“I don’t wanna talk about time travel ‘cause if we start talking about it then we’re gonna be here all day talkin’ about it and makin’ diagrams with straws.” –Old Joe

Rian Johnson’s recent science fiction film Looper is not, first and foremost, a movie about time travel, as articulated clearly by older Joe (Bruce Willis) to his younger self (Joseph Gordon Levitt) in the diner scene. Most readings of the film thus far have generally critiqued the film on narrative grounds, criticizing its allegedly flat storyline and the paradoxical plot frustrations prevalent to any movie involving time travel.[1] Engaging Looper merely at the level of its narrative content obstructs the possibility of a much more robust reading of the film and prohibits authentically engaging the subtle theological questions and ethical critiques undergirding the entirety of the movie. The film itself subverts this reading by asking this question on behalf of the viewer in the younger Joe’s query to his older self: “So do you know what’s gonna happen? You done all this already?” to which the older Joe responds, “I don’t wanna talk about time travel…”

At its fundamental core, Looper functions as a commentary on the nature of violence and the systemic character of evil by offering a redemptive subversion of such systems of violence through creative acts of nonviolence and self sacrifice. While it may seem redundant or obvious to suggest that Looper is a movie about violence and nonviolence, what is not readily apparent is the extent to which these concepts are addressed. The film is unquestioningly brutal in its portrayal of the willful, dehumanization and destruction of human bodies. But the visceral demonstrations of violence in the film point toward a deeper reality of human subjectivity in general: the distortion of selfhood through externalized acts of violence. Thus, time travel functions not as a genre gimmick but as an indicator of the cyclical nature of systemic violence, both in the extrinsic sense of active brutality toward the other and the intrinsic sense perpetuated by ego-centric conceptions of selfhood. The nature of violence is essentially characterized by the self’s willful inability to foster an openness to the other, remaining closed within itself, what Luther and Bonhoeffer after him referred to as the cor curvum in se, or “the heart turned in on itself.”[2] Insofar as the self is defined by the concept of the cor curvum in se, selfhood can only be characterized by the willful domination of the other.

In the film “loopers” are defined by this axiomatic understanding: systems of violence are necessarily closed systems. As such, Joe’s identity as a looper is constituted by the closedness of the system in which he participates. A looper’s life ultimately culminates in a profound act of self-destruction, a deferred suicide wherein the looper is required to take the life of his or her older self sent back from the future, which is referred to in the film as “closing your loop.” Each character, with the possible exception of Sara (Emily Blunt), is driven by this distinctly human conception of selfhood: greed, lust, power, self-preservation and it is upon these forces that the systemic brutality and power structure of Looper is predicated. This is the central question posed by the main character, Joe, when he is confronted by the stark futility and self-destructive nature of the system in which he finds himself trapped. Abe (Jeff Daniels), in his conversation with Joe, claims to have prophetically envisioned the future Joe would have lived if Abe had not taken Joe in and given him a new identity as a looper. Abe, completely devoted to the preservation of his own power, is convinced of the inevitability of the system he has created and must likewise convince Joe of the necessity of violence as the essential element of his identity. As Abe explains to Joe: “…I could see. I could see it happenin’ on the TV. The bad version of your life, like a vision. I could see how you’d turn bad. So I changed it. I cleaned you up and put a gun in your hand.” Abe not only puts the instrument of violence into Joe’s hands, he fundamentally convinces Joe of a certain conception of his own humanity. Abe illustrates the way in which violence mandates a necessary dehumanization of the self: violence is always predicated upon the distortion of humanity.

The violence of the film should be understood instrumentally, as a utility of the violence inherent to the self trapped within an enclosed system. Just as the gun is an extension of the body with which to harm another body, the will to use it is an extension of the violence which is always already being done to the self. As the film clearly demonstrates, one act of violence only serves to further perpetuate more violence: violence begets violence. The only solutions that can be conceived by the characters in Looper are of retaliation and vengeance. The consequences of each act of violence inevitably return back to the aggressor and are again cyclically perpetuated in further acts of violence. Older Joe has become a specter of this violence, eternally returning to the originary site of the film’s violent cycle. The paradoxical relationship Joe has with himself, that is, his future self, illuminates the way in which acts of violence ceaselessly perpetuate themselves in an eternally returning loop, the specter of the future haunting the past and motivating more violence.

The film culminates with Joe’s reckoning with the systemic outworking of his acts of violence through his confrontation with his future self, wherein he must finally come to terms with the nature of violence. He identifies the system that Abe thrust him into, one in which a “Mom would die for her son, Husband would kill for his wife,” and he too decides to change it. The only way to truly undermine the cyclical system of violence is to shatter the enclosed nature of selfhood which motivates it. Closed systems stand in stark contrast to the reality inaugurated by Joe’s self-giving. Only by absorbing the violence into himself through a disruptive act of self-sacrifice can a system of openness be inaugurated in which the other is authentically conceived as truly other. Joe, in an epiphanal moment which recalls Abe’s previous vision of his life, envisions the potential reality consequent to the cycle of violence which he has created and acts in the only way which can disrupt that cycle and redeem the destructive trajectory of events for which he is responsible. Joe’s taking of his own life does not represent the overcoming of violence in that turning his gun upon himself is an act of violence: rather his absorbing the inevitable violence into his own person is what serves to undermine the closedness of the system. Openness is only possible in the wake of inaugurating a new system, a new possibility chiefly characterized by self-giving.

Such forms of self-giving must be rooted in the theological concept perichoresis, what the Cappadocian Fathers referred to as ‘the divine dance,’ the intra-trinitarian movement of love modeled to us in the incarnation of Jesus.^[3] God’s reception of sinful humanity into the divine communion, as it is represented in the incarnate sacrifice of Jesus, is the only possible model for overcoming violent systems.^[4] Miroslav Volf explains, “The crucified Messiah creates unity by giving his own self. Far from being the assertion of the one against the many, the cross is the self-giving of the one for the many. Unity here is not the result of ‘sacred violence’ which obliterates the particularity of ‘bodies,’ but a fruit in Christ’s self-sacrifice, which breaks down the enmity between them.”^[5] In the cross of Christ, we see the Messiah definitively break the system of violence by taking on the sins of the world, absorbing the final blow of injustice into himself. This non-violent confrontation with violence, this overcoming of violence must be read as a refusal to play into the hands of the enemy, to let the formation of the identity of the self fall outside of the reality of the resurrection.^[6] Volf writes, “The cross of Christ should teach us that the only alternative to violence is self-giving love, willingness to absorb violence in order to embrace the other in the knowledge that truth and justice have been, and will be, upheld by God.”^[7]

Joe’s decision suspends and ultimately ends the entire system, a system in which violence was the ultimate end and answer. His action, we are left to presume, changed the system, but such a concluding thought remains a presumption. The very fact that the film ends immediately after Joe’s act of nonviolence demonstrates the idea that the outcome of an act of non-violent resistance is always out of the hands of the moral agent. That is, moral agency is only responsible for responding to the events that befall him or her, but even the most creative resistance does not necessarily guarantee the overcoming of systemic violence. That is, the moral agent is not essentially responsible for altering the system or even necessarily capable of such a feat: he or she is however responsible for naming and responding to injustice.

The viewer, however, is led to believe in the affective nature of young Joe’s creative act. After young Joe falls to the ground, old Joe disappears, implying the evental disruption of the pre-existing system. What distinguishes Joe’s act from other forms of resistance represented in the film, what leads to its affective nature is the creativity by which it was imagined. Following the model of the incarnate Christ, Christians cannot avoid action, cannot avoid naming and confronting injustice for the sake preserving a clean conscience. Nonviolence is not synonymous with pacifism but is rather a generative force which actively confronts and resists evil and injustice. Such acts are only possible through a virtuous life and a carefully cultivated imagination. Stanley Hauerwas writes, “Nonviolence requires life-long training in being dispossessed of all that I think secures my significance and safety.”^[8] Such a radical call to overcome systems of violence necessarily challenges our preconceived notions of possibility. The inauguration of a new reality, a reality that ultimately rests on the resurrection of Jesus, refuses to be acclimated to stagnant forms of thought, and if we are to embody that reality, if we are to put death to death, we must awaken our dormant imaginations and learn again to think creatively.

“Love,” Hauerwas pens, “is the nonviolent apprehension of the other as other.”^[9] There are only two options in the wake of Christ’s resurrection: love or violence; life or death. If we are to follow Jesus, we must follow him into the grave, a tomb in which death itself is interred and resurrection is made possible: “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”^[10] Being in Christ is contingent upon our authentic participation in the kingdom, participation in a kingdom that refuses to operate in light of a closed system of coercion and violence.

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/sep/27/looper-review;

http://www.totalfilm.com/reviews/cinema/looper

[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Act and Being [Akt und Sein], ed. Wayne Whitson Floyd, trans. Martin H. Rumcheidt, DBW Vol. 2 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 46.

^[3] Miroslav Volf, Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exposition of Identity, Otherness,

and Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), 25.

^[4] Volf, 100.

^[5] Volf, 47.

^[6] Volf, 292.

^[7] Volf, 295.

^[8] Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 148.

^[9] Hauerwas, 91.

^[10] 1 Cor. 15:26

Well, you have the opportunity to go to a Bazan house show, and it is not one you should pass up. If your city is on the list for the 2014 tour, you can buy tickets here.

For a little preview, here’s video of Bazan performing the arresting “Hard to Be.” If I ever finish making (and writing about) my “faith and doubt playlist,” this will be the first song on the list. Sorry I can’t figure out how to embed the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faaEh8yXex4

Detweiler, Craig and Barry Taylor. A matrix of meanings : finding
God in pop culture. Grand Rapids, MI : Baker Academic, 2003.

Romanowski, William. Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in
Popular Culture. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2007.

Turnau, Ted. Popologetics: Popular Culture in Christian Perspective. Philipsburg, NJ:
P&R Publishing, 2012.

(I haven’t read too much of Turnau’s book, but it’s been comparatively well reviewed.)

And possibly this one:

Kevin Vanhoozer, Charles A. Anderson, and Michael J. Sleasman, eds. Everyday theology: how to read cultural texts and interpret trends. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007.

Here are some other contenders for inclusion, some of which I have read, some of which I have not; any thoughts or suggestions?

Beaujon, Andrew. Body Piercing Saved My Life: Inside the Phenomenon of Christian Rock.
Cambridge, MA: De Capo, 2006.

Breen, Tom. The Messiah formerly known as Jesus : dispatches from the intersection of
Christianity and pop culture. Waco, Tex. : Baylor University Press, 2008.

Crouch, Andy. Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling. Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 2008.

Culbertson, Philip and Elaine M. Wainwright. The Bible In/And Popular Culture: A
Creative Encounter. Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2010.

Dark, David. Everyday Apocalypse : the sacred revealed in Radiohead, the Simpsons, and
other pop culture icons. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, c2002.

___________. The sacredness of questioning everything. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,
2005.

Dyrness, William A. Poetic Theology: God and the Poetics of Everyday Life. Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011.

Forbes, Bruce David, and Jeffrey H. Mahan. Religion and Popular Culture in America.
Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2005.

Hartse, Joel Heng. Sects, Love and Rock & Roll: My Life on Record. Eugene, OR: Cascade
Books, 2011.

Johnston, Robert K., Craig Detweiler, and Barry Taylor, eds. Don’t stop believin’ : pop
culture and religion from Ben-Hur to zombies. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John
Knox Press, 2012.

Lynch, Gordon, ed. Between Sacred and Profane: Researching Religion and Popular
Culture. London: I.B. Tauris, 2007.

___________. Understanding Theology and Popular Culture. Malden, MA: Blackwell,
2005.

Marsh, Clive. “On Dealing with What Films Actually Do to People.” Reframing Theology
and Film: New Focus for an Emerging Discipline. Edited by Robert K. Johnston.
Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2007.

___________, with Vaughan S. Roberts. Personal Jesus: How Popular Music Shapes Our Souls.
Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013.

Mattingly, Terry. Pop Goes Religion: Faith in Popular Culture. Thomas Nelson, 2005.

McClure, John S. Mashup Religion: Pop Music and Theological Invention. Waco, TX:
Baylor University Press, 2011.

Romanowski, William D. Pop culture wars : religion & the role of entertainment in
American life. Downers Grove, Ill. : InterVarsity Press, 1996.

Scharen, Christian. Broken Hallelujahs: Why Popular Music Matters to Those Seeking
God. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2011.

Turnau, Ted. “Popular Culture, Apologetics and the Discourse of Desire,” Cultural
Encounters 8:2 (2012).

Walsh, Brian. Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination.
     Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2011. (for a little Canadian content!)

Ambivalence in the End: Breaking Bad Series Finale

Breaking Bad did not end as a happy story. The show’s final episode did not serve to fully redeem Walt, and all was not made well in the end.

