Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I continued my journeys through two acclaimed American productions, as I powered through the last quarter or so of Breaking Bad, along with the fourth season of Steven Universe. They’re both fascinating shows with a great deal to cover, and though I’ve had my differences with Breaking Bad, the show certainly put its best foot forward in its final act. Beyond that, I also checked out a Schwarzenegger classic that I hadn’t seen since my childhood, and remembered once again that Schwarzenegger movies are pretty fun. We’ve got plenty of art to cover, so let’s not waste any more time, and get started on another Week in Review!
First off, we powered headlong through the last third of Breaking Bad this week, charging from the last leg of the fourth season all the way through the plus-sized season five. I’ve had a number of critiques with Breaking Bad over my time watching it, but I think my main three could probably be summed up as: the characters feel largely static and are unpleasant to spend time with, the show is too wedded to television’s “resource-saving” model to avoid feeling dragged out, and the whole affair feels more like a vehicle for cliffhangers than a story intended to mean anything. And wouldn’t you know it, Breaking Bad’s final act actually goes an incredible distance to answer all three of those complaints.
First off, the second half of the show is paced far, far better than the first half. I get the impression that somewhere around the beginning of season three, Breaking Bad’s creators essentially solidified the overall arc of the show’s drama. From then on, there’s far less “a sudden problem has emerged for us to resolve and then return to neutral” – events start to feel consequential and inevitable, and you truly get the sense of things spinning out of control one step at a time. I mentioned before that season three offers a far richer role for Skyler than her vague pestering across the first two seasons, and that actually extends to most of the cast – Gus and Mike are terrific additions, Jesse’s journey gains a great deal of emotional nuance, and Walter White finally starts to embrace his true nature.
Brian Cranston’s performance as Walter White was excellent from the start, but like Skyler, his ability to convey an emotional truth felt limited by the show’s cyclical conflict structure. Additionally, the initial question of “will Walter become a monster” never felt particularly interesting to me, because it was clear from the start that he embodied basically all the worst, most selfish and self-sabotaging aspects of egotism and toxic masculinity. Rather than undergo a personal transformation, the second half of Breaking Bad felt like a process of all the other characters in the show learning to see the Walter White I saw – an incredibly satisfying process, with every new “fuck you forever, Walter White” feeling like an escape from prison. And in the end, White is so stripped of the spoils of his journey that he is finally, finally able to see what his decisions have cost him, and even express an inch of remorse regarding the suffering he’s caused. Ultimately, in spite of perhaps going on for five or six episodes too long in the early seasons, White’s journey across the last third is a genuinely gripping portrait of ruin, inflicted on a man who could not deserve it more.
Which, in the end, also resolves my final concern: Breaking Bad as a thematic statement. Like with war movies, it is difficult to create a crime drama that does not glamorize crime, and there are certainly points in this show when crime seems glamorous. But more often than not, Walt’s actions feel some mixture of cruel, desperate, and pathetic, and over time, it becomes abundantly clear that the alpha male ideal he’s seeking is only a path to isolation and ruin. Though he claims to be a “professional,” like all of this show’s villains, he is ultimately undone by his ego, by his desperate need to prove that “it was me.” And yet, that accomplishment doesn’t mean a goddamn thing outside of his head – by only feeding his sense of himself as a righteous, powerful provider, he alienates everyone around him, and is remembered only as a monster. “Classic masculinity is a cowardly, cruel ethos that destroys everything it touches” is probably the most common theme of these “great man” prestige dramas, and I’ve said before that I’m pretty much set on great man stories, but Breaking Bad’s second half told this story very well, and won me over in the end. I can certainly see why people love this show.
Meanwhile, Steven Universe’s fourth season continued the show’s slow, rambling journey towards a confrontation with Homeworld, as we at last came face-to-face with multiple Diamonds, and Steven learned even more about his morally ambiguous mother. Steven’s continued reckoning with the complex life of Rose Quartz is one of this show’s richest emotional veins; rather than the episodic emotional conflicts, which tend to resolve themselves pretty neatly, coming to terms with his war criminal mother is an awkward, complicated process with no clear finish line. As a result, episodes like the introduction of Bismuth stand as some of the show’s strongest, playing into some tantalizingly messy territory regarding Rose’s actions, and forcing Steven to put all of his hard-earned leadership abilities to work.
Almost everything that Steven Universe hinted at as a future source of conflict is now actively in play – the show can at times struggle in juggling its massive cast and copious sources of conflict, but these players and conflicts were introduced so carefully into the overall structure that it’s still an enthralling, beautiful thing. Rather than feeling like we’re nearing the end of specific character arcs, it truly feels like we’re watching a diverse cast grow through extended, traumatic experiences and the general process of aging in a family; characters like Steven, Amethyst, or Pearl have piled lessons on top of lessons, still true to their fundamental nature, but girded by all they’ve learned, and by how much they’ve come to trust each other. Also, they’re all huge badasses at this point; the show’s well-written enough to never have to lean on it, but it’s nice that Steven can now kick ass with the best of them.
As for films, this week I watched one of Arnie’s more cerebral productions, the Philip K. Dick-inspired Total Recall. If you’re a fan of Arnie’s rarely convincing but perpetually charming acting style, and also like watching shit blow up, Total Recall is a blast. The film hits all the structural beats and payoffs you’d expect from a scifi action movie, but its source material’s mental programming conceit is a wonderful invention, and makes for a wild set of twists and unexpected betrayals. Equally importantly, the Mars of Total Recall feels like a believable yet fantastical place, with its colorful characters and intricate set design evoking something like the lived-in solidity of the Mos Eisley cantina. A fun adventure flick with some neat ideas and an evocative setting; yeah, that’s more than enough for me.
