WARNING: Some minor
spoilers, albeit vague ones for the series so far. You were warned.
“Best-case scenario, with chemo, I’ll live maybe another
couple of years. It’s just, you’ve got
mustard on your (coat)…”
When realizing how far the
character of Walter White has gone in the four seasons since, that minor bit of
dialogue from Breaking Bad’s incredible pilot episode explains a lot about the
character. On one hand, it’s a darkly
humorous moment in an otherwise grim prognosis for the show’s main character,
and on the other, explains the way Walter White deflects certain realities from
his view. As the series would progress,
those realities would grow from the handling of a medical diagnosis to murder
on a (as of now) massive scale. But
here, none of the four seasons of mayhem and disaster have occurred yet, but in
retrospect, probably was inevitable.
The whole structure of this
opening episode (written and directed by series creator and X-Files veteran
Vince Gilligan) works its way backwards to explain how school chemistry teacher
Walter White ended up in the New Mexico desert, with three unconscious bodies
in a motor home full of drug making gear, and of course, minus his pants. The image of a man clad in white underpants
and a gas mask driving through the desert is bizarre enough, but when you start
seeing how he ended up there, you realize how unusual it really is. Walter White starts out this story seeming
like a normal human being: family man, teacher, and an oddly milquetoast
life. Of course, he’s almost a
supporting player at his own surprise birthday party, his sex life involves
handjobs while his wife Skyler negotiates eBay bids, and working at a car wash
on the side, where his students mock him.
It’s at his car wash job that he falls ill and gets diagnosed with
cancer, but in what would later seem to be a thing Walter White does well, hide
this information from his family. That’s
when Walter utters that quote above, and deals with it like most grown adults
would: get pissed and leave his car wash job, sullenly sit by his pool, and thanks
to a ride along with his brother-in-law Hank, finds a perfect partner in former
student/“Cap’n Cook” meth maker Jesse Pinkman to help him cook enough meth to
support his family before he dies.
Perfectly normal.
What the episode shows is how
seemingly inept Walter White is at the business end of meth making, but how
brilliant he is at chemistry (enough to attempt a mustard gas escape, at
least). He’s also very persistent in
what his goals are, enough to extort Jesse’s help with his meth making and even
cashing out his life savings to get an RV to do the work. He’s obsessive with his craft, stripping down
to not ruin his regular clothes while cooking, wanting to make quality product
as opposed to Jesse’s idea of putting in chili pepper as a gimmick, but he has
no clue how to handle drug dealers like Krazy-8 and his cousin Emilio. That being said, Jesse is no better with the
cousins either, leading them to Walt’s RV meth lab in the desert. Both Walt and Jesse are not the brightest
bulbs in a criminal world that seems to be filled with more professional men
than them.
As mild-mannered Walt appears in
the early stages of the pilot (excluding the teaser of him running around the
desert with a gun and no pants), there are enough hints as to how much crap is seeping
to the surface. Look at his reaction to
the teenagers mocking Walt Jr. at the clothes shop. While leaving the shop only to return and
intimidate the boys seems like the reaction of a man who’s staring at death’s
door, now in retrospect it’s the signs of Walt’s biggest issue: marginalization. He needs to feel in control of things, needs
to protect his family, and needs to feel superior. The cancer didn’t so much create the man we
see in later seasons, but unleashed the demon slumbering within.
With Jesse, his ambitions are
like most men are in their early 20’s: make money, get laid, and getting
wasted. Its almost sad watching Jesse
after four seasons of watching his life going completely to shit to see someone
in the pilot who seemed to be better off before meeting Walter White. He’s coerced into to helping Walt with his
meth making scheme, but slowly and surely starts learning how to be better at
making meth because of Walt. Like many
great teachers, he’s slowly learning his craft, but doing so with a lot of pain
attached.
The pilot also introduces Hank
and Marie, Walt’s in-laws, although their contribution this early in the series
is to remind the viewers how close trouble could be, especially when your
brother inadvertently introduced you to your new business partner. The supporting cast is fleshed out enough in
these early episodes, but like many shows finding their footing, their growth
will take some time. What stands out
about the pilot is how uncertain things are left by the end: there’s a RV with
two (not quite) dead bodies full of chemical equipment in the desert, Walt
celebrates by having sex with his wife, and we’re not sure how one lead into
the other. But for fans, we all know
there’s more to what happened in that desert.
Not many pilots set up an
interesting universe like Breaking Bad does, if only because the majority of
pilots deal with setting up boundaries within a recognizable genre, like cop
shows and science-fiction. Where the
Breaking Bad pilot succeeds is in that off kilter feel of what’s happening, and
what could happen. We’re not in familiar
territory like a big city along the lines of New York or L.A., but in New
Mexico, an already foreign place to many viewers. It also helps the visuals for the pilot were
done by ace cinematographer John Toll (Braveheart, The Thin Red Line), which
set the tone for the look of the series quite well.
If anything can be taken from
this opener is that things don’t go the way we think they will. Walt and Jesse’s plan to work with the
cousins goes bad, Walt’s plan to get killed by what he thinks is the cops
backfires, and he still has to deal with the fact that Skyler (let alone anyone
else in his immediate family) has not clued into his activities yet. By the time the first episode ends, you’re
not sure where any of this is going, but do know its not to a good place. How true that thought is.
Some notes for the fans:
--Aw, I miss the RV.
--I’m no expert on meth and meth
users, but do users really prefer their crystal flavored with chili
pepper?
--Funny watching the versions on
AMC compared to the ones available on DVD, with a lot more bleeped out
profanities and less topless women in the former.
--Hey, it’s Walter White, with
hair! And with a job! Man, those were the days.
--“I said “fuck you”, and your
eyebrows!”
--“’Sage’? Do you work at the fucking Pottery Barn?”
--“At this rate, in 50 or 60
years, you’ll be rich.”
--“Do I look like a skater?”
--“’Cow house’?” “Yeah, where the cows live.”
Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 stars
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