In a strangely unique fashion, the final episode of Breaking Bad was far from affective; rather, it was affective is a unique way. As we’ve previously discussed on this roundtable, one of this show’s most powerful forces is the profound affectation it projects onto the viewer. The final episode, though, was so quiet; it cut through the noise and let the pieces fall into place. In true Vince Gilligan form, we were informed of the series’ essential premise from the very beginning: “Chemistry is the study of change.” The series was an exploration into the consequences of actions, which is why the episode was an appropriate ending to the series. Walt broke bad long before last night, and the last few episodes have been about the inevitable playing out that which he put into motion.

Even Walt was aware of the way that everything needed to end. This was obvious from the beginning of the episode when he whispered a prayer after seeing the cop’s lights, “Just get me home; I’ll do the rest.” And then we saw a fascinating shift in his visit with Skyler. The interesting, non-affective part of this last episode was that he came to terms with everything. As he confessed to Skyler, “I did it for me,” he says. “I liked it. I was good at it. I was alive.” Walt’s confession was definitely a shifting point, and it seemed to inject a bit of reality into the finale. Walt, for the first time in some time, seemed to come to terms with the inevitability of his own demise. He owned up to the fact that he did what he wanted most in life. He pursed his love until the end, and it was his commitment to being the kingpin that undid his family. The lie was finally undone, and we all rested in a moment of absolute clarity when Walt said the cops would be coming for him tonight.

Everything that needed to be answered was answered in last night’s episode. Walt managed to get his family the money, and Jesse ended up free, at least from the bondage of the lab. We are left wondering whether Walt set Jesse free out of some level of genuine concern, or whether it was a colder apathy resulting from his newly developed perspective. I think this was an intentionally ambiguous relation, and it served to confront us as viewers with Walt’s essential humanity. Walt had to die, but he still refused to go down without getting his family the money, and he did dive to take Jesse to the ground as the gun was firing. Walt’s actions caught up with him last night, but not without a certain level of complication.

Walt’s demise, though, cannot be read as his final redemption, as if he somehow managed to stop the massive monster he created in its tracks. Hank and Gomez are dead, Marie is a widow, Skyler is driving a cab in order to feed her two children, Walt severely sickened Lydia, if not killed her, and he murdered a dozen neo-Nazis before trying to manipulate Jesse into killing him. Walt’s demise was not redemptive, but it was not without ambivalence. And that’s precisely why it was so believable, so fitting.

The shift we saw last night was not Walt’s redemption as much as him discovery of a certain level of freedom when accepted his own fate. He came to terms with his true love, with his own system of value, and he died in the arms of a cold lover. He was true to her until the end.

Zach Hoag:

One Hell of a Story: Breaking Bad Series Finale

The series finale of Breaking Bad was, in a word, perfect.

I couldn’t be more satisfied – and that is saying something, seeing as my level of fanaticism for this show manifested in much real-world anxiety in the hours leading up to the final episode. In other words, this show matters to me. It carries deep significance. And its end carried the potential for deep disappointment (perhaps even a sad sort of TV disillusionment).

Ever since Ozymandias, I, along with many others, have been making predictions for this episode. Those predictions were, to be sure, the product of series-long plot elements and character development, alongside those few futuristic glimpses of bearded Walt given to us throughout season five. But they were also projections of my own hope for the series – perhaps even my theology of the series. I have been working out that theology in these reviews, and have, throughout, been fearful that I may be wrong somehow. Is Walter White damaged beyond repair, beyond redemption? Has his humanity been so overcome by the Lie within him, the deep and hideous flaw, that he is, really, only the devilish Heisenberg and not, at all, the mild mannered and well-intentioned teacher, husband, and father known as Mr. White?

And is he an example of something more than the “original sin” within us all, the shadow self we seek to overcome with good? Is he really an example of a borderline sociopathic core that has only been nurtured by catastrophic choices and events to reveal to the world around him the truth of who he has been for a very long time? And can there be any sympathy for this kind of detached, murderous, merciless devil?

I think that last night’s episode, when taken together with episodes fourteen and fifteen, proves this theological perspective – mostly. It proves Gretchen Schwartz’s perspective – “…whatever he became, the sweet, kind, brilliant man that we once knew long ago, he’s…gone,” – mostly. Yes, Walter White is Heisenberg, and last night he died as Heisenberg. Walter’s own sarcastic comment to Gretchen in the house – “My children are blameless victims of their monstrous father,” – reveals the tragic reality.

Mostly.

But what I did not expect in this final episode was to be hit by feelings that I have been trying to avoid all along. I did not expect to feel, right from the first scene in the snow-encrusted car, a profound desire for Walt – Heisenberg – to succeed in his final mission. Indeed, I did not expect to suddenly feel the assurance that his cause had become just, when he uttered what seemed to be a prayer:

“Just get me home. Just get me home. I’ll do the rest.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. I still think Walter White was beyond redemption. There is no sense in which his actions last night atoned for his past behavior, or made things “right.” There is, in fact, no sense in which Heisenberg was overcome by the good in Mr. White. And that is precisely the point. Walter’s last act was poetically just, but it was not redemptive. It brought closure, but it did not bring healing. It was, really, the Final Judgment in the great Revelation of Walter White – a judgment as much on Walter himself as on the perpetrators of death and destruction who had gathered around him like so many demons to the devil.

And the power behind this judgment, as is the case with all judgment, was the truth. While Walter had been, up to this point, the very embodiment of his deep Lie, last night saw a man who finally accepted the evil he had become. His time in the cabin, his phone call with Flynn, and his viewing of the Schwarz’s on Charlie Rose, left him bereft of any energy to continue lying to himself or anyone around him. It was over. What seemed so often to be a borderline personality disorder in the character switching between Walt and Heisenberg was revealed to be a big hoax. This is who Walter is. There is no “other” Walter. The Lie gave way to the totality of the darkness.

And when he said his final goodbye to Skyler, it was the darkness coming into the light: “I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And…I was really…I was alive.”

His acts, then, of forcing the self-absorbed Gretchen and Elliot to channel the money to Walt Jr., of poisoning the poisonous Lydia, of killing the wicked neo-nazi gang, of protecting and freeing Jesse (and unleashing Jesse’s righteous rage on Todd), of willfully submitting to his own death, were somehow noble in the same biblical sense that God sending a brutal pagan nation to judge an unjust and cruel Israelite nation is noble. Protection and liberation were secured for the innocent victims, and a more humane future was opened. All of it was terrible and nothing was guaranteed – even Jesse’s freedom was only an excruciating shadow of his warm fantasy in the lab – but new possibilities were unleashed, an already-but-not-yet taste of potential hope and peace.

And one thing was utterly finished: the satan was cast down.

At this point, there is only one question I am still asking myself. If, as Mr. White taught his students in the pilot episode, “Chemistry is the study of…transformation,” then could all of this have been avoided? Could the deep Lie that came alive in Walt when he was betrayed by his partners at Grey Matter and embittered by his difficult life thereafter have been quenched by some goodness within him? Was there ever a chance that he would not break bad?

Part of me believes that the deep sociopathic core of Walter White was always bound to manifest. Part of me thinks he could have chosen a more honest, healing path. With God, perhaps we may hope that anything is possible.

And the truth can set you free.

The final scene last night had Walter White dying in the lab. He was, as series creator Vince Gilligan says, “with his Precious.” A slave to himself, slayed by the truth, enjoying the last breath of his thrilling, tragic evil.

And there, unexpectedly, I felt sympathy for the devil.

Transformation, indeed.

That was one hell of a story.

Andrew Norman:

Freedom in Death: Breaking Bad Series Finale

Walter White’s story has finally come to a close, brought to its inevitable end at the hand and behest of the man who created it. The Walter we see in the final episode of a series of metamorphoses is undoubtedly the most compelling of the many faces of Walter White – a Walt empowered by a resolute resignation to his fate. It is telling that the episode begins with a kind of prayerful invocation: “Just get me home. I’ll do the rest.” Walt is a man resolved to die well, and to find some measure of reconciliation, if to no one else, then at least to himself. For the first time in perhaps the entire series, Walt is honest with himself and those around him. There are no more lies to tell. He can at last express what was true the entire time, that his will to dominate and control was ultimately what drove him to the height of his power and finally to destruction. In a last tense but touching moment with Skyler, he confesses, “I did it for myself. I was good at it. And I was really – I was alive.” It is telling that in this first and final confession about that which gave his life purpose and meaning, to a wife who has come to despise him, Walt is embodying fully that which most frees him – he is finally authentically attending to his death. Herein lies a key distinction for understanding the close of Breaking Bad: namely, that Walter, while not the same as redemption, finds a kind of liberation in his death.

Much of the criticism surrounding the finale episode has been leveled at the positive and ‘redemptive’ close of the series, with Walt finally finding some measure of redemption. This seems to me an absurd assessment, insofar as Walt is not reconciled in any way to any of those who’s lives he has destroyed – his family still reviles him, Jesse, though opting not to kill Walt outright, makes no attempt at a conciliatory gesture before abandoning Walt to his fate, and Walt’s final acts are to threaten his former friends and murder any outstanding enemies. The fact that the viewer is vindicated through a series of murders further renders the notion of Walt’s “redemption” as a fanciful but ultimately unrealized dream. What Walt finds instead is a profound sense of freedom. Freedom to finally act in such a way that he can care for his family, eliminate his enemies, save Jesse, and ultimately die well. In his final moments, Walt actually realizes and authentically becomes himself.

While watching Walt’s behavior and actions in this finale episode, I was mindful of a profound insight from the work of Martin Heidegger. His writing on death and being was strongly realized in the final hours of Walt’s life. “If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life – and only then will I be free to become myself.” This, I believe, is the final insight to be taken from the life and death of Walter White. That, in spite of being unreconciled – unredeemed – in every way to any person for whom he may most desire it, there is still some freedom, albeit a tragic freedom, in being immersed deeply and truly into the presence and urgency of one’s death. Freedom to act decisively and honestly, if not rightly. This is the final lesson to be learned from the tragic story of Walter White, which makes no promise of ultimate peace or final hope, but instead claims that in the face of a corrupt and reprobate life, there is perhaps some freedom in an honest death.

Lauren Wilford:

Fast as You Can: Breaking Bad Series Finale

Let me first of all admit that I have not sheltered myself from the barrage of commentary that already exists on “Felina” twelve hours later, on Twitter and elsewhere. Opinions on the finale are polarized in a way that no other episode this season has provoked. If there is one thing I am not good at, it is staking out a strong opinion in the midst of volumes of well-reasoned prose on both sides. I’m too fascinated by the dazzling displays of logic and critical thought and confidence that I feel I could never offer.

Nevertheless, the conflict is this: did Walter’s successes in “Felina” provide natural, satisfying closure, or were they “fan service,” an undeserved “happy ending” for the series? I must first reckon with the fact that I got what I wanted. In previous recaps that I have written for this season, I wrestled with my desire for redemption and comedic structure.   I had the thought that there might be a conclusion to Breaking Bad that would make me wish I had never started down the path of the series, that would make me not wish this journey on others asking for my recommendation. In “Ozymandias,” the idea of Hank serving as MacDuff to Walt’s MacBeth was buried. To me, that is the “neat” ending, the longed-for ending, that Breaking Bad denied us. Anything less than that is, well, less than that.

What must also be dealt with is what exactly the band of Nazis as ultimate antagonist says about this season, morally and structurally. There are two ways to think of this that come to mind. Jumping in with Uncle Jack and Co. was the only way for Walt to carry off the prison murders that he needed to tie up his loose ends in “Gliding Over All.” Theory one about the Nazis is that they reveal to Walt the true, bald ugliness of a utilitarian view of human life, willing to kill whoever Walt needed them to kill but also eager to tie up every loose end, including the family for which Walt claimed to be doing it all. Theory two about them is that they were introduced to provide badder bad guys for Walt to bring to justice in the finale with that sick badass gun contraption.

So, point one: Heisenberg badassery has always been part of the core appeal of the show. To me, a final act without any of it is, in some way, not true to the spirit of the show. Every season finale of the series has included a daring plan a hair’s breadth away from failure. As Jesse told Hank earlier this season, the guy is lucky. Anyone claiming that Walter’s “success” in the series finale is not consistent with the spirit or trajectory of the series is forgetting that for all its moral gravity, Breaking Bad has always been a consummate thriller.

Point two: I believe that the presence of Todd, Jack and the rest is a continuing outgrowth of the show’s exploration of sin and crime as slavery. Time and time again, Walt and Jesse have found themselves chained up and backed into corners. Gus Fring was the embodiment of the slavemaster for seasons 3 and 4, and the Nazis took on the role as season 5 went on– even as Walt thought of them as his mercenaries. Rather than mere hired criminals, they went on to kill Hank against Walt’s will, threaten his wife, literally enslave Jesse, and send Walter to his cabin jail across the country. They are the thing that Walter thought he was using for his advantage that turned out to take away everything that mattered to him– a clear metaphor for the entire meth business over the series.

