Breaking Bad
NEW AWESOME TV SHOW!*
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*New to me.

Yeah, I watched the first three episodes last night. It's great. I'm sure most of the US TV lovers on this forum have already seen it and stuff, but I was so impressed with the first couple of episodes I felt it should be brought to attention with a thread.

:hat:

So yeah, it's about a chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with cancer and given two years to live. He decides to put his mad chem skillz to good use and sets up a crystal meth lab with a former student in order to make THE MONIES to support his soon-to-be widowed pregnant wife and son. It stars the dad out of Malcolm in the Middle. It's funny, well-written, and as is common with the US shows these days, has film-grade cinematography. Get amongst it if you haven't already!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_Bad
It's one of my favourite US shows. Very much looking forward to the next season, whenever it's out.

Oh, and it gets better and better after the first few episodes.
I think it's supposed to be out about "now" isn't it?

Yeah, probably my favorite show of last year.
New or Old?

It' s already a few seasons in?
Yeah sorry - there are three seasons and a fourth is in production. It started in 2008 I think.
I guess his two years to live was wrong then.
Utterly amazing show.
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"Stay out of my territory" is probably one of my favourite moments of any TV show in recent memory.


Edit: And I got dead excited because I thought you were going to say series 4 was out. It's only a few months away though.
WTB wrote:
Yeah sorry - there are three seasons and a fourth is in production. It started in 2008 I think.


Pah too many episodes to catch up on now, pass me by.
Bye - Bye
Thanks for putting me on to this! just finished series one, truly excellent program
You guys are really in for a treat. It keep getting better, and Walt's descent is absolutely amazing. Some of the best characters aren't introduced till later on too.
It is an absolutely fantastic show.

One thing for the next series: (spoiler for end of season 3 bit - don't read jonarob)

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It looked like jesse didnt shoot him to me. I think he'll hide him and then it'll get found out later on.
nickachu wrote:
It is an absolutely fantastic show.

One thing for the next series: (spoiler for end of season 3 bit - don't read jonarob)

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
It looked like jesse didnt shoot him to me. I think he'll hide him and then it'll get found out later on.

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
I reckon he killed him. No idea what's happening next though.

Isn't Saul amazing? And the Chicken guy.
LewieP wrote:
nickachu wrote:
It is an absolutely fantastic show.

One thing for the next series: (spoiler for end of season 3 bit - don't read jonarob)

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
It looked like jesse didnt shoot him to me. I think he'll hide him and then it'll get found out later on.

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
I reckon he killed him. No idea what's happening next though.

Isn't Saul amazing? And the Chicken guy.


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I love Saul. Just how ridiculous he is with all his pedicures and back massage things. Only recently I recognised him from HIMYM. I also love the fixer guy for the chicken guy, the one who told Walter no half measures.
Yeah, he's cool :D
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Doug from Flight of the Concords is quite funny too.
One of my favorite bits of the whole thing is the mexican band at the start of one episode who basically do a "previously, on Breaking Bad" in a folk-music story telling style. It's awesome.
kalmar wrote:
One of my favorite bits of the whole thing is the mexican band at the start of one episode who basically do a "previously, on Breaking Bad" in a folk-music story telling style. It's awesome.


Oh yeah, that was awesome, the heisingberg song :D
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The legend of the ATM machine is pretty good too.
nickachu wrote:
kalmar wrote:
One of my favorite bits of the whole thing is the mexican band at the start of one episode who basically do a "previously, on Breaking Bad" in a folk-music story telling style. It's awesome.


Oh yeah, that was awesome, the heisingberg song :D


I got to that episode this morning on the train :D
Trooper wrote:
nickachu wrote:
kalmar wrote:
One of my favorite bits of the whole thing is the mexican band at the start of one episode who basically do a "previously, on Breaking Bad" in a folk-music story telling style. It's awesome.


Oh yeah, that was awesome, the heisingberg song :D


I got to that episode this morning on the train :D


haha just watched that episode also, very cool
I'd heard of this but didn't really know what it was about. I might try and get it on DVD or soemthing.
I has it on 'official media format' but am going to get the DVDs to keep on the shelf too, that's how good it is ;)
I am thinking of getting the import only blu rays of series 1 + 2 for my birthday actually.
Oh! sod it I'll get season 1 to have a look
It's so brilliant.

But it's so tense as well! (s2 minor spoiler)

Fave bit
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TORTOISE!
Just a few episodes to go on series 2 for me.

Jessie's landlady is a bit of alright! :D
Series 4 starts in two weeks.

July 17th.
Y'all been watching the new series? Amazing scenes.

