Just finished _Breaking Bad_.
So, what's my takeaway?
(Yes, I'm doing a post-show wrapup just like one of my anime threads.
Deal with it. 😎 )
Really good show. I really liked it.
But god, if I didn't hate every character. Everyone was a self-centered monstrosity of a bastard.
In the end, I think we can say everyone got what they deserved. Serves them right.
Walter was wrong in his _answers_ nearly all the time. He was right with the _questions_ though.
<How can I protect and provide for my family> was his driving end throughout the series.
Except... he got so caught up in the means sometimes that he forgot about the end.
In the end, he drove away the people he loved, leaving only the job to keep him going. But even then, he still wanted to provide for his family first.
There's not a clear moral arc there, I don't think. You can't point to any single decision and say that was where he went wrong.
Rather, he ground away his moral fiber moment by moment, throwing good effort after bad. There were lots of tines he could have stopped and just taken a minor loss overall, but he wanted to _win_.
Junior was interesting. In the end, he was angry about the lies, but didn't have any problem lying himself.
I'm not sure if the authors intended that, but it was certainly there.
Skyler was self-centered the entire show. Walt's cancer was about her. His criminal career was about her. His downfall was about her.
Jesse was the only character with an upward trajectory. He started as a total loser, and was able to improve himself though gaining mastery and through finding responsibility.
He still fucked it up though, and was only able to just barely escape.
Maybe he's learned enough to eventually make a decent life for himself, in the end.
Also, the show was particularly disturbing, not in the violence and criminality, which are priced in from the premise, but in the attitude toward sex.
Every time anyone does anything sexual, it's a manipulation towards some other end in a really nasty way.