And so, did this finale with the closure that I asked for satisfy me? Yes. I know there are those who wish the show had ended with “Ozymandias” or something like it. “Ozymandias” is the clear masterpiece of the final season, towering in its tragedy. It was the third to last episode, but it left us all reeling as if it were the very last, a true gut punch. I wondered how in the world things could get worse– and how I would survive emotionally if they did. It turns out they didn’t. That was the nadir. The final two episodes were the unwinding of that climax, and to some, this must be disappointing. But for 62 hours of narrative, I believe these last three hours serve as a proper sendoff, an explosion and a denouement to savor.

Look, Walter never got to say goodbye to his son. His daughter will never remember him. His family is broken in ways that can never be repaired. The fact that we finally got to hear Walter tell Skyler the truth he would never admit to himself is a bit miraculous: “I did it for me.” That is enough. That is what all of us needed. Paired with the image of Walter’s peaceful death among the lab equipment, it gives us a sad, sad portrait of a man who could only feel alive by wreaking destruction. The fact that he did one last act of justice does not bother me amidst all this. Walter has never been all one thing.

But what I am most grateful for out of everything at this series’ end is Jesse’s liberation. I truly believe that if Jesse were not set free at the end, I would not be able to recommend Breaking Bad in good conscience. It is simply too much to attach your heart to this deeply loyal little punk over five seasons and then watch him break and break again. The fact that the writers originally meant to dispense with Jesse early on is mind-boggling to me, because Jesse is the soul of this thing.

The most beautiful scene in the episode let us see Jesse making that box that he so memorably spoke of in a rehab meeting in season 3’s “Kafkaesque.” I’m just going to reproduce part of the monologue here, because it’s lovely:

He was just asking me honestly, “Is that all you got?” And for some reason, I thought to myself, “Yeah, man, I can do better.” So I started from scratch. I made another, then another. And by the end of the semester, by like box number five, I had built this thing. You should have seen it. It was insane. I mean, I built it out of Peruvian walnut with inlaid zebra wood. It was fitted with pegs, no screws. I sanded it for days, until it was smooth as glass. Then I rubbed all the wood with tung oil so it was rich and dark. It even smelled good. You know, you put your nose in it and breathed in, it was… it was perfect.

Whether any of this is true, whether the scene in “Felina” was a flashback or a flash forward or a fantasy, Jesse is expressing something fundamental about himself: he is a craftsman. His last few batches of meth were rising in purity to Heisenberg standards. He is loyal to the end, and will keep trying until it is perfect. We’ve seen it all along—all Jesse wants is to be told he is good at something, that he has worth, that he is believed in. The fact that the Nazis enslaved him to make meth is actually a twisted testimony to his talent, and the cut from Jesse the woodworker to Jesse the chained methmaker reminds us that, in so many ways, Jesse has grown beyond the wangster hawking his “chili p” in the premiere. Despite the hundreds of ways he has been broken, he has learned to care—about Jane and Andrea and Brock and Mike and craftsmanship and, tragically, that devil Mr. White. And to watch him cry with joy, driving away from it all as fast as he could: we needed that. We all needed it. Jesse is the only shot any of them has at making something good, and we need to know that he might make it.

Vince Gilligan et al: it was Peruvian walnut with inlaid zebra wood. It was rich and dark. It was perfect.

 Zachary Thomas Settle:

 And Now He’s Alone: Season 5, Episode 15

Walter White is in decay, and he has been for some time now. Things seemed to take a turn for the worse, though, while Walt, or should I say Mr. Lambert, was in New Hampshire. While we remain uncertain of the situation with Walt’s cancer, there can be no doubt that Walt is in a state of physical decay. Perhaps the canned foods in the cabin weren’t as appealing as the dinners Skyler used to cook, but Walt has reached an unprecedented state of frailty. His fingers are too small to support a ring that symbolizes a marriage that once was, and we realize that there is no distinction between his emotional condition and his physical state. He simply doesn’t have the strength to follow to his commitments anymore; perhaps other commitments are far more pressing at this point.

But that’s the point of Walt’s place in life: he’s alone, and his commitments have led him here at the cost of every single relationship he once valued. And he is hyper aware of that reality at this point. Who has Walt not hurt? Who does Walt have left? It makes sense that Walt stayed in a New Hampshire mountain cabin by himself for a couple of months; the only party interested in contact with Walt is the DEA. So Walt occupies his time thinking of a kingdom that he built, having nightmares of the way it all came crashing down, and being so desperate for some sort of company that he offers to pay a vacuum repairman $10,000 for an hour of his time.

Walt’s exhaustion finally caught up with him in last night’s episode. Gretchen was right that Walter White is long gone, and though she can’t speculate about Heisenberg, we surely can. It seemed as if Heisenberg was nowhere to be found either. Walt simply can no longer muster the strength that perpetuating harsh personal dichotomies requires. The all-too dramatic moment of Walt slowly putting on the Heisenberg hat did not spark enough vibrancy for Walt to walk out of a gate and off of a two-acre lot because a paranoid old man told him it wasn’t safe. He would do it tomorrow.

We spent the majority of the episode speculating that Walt simply ran out of gas, and it seemed completely believable. The notion that the entire journey was too much for him to bear anymore, combined with the weight of Walt Jr., now going by Flynn again, rejecting Walt’s money served to convince Walt that his best bet was just to turn himself in. After the phone call, though, things changed.

Although Walt couldn’t muster enough strength from within himself to do anything but turn himself in, things were sparked from an outside source when he listened to the Grey Matter Industries interview, and Walt still has enough pride to fuel a final venture. But this is nothing new. Walt’s entire journey, both his rise and his fall, has only ever been triggered by his inability to appropriately respond to external factors.

Zach Hoag:

Just Die: Season 5, Episode 15

There is so much to say, but so little time.

I was unable to post last week because of being sick, and, honestly, I’m not sure I would have been able to put together an intelligible piece anyway. The fact is, last Sunday’s episode, episode fourteen, was absolutely brutal. It was simultaneously the most magnificent hour of television I’ve ever watched, and the most horrible. It was, in the words of my friend Matt, like “experiencing your world collapsing around you, captured on film.” It was virtually unwatchable at times.

Of course, the most heartbreaking event of the series to date occurred early on last week. Hank was murdered. In that moment, in the desert, as the shot rang out, it was like the show ceased to be a show. It became somehow tangible, palpable. It was real. And it was horrifying. The sheer genius of Vince Gilligan and his team is the way in which they have built these characters painstakingly over the course of five seasons, so that now we feel we really know them, down to the subtleties of their character and emotion. To lose Hank was to lose someone we know, love, and respect. To lose him that way was to experience the very darkness that is lurking out there in the world we live in everyday.

The clouds, of course, have been gathering all season. And now Walter White’s perfect storm is underway. I haven’t written about God all that much in these reviews, but if there was ever a time to do so, it’s now. Where is God in all of this darkness and mayhem? To be sure, Gilligan’s narrative is not theological in nature, but one must wonder in a universe as brutally real as his whether there may be an unseen Answer, a divine Comfort, leaving breadcrumbs to be found by us viewers. These days, there isn’t much – except, perhaps, for two glimmers coming from two of those characters that we have grown to love so much. And coming in the form of that divinely human attribute: dignity.

Last week, when Hank knew he was caught, that it was over, even as Walter spun his mad scientist tires trying to get his brother out of the trap he himself had set, Hank put his dignity on display. He was not a perfect character, not by any stretch. And even his choices in the episodes leading up to that fateful moment were not exactly dignified. Hank had selfish reasons for staying off the clock and detaining Jesse in his home and going on a rogue manhunt for his brother in law. He wanted to save face, keep his job, hold onto his pride. Pride is not the same as dignity. But when the moment came for Hank to face the music, gun to his head, a beautiful clarity and courage emerged. The words to his captor sounded like raw justice in the midst of sheer evil: “My name is ASAC Schrader. And you can go f–k yourself.”

Tonight, we saw the second appearance of this divine dignity, and it may have been the brightest moment in the entire series thus far. Walter, now in New Hampshire, in hiding, is desperate to move some of his money to his family, lest it all be for naught. They have rejected his invitation to escape and start over. They have been plunged into the abyss of pain in the wake of the great Revelation of Walter’s dark secrets. And they find themselves severely hamstrung financially, with wrecked reputations in the community. Walter Jr. especially has been steamrolled by the truth surrounding his father’s life. Everything he knew and loved and trusted was a lie.

Still, Jr. stays on the phone at his school even as the caller reveals himself to be his father.

Walt is pleading, crying, so happy to speak to his son, but at the end of his rope, dying. He wants to send $100,000, but he’ll send it to Jr.’s friend so that Skyler doesn’t know. Jr. can get the money to the family. He didn’t mean for any of this to happen. What they are saying about him in the media isn’t true. What he did, he did for his family.

As viewers, we are almost fooled by this sad sincerity.

But not Walter Jr.

“You want to send money? You killed Uncle Hank!” he cries. “You killed him! What you did to Mom…you asshole! You killed Uncle Hank! I don’t want anything from you…Why are you still alive? Why don’t you just die already, just die!”

The dignity coursing through the CP-afflicted body of this young man is a brilliant shot of lightning in this dark storm of destruction.

There is so much to say, but so little time. Jesse is in the crucible of judgment, experiencing the worst kind of hell imaginable. He is paying for his sins, and the sins of his mentor, several times over. Tonight, he lost another huge chunk of his own humanity, even as the man who led him by the hand down this very path remains at large.

At this point, my only remaining hope is that these two, mentor and student, may, in fact, cross paths one more time. And, perhaps there, find a moment of redemption, even if it is only the realization of Jr.’s prophetic word: Just die.

But, in the words of Augustine: Not yet.

Andrew Norman:

Granite State: Season 5, Episode 15

With only the finale episode left, on the heels of winning an Emmy for Best Drama Series as well as another for Best Supporting Actress (Anna Gunn), Breaking Bad has few questions left to answer. As the series culminates, many have speculated whether or not Walter White will survive the finale and if not, what the circumstances of his death might be. What this most recent episode shows is that Walter White is already dead.

But not in the “cancer’s-back-doomed-to-perish” sense. The character Walter White no longer exists. When Walt runs, he does more than merely dissolve his official identity and disappear. Walt has become completely divested of his identity as Walter White. Now trapped in a hell of his own device, divorced from both his family and his work, all that is left of his identity is Heisenberg, physically seen in the retrieval of the black hat. The signifiers that gave meaning to Walter White have been removed–his family and his past. Everyone who knew Walter actively attempts to distance themselves and remove his memory from their lives. His son openly scorns him, asks why he doesn’t just die, choosing to reject even his father’s name, going by Flynn rather than Walter Jr.  In the bar, Walt’s old partners from Grey Matter publicly condemn Walter and distance themselves as much as possible from their relationship with him. This is, surprisingly, what seems to most enrage Walt and pushes him to one last attempt at rectifying the damage he’s caused and the fallout from the collapse of his empire.

In spite of all the speculation and conjecture about how Breaking Bad will close, one thing seems certain: there are no happy endings here. Even the trajectory of Jesse’s narrative, which seemed as if moving toward some redemptive moment, is stripped away. Essentially a slave, the one thing Jesse cares for is taken from him when Todd coldly murders Andrea before Jesse’s eyes as punishment for his attempted escape, with the warning that they can always kill her son Brock too. Todd makes a similar threat to Skyler, appearing in the White household with a warning not to give them or Lydia over to the police. Todd seems well positioned to take control of Walt’s empire, having successfully removed any obstacles to his burgeoning role as Walt’s replacement and Breaking Bad seems well positioned to ensure that no one is saved in the end. The expression “nice guys finish last” would be perhaps poignant here, but there are no “nice guys” in Breaking Bad.

As certain as the bleakness of Breaking Bad’s final act may be, the series has been built upon surprise and the unexpected. It seems that answering the questions that are left, in the seemingly small time left to answer them is an impossible task. Regardless of what we may think and believe about Walter and the direction of Breaking Bad there is no doubt that what we will not get what we want in the end, and what we least expect will be the case: everyone will be wrong in the end.

Lauren Wilford:

Granite State: Season 5, Episode 15

Last week’s explosive episode saw Walter White’s world crumbling around him. This week, we see Walt’s inner world crumble. The slower pace of the episode felt right for the sequence– I’m not sure anyone could endure two “Ozymandias”s in a row. Instead, Walt was sent to his room to think about what he’s done.

Here, at last, Walt is entirely cut off from the family he claimed all the while to be providing for, holed up in a cabin in New Hampshire with no company but his barrel full of cash. He cuts out articles from the Albuquerque newspaper about his case and his family and watches from afar as their lives spiral into highly public shame. Saul points out early on that Walter’s best option is to turn himself in to save his family from bearing the brunt of his crimes. But Walt is not willing to bend until his family has his money– all of it– which means that the nazis are going to have to go down. Saul, who if nothing else is a master of risk-reward analysis, can see what Walter can’t– that Walter’s insistence on full measures, on “the empire business,” on killing the fly, is going to be his undoing. As if he hasn’t already come undone.

