keeps you moving back and forth on its major characters, especially Walter and Jesse. There’s a sequence where the character is really nasty and then, a bit later, the character does something that draws you to them. If someone wanted to do some serious work on this show, this rhythm would be something to look at. Chart it out character by character, within episodes and across episodes.

It’s my crude impression that Breaking Bad does this more than other shows (e.g. The Sopranos, The Wire, etc.). For what it’s worth, I didn’t even notice this going on in other shows, well, a bit with Mad Men. Maybe it’s common, but I’ve just now noticed it. And maybe it’s particularly prevalent in Breaking Bad. I can’t tell.

Consider episode 10 in season 3, “Fly.” First, this episode is something of a dramatic “stunt” in that it involves only two characters, Walter and Jesse, and one setting, the meth lab. Second, nothing much happens in the episode. No one is killed, there’s no violence, no major changes in anything. It’s a very minimalist episode.

So, what does happen? It’s at the end of the workday and Walt and Jesse are at the lab. Walt’s been running numbers. He notices that some of the product seems missing. We, of course, know what’s been going on. Jesse’s been skimming a bit to sell on the side. We’re not surprised that Jesse offers various (lame) reasons to explain the discrepancy. (Doesn’t he realize that Walt can calculate the expected yield given his knowledge of input quantities?)

Does Walt suspect that Jesse’s skimming? Will he figure it out? Jesse leaves and Walt gets distracted by a fly. Really distracted. He begins to take physical risks to get the fly, even taking a nasty fall. He’s become obsessed for no apparent reason.

Jesse returns, finds Walt chasing the fly, and wonder’s what’s up. Walt gives him a song and dance about contamination, but doesn’t have the courtesy to even attempt to explain how one fly could damage the product. Jesse wants finish the current batch before it goes sour, but Walt won’t let him. Gotta get that fly. This makes no sense to Jesse or to us.

Walt is being a pain in the ass. Really annoying. It just seems to be prima donna perfectionism out of control.

Coincidence in Breaking Bad

In my previous post on Breaking Bad I noted that the show seems a bit thick with coincidence. Since the show’s been out for awhile I figured others must have remarked on it. So I got my Google-fu in gear and went looking.

I got some hits. The issue has been raised on Quora: Who thinks Breaking Bad is too contrived...too many improbable coincidences? The question had seven answers when I got there; I added an eighth. Most answers seemed to think that, yes, lots of coincidence. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

The show’s entry in TV Tropes lists three+ instances of the trope, Contrived Coincidence. The “+” is for “Everything involving the midair collision in the season 2 finale.”

There’s more, but that’s enough to tell me that the show’s use of coincidence is pretty obvious. It may not be obvious to the point where you’re supposed to be thinking to yourself “zing! there goes another one”; but it’s out there. It’s in the texture of the show.

I assume this use of coincidence is deliberate. As I’ve said, it’s part of the artistry. What’s it doing? In the penultimate (that is, next to the last) episode of season two Jesse’s girlfriend, Jane, chokes in her own vomit while Walt’s on a diaper run for the new baby, where he also meets up with Jane’s father in a bar (but doesn’t know who he is). Coincidence? Heck yeah! But what’s the point?

And Walt’s a bit pissed that his son’s “Help Walt” website is bringing in the bucks. He knows, of course, that those bucks are the bucks he made selling a megaload of primo meth and he’s pissed that he’s not getting credit for providing for his family.

Breaking Bad: S2, E11, Mandala, pile up

Just watched this episode, “Mandala,” in season 2, episode 11. It has the kind of coincidence that is neither here nor there as far as realism in concerned, but that very much IS central to the aesthetic technique of the show.

Jesse’s new girlfriend, Jane, also his landlady, is a recovering addict. We met her several episodes ago, after Jesse got kicked out of his aunt’s place (owned by his parents, who let him live there). Jane has relapsed and done meth with Jesse. Now, in this episode, she introduces him to heroin.

