When AMC decided to produce original programming, their first series, Mad Men, was a critical home run. It was a show set in a classic time, and AMC, which used to stand for American Movie Classics was a perfectly fine place to run it. But their second show had the strange title Breaking Bad. It was a “dramedy” set in present day, in the dusty town of Kingman, Arizona. I remember thinking at the time, so much for the classic feel. I was wrong.
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Breaking Bad is the best crime show currently airing on television. It starts with an original premise. Walter White, played by Bryan Cranston, is a low paid high school chemistry teacher in a dead end job. He has a handicapped son (RJ Mitte) and a wife (Anna Gunn) who doesn’t work. They’re barely making ends meet. And then he gets a bomb dropped on him. He’s diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Walter’s given less than a year to live.
Looking at his options and his debts, Walter realizes that he will leave his wife and son with nothing. His wife will have to go back to work, which she hasn’t done in years. His son, who has cerebral palsy, will not have much help in life. He’s in high school, but there is no money to send him off to college.
So Walter gets an idea from his brother-in-law, Hank Schrader (Dean Norris). Hank is a DEA agent and the big problem in Kingman are meth addicts. There are a lot of them. Hank talks about how stupid they are and how much money there is in that business. So Walter puts two and two together in his mind. He’s a chemist. He could make drugs far superior to the crap on the market. And he’s smart. Maybe he can out think those people and make enough money before he dies that his family won’t be destitute. But of course, no one in his family can know what he’s planning. The other problem is, Walter has no experience with crime or drugs. He has no idea where to start.
Enter Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), a drop out student of Walter’s who was a high school dealer. Walter contacts Jesse and enlists him with his plan. Walter will use his expertize to make the drugs, Jesse will use his connections to sell them and they’ll split the money. Jesse was going nowhere so he accepts. Hilarity ensues.
Jesse is a clueless punk who think’s he’s smart, like just about any dude in his early 20s. Neither he, nor Walt, have any idea how ruthless the criminals they will have to deal with are. Or how dangerous their new profession is. But they find out the hard way. And the fun comes from Walt pretending to be this boring chem teacher on chemo while trying to keep everyone from knowing that he’s become the most sought after meth manufacturer in the area. His DEA agent brother in law has no idea, as Walk acts like a fumbling Clark Kent keeping his secret identity hidden.
The show was created by X-Files writer/exec-producer Vince Gillian who provides a storyline filled with some of the best twists on TV. Breaking Bad manages to fool you almost every time and yet delivers a satisfying conclusion to each episode. Last season ended with a surprise that was sheer brilliance. They had been setting it up all season and if you watched, you thought you knew what was going to happen. Instead they blew the audience away.
And while the writing is top notch the acting is even better. Gillian does a tremendous job of fleshing out the characters and shows all their sides. The actors rise to the challenge and provide performances that can best be called master classes in acting. Lead by Bryan Cranston who is like a modern day Jack Lemmon, Cranston shows us a character that starts off as a doormat and morphs into a complex man who finds his own inner Scarface while trying to be a loving father and husband. It’s not as simple a task as he may have thought. Aaron Paul as his cohort Jesse is absolutely brilliant as the idiotic partner who manages to screw up just about every plan they hatch. His dialog is some of the most hysterical in the show. The luscious Anna Gunn plays Walt’s wife as a woman entering middle age who’s forced to reenter the working world because she doesn’t trust her husband anymore. Dean Norris’ Hank is someone you think you have pegged as soon as you meet him and then you discover there’s much more depth to this narc who loves the badge. Recent additions like Bob Odenkirk as Walt’s crooked lawyer and Giancarlo Esposito as his mysterious distributor are excellent.
If you loved the Sopranos when it as good, you’ll probably love this. It has a similar flavor.
Breaking Bad returns to AMC this Sunday, March 21st at 10PM/9 Central.