Having to change his name is an important symbolic humiliation for Walt. Mr. “You’re Damn Right It Is” is now Mr. Lambert, anonymously wasting away in a cabin. His hair grows with his loneliness until he’s willing to pay the “vacuum cleaner repair man” $10,000 for an hour of playing cards. This morning critic Sam Adams made the savvy observation that it “seemed appropriate that ‘vacuum’ was a key word on Breaking Bad last night.” (https://twitter.com/SamuelAAdams/status/382187380423548928) This vacuum repair man can do nothing of the sort, and the vacuum only increases as Walt must stew alone.

Walt’s call to Walter Jr. was one of the saddest moments of the series to me. Here was Walt trying again to make the case that he had something to offer to his family, that his work was not for nothing, and he had to listen to his son shout back at him that nothing Walt had done meant anything to him anymore. Watching Junior scream to Walt to “just die already” was a devastating mirror to the wide-eyed Junior of season two, thrilled at the success of his online campaign to help his dad. (Want to break your heart over some comic sans? http://www.savewalterwhite.com/). Here is yet another clear picture of the brokenness of it all, Walter’s utter failure to do any of the things he said he meant to do. I did feel for Walter in that moment. I think we all know what it feels like to try to do what we can to patch a situation only to be reminded that nothing we could do would bring any healing to the wounds we’ve inflicted. It seems, in this moment, that Walt realizes the futility of it all.

When Walt called the police, I thought he was really giving in. Perhaps he was. But that broadcast of Gretchen and Elliot saying that Walter had almost nothing to do with the founding of their pharmaceutical company Gray Matter relit the Heisenberg flame. His name is too important to him. He can’t let himself die Mr. Lambert. Walter is a dark Odysseus, and he can’t resist telling the cyclops his name. And he’s going to make his way back to Penelope whether she wants him or not.

Zachary Thomas Settle:

The End is Nigh: Season 5, Episode 13

I think last night’s episode of Breaking Bad was genius, and it has rejuvenated my hope for the ending. I’ve been convinced of Gilligan’s abilities to gracefully end this hellish ride for some time now, but the immanence of the end started setting in last night. I had an extremely difficult time writing on this episode, though. To a certain extent, whatever sort of pith commentary I was able to generate felt a bit distasteful after Hank and Gomez’s deaths, after having to look the imprisoned Jesse in a single eye when he spotted a picture of the only people he has left in the world that care about him.

We’ve been understandably mesmerized by the figure of Walter White for weeks now. We’ve known, conceptually at least, that the end is nigh, and I think the show has created in us the need to clarify a few things conceptually about Walt’s person. I think part of this tendency in us as viewers is created by our participation in Walt’s demise. I’ve talked previously about the way we went so far down the rabbit hole with Walt that we are necessarily implicated in his crimes, as we were the one’s justifying his actions in the first three seasons. I’ve also tried to point out the way that everyone is necessarily implicated in Walt’s transgressions at this point. The monster he created has been set free, and even he can’t stop it. The systematic, self-perpetuating nature of Walt’s demise is what killed Hank and Gomez; its what chained up Jesse in that meth lab.

And as inevitable as Walt’s demise is, as much as his downfall is already costing his family, Walt is trying so terribly hard to free them. Hank’s death seems to have inaugurated a moment of clarity for Walt. He is very much self-aware of his situation and person at this point, and so he’s trying to sever ties. I don’t think there can be any doubt that Walt was freeing Skyler last night with that phone conversation. He knew the cops were there; he watched his son call them, and he knows two law enforcement officers are missing at large. I also think that Skyler was aware of what was going on in that moment. She asked for Holly back, and I think Walt answered by safely placing her in the fire truck, signaling her rescue and eventual return with the lights.

We’ve been put in the place as viewers where we have to draw a line somewhere, and refusing to draw a line is still an assertion of value. I’ve been pleading and hoping for Walt’s demise for some time now, and I am well aware that this tendency says a number of things about me, about my place in society. But as hard as Walt is trying to make thing right, he simply can’t. And I stand by my feelings in that I still hope Walt is found out. Skyler confessed to Walt Jr. and was set free; it seemed as if literal weight was lifted from her shoulders, which seems to be a fairly honest account of the practice of confession.

But Walt is still on the run, more than ever now as he rides out of town. And we know that a new start doesn’t free him. He’s carrying his sins with him in that van because he can’t let go. And while we are definitely being confronted with Walt’s humanity, with the necessary possibility for redemption in Walt, we are also watching a man faithfully march his burden towards his inevitable demise. Walt is doing his best to clean up the mess that he implicated everyone in. but he can’t. Hank and Gomez are dead and Jesse is now imprisoned as a meth cook. His son is forever scarred, and his daughter is horrified. But nonetheless, he’s trying. He freed Skyler, but he has not freed himself. He is carrying this thing to the end, so it seems, just like he’s carrying that barrel of money. Walt’s committed to seeing his project through, as we saw when he rolled that barrel through the desert, and I still think that the consequences of his actions will find him out. Some sort of justice has to be served.

Andrew Norman:

Concealment and Confession: Season 5, Episode 13

After the lull that was last week’s episode of Breaking Bad, this week gained in momentum and affect, and perhaps for the first time all season, the series feels the weight and urgency of finality closing in. With only two episodes left, the events of the narrative are finally moving as quickly and dramatically as they feel like they should. In spite of its proximity to the finale, this latest episode makes several interesting gestures and raises some compelling questions particularly about the nature and role of confession. Breaking Bad has been frequently and appropriately compared to St. Augustine’s work Confessions and there is no more fitting instance than here in this episode.

First and probably the most dramatic is Hank’s death. The gravity of Hank’s murder falls much more heavily on Walt than the pain of merely losing a family member. The entire balance of Walt’s carefully ordered lie is shattered by a single irreversible event, one that Walt can’t lie his way out of or cleverly conceal. More than anything, Hank’s death comes as the crushing reality that Walt is incapable of controlling everything, accounting for every variable or planning for every contingency with his lies. He is at the mercy of far more powerful forces that though he helped create, he can no longer control. Much like the viewership, all Walt can do now is watch as his lies play themselves out. He can’t lie his way out of Hank’s murder or effectively cover it up. The truth is too great to conceal and forcibly pushes its way into Walt’s life, shattering the fragile edifice of the life upon which his “empire” has been built.

Next is Jesse. Walt seems to have recovered from his desire to try and save Jesse, perhaps even blaming him for Hank’s death. Regardless of the full reason, Walt not only condemns Jesse, he uses the truth of having passively watching and allowing Jane to die to wound Jesse one last time. Here again, the truth pushes its way through the lies, and though this confession is willful on Walt’s part, it comes as a result of the forces beyond him. Jesse is tortured and effectively enslaved, most likely to die, with Walt’s full knowledge and even blessing.

What is most remarkable about this particular episode is the juxtaposition between truth and lie and the role each plays in radically effecting the trajectory of Breaking Bad. Confession and concealment are the two most powerful forces in this episode, perhaps the entire series. The episode opens with a scene recalling Walt’s initial lie to Skyler, a point of reference highlighting all the subsequent corruption and degeneration to follow, and dramatically contrasting the end, wherein Walt confesses the truth to Skyler as starkly as he has at any point in the series. The initial lie is told to conceal the truth of Walt’s misdeeds, the final confession is made to bolster and uphold the lie that has become Walt’s entire world. Even more compelling is the fact that none of the characters are vindicated by the truth when it is finally uncovered. Walt Jr. is irrevocably crushed by Skyler’s confession about Walt and subsequently their family is shattered, not only by the truth of Walt’s hidden life but by his inability to lie any more. The episode culminates with the greatest confession of the series, and for the first time we hear Walt tell the truth in his own words with what is the most terrifying and raw glimpse into the will and psyche of Walter White thus far. His lies now irreversibly destroyed, Walt has no option but to flee. Now that light has been shed onto all of Walt’s falsehoods and crimes, it remains with these final two episodes to determine whether the truth has any power to absolve the characters and narrative and answer the question of what the actual power and value of confession.

Lauren Wilford:

Ozymandias: Season 5, Episode 13

This is the point at which one’s role as a critic and one’s role as a fan must collide. Because last night’s Rian Johnson-directed episode of Breaking Bad was masterful and worthy of discussion and praise, but all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball by the end. A silly thing I find myself doing sometimes is to shoot up prayers for fictional characters. I hadn’t recovered from the initial shock of Hank’s death before Uncle Jack had a gun to Jesse’s head. There is a shot right there where Jesse’s eyes dart to the heavens, and in that moment I prayed, no, no, please. Kyrie Eleison. Vince, have mercy.

Let’s go back the cold open. Jesse still a sarcastic punk in a beanie, Walter still a square chemistry guy looking for a teachable moment. For those of us who haven’t revisited season one since beginning, the sight of Walter with hair, his ubiquitous tighty whities still able to provoke laughs– it’s heartbreaking. We listen to him rehearse exactly how to phrase his lie to Skyler, back before Heisenberg knew how to rattle them off. The season one Walt and Jesse look here like a buddy comedy, Walter’s lie like a white one. It’s clear what we are meant to see: that despite how benign this all looks to us now, it was just the first steps on a path that has been carved out from the first choice.

Parts of this episode felt like twisting the knife, in a way that worked brilliantly for the narrative but was murder on the heart. Marie visiting Skyler’s office as a figure of justice and mercy was a perfect move: we got to see Skyler break down and surrender in the face of the best-case scenario of Walter’s arrest. It occurred to me in Marie’s lecture to Skyler that Skyler is caught in a moral position that is much more familiar to us than the true degeneracy of Walter. Here is a woman who has decided to harden her heart after she perceives that that path will be the easiest for her: “I have nothing to say to you.” Marie’s declaration that the game is up– and that there is hope for Skyler yet– is sheer grace to her. I know what it is like to feel trapped in a series of choices that might just keep going if not derailed from the outside by grace. As painful as this hour is for her, it is the only thing that can set her free. Which makes it all the more devastating when they find out Marie was so very wrong.

Images from this episode haunted me as I tried to sleep last night. Walter rolling his barrel through the desert alone. Skyler running through the street screaming. Walter Jr. with his arm stretched to protect his mother. Thugs rolling Hank’s body into the ditch where Walt’s money lay. And Walter’s fall to the ground in the desert, his face twisted into pure despair and remorse.

This episode seemed to solidify the image of Walter White that I have been trying to put together during this last season. I kept being confused by the flashes of humanity that we see in Walter, hints that maybe there is still something of the man we used to know in him. “Ozymandias” gave us a portrait of a man still holding onto a twisted delusion that he’s been doing something for the right reasons. He is utterly broken by Hank’s death because it demonstrated the true bankruptcy of his belief that his actions did anything to benefit his family. But he carries this delusion back to his house, still trying to salvage what he can– enough to bellow at Skyler, who brandishes a knife at him, “What is wrong with you? We’re a FAMILY!”

Walter’s phone call at the conclusion of the episode sums up the state of his heart. He hurls vitriol at Skyler– partially an act for the police listening in, but nonetheless with true passion. And after saying these unforgivable things, he breaks down crying, mourning for the failure and loss of everything he thought he was protecting. He’s the same man from the cold open of season one, episode one, blinking back tears as a dead man slides around the back of his RV, wondering how he got there. Now he knows how he got there, and yet there is still the sense of wonder that sin can bring on.

And you may tell yourself, this is not my barrel of eleven million dollars. You may tell yourself, this is not my wife threatening to kill me. You may ask yourself, how did I get here? You may say to yourself, my god, what have I done?

All I can say is that if Jesse doesn’t make it out of here, I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself.

Zachary Thomas Settle:

Redemption’s Brief Encounter with Justice: Season 5, Episode 13

Last night’s episode of Breaking Bad caught me off guard. What’s impressive to me about last night’s episode is the way that all of the details and mechanics of the narrative came together so brilliantly. Each piece was meticulously placed in a moving form, and every aspect was seamlessly drawn together.

Hank’s method of luring Walt to his money was intriguing: the only way to trap the beast is to go after his animalistic urges. But what’s more interesting than Walt racing across town to save the money he worked so hard for is what it took for Hank to pull it off. The only way to combat Walt’s deception at this point seems to be more deception. Hank had to lie to Huell in order to lie to Walt for the sake of catching him and hoping to initiate some sort of judicial process. Walt’s mode of being in the world is infectious at this point, and it necessarily effects everyone that he comes into contact with, spreading like a bad disease that needs to be quarantined.

But the pace of last night’s episode also tended to mirror the wheels of Walter’s demise, turning ever so slowly, but turning nonetheless. I have been intrigued, for some time now, by Andrew Norman’s post from last week. I think Andrew is right to read our participation in Breaking Bad as somewhat startling. Are we really not open to the idea of Walt’s redemption? At what point, we are forced to ask ourselves, is someone too far removed from grace? But last night’s episode reminded me that redemption and justice are not mutually exclusive.