Episode 6 had probably the best outburst from Walt yet:

(don't watch this if you've not yet seen up to episode 6, I've just included it because it is awesome and so you know which one I am talking about)

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
Yes! I'm trying not to rush through it so am a few episodes behind - watched "Shotgun" at the weekend and have the 8th episode "Hermanos" downloaded. Can't wait!

Best TV ever.
kalmar wrote:

Best TV ever.


You've obviously never watched Six Feet Under, Oz, Arrested Development or The Wire.
The actor who played the cartel chemist in this week's episode -- what have I seen him in before? This is driving me mad and I can't find the guy's name on any cast list online.
He was in 24 and something else as well.
SHIT yes, that's it. He was the hacker bloke in 24, Chloe's ex husband. Carlo Rota.
Doctor Glyndwr wrote:
SHIT yes, that's it. He was the hacker bloke in 24, Chloe's ex husband. Carlo Rota.


He's had bit parts in pretty much everything going.
Can not wait for the last episode of the series next week. [Edit: Wait, there's still two more!]

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What is he going to do?!?!?!?
Bit of a cracking ending, even if I called it a few episodes ago.

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The whole poison thing was sort of suspect. I was pretty confident it was Walt behind it, but didn't know for sure until the reveal. Sad that there is only going to be one more series, but who know's where they will take it next series.
Why will no one talk about this with me. Watch it watch it watch it.
SWEET FUCKING SHIT, that last episode was good! The last half of season 4 was absolute edge of seat insanity! I love this series so much!! I didn't think after season 3 this could get any darker, but 8)

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The last shot of the flowers!?!?!?! I kinda saw that coming but OH MY GOD we are going to see Walt turn into the most evil fucking piece of shit ever in the final season!

Also, double meaning for the episode being called "Face Off" too 8) I literally shouted "WOAH!!" when that camera panned round to reveal that!!!?!?! Fuck!!
That was pretty good. I thought this was the last season, though? Hmm. Where will they take it?

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
That's a little disappointing, actually. I was quite happy with the way they wrapped all of that up.

Anyway. I thought the whole ‘Gus walking out, revealing his mangled face, adjusting his tie then falling over’ was cheesy, unbelievable and completely unnecessary. That was a real shame in such a strong episode.

And the way they zoomed in on the plant at the end. It was pretty obvious from the subtle camera changes before that Walt was the one behind it. There was really no need to thump it into our heads. Oh well.


Still, it was an excellent season..
Malabelm wrote:
That was pretty good. I thought this was the last season, though? Hmm. Where will they take it?

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That's a little disappointing, actually. I was quite happy with the way they wrapped all of that up.

Anyway. I thought the whole ‘Gus walking out, revealing his mangled face, adjusting his tie then falling over’ was cheesy, unbelievable and completely unnecessary. That was a real shame in such a strong episode.


ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
I would definitely have preferred that scene to have cut away just after the explosion. BB often throws in some cracking humour (often from Saul), but Gus' horror-comedy pratfall pretty much buggered up all the atmosphere they'd built up during that brilliant scene.


Malabelm wrote:
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And the way they zoomed in on the plant at the end. It was pretty obvious from the subtle camera changes before that Walt was the one behind it. There was really no need to thump it into our heads. Oh well.



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See, I did need that plant-based reveal for it to click into place for me, though that's me for you. The only thing that diluted the power of the final shot for me was the earlier scene, where we saw Walt trick an elderly neighbour into popping into his house in order to find out if hired goons were hiding there. As we've seen, Walt has done worse in the past, but it did remind us of how cold he's now become before that final hammer blow.

Oh, and unrelatedly, I just LOVE how Jesse - a person who never really does anything politely - still generally refers to Walt as "Mr White".


Microscopic niggles aside, HOLY CRAPWOW WHAT A SERIES. I think the last four episodes in a row have left me staring frozen and spellbound at the black screen, such was the power of the closing scenes*. Before Breaking Bad, I think the only ending to a TV episode to ever hit me like that was the episode of Lost where Michael did that thing (you know what thing I mean if you've seen Lost). I've been waiting for the series as a whole to finish before going back and watching the whole series again, but I'm not sure if I can wait any longer. Breaking Bad is SO good, it's distracted me from getting excited about the new season of Dexter.

(*Often because I'd long forgotten how many episodes there were in each season, meaning I'd assumed each ending was the season finale, before having to check.)
Also: last week's WTF Podcast by Marc Maron features a great in-depth interview with Bryan Cranston, mostly about Breaking Bad: http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episodes/ ... n_cranston

[SPOILER WARNING: I recommend you don't listen to that podcast until you've seen the latest episode of BB. It contains spoilers that aren't really meant to be proper spoilers but are very spoilery indeed.]
I have thoroughly enjoyed this.

