Breaking Bad

[Yppej]

A few years ago I watched the first few episodes and found it repetitive and boring. It was the same plot over and over - how anguished I am about doing this bad thing not expected by my spouse and others of my socioeconomic background. Yawn.

[iris lilies]

At some point in the last few months since the pandemic started I signed up for Netflix. I forget, exactly, why but I did.

DH and I had a nightly ritual of watching Bosch on Amazon Prime and now that we've worked our way through all six seasons, we are finally watching Breaking Bad since it's on the Netflix playlist but you have pay $9.99 per season to watch on Amazon Prime. I'm hoping the all the characters aren't as awful and unredeemable as they seem to be by episode three. Really, does any one of them have any redeeming virtues?

I haven't read this thread in its entirety (b/c spoilers) but just reminding folks about this in case anyone cares to revisit the show.

You don’t think Walter White has any redeeming characteristics? He is presented as doing this thing that he’s doing to earn money to take care of his family so they won’t be impoverished by his hospital bill and death. He’s a teacher and has poor insurance.

Yeah I was never able to buy that point, I had to gloss right it over in my enjoyment of Breaking Bad.


But there are not many good people in the show. Jesse turns out to be shaded. Not only “shady “but shaded and conflicted. There will be many wonderful characters along the way in BB but none of them are good. Edited to add: maybe Hank. And Mike. And mrs White.


I tried to watch Bosch because it got very good reviews, but I just did not like it. I thought the Bosch character was presented as supposedly complex, a good cop doing bad for the sake of good for all. But that’s hardly a new concept. I only watched maybe 2 1/2 episodes. While I like that main actor a lot and think he’s very very handsome, I did not find him to be an interesting character.


If you’re looking for a great law and order show where the good people are good and the bad people are usually bad with streaks of good, you should watch Justified. I watched it with DH and our friend, the entire series. They both liked it as well as I did and it was my second time watching it. The friendship/enemy relationship between Raylan the sheriff and Boyd, the bad guy, is fascinating. It’s a very strong show and I’m not much into law and order shows.

[Anne Lee]

I'm getting the feeling that the default view of people in Breaking Bad is that we are all self interested and our goodness depends on how socialized we are to be good while our badness depends on opportunity, reward, and potential risk.

This isn't the rosiest view of the human condition but perhaps closer to the uncomfortable truth. I'm going to continue with it as long as it doesn't make me too angst ridden. I have to have hope in my entertainment. That is part of the reason I stopped watching the Walking Dead. Just not enough hope and they kept killing off the character that was the moral center.

Bosch, the good cop who does bad things, took on a different spin during the time period we watched due to the elevated conversation around police brutality. It's easier to buy into that trope when it's clear that the bad people really are guilty. But the way that dynamic plays out in real life is not quite so cut and dried.

Also, aren't there any of these kinds of high quality shows with women? I've heard the Good Wife is in this vein but what about others?

[Tybee]

Broadchurch has a very strong female lead.

[iris lilies]

Everything I mentioned below has lead female characters.

I thought The Good Wife was an excellent show. The legal cases were the weakest part and that’s OK with me, the strong parts were what interested me which were the relationships between the attorneys on the show and the main character and her scumbag politician husband.


Other strong shows with female lead characters are The Crown, Fleabag, Unbelievable, Homeland ( although later seasons are not very good) Handmaid’s Tale.

These are ones I consider not grade AA but maybe B or B minus: dead to me, Pretty little lies, orange is the new black,Grace and Frankie.

The Aforementioned Broadchurch is a very good murder story, and I don’t watch most of those British detective shows. But there are tons of those British shows that have female leads. I like the one called Happy Valley a lot where a female middle-aged police detective chases down a murderer. But the best one of the past several years stars Gillian Anderson in The Fall where she plays a London detective sent to Ireland to track down a serial murder. She is excellent and the murderer guy is excellent in his role, too.


Kerrie Russell is very strong in The Americans where she plays half of a married duo of Russian spies.