I was admittedly surprised when Walt called down the strike on Jesse because of Hank’s presence at the scene. In a strange sort of Cormac McCarthy-esque tone, Walt has a code of ethics, and he is faithful to it, strange as it may be.  And I do think this was a redemptive moment in Walt. Walt called the whole thing off and turned himself end, thereby ending his entire project for the sake of avoiding killing his family. So he thought.

As much of a redemptive moment as it was, his arrest was jarringly relieving for me. I felt like justice had finally been served; at least it was in the process of being served. And I think we saw this in the rest of the show’s characters as well. Jesse was elated when Walt was handcuffed. Even though Jesse seems to be operating out of a vindictive nature, I think this concern is primarily a means of coping with a deep longing for justice. I can’t get the image of Jesse yelling at Hank out of my head: “He can’t keep getting away with it.”  And think about the deep relief that Marie felt when she received the news from Hank. When asked by Hank if she was ok, Marie simply responded, “I am much better now.” How intriguing that Walt’s moment of redemption was also the inauguration of justice. These two distinct phenomena, we hope, must remain in close proximity to one another.

But Walt’s beast was already set free. And his particular, emotionally reasoned response, redemptive as it was, was not enough to cage the systematically functioning creature he set in motion. The beast is walking itself at this point, and it seems like last night’s episode confirmed that his creation will eventually find him out. It was, interestingly enough, Walt’s redemption that prohibited him from intervening to stop the monster he created. Walt’s hands were literally tied inside Hank’s car, and he was forced to simply watch the scene unfold from a distance. True redemption leads to justice, but justice cannot merely be served on an individualistic level. Walt’s distance from the mess he created, his very struggle to intervene, merely points to the reality of powers, structures and authorities functioning autonomously of him at this point. Arresting Walt and inaugurating the judicial process does not address the issue in its entirety.

And the shootout raises so many questions pertinent to this conversation. Will the powers win out? If Todd and his uncle kill Jesse, Hank and Gomez, will Walt really end up getting away with everything? And what would the escape of a man in the midst of a redemptive process caught up in the middle of an unredeemed system even mean?

Zach Hoag:

Dead to Rights: Season 5, Episode 13

As last night’s episode ended abruptly amidst a firefight between the family Todd and the DEA (i.e., Gomez and Schrader), my mind immediately went back to the future.

To bearded Walt.

You know, Walt at the diner in episode one of this season. Walt with the automatic weapons in the trunk. Walt at the start of this second half of season five – episode nine – entering the abandoned White residence, retrieving the ricin.

These glimpses of the future help to inform our perspective on the present, especially as the great Revelation, the Apocalypse of Walt, has now begun to unfold. In a way, we at least know a little bit about how the story ends. Namely, it does not end in handcuffs in the back of Hank’s SUV because, well, Walt is still bald and goateed.

And it does not end the way Hank, in last night’s intense episode (is any episode not intense?), thought it would, with a phone call to Marie and a vindicated declaration: “Honey, I got him. Dead to rights.”

My conversation partner, Zac, is correct in pointing out the possibility that Walt may have experienced a moment of redemption in this episode when he called off the strike in the desert, but that the mechanisms of his madness are already too far gone, gears grinding away, to stop on a dime. But I would add to Zac’s perspective a futuristic reminder: the Walt we see may not be the actual Walt, even when he seems to be acting authentically. Because the Revelation is not over. It is the bearded Walt who will show us the truth. Yes, Walt is indeed a “lying, evil scumbag” as Jesse so viscerally summarizes in his epic phone call, but the real tragedy and what, I believe, will prevent this from being a story of redemption for Walter White is the degree to which he continues to be a lying evil scumbag to himself.

The star of last night’s episode, however, was not really Walter at all. If, as I surmise, the grand narrative of Breaking Bad will really end up being about Jesse Pinkman, episode thirteen was undoubtedly all about…Todd Alquist. Todd is, of course, played by Jesse Plemons, known most for his role as Landry on another beloved TV series, Friday Night Lights. And he plays Todd with the same kind of innocence and earnest as Landry except that Todd just so happens to be dedicated to the family business of killing, hustling, and all around thuggery. And he’s dedicated to his future as the heir apparent to the legendary Heisenberg.

The episode opens with Todd in a new meth lab completing a cook as his uncles and Lydia, from the Madrigal megacorporation, look on. The purity of the cook is up from the previous operation, you know, now that the previous operation has been sufficiently cleansed. It’s getting better. But Todd’s work is still not good enough for Lydia’s discerning customers in Europe. And, it’s not blue. And that’s not acceptable because, “Blue is our brand.”

The significance of Todd in this final Revelation is precisely that he is the yang to Jesse Pinkman’s yin. He, like Jesse, is in awe of Walter, relating to him as something of a father figure or at least hero. And, like Jesse, he is committed to perfecting the art of the cook as Heisenberg’s devoted apprentice. But, where the two part ways is precisely in how they reflect the essence of Walter White. Jesse could admire and imitate Walt only so far before his maturing psyche began to reveal a deep-rooted conscience that vomited up all of the manipulation, deception, and deathdealing, essentially ripping his soul in two and forcing him to side with the good (or die trying). Last night, Jesse demonstrated his departure from the Way of Heisenberg in stark relief, venting months of pain and anger back onto his abuser during that epic phone call, setting the trap for his abuser’s capture. But Todd remains the devoted servant, his own mild manner housing the same sinister interior as his master.

And even in Walt’s moment of redemption, calling off the strike on Jesse because his Brother-in-law Hank arrived at the scene, Todd knew better.

Todd is the mirror image of Walter White, without the self-deception and hypocrisy.

And he represents a terrifying vision in this great Revelation.

Am I too hard on Walt? Is there something redeemable here, even if it is not realized in the final three episodes of Vince Gilligan’s magnum opus? Perhaps, but it’s not likely.

Indeed, as Walter raced to the scene of the “seven barrels worth” of money buried in the desert, alternatively growling and begging on the phone with Jesse, we got a glimpse of just how far gone this character truly is. So much so that not even Jesse can get him right, still thinking he’s just a “greedy asshole.”

No, Jesse.

It’s so much worse than that.

Andrew Norman:

Season 5, Episode 13: To’hajiilee

There isn’t much left to talk about after the latest episode of Breaking Bad. At this point in the series the pieces have been set into motion and there’s not much left to do except watch as the narrative unravels. Undoubtedly the finale will give ample opportunity for discussion and speculation, but the events leading up to it have slowed almost to a crawl. There hasn’t been a flash forward in several episodes and the current timeline is moving at the pace of a few narrative hours an episode. It would seem that Breaking Bad may be asking its viewers for the patience to watch a series of events come to an end not with a bang, but a whimper. Nonetheless there are still several things that stood out to me about the this episode and raised some questions.

It’s striking to me that Walt is so committed to ensuring that Jesse and Hank live, even after he gives the order to remove Jesse. As obsessed as Walt has become with keeping his money and protecting his family, he is still strangely invested in preserving the things that keep him connected to his identity as Heisenberg. Essentially, Walt wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to get away with the money but seems more reluctant than ever to risk or cause collateral damage. It occurred to me that Walt is acting more like the Walt of the first and second seasons than the third and fourth. Frantic in his actions, erratic in his calculations, acting out of desperation and existential  panic, with the threat of lethal cancer once more looming over his family. In some ways, Walt has come full circle back to his initial circumstance, but now with the burden of incalculable deception and destruction in his wake.

The feeling of Breaking Bad being vindicated by Walt’s death or incarceration has diminished for me over the last several episodes. The question posed by this latest chapter, and likewise the question of the entire show, is the nature of justice. Hank’s actions are motivated by vengeance, fury, and fear, but are they necessarily more justified because he carries a badge and works for the government? Is Jesse more justified because he is motivated by a need to redeem himself, seeking revenge for Brock’s near murder and force Walt to pay for his litany of crimes? Would Walt’s demise, whether through death, the loss of his family, or the shame of being publicly identified as Heisenberg, truly be just? The question immediately on the heels of these is the question of viewership. Is the viewer motivated by revenge or justice? Or is that an appropriate distinction at all? What Breaking Bad is asking us is to wrestle with the delicate interrelation between justice and grace. What we desire for the final outcome of the show and its characters may reveal a much darker heart, within culture and within ourselves, than we may not be comfortable admitting.

Lauren Wilford:

Season 5, Episode 13: To’hajiilee

There has been discussion about whether Heisenberg overtook Walter at some point, or whether Walter has really been Heisenberg all along–whether Walt broke bad or already was bad. And after the rising body count and the hundreds of condescending lies and rationalizations multiplying since the second season, one would think the case against Walter is sealed. But for some reason, in both this and the last episode, I find myself still capable of sympathy for the devil.

Last week Skyler told Walt that the time had passed for him to simply “talk to” Jesse, but there Walt sat on that bench, ready to do just that. Would Walt’s talk with him be manipulative? Surely. But in Jesse’s misunderstanding that Walt meant to kill him, my heart broke a little. This is all I cling to now–these snatches of humanity, or at least a lack of monstrosity, in Walter. This week we saw Walt visit the house of Andrea and Brock in a ploy to get Jesse to come out of hiding, and it was the first time we had seen the kind version of Walt in a long time–speaking pleasantly, expressing concern. It’s the side of Walt that comes out when he holds Holly or talks to Walter Jr. And it works on me.

Maybe the fact that Walt still has access to this side of himself is just more proof of his diabolical nature, the ability to seduce and manipulate with honey as well as vinegar. But I do believe we’re meant to see something in him yet that has not passed into the monstrous. Four times in these last episodes, we have seen Walt confronted with the idea of murdering either Hank or Jesse and seen Walt push away the idea in disgust. These men are family to him, and on some level that matters. This seems to be the only boundary he has left, but it is still a boundary and still incredibly meaningful to him. And when he sees Hank show up at To’hajiilee with Jesse, the force of seeing these two figures together makes Walt surrender. He cannot withstand the sight of the two men he swore he’d never kill banded together against him–even as he’s already set plans in motion to take out Jesse, “Old Yeller.” The show has seen Walter continue to cross lines he thought he’d never cross, but it seems that this one was the last impossible line. He calls off the hit on Jesse and puts his hands up.

But this is episode five of eight, which means that Hank can’t have won. When he placed that call to Marie with three minutes left to go, I felt almost unbearable dread. And then up drove Todd, his uncle and his goons, and we watched Walt screaming to stop the coming bloodbath. In the minutes since his arrest, Walter has swiftly had to come to terms with his defeat. We finally see him willing to go down rather than to see Hank and Jesse dead. But Walt’s willingness to do business with people like Todd has come full circle. The entrance of Todd in the fifth season, with his cold-blooded murder of the child who witnessed the train robbery, has seen the beginning of a new kind of evil–bald-faced evil with a lack of shame or rationalization, the kind with which Walter is uncomfortable. Walter poisoned Brock, but we hear him yelling at Jesse in this episode about how he knew exactly how much to give him so as not to kill him. Todd just shot the boy on the bike. Which is worse? Is the kind of wrongdoing we see from Todd and co. just the same as Walter’s without the hypocrisy? Or is Walter’s discomfort a sign of the humanity that still lingers inside him?

What is a monster? The word is strong enough that I’m still not convinced we can apply it to Walter White. Maybe I’m crazy.

 Feeling for Justice: Season 5, Episode 12

Last night’s Breaking Bad episode, “Rabid Dog,” picks up right where the previous episode left off: with Jesse dousing Walt’s house in gasoline. This episode, though, begins with Walt’s perspective, and we watch in eager anticipation as he frantically searches for Jesse. The most interesting thing to me about last night’s show, though, was how disappointed I was when Walt didn’t find Jesse at the house. I am ready for some sort of confrontation, for things to come to a head, but more than anything, I am ready to watch Walt burn.

I don’t think I am alone in this experience, either. As we have mentioned before, Breaking Bad’s stroke of genius lies in its affective nature. The show elicits, even demands, a sort of participation from and in the viewer. I have argued that the paradoxical tension we feel as viewers is a direct result of our participation in Walt’s downfall. We were sympathizers and rationalizers for the first three seasons, and we went all the way down the rabbit hole with him. Once we finally reached the bottom of the pit, though, where Heisenberg finally seemed to take over, the monster we helped to create in Walt, as well as the monsters we found in ourselves, began to horrify us.

I can’t remember when everything shifted for me, either. Maybe when I go back through and watch the series again I will be able to highlight a specific instance when I stopped rooting for Walt, but for now, I cannot. My feelings towards Walt, though, were only passive for a brief moment. I went from sympathizing and rationalizing, to mourning, to being overwhelmed, to where I am now: ready for the whole thing to be done and to have justice served.

