Series · Netflix · 2008
Breaking Bad
The finest argument on television for how a man becomes a villain. Do not mistake the argument for an invitation.
This is a great piece of work and a bad teacher. Walter White is given a real fear, a real bill, and a real gift with his hands, and he spends all three on an empire he pretends is for his wife and his boy. The series is honest about the corpse count. It is less honest about the thrill it sells you on the way there. People quote the man. They do not quote the ending, which is the only moral sentence the show has.
Not for teenagers. Grown people who watch it should watch it through, including the cost, and should say out loud that competence is not absolution. If you feel yourself admiring him past the first season, stop and notice that.
The eight
Industry
7/10
The chemistry is real craft, and the show never pretends the product is anything but poison.
Household
2/10
He starts for his family and ends by destroying it. The series knows. It also makes you want him to get away.
Piety
2/10
No soul is allowed to stop him. The closest thing is a brother-in-law who still believes in the law.
Courage
4/10
He takes enormous risks. They are for pride, long before they are for a child.
Republic
2/10
Every institution he touches — school, DEA, a partnership — he turns into cover.
Temperance
1/10
Addiction, murder, and the pleasure of being the smartest man in the room. The show is hypnotic about all three.
Truth
5/10
It tells the truth that a lie can wear a man's love for his house. Then it asks you to miss him.
Stewardship
2/10
What he hands his son is a name that has to be lived down.
Live historicallyDo a piece of skilled work this week that your house can use, and refuse the story that skill entitles you to a secret life.