Breaking Bad

This is a review I've been wanting to do, and now I finally think I am ready to give it the respect and credibility it deserves.  If there was ever a show that someone in their life should watch, it's Breaking Bad.  I'm going to do my best with this review even though it's going to be EXTREMELY hard to do without giving away spoilers for those who have not finished watching it or want to watch it in the future.  It won numerous Television awards, including numerous Emmys and racking up a total of 101 out of the 267 total awards it was nominated for over the length of the series.  So without further ado, it's time to dive in the show that made you fear and envy a man who was living with Stage 3 Lung Cancer.  Yes, I said envy.  Never would I envy the life of a man with such a bad hand dealt until watching this series.

I'm The One Who Knocks

Without giving up the indepth details of the show, I will give a brief synopsis.  Walter White (played by Bryan Cranston) is a high school chemistry teacher who has a wife named Skylar and a son named Walt Jr who has cerebral palsy.  They live in New Mexico.  Walter was feeling ill and had some odd symptoms such as coughing up blood and severe dizziness.  He went to the doctor to check out what was going on and it was revealed that he had Stage 3 Lung Cancer.  This guy had every reason to give up on life, the only thing that kept him hanging on was the love and support of his family.  Family was everything to Walt.  He was doing everything he could've done to fight off this wretched sickness.  He went through rounds and rounds of chemo in hopes of getting rid of the cancer, but it wasn't looking good.  Walt had a year left tops.  With questions about how much longer he would be around, he started thinking about how his family would survive financially without him.  He was once involved in a company called Grey Matter, which he was bought out of because he wanted out, and that company turned out to a million dollar corporation, and Walt kicked himself every day for not sticking it out.  While pondering and thinking of ways he could support them after his soon unfortunate demise, he came up with an idea that may be crazy enough to work. This idea was triggered after running across a former student of his that sold marijuana, Jesse Pinkman who was played by Aaron Paul.  School and making an honest living was never Jesse's strong suit.  Walt approached Jesse with this crazy idea of making and selling crystal meth along with Jesse's marijuana.  With Walt's knowledge in chemistry and Jesse's connections in the drug world, this was an idea that seemed so farfetched and crazy enough, that it could work.  Oh and the real kicker, Walt's brother in law, Hank, was a DEA agent specially trained to stop the distribution of drugs on the streets.  All of this information you find out within the first few episodes, and the series wound up going 62 episodes over 5 seasons.  You may think this is wild enough already, well trust me, this is just the tip of the iceberg.  Seems like a pretty crazy series, right?  

Vince Gilligan is the mastermind behind Breaking Bad.  I would say this is one of the most well written, creative and innovative shows I've ever watched, all bias aside.  Bryan Cranston acted the role of his life.  When I first started watching the show I couldn't get the image of Hal from Malcolm In The Middle out of my head, but i quickly changed my view of him.  Aaron Paul who was the Robin to Bryan's Batman, also busted out on the scene into the acting world after playing a strung out drug dealer who had it out for society and didn't care about anyone except his friends.  Dozens and dozens of times my jaw was on the floor due to disbelief, shock or a what the fuck moment.  I've watched every episode at least 3 times and still catch things that I didn't get the first few times, or am able to connect moments from one episode to the next.  This is the beauty of Breaking Bad.  "Easter Eggs" are hidden throughout the show which help connect things and give clues to things that have yet to happen that all make sense once the moment happens.  Even the titles of each episode contain clues when put together make sense.  For example, the last episode of the series Fe-Li-Na is made from the Periodic Table of Elements.  Fe is Iron which is found in blood, Li is Lithium which is found in Crystal Meth and Na is Sodium which is found in tears.  Blood, Meth and Tears.  That's the creativity and ingenuity used throughout the whole series, and I love it.  There were so many memorable moments, lines and scenes in the show which makes this show that much more special.  So if you're ever trying to find a new show to watch after you binged a series, or are hungover as hell on a Saturday afternoon, you don't need to look further than the B's in Netflix.

Magnum Reviews : 10/10, and we don't throw 10's around here like its a strip club either

P.S. - You can't tell me that Walt Jr. is a human form of Jimmy from South Park, be honest 

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