In the pendulum swing of my experience, my sympathy did not simply die out. Rather, it was shifted to Jesse, who inhabits the obviously inversed narratival arch of Walt. We were intially annoyed at Jesse, but now we are crying out for justice alongside him. My disappointment with Jesse not pulling the trigger and burning Walt’s house to the down was suspended when Hank burst into the house and stopped Jesse at gunpoint. Jesse, about to set the match to the magazine to the gas, is just as ready to burn it down as we are, and when Hank threatened that urge in him, Jesse simply cried out, “He can’t keep getting away with it.” And then Jesse yelled it again, ever more impassioned, to which Hank replied, “If you want to burn it down, let’s do it together.”

The shot ends without a fire, and we are left fantasizing about burning it all to the ground. My disappointment and fantasizing were only confirmed when they were mirrored in Marie’s interaction with her therapist. I am completely aware of the inappropriate nature of violence. I understand that violence only begets violence, but as Marie so plainly stated, “It feels good to think about.” I am also aware of the absurdity of this experience in myself. In no way can I ever rationalize or justify the urges I have at this point, but I think that’s the point of the show. This experience only testifies to the profoundly affective nature of Breaking Bad, which is nothing less than a bit horrifying at this point.

In a profoundly revealing interview in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/magazine/the-dark-art-of-breaking-bad.html?pagewanted=all), Vince Gilligan briefly touched on this tension, a tension he no doubt carefully crafted in his viewers. “If there’s a larger lesson to ‘Breaking Bad,’” he said, “it’s that actions have consequences. . . .If religion is a reaction of man, and nothing more, it seems to me that it represents a human desire for wrongdoers to be punished. . . .I feel some sort of need for biblical atonement, or justice, or something. I like to believe there is some comeuppance, that karma kicks in at some point, even if it takes years or decades to happen. My girlfriend says this great thing that’s become my philosophy as well. ‘I want to believe there’s a heaven. But I can’t not believe there’s a hell.’”

Towards the end of the episode, we see Walt talking to Walt Jr. about his cancer. He explains to Walt Jr., who thinks that the gasoline incident was a mere byproduct of Walt passing out from the gas fumes, that everything is going to be ok. He comforts Walt Jr., explaining, “You think I came all of this way to let something as silly as lung cancer bring me down? Not a chance.” And for the first time in a season and a half, I hope Walt is right. I hope the cancer doesn’t win out because I want justice to be served.

Zach Hoag:

 What’s One More?: Season 5, Episode 12

Skyler White is on board.

In what is decidedly a transitional fourth episode in the final eight of season five’s second half (whew), we see the character so often maligned on the message boards for being Walt’s incorrigible adversary complete a full 180. The turn began in episode ten when Walt collapsed in a heap on the bathroom floor, his chemo-ridden body reacting to the exertion of burying barrels (literally) of money in the desert. There, Skyler uttered words we never thought we’d hear in a reassuring tone we previously thought impossible: “Maybe our best move here is to stay quiet.”

Our best move?

Perhaps this is some kind of bizarre Stockholm syndrome finally taking effect in the captive victim Skyler. In the first half of this season, we realized the devastating truth that she was trapped. Truly, fully trapped, by a monster growling and cornering her on her bed, to the degree that even she confessed all she could do was “wait for the cancer to come back” and kill her captor. Yet, with her captor’s potential killer crouching at the door in the form of cancer and, now, Jesse Pinkman, she has completely switched sides, defending the very one who dragged her to this hopeless dungeon.

And it is Jesse Pinkman who catalyzes the full switch. It all started last week, in showrunner Vince Gilligan’s signature move of thrilling us in the final five minutes. We witnessed Jesse beating Saul Goodman and racing to the White residence to douse it in gasoline. (Will Jesse kill Walt? His family? Find out next week!) And last night, we returned to find the gas can on the floor in an empty and intact house. Disappointingly, it seems, Jesse changed his mind (or had it changed for him).

That change of mind is proof enough for Walter – who lapses into moments of morality or fidelity like an actor trying to believe he really is the role he plays – that Jesse is worth saving, and murder is not an option. Not even Saul can convince him that this is “an Old Yeller type situation.” But it is Skyler who will not compromise on the basis of this faux fidelity, this grasping at straws of hypocritical fatherly forgiveness and delusional mentoring for a troubled youngster. No, Walter is a killer. And so is Jesse. She, it seems, has fully embraced the reality of the present situation as she withstands Walter to the face.

“Walt, you need to deal with this… [Jesse is] a person who is a threat to us. After everything we’ve done, you can’t just talk to this person. We’ve come this far, for us – what’s one more?”

These words are, truly, an eruption of the Real, burning all the hypocrisies to the ground. There’s no more room for Walter’s deceptions – or self-deceptions. The scrolls have been opened. The great Revelation has begun.

Stockholm syndrome or not, to say that Skyler is now committed to her own downward spiral of justifying evil in the name of family and security and escape is beyond dispute. And when the episode suddenly flashes back to where we left off last week, with Jesse still preparing the White house for its hellish demise, the sides in this final battle become even more clear. The lines are starkly painted as Hank enters, gun drawn, to stop Jesse from completing this act of judgment, to call him to a greater and more decisive victory. It is like witnessing a man in hell redeemed for the purpose of participating in a great plan of vindication.

And vindication is, indeed, what this man in hell wants most.

Not for himself, but over and against his enemy.

The devil.

Heisenberg.

“He can’t keep getting away with this! He can’t keep getting away with it!”

The final four episodes will be, without a doubt, an apocalyptic showdown between good and evil – and the players will occupy all the shades of gray in between. Who will win? Who will lose? And can anyone be saved?

Regardless, we may all say with Saul Goodman: “I never should have let my dojo membership run out.”

Andrew Norman:

 Season 5, Episode 12

This week’s episode of Breaking Bad, while feeling a bit flat in comparison to previous episodes, offered a unique and surprisingly strange turn. In the midst of all the confusion and chaos, as Jesse revenges himself against Walt and prepares to ignite a war, for the first time, Walt is the person who preserves a semblance of empathy: he seems to be the only one who truly cares for Jesse. With only a few episodes left in the series, the confrontation between Jesse and Walt, which has been building over the entire course of the show, is finally coming to a head. As was predicted last week, Jesse seems to finally have broken, and his desperate crusade to destroy Walt has even driven him to working with Hank and Gomez.  The characters are becoming defined by their regard and relationship to Jesse. Hank and Gomez are both willing to throw Jesse into the line of fire in order to bring Walt down. Skylar, in a complete reversal of her demeanor just a few episodes ago, has settled comfortably into her role as Lady Macbeth, and is fully ready for Walt to kill Jesse. Even Saul suggests that it may be time to put Jesse down like “Ole Yeller.” Walt is the only one who seems to hold any regard for Jesse’s life.

I’ve said before that Jesse may be the most important character in Breaking Bad. Jesse has become a kind of moral signifier against which the character of those around him is defined. If the redemptive weight of the show has rested on Jesse thus far, one wonders if Walt’s unwillingness to kill him may have shifted that trajectory back in the other direction. There’s no question that Walt cares for Jesse. The question instead is why? Jesse encompasses and represents the entire history and scope of Walt’s degeneration and corruption. Jesse, in a sense, is the only person who truly knows Walt and the only person Walt feels he can actually save. Walt can be a redemptive force only through Jesse: much of the story of Breaking Bad has been about Walt rescuing and fathering Jesse. And now that there is finally a compelling and urgent need to remove Jesse, perhaps the thing most desired and expected will again be deferred: perhaps Walt will actually do the right thing.

Is it possible that Breaking Bad’s viewership is so committed to Walt’s destruction and the accompanying sense of justice that we may be unable or unwilling to countenance the notion that perhaps, the show is actually about the most radical thing possible: Walt’s redemption? I have firmly believed that Breaking Bad is not a redemptive story nor is it or should it be. But as Jesse says: “Whatever is supposed to happen, the exact opposite is going to happen.” The biggest twist of Breaking Bad may be that all our expectations are wrong.

Faithful to the End: Season 5, Episode 11

Lauren wrote last week on the idea of sin, as its represented in the last few episodes of Breaking Bad, as a sort of commitment, a commitment that one has to honor. I think Lauren is right. Walt, is a man of utter faithfulness; he sticks to his guns like he does his stories, and he follows through with that which he starts.

The most interesting thing to me about this proposal, though, lies in the examination of that which Walt is faithful to. I think the fifth season of Breaking Bad has been so tense largely because of the inevitability of the consequences of Walt’s own actions. As we have seen again and again, the breadth of Walt’s lie is ever expanding, and he has done and will continue to do anything to protect it, to act faithfully to it.

The end, though, the very telos towards which Walt is constantly progressing, is literally undoing his humanity. There is a way of being human in the wake of the resurrection that constitutes humanity at its most general core, and this mode of being necessitates a project of telling the truth. Walt’s end stands in stark contrast to this sort of ethic, and he has followed his reoriented ideals all the way down the rabbit hole. The further down he goes, the more we see his general humanity unravel before our eyes. Interestingly enough, there seems to be an obvious connection between Walt’s undoing of his own humanity and his physical decay, which is coming out all the more at this point in the season.

From the beginning of episode 11, we see Walt’s systemic deception become all the more thin and desperate. His body is looking haggard as ever, and there is not enough coverup in the house to adequately hide his weathered eyes, try as he may to protect his child from the harsh realities of his decay.

When Walt hears Walt Jr.’s plan to go to Hank and Marie’s for dinner, he has to improvise. He communicates with Walt Jr, spinning the truth in such a way as to convince Walt Jr. to stay at home and think it was his own idea. And Walt Jr. buys it.

Even in the confession there were moments of truth. Walt really was a chemist trapped in a box by a drug lord trying to expand his empire. Skyler was shocked when she found out, and Walt really had created hell for himself. But there is so much truth lacking from this, and the spin is just enough to manipulate Hank into silence. At least that’s what Walt hopes; that is what he is telling himself in the mean time.

Jesse, however, has caught on to Walt’s manipulative ways. At first Jesse resists, and then he gives in, breaks down and weeps. Being in the truth obviously comes with its emotional tolls. It takes bearing up under the weight of things and holding it all together, and there are some days where Jesse doesn’t think he has what it takes. He eventually gives in and calls Saul’s contact for relocation and a new identity. Its not until he discovers that his weed was lifted off of him at Saul’s that he is able to connect the dots involving his cigarettes and the ricin incident. And suddenly the veil is lifted; Jesse finds the light.

This seems to be Jesse’s provocative step out, a radical re-orienting of his own end. Zach Hoag, as you will read momentarily, rightfully argues that Jesse is on a radically different, virtually opposite trajectory from Walt at this point. Jesse seems to have broken the cycle of Walt’s lie’s—a pattern in which Walt essentially determines everyone’s destiny—and is taking matters into his own hands.

And I think that’s what Vince Gilligan is exploring through Breaking Bad. This is a show about consequences, about the inevitable outcomes of a force put in motion down a certain path, towards a certain end. Walt has acted according to his deepest desires, to what he wants absolutely most, and he has acted utterly faithfully. The episode ends with Jesse dousing Walt’s house in gasoline, and we are left anticipating the way it will burn when. Not just the house, though, but the whole thing when these characters reach their final destination. Maybe the most horrifying reality is the possibility of actually getting what we want.

Zach Hoag:

Stop Working Me: Season 5, Episode 11

The Rolling Stones sang about sympathy for the devil.

And in the manic teaser for next week’s episode of Breaking Bad – episode 12 – we hear the gravelly, strained, almost animal voice of Jesse saying, “Mr. White…he’s the devil.”

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve primarily set my sights on the series’ protagonist (antagonist?), Walter White, and the question of his original sin. In what sense, really, did Walt break bad? Did he begin basically good and then simply stumble onto this sinister path of destruction, or was there an evil deep within him for years and years, waiting to manifest at the opportune time? Are his lies merely fruit of the deep-rooted Lie?

Is Walter White a sociopath?

The psychological definition is, for me, not as important as the theological one. And, apparently, Jesse agrees. Please allow Walt to introduce himself. He is the devil, and very few of us feel any sympathy at all anymore.

That’s Walter. But I have come to believe, especially in the wake of tonight’s heart-pounding, jaw-dropping sprint of an episode, that this show may really be all about Jesse Pinkman. It is no secret that series creator Vince Gilligan planned to kill Jesse off in the first season, but realized, as his sympathy for mustached Mr. White was already waning, that Jesse was going to be essential in redeeming something – an ounce, perhaps – of this devastating pile of crystal blue corruption. And this week, I think, we got a glimpse of just how true this is.

Jesse has been in a desperate, suffocating fog since episode 9, something far beyond depression and more like the last gasps of existence. We have already seen Walt manipulate him about the money – which led to Jesse’s mobile cash grab box in the Albuquerque ghetto – but the manipulation was turned up to Heisenberg tonight. Saul brings Jesse to a desolate desert meeting spot, and Walt soon arrives in a cloud of dust. The fatherly chat about how Saul knows a guy and it’s time for a change so Jesse should just disappear, skip town, start fresh (you’re so young!) ensues. But Jesse calls bullshit:

“Can you just stop working me? Can you stop working me for ten seconds straight? Drop the whole concerned dad thing and tell me the truth… It’s really about you. Just say so! Tell me it’s either this or you’ll kill me like you killed Mike!”