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I didn't mind Gus's final scene. The visual imagery was nightmarish, and I loved that he adjusted his tie before falling over.

Also, I too needed that final trailing shot to realise that Walt poisoned Brock.


Malabelm wrote:
I thought this was the last season, though? Hmm. Where will they take it?
No no! There has to be another season, there's stuff still to say. I think that
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Jesse kills Walt. It's the only thing that makes sense to me.

For one, the show started with a sentence of death over Walt's head and Vince Gilligan is on record as saying that he doesn't believe you can cheat the viewer by not having Walt die. But also, the show is about consequences, and it's about Walt becoming the bad guy. Dying of cancer in bed surrounded by his family would mean he'd cheated the consequences of his actions. That can't happen either. So it has to be a violent death.

For two, the show has been playing up the father/son relationship between Jesse and Walt, but now Walt has poisoned that as he poisoned Brock -- and we've seen Jesse becoming more and more confident as time passes, less and less in Walt's shadow (think of him cooking for the Cartel). I think we are gradually seeing Walt and Jesse come into an epic conflict that will be the major arc of the final season.


AV Club are running interviews with the show runner, Vince Gilligan, all this week. The first part is here and it's a great read.
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Re: Gus' death. This worked really well IMHO. It was OTT and cartoonish, but that's the style of the whole series. The room blowing up and then a cut away would have been too implied rather than showing Gus actually dying. I see a very comic book style to this whole series. Many of the characters are like cartoon villains (Gus being the cold/calculated mafia dude, Tuco being the CRAZY drug dealer, Saul being the ridiculous lawyer), everything has an edge of hyper-reality to it, it reminds me of the Dark Knight Batman, a slightly tweaked reality. Even the over exposed colour palette implies this. I mean, just re-watch the very first episode of season 1 and try and argue it's not cartoonish?! Or Tuco's cousin dragging himself across the floor on his bloody stumps to get at Walt!!

Also, which relates to the final shot of the flowers, nothing is implied in BB. This is all in your FACE! That's the style. When people die, you see them die. When significant events happen, they're made very clear. This isn't the Wire. Even though I had pretty much figured that Walt had masterminded the poisoning of Brock to get Jesse behind him in killing Gus, that final shot was the confirmation which made everything concrete. THIS IS A GOOD THING. I don't want BB to be all did they/didn't they, keep you watching as you want to know the truth crap script writing like Lost. That is how scripts get messy, confused and result in conclusions like Lost which piss people off as they don't tie everything together and explain all the loose ends. Also, keep in mind, the script writers of BB possibly didn't know if they'd get a season 5 of BB to write, so they finished off season 4 in a way that is nicely concluded on it's own. If Season 4 was the end, I'd be happy, but I'm really excited to see how much of an evil cunt Walt turns into in season 5. I agree with Gaywood, he's fucking toast and Jesse will be the one to take him out.
Watched ep 11 last night. Man, it's tense! It's killing me not to read the spoilers because at this point:

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Walt pretty much has only one option left, and that's to take out Gus, or die trying :(
I notice he's coughing a lot again.
Hmm, can't make up my mind about this. It's getting bummed as much as The Wire and that didn't grab me at all. Will try an episode or two. I gather the 'little things' in each episode make it worth watching as opposed to the general arc of the plot, which having read up on it sounds both daft and repetitive. Also apparently dead good actings. I guess the clips I've caught don't convey this as well as a whole episode might.
GovernmentYard wrote:
Hmm, can't make up my mind about this. It's getting bummed as much as The Wire and that didn't grab me at all.
It's not like The Wire, mind, either stylistically or thematically or in terms of presentation.

Quote:
I gather the 'little things' in each episode make it worth watching as opposed to the general arc of the plot, which having read up on it sounds both daft and repetitive.
You... read the plot...?
GovernmentYard wrote:
Hmm, can't make up my mind about this. It's getting bummed as much as The Wire and that didn't grab me at all. Will try an episode or two. I gather the 'little things' in each episode make it worth watching as opposed to the general arc of the plot, which having read up on it sounds both daft and repetitive. Also apparently dead good actings. I guess the clips I've caught don't convey this as well as a whole episode might.


It's a very different thing to The Wire. They can't be compared, but I actually think I've enjoyed watching this more. And you do need to watch the first 2 or 3 episodes for it to grip you.
Doctor Glyndwr wrote:
You... read the plot...?



Oh. :facepalm:
Teacher gets cancer, makes and sells meth. With unpredictable results!
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