Meanwhile, the murder of one of their dealers, Combo, has forced Walter and Jesse to seek help from their (very shady) lawyer, Saul. Saul hooks them up with a distributor, Gus, who can move their 38 pounds of prime meth. But he’s cautious and admonishes Walt for having an addict for a partner.

And then Walt’s wife, Skyler, who’s taken a job, discovers that her boss and company owner has been embezzling to the tune of one million dollars. She agrees not to snitch, but also decides to quit. (Maybe. But she goes back to the office after having left.)

Walt’s in class and he gets the call. He’s keeping his second cell phone, the one he uses for the drug business, in the ceiling of the classroom. While it’s on vibrate mode, still, the class hears it vibrating up there. Walt has made a stupid Jesse-class mistake. Still, the students leave, Walt retrieves the phone, and gets a text message. The deal is on. He’s got an hour to deliver the full 38 pounds.

Of course, he doesn’t have the stuff, Jesse does. And Jesse isn’t answering his phone. Why not? Because he’s high on heroin, remember? Walt breaks in through the real door, manages to get Jesse to tell him more or less where the stuff is and Walt finds it. As he’s loading it into a garbage bag he gets another text, from his wife. She’s going into labor.

End of episode. We’ve got to wait for the next one to find out what happens.

Of course, I’m watching on Netflix, so I don’t have to wait. Instead, I’ve decided to knock this note out, fast. Just to get it on record. An example of the show’s real-time technique.

Realistic? Yes/No. Take it or leave it. In life, yes, shit happens. Things are all lined up nice in a row. But this is a real pile-up: the Big Deal is on, Jesse’s stoned, Skyler’s in labor. All at the same friggin’ time.

I don’t think so. This is aesthetic technique, not mimetic necessity. And what’s the effect of having all this take place inside of 47 minutes. No time to think. You just have to go with this crazy flow.

Zoom!

Notice, by the way, Skyler’s now (provisionally) implicated in something illegal.

More later.

Breaking Bad, all twisted pretty

A couple of days ago I saw that one James Atlas–about whom I have heard, a bit–had and op-ed in the NYTimes entitled “Get a Life? No Thanks. Just Pass the Remote.” I bit.

I was mostly about Breaking Bad, one of those high-quality TV shows with the continuous story, grimy texture, and moral ambiguity. You know, The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, Mad Men, House of Cards, that stuff, the stuff that’s giving canonical lit a run for the cultural brass ring. So I bit.

And, yeah, Breaking Bad–which I’d heard about, which Netflix kept pushing at me–IS one of those. Why those stories, at this time? In part it’s that it took awhile for TV both to figure out how to do it, whatever IT is, and to allow itself to do it. Still, why the darkness? Yeah, I know, life isn’t simple. Real people aren’t purely good nor purely bad.

As Atlas says about Breaking Bad:

But if the story line propels me into my TV grotto, it’s the realism that keeps me there. There’s nothing artificial about “Breaking Bad” — the spell is never broken. The dialogue is pitch-perfect. And there’s a lot of useless but fascinating information: you can learn how a meth lab operates, how money is laundered and guns are sold, how to murder people. (This is not necessarily a good thing. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, accused in the Boston Marathon bombings, tweeted: “ ‘Breaking Bad’ taught me how to dispose of a corpse.”) And if you want to know how crack is smoked, how a heroin needle is inserted, the spoon heated up, I highly recommend this show. Self-destruction is interesting.

But reality’s notoriously difficult to judge. Atlas pretty much assumes that the meth lab scenes are, well, realistic, because that’s how they are presented. I make the same assumption. But I don’t know. I’ve never seen a meth lab and neither, I warrant, has Atlas.

It just smells real. The meth lab and a lot more besides. It’s not as though you can take a snatch of Real Life here and hold it up to a snatch of TV Life there and compare them. Fictional realism is a set of conventions.