Hysterical now: “Just tell me you need this!”

In a moment more murderous than any to this point, Walter, saying nothing, embraces Jesse Pinkman.

And it’s like the deadly coil of the old serpent himself.

The red, sobbing, suffocating devastation on Jesse’s face is the image that will stick with me all week. Who would have thought that the ruined, reckless tweaker of season 1 or 2 would become our last glimmer of hope for redemption in season 5? If we are all somehow bad deep down, at least to a degree, we are not all hopeless. Jesse is not hopeless. We can now see so much good in him, even if his exterior shielded it from view in the beginning. There is now, at least, the gutted realization that his humanity was there all along and is not yet all gone.

Last week, my conversation partner Zac pointed out that to write Walter off as a sociopath may go against the viewer’s experience of relating to the snowballing choices he makes – which would then bring all of our sanity into question. (And indeed, our sanity, in light of Walt’s descent, may be a worthy thing to explore.) But what about Jesse Pinkman? Do we relate to him? If we really think about it, I’d wager that we do. Jesse is a vision of our reality in all the places that Walter is a vision of our fantasy; where Walt’s risks – and astounding acts – make us feel like we could, Jesse’s fumbles make us feel like we have. Even his more surprising moments, like the time he killed the chemist Gale, are more authentically like our own moments under pressure, feeling desperate, breaking bad.

Jesse is not like Walter.

And not in the sense that Jesse is perfect. No, he suffers from sins at the root. But his trajectory is virtually opposite of Walt’s. Whereas Walt’s reassuring exterior slowly crumbles to reveal the demons within, Jesse’s disturbing exterior fades to reveal the divine.

Tonight, I think we saw the righteous, indignant God to Mr. White’s slithering devil.

Oh, and might I add: The “Confession” for which this episode was officially named?

It was diabolical indeed.

Andrew Norman:

 The Prayers and Tears of Jesse Pinkman: Season 5, Episode 11

Amidst all the bleakness of an already stark and unforgiving narrative, the urgency for some cathartic redemptive moment in Breaking Bad has never been more pressing, especially in light of the now apocalyptic turn the story has taken in the latest episode. In a story where the corrupting power of evil systemically strips each character slowly of their humanity, as each person begins to devolve into a baser and more frightening image of their former selves, the burden of redemptive hope rests on a single figure: Jesse Pinkman. Of all the characters in Breaking Bad, Jesse is the only one who has actively and clearly struggled with the guilt and consequence of his complicity in the evil perpetuated by Walt’s insatiable ambition. Certainly, other characters have questioned and wrestled with their guilt, Skyler being a primary example, but if Breaking Bad has proven anything, it must be that the distinction between good and evil is one of gradation, not of quality. Each character, regardless of how moral or scrupulous, at some point demonstrates not merely a tendency to slip into the arena  of self-serving violence, but a kind of ruthless proficiency for it. What locates Jesse’s character as distinct from the others stems from the fact that his journey has been one of evolution, not devolution.

Jesse is perhaps the most troubled of all of Breaking Bad’s characters. Fans have watched him transition from street punk, meth pusher and addict to a “responsible,” insofar as his responsibilities include becoming an excellent meth cook, and capable young man. In complete opposition to the cathartic burning and ruin we are compelled to feel toward Walt, in Jesse Pinkman is found a faint hope of possible redemption. But why Jesse? In spite of all his shame and remorse, Jesse has continued to side with Walt and return to the evils which have driven him dangerously close to madness. Why is it that, in spite of his long string of disappointing choices, Jesse almost subconsciously elicits hope rather than despair in the viewer? Simply put: prayer. Jesse Pinkman is a powerfully prayerful person, even if he is not aware of it and in Breaking Bad, he is the only one of his kind.

Jesse is the only person who has consistently struggled with his guilt on an authentically existential level. He is the only one who allows himself to become truly vulnerable to the point that the frailty and confusion of his heart is exposed. Frequently, whether through helpless tears or livid tirades, Jesse both rages and laments the wickedness of his actions, to Walt, to himself, to no one. Jesse, amid the chaos raging around him, is the only one who begs for forgiveness: in his actions, in his words, in his questions and tears. Indeed, it is precisely this vulnerability which renders Jesse so susceptible to Walt’s manipulative impulses. Any redemptive pulse in Breaking Bad, however faint, is kept alive in the prayers and tears of Jesse Pinkman.

The question remains though, of whether such a hope is misplaced. Jesse’s “prayers and tears” culminate in a the most arresting moment of the series thus far: in Walt’s embrace is simultaneously found the tenderest and most nefarious exchange between this fatherly figure and unlikely son. For a brief moment, the viewer glimpses the barest of hopes that Jesse may actually break the cycle of violence and find freedom. But Breaking Bad, as was stated last week, is not concerned with redemption. The virtue of the show is corruptibility and it is precisely at the moment of Jesse’s redemptive potential that the bleakness of the narrative inexorably draws Jesse back into its cycle. The question has been put forward of what the implications are for a culture which has abandoned its desire for the good–the hero–in favor of the corrupt and villainous. In Jesse Pinkman, this virtue is twisted further and raises a new question: not of whether our prayers are answered, but if the desire exists for them to be heard at all.

Lauren Wilford:

 Nothing More than a Bad Dream: Season 5, Episode 11

To say that any given episode of Breaking Bad imparts the feeling of hopelessness is not to say much — the show inhabits very bleak territory by its nature, so much so that I had to take a year-long break from my watching binge to be able to finish the third season. But “Confessions” seems special to me in its revelation of the complete brokenness of the White-Schrader situation.

Let’s get to the confession. We watch Walt’s video monologue along with Hank and Marie, looking over their shoulders at Walt spinning his masterpiece and finally topping Skyler’s gambling tour de force. In a move that no one could have seen coming, Walter tells an elaborate tale of being enslaved to a drug empire run by none other than Hank. He has an explanation for everything– Fring, the twins, Salamanca. He exploits his cancer for sympathy. And he drops one key detail that Hank didn’t know about: that Hank’s medical bills were paid for in Walter’s blood money.

Of course Hank was injured by Walt redirecting the twins’ rage at him. And of course Marie thought that the money was from gambling. But none of that matters anymore: it’s a damning detail that entangles the Schraders in the Whites’ mess.

Zac Hoag calls Walt’s confession “diabolical,” and I have to agree. Of course Walter has done deeply selfish, awful things. But perhaps it wasn’t until the shot of the Lily of the Valley at the conclusion of season 4 that we knew just how twisted his purposes were. And this confession is the height of Walter’s depravity, showing his willingness to not only sever his ties to his family but to transfer his guilt to the innocent. Or nearly innocent — the way of tragedy is that a slip to accept “gambling money” can cost much more than it seems at first. It isn’t fair, but rain falls on both the good and the wicked here.

In the scene after this, Walter tries to convince Jesse to skip town and start a new life (slipping in the most unintentionally theological line of the episode: “Saul knows a man who specializes in giving people new identities.”). But the line that sounded truest in the moment was “In a couple years this might feel like nothing more than a bad dream.”

It probably wasn’t intentional, but that line felt like metanarration.

At this point, I do think that Breaking Bad will feel like a bad dream if someone doesn’t come out of this redeemed, if Hank doesn’t get his win. I found myself surprised to feel this way. Many have written on Breaking Bad as tragedy, and that has been compelling to me all along — until now. Now that we are so close to the end, I find myself furious that Hank and Marie have been sucked into the vortex and deeply hungry for justice and retribution.

Maybe, when it comes down to it, I’m not willing to invest five seasons in a tragedy. I think that tragedies are for one intense night at the movies or theatre, for an hour or two of Aristotlean catharsis and Christian compassion and repentance. But now that I think of it, I don’t think I can handle 62 hours leading only to injustice and sorrow. Maybe this is a lack of fortitude on my part. But I’m not so sure. Though most shows tend to unravel in later seasons, every show has a great amount of audience expectation laid on its conclusion. Many shows just don’t have an order for another season and have to wrap up things where they lay, but the best kind of long-form storytelling has an endgame.

It seems to me both naive and unavoidable that I long for comedy at the end of a serialized narrative. In the same way I need Sauron and Voldemort destroyed, I need Walter White punished. Of course this isn’t usually how things work out on earth. But the faith I have that all things will be made right in the end is, I believe, the same faith that makes viewers long for something like Jim and Pam’s reconciliation on The Office. While television viewers do not share a faith, on some fundamental level we share an eschatological wish. And after seeing the last ten minutes, I think “Confessions” might be Gilligan and co.’s play to rally our desire into the righteous rage of Jesse Pinkman.

A whole lot has happened in three episodes. I trust that a whole lot more can happen in the next five. If tragedy lies at the end, I’m sure it will be treated with the gravity and pathos it deserves. But a whole lot of me thinks that in a story this long and layered, something has to be redeemed, or it won’t be true to the human story we know and long for.

]]> http://theotherjournal.com/mediation/2013/08/19/breaking-bad-roundtable-season-5-episode-10/ Zachary Thomas Settle: All the Way Down the Rabbit Hole: Season 5, Episode 10 One of the most interesting things about the public’s reception of Breaking Bad is its overwhelming dislike of Skyler White; no other character has motivated such harsh critiques. I have to say, though, that Skyler has been one of my favorite […] http://theotherjournal.com/mediation/?p=1215 Mon, 19 Aug 2013 18:30:53 +0000 Zachary Thomas Settle:

All the Way Down the Rabbit Hole: Season 5, Episode 10

One of the most interesting things about the public’s reception of Breaking Bad is its overwhelming dislike of Skyler White; no other character has motivated such harsh critiques. I have to say, though, that Skyler has been one of my favorite characters since she found out the truth about Walt’s cooking meth. I am fascinated with Skyler because she has always been a survivor.

In last night’s episode, though, we experienced a major shift in Skyler. Her general disposition shifted away from the mode of existential survival, and she got caught up in the inevitable progression of Walt’s unavoidable demise, in the strange movement of the thing put in motion by his choice to start cooking. Previously, Walt trapped Skyler, and she had no options but to wait, to survive. She had to bear up under the tensions of her situation and hold everything together. She was prohibited from telling the truth because it would cost her what was most dear to her: her family. This is the point at which Skyler explained to Walt that her only possible course of action was to wait for Walt’s cancer to come back; Walt’s death was her way out.

And Skyler was right: once the truth came out, Marie tried taking her baby from her. Surprisingly, though, Skyler found no freedom in confession or the return of Walt’s cancer. In a strange way, her relational bond with Walt, her inextricable involvement with her husband, has changed her opinion, her very disposition. She’s all in now and she wants to ride this thing out a little longer in hopes of keeping the money.

I felt deeply for Skyler when Walt forced her into silence. The thing I loved about her was that she bore up under the weight of her own situation. She analyzed her context and lived within the limit, thereby becoming the ultimate existential figure of the show. This response in me, though, was nothing less than the rationalization of Skyler’s dishonesty and inextricable involvement in my own mind. I decided, with Skyler, as Skyler, that she was still on this side of some sort of moral limit, the breaking line of no return, because she was operating out some form of fidelity.

I was confronted with that logic last night, though, as Walt was so horrified by Saul’s recommendation to kill Hank. Walt does not live in a non-moral universe; rather, he operates out of a moral code structured by limits and faithfulness, and this strange form is the very structure we spent the first three seasons of the show creating alongside Walt.

The genius of Breaking Bad is found not in its characters or storyline; rather, Breaking Bad’s stroke of grace lies in the way it has fostered a certain experience in the viewer. We all know that the show documents one man’s demise, and there are countless interesting things to say about that process. But Breaking Bad demonstrates the evolution of Walter White in such a way that we, as viewers, walk down the path of destruction with him. In a strange way, we start off the show rationalizing Walt’s actions away. We are made to feel the tensions and dread of choice, action and consequence without resolve. Breaking Bad forces its audience into the position of Walter White, and we ventured all the way down the rabbit hole with him. The overarching question that seems to structure our role as viewers is: where do you draw the line? We rationalized with Walt, we walked with Walk, and we only lost support for him once he was in the thick of it all, maintaining the chaos that we created with him. Walt essentially serves as the inevitable manifestation of the consequences of our own choices, and we are left detesting the monster we created, the monster we became.

And with only six episodes left, we want to watch him, along with ourselves, burn.

Zach Hoag:

All in the Family: Season 5, Episode 10

Sociopaths are born, not made.

At least that’s the theory of most psychologists. And rightly so, it would seem; even a cursory investigation of sociopathic behavior suggests that there is something heritable at the root, something in there very deep that is only awakened or nurtured by various life experiences and choices. My conversation partner, Zac, rightly observed last week that these final episodes seem to be hastening toward an inevitable end: the demise of Walter White. But the question remains: Is Walter’s wildly destructive path that of a sociopath?

