Archive | February 2013

Breaking Bad Episode 305 “Mas”

FINALLY! Walter White is cooking again! Things are moving and changing! Thank God, right?

I think that Season Three might be my favorite season overall, so far, but these first few episodes are just a little slow. I’m like Walt or maybe Saul, I just don’t feel quite right if he’s not cooking. The slowness makes sense in the story of the show. Walt has to take that pause, has to consider the consequences, almost burn the money, get out and believe he’s really out for good after everything that’s happened. Anything else wouldn’t serve the story. If he had jumped right back into it, the consequences–Jane’s death, the plane crash, Skyler finding out and her subsequent affair–would be meaningless.

This is Walt’s fourth time making the decision to cook. Each time, the stakes get higher, the run of cooking is longer, the consequences get bigger (Krazy-8 vs Tuco vs all the recent wreckage mentioned above), and so the decision takes longer. It’s like he’s successively being asked, do you really want to do this, and keeps saying yes. And each time, it’s a little bit darker. He knows what could happen, what has happened, the people who’ve died, and he still decides yes.

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Affinity for Darkness – Chapter Thirteen

Feb22

The candles beside me still burn, the guiding lights of my tale. I feel some relief in having written all of it down, but my relief is shallow. My story is not yet complete, and I don’t quite know how it will end.

I have spent hours writing. It has grown dark outside. These hours I probably should have spent figuring out what has happened, analyzing each event of this past week, but I find no answers doing this; I find more contentment in my writing than I could discovering how I would die. It makes me feel as if I have done something productive with my time.

As I said at the very start, I know great fear. As I sit here in anxiety, my fear is really all I know. The darkness contributes to my fear, I know. It adds a sense of mystery; I don’t know what, or who, may be lurking in the shadows. I don’t know where Justin is.

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Breaking Bad Episode 304 “Green Light”

Feb17

Holy crap, Hank knows about the RV!

Jesse is using the RV to cook again. The teaser for this episode is a perfect example of Jesse taking the “I’m the bad guy” and his no-nonsense acceptance of that fact too far. Jesse has never been a pusher before, using his charm to get a girl to trade him free gas for a baggie of meth. Maybe he’s resigned to the bad guy role. Maybe he believes that’s who he is. It seriously makes me question the philosophy at that rehab place with those amazing plush green robes and shirts. Jesse’s not using anymore but something’s off and Jesse’s actually more of a bad guy since accepting this “fact” about himself than he ever was before.

Walt is, as Mike puts it, a disaster over this thing with his wife. Man, Mike is sooo deadpan. When Saul asks is this a good thing or a bad thing, Mike plays a bit more of the recording and then says, “It’s a bad thing.” It’s kind of hilarious. Gotta love Mike. He’s just as good later when he tells Walt the reasons he’s definitely removing all the bugs from Walt’s house.

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Affinity for Darkness – Chapter Twelve

Feb15

I woke up shaking. The images I had seen had been harrowing. I tried to wash them away by rubbing my eyes. It did not completely work, but at least the horrid smells and tortured cries had subsided. Suddenly I realized there were people standing near me. I opened my eyes fully to see Justin and Jill peering down at me, and to see that I was lying on one of the couches. Oh no, I thought. Were they waiting for me to awaken so they could break some more bad news?

“What’s wrong?” I asked, instantly worried. “Is everyone OK?”

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Breaking Bad Episode 303 “I.F.T.”

Feb10

Even though Walter “the maestro” White still isn’t cooking, things he’s set in motion are still managing to spiral out of control on so many fronts at once for just about everyone.

In the last episode, Walt broke into his own house and in this one he stays, even when Skyler comes home and calls the cops. Walt’s been consistent on this–he cares more about getting his family back more than he cares about getting turned in, that if he doesn’t have his family, it’s all been for nothing.

Walt says to Skyler in their talk later in the episode that he’s made sacrifices. At first, it seems a little disingenuous. What has he really sacrificed? Yeah he’s gone through hard times, but overall, he’s been the one causing harm, killing, lying, and sometimes he has thoroughly enjoyed being Heisenberg. But I do think that in doing these things, Walt chose to sacrifice pieces of his soul. He’s sacrificed his conscience. His ability to truly believe he’s not the bad guy. He has to know, every day, that he let a girl die, a girl who the person that’s like a son to him loved more than anything. As Walt says, he has to live with the choices he’s made. It might not be the same kind of cost others have had to pay or suffer, but it’s still something.

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Affinity for Darkness – Chapter Eleven

Feb8

Here’s the next section from the “novel” I wrote one winter in high school. It’s now at the part where it’s getting really mortifying and difficult to post.

To start this story from the beginning, click here

“Oh God,” Jill moaned.

“What!?!” Karl exclaimed, shocked.

“Not again,” I breathed.

“What do we do?” Karl asked.

“We just can’t have another burial,” Jill said.

“How did it happen?” I inquired.

“I don’t know,” Justin answered, distraught. “I just went in there and saw him, slumped against the far wall, bleeding. At first I thought he cut himself, so I called his name and asked if he was OK. No answer came, so I moved closer to get a better sense of what was going on. It was then that I noticed his glazed eyes and the small pools of blood surrounding his body. And his skin . . . his skin was disgusting. He died from a knife wound, as Eve did.”

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Breaking Bad Episode 302 “Caballo Sin Nombre”

Feb3

“It’s like Michelangelo won’t paint.” Saul on Walt staying out of the meth game.

And Walt, so far, is still out. And being out no longer sits so well with Walter White. The last time Walt declared he was out, to Jesse after getting his remission diagnosis, he got all weird and aggro at the party and was generally bored and in need of distraction (all that fixing up different stuff in the house) until he got his Heisenberg back by telling those guys to stay out of his territory. This time, after turning down Gus’s verrrrry tempting offer, he gets all aggro and irrational with a cop. Now that Walt has somewhat become this Heisenberg guy, he’s a little lost when he gives that up.

How long can it really last?

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Affinity for Darkness – Chapter Ten

Feb1

Here’s the next section from the “novel” I wrote one winter in high school.

To start this story from the beginning, click here

“Wow,” I breathed, almost speechless. “That was great. You have some imagination!” The story had definitely moved me.

“Who says I made it up?” Justin asked.

“Personally I would have added more sex and violence,” Karl said. “But I definitely liked the part when William chopped their heads off and blood was spilling all over the floor. It was vivid, and of course, I like all that gory stuff.” He smiled.

“I swear you have a one-track mind,” Jill muttered.

“Yes,” Karl admitted. “And it’s such a wonderful track to be on. I think I’ll stay awhile.” He laughed.

“It was sad,” was Don’s only comment on Justin’s tale.

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