A lot of people seem to love Breaking Bad, but I find myself a bit ambivalent about it. The main reason for that is pretty simple: I find Walter White a repellent and reprehensible individual. It's hard to thoroughly engage with a show where I dislike the protagonist quite so much. At least for me, ol' Walt lacks any of the charisma or empathetic traits that might make his deeply narcissistic self more tolerable. I mean, even Dexter Morgan and Frank Underwood at least know that they're bad people. Walt, on the other guy, is convinced he's the hero and that the world owes him something for the (admittedly tough) hand he's been dealt.
What I'm saying is that when your script has hired killers plotting to murder your main character and my main reaction is irritation that they won't succeed, there may be a problem.
So why does this season still get a qualified recommendation? Well mainly because of the second half of its run, where it seems like Walter finally starts to try and act a bit less like a jerk. I mean sure, his motives for doing so are still pretty selfish, but we can't have everything.
And you know, there are other characters in the show than Walt, and they're often a good deal more likeable than he is, so I can watch and enjoy their stories, and lament at the inevitable pain they suffer whenever their lives intersect with that of this horrible, horrible individual.
No comments:
Post a Comment