Without trying to peer too deeply into the dark recesses of series creator Vince Gilligan’s mind, I am at least beginning to think that the title of the show is intentionally ironic. While on the surface it appears that the character of Walter White is a down-on-his-luck high school chemistry teacher who, when subjected to the pressure of terminal illness, makes a desperate choice to sell meth in order to leave a suitable inheritance for his family, the reality is something different. Namely, Walter has a preexisting condition – a condition that simply manifests and increases in power with each desperate decision. While Jesse mockingly questioned whether his old teacher was “just gonna break bad” in the pilot, the truth is, he was bad long before setting foot in that RV.

Because I’m no psychologist, I will filter what I’m seeing here through a theological lens. It would seem that Christian theology is trying to convince the world that there is something bad about all of us, and that something might be there from birth. It is a moral kind of defect, and it is mysteriously heritable. But while some perspectives on “original sin” overstate this condition (sometimes calling it “total depravity”), Walter provides an illustration that is closer to real life. There is a Lie deep within him, probably thin and small in its inception, and it’s been there for a long time. And, a traumatic experience – not, by the way, his cancer – simply triggered that Lie. Unchecked and unrestrained, it has now resulted in the Heisenberg manifestation and the ferocious spiral we are witnessing week after week.

Episode 10 is another revolution in the spiral. And while it builds primarily on the epic confrontation between Walt and Hank in Hank’s garage, it introduces a curious relational twist, in two parts. Part one: When Saul hints that maybe Walt should kill Hank (you know, send him to “Belize”), Walt growls, “Hank is family! What is wrong with you.” Part two: After Walt collapses on the bathroom floor back home (you know, because his body is filled with chemo and he just dug a gigantic hole in the desert to conceal ten huge barrels of money), Skyler consoles, “You can’t give yourself up without giving up the money. So maybe our best move here is to stay quiet.”

What?!

Is this the same Skyler who, in episode 4 of this season, so desperately wanted to escape Walter that she finally threatened, “All I can do is wait. That’s it, that’s the only good option. Hold on. Bide my time. And wait… For the cancer to come back.”

Right there in the bathroom Walt tells her that the cancer is, in fact, back, and she takes his side? Well, it probably doesn’t hurt that Hank essentially tried to entrap her in a diner after the garage confrontation, even going so far as to put a recorder on the table and discourage her from getting a lawyer. And, it also doesn’t hurt that Marie slapped her in the face and tried to steal the baby. You know, as family does.

With months of successful car wash business under her belt and the money hidden away (now, buried away) and Walter “out” of the meth game, perhaps Skyler has begun to see things from his perspective.

Perhaps she’s even begun to respect him and his plan to prosper the family.

That’s at least how it seems when Walter, on the bathroom floor, waking up from his collapse and looking half-dead, says, “I’ll give myself up if you promise me one thing. You keep the money. Don’t ever speak of it. Never give it up. And pass it on to our children. Give them everything. Will you do that? Please? Please don’t let me have done all this for nothing.”

Nah, let’s just lay low for a while.

This is a new Skyler White.

And this curious twist is one in which family – Walt’s odd deference toward Hank, and Skyler’s seeming loyalty to Walt – seems to be the active ingredient. We are left to wait and wonder, of course, whether the tie that binds will hold. And, more importantly, whether this is all just another manifestation of the Lie.

In a recent podcast, Gilligan admitted that he no longer feels any sympathy for Walt, the borderline sociopath who just so happened to publicly break bad.

I wonder – will we leave this show feeling any sympathy for Skyler?

Zac Settle:

I appreciate you engagement with Walt, Zach. I think that you are right that we are only now seeing the consequences of the Lie that was in Walt all along.

I totally agree with you and Vince Gilligan in that I no longer feel any sympathy for Walt. In fact, I want justice to be served, and I want him to pay. This is a strange phenomenon for me, though, because I was all in with Walt for so long. Skyler too, so I don’t think that the desire to justice comes at the expense of sympathy for me.

I think your question of the sociopath is fitting, although it’s a difficult one for me because of my experience as a viewer. I made those decisions along with Walt, and as I previously argued, I think that Walt now serves as the monster we created, the monster constantly confronting our own consciences. That being said, the questioning of Walt’s sanity is the questioning of my own.

Where do we draw the line? The line between madness and sanity is razor thin, ever in flux. And what’s so enticing to me about the show itself is that we as viewers have walked with Walt down his path to demise. We spent the first three seasons deciding with him. And even here at the end, we are just now finding a place that we are unwilling to go with Skyler. This is a conversation we have been constantly having with ourselves throughout this series. Who is breaking bad? And at what point?

The infamous graphic novelist Grant Morrison, quintessentially channeling the twentieth century French philosopher Michel Foucault, put it most gracefully in Arkham Asylum: “Arkham was right, sometimes its only madness that makes us what we are.” So is Walt the crazy one? Is Skyler? Or are we?

Lauren Wilford:

The image right before opening credits in the cold open of “Buried” is Jesse Pinkman laying at the edge of a playground roundabout, slowly revolving himself in the dark. The long take of this from above makes him look as if he is caught in a medieval wheel of fortune, impotent against the turning gear of fate. Todd VanDerWerff’s recent piece on Breaking Bad as Shakespearean tragedy (http://www.avclub.com/articles/how-breaking-bad-broke-free-of-the-clockworkuniver,101278/) made the case for Walter White as a tragic hero like MacBeth, or perhaps more accurately a central villain like Richard III. A Shakespearean tragic figure stands in a maelstrom of his own making, pulling everything around him into the vortex. Jesse’s spinning expresses a sense of being caught, but one can’t help but notice his feet slowing dragging him along.

This is the way of the Vince Gilligan universe. Characters constantly experience the feeling of not having a choice, of being caught in the gears– and they are, almost. Walt makes sure to present the choices to those close to him as very slim indeed. But there is Jesse, continuing to honor his allegiance to an evil man (often through tears); there is Skyler, tossing a coin at the Four Corners Monument, driving back to Walter when fate thrice tells her to leave New Mexico. They are certainly victims of Walt’s manipulation, and we feel deeply for their plight. But they are not blameless. And “Buried” is both the beginning of Skyler White’s reckoning and, as Zac mentions, a turning point for her character into darker territory.

Breaking Bad presents a compelling hamartiology in the idea that sin enslaves– or in the case of more dependent characters like Skyler and Jesse, sin becomes a commitment that one has to honor. Freedom has always been at the edges of the story, teasing the characters. “Three million dollars for three months of your time,” promised Gus Fring– financial freedom for the rest of his family’s life. The promise of this freedom led to Gus’s virtual enslavement of Walt and Jesse throughout seasons three and four. The freedom in Walt’s pile of cash means that Skyler will be working to launder the money in the car wash for the rest of her life. Jesse’s financial freedom in the wake of Gale’s death left him a zombie, addicted to the thrashing bacchanals that let him forget his murder. Walt spends the episode toiling alone in the hot sun to bury his money, almost dying from exhaustion. No one here is free.

The idea of sin as commitment is frightening indeed, because it takes something we recognize as good and twists it, leaving us morally confused. In season four, Mike tells Jesse that what Gus sees in Jesse is “loyalty– only maybe you have it for the wrong guy.” Jesse’s loyalty to Walter has been one of the most endearing qualities about him, even as it breaks the heart to see Walt use him over and over. One of the final images of the episode finds Skyler kneeled down next to Walt, lovingly attending to his wounds after he has passed out in the bathroom. It is the image of a devoted spouse, and it only serves to make the dialogue that follows more heartbreaking and repulsive. The episode is carefully paced so that we don’t know what Skyler will decide and feel the suspense that she might finally give up the fight and turn them over to her honest brother-in-law. But her final lines of the episode see Skyler turning into Lady MacBeth, vowing to keep silent and protect their money. She has gone all-in with her husband, because he is the only one she has left– he is the only one who is in her sin with her. Her complicity has cut her off from anyone else.

Breaking Bad asks us to take a very close look at the things we have enslaved ourselves to in the name of freedom, or committed to in the name of love or loyalty. Because it is not just the villains and masterminds that must pay. Our small choices to ally ourselves with sin begin a grip on us that is very hard to loosen indeed.

Andrew Norman:

No More Heroes: Death of the anti-Hero, Birth of the Anti-heroic: Season 5, Episode 10 

Breaking Bad is certainly the example of form embodying function, actually becoming a kind of digital amphetamine to those of its widespread and fanatic followers. The show is one of the finest examples of how pop serial episodic television can so completely immerse itself into the zeitgeist as to become indicative of the social and psychological condition of culture at large. Far more interesting than any allegorical critique or narrative observation is the moral topography charted by cultural texts like Breaking Bad.

There are no doubt numerous critiques, connections and observations to be leveled at the narrative and characters of Breaking Bad. The most obvious of these is the distorting and corrupting inertia of evil, as embodied in Walt, and its tendency to inexorably draw those around him, including his loved ones, into the gravity of its pull. Equally apparent is the desperate grasping after any redemptive glimmer, mainly sought for in Jesse, as the burden of guilt and anguish at the debasement and ruin of so many lives becomes too great for him to shoulder. Jesse’s attempts to assuage his guilt, as seen in his “charitable” contributions to the community in the act of throwing his money away, are demonstrative of how the pain of guilt and corruption descend toward madness. The introductory scene of the latest episode, wherein an embittered and numb Jesse spins mindlessly on a merry-go-round, is emblematic of the cyclical rhythm into which he has fallen and his apparent impotence at reconciling his conscience. Even Hank is caught up in the cycle, willing to surrender his moral and legal obligations in his feverish obsession with apprehending and bringing Heisenberg to justice. There are countless commentaries to be made on the social evils of drug trafficking and the debasement of innumerable lives by the characters of Breaking Bad. However, what is much more compelling than these available criticisms within the narrative and structure of the show are those that could and perhaps should, be made without. The callousness of Walt and the degeneration of moral good exemplified by those around him pales in comparison to the callousness that Breaking Bad foists upon the viewer. In short, the affect of the show is not in who or what is shown, but what it subtly teaches the viewer to feel and believe: ultimately, with what it demands the viewer participate, namely, the fetishization and commodification of corruptibility.

Simply put, there are no more heroes. Or rather, the heroes generally on offer in our media are neither lauded nor respected for their moral character or what have been traditionally understood as “heroic” qualities. Walt, while neither a heroic figure nor an anti-hero, is still somehow the protagonist: that is, the viewer not only pulls for Walt, but actually revels in the spiral within which he and his family are caught. Corruptibility is now a quality to be celebrated rather than scorned, and in this, Breaking Bad is the prime example of just how powerfully affective our cultural texts can become. The popularity of shows like Breaking Bad is symptomatic of a kind of cultural fetishization of fallenness as virtue, instead of vice. Take for instance the fashionable sister series’ to Breaking Bad produced by AMC: shows like the period drama Mad Men, the apocalyptic The Walking Dead, and serial western Hell on Wheels, to name just a few. Each of these shows, while vastly disparate in content, still relies on the suspension of redemptive qualities in the main characters and story arc: the onus of the series’ impetus falls on the degeneration of moral and ethical qualities in favor of corruptibility. Simply stated, the veiled virtue of the anti-hero has been supplanted by the vice of the anti-heroic.

What is perhaps most fascinating by this shift is the degree to which it has taken hold within the majority of social consciousness: the scale is almost total. The wild, implacable popularity of shows such as HBO’s Game of Thrones and NBC’s Hannibal, among myriad other series, is indicative of the widespread dependence of media on the perversion of virtue as centrally thematic. Slovaj Zizek, in his film Looking Awry, a Lacanian meditation on the nature and affect of cinema and digital media, states that film, as a cultural text, does not tell us what to desire, but how. Far more compelling than the stories media tell us is how these stories are told: how exactly they shape us as people and the degree to which they are involved in the formation of culture at large. What cannot be debated about Breaking Bad is its popularity and its ubiquity to the conscience of the social and cultural zeitgeist. Thus, what should be most closely examined is the phenomenon of how our media transforms and shapes our desires and thus used as plumb line to gauge the depth and value of our moral quality as a culture, if such an undertaking is still deemed valuable. In short, Walter White should compel us to ask what it means when a culture truly has no more heroes?

Zac Settle

I think you are absolutely right, Andrew. More important than diagnosing and analyzing simple narrative archs is to examine and disucss the media’s affect on us as viewers. If Breaking Bad’s rampant popularity is nothing less than the embodiment of the zeitgeist, which I believe it is, then this show is actually functioning to both shape and gauge the people and culture at large.

Your proposal to ‘examine the phenomenon of how our media transforms and shapes our desires’ is an extremely helpful and distinctly Augustinian task. The ultimate factor, you essentially propose, is the way in which Breaking Bad is shaping our desires. How does Breaking Bad inform our conception of the good life, and how is it directing its viewers towards certain ends?

We look forward to hearing your answer to these questions you have propoed. Indeed, what does it mean when a culture truly has no more heros?