Eric San Juan - Breaking Down Breaking Bad: Unpeeling the Layers of Television’s Greatest Drama

BREAKINGDOWN

BREAKINGBAD

Unpeelingthe Layers of

TelevisionsGreatest Drama

By Eric San Juan

Publishedin the United States of America

ByEric San Juan

http://www.ericsanjuan.com

Copyright 2013 by Eric San Juan

Firstprinting, November 2013

Coverillustration by Rick Lundeen.

Coverdesign by Eric San Juan and Brian Spaeth.

Allrights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in aretrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permissionof the publisher. But the author is generous as hell about that sort of thing,so please, drop him a note. Hes going to be happy to say yes.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Thisbook could not have happened without a few important people. Thanks to JimMcDevitt for introducing me to Breaking Bad in the first place and foryour generous proofreading. Your efforts made this book immeasurably better.Thanks to Rick Lundeen for getting me fired up about discussing Walter Whitesadventures, for your thoughtful input, and of course, for the fantastic coverillustration. This book looks great thanks to you! The prolific and creative BrianSpaeth provided valuable input on the cover design, but more importantly,valuable inspiration when it came to pursuing a project like this in the firstplace. Thank you for the idea thoughts you are making happen in my head. And ofcourse, the entire gang at the Refuge you know who you are unwittingly providedthe spark that became Breaking Down Breaking Bad. Thanks for that.

Butmost of all, thanks to Vince Gilligan, Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul and the restof the Breaking Bad team for creating something so wonderful. We wereblessed to be allowed into the world you created.

I cant claim to love television. If itwerent for some key shows, Id be one of those obnoxious people who say, Idont watch TV, and the statement would be largely accurate. I dont enjoypissing away the hours flipping through channels and settling on viewing somethinggood enough to kill an hour but not good enough to make me call my friends andsay, Did you SEE that? I also hate having an appointment with the television.I hate having my schedule dictated by a show. Thursdays at 10pm I am on thecouch because X is on is not for me.

Yet once in a great while, something comesalong that serves as a Siren call, a flashing beacon in the foggy distance thatsays, Sail your ship over here! and puts my ass in front of the screen at aprescribed time on a prescribed night. Or, more often, has me blitzing througha marathon of TV two and three and four episodes a night, every night, becauseI just cant turn away.

Breaking Bad is one of thoseshows.

Like Deadwood, like The Sopranos,like The Wire, this was a show that grabbed me quickly and kept mewatching, yet was also something more than mere entertainment. After all, MadMen, Dexter, Rome and other shows also had me pushing through episode afterepisode, too, but I never felt as if I was watching something that would lastfor the ages with those shows; something Id be able to unpeel layer uponlayer, exploring depths that went beyond the drama of the surface narrative.

This show did that. Something about WalterWhites struggle not just with the deep waters he had plunged himself into, butwith the corners of himself he had never explored before, resonated with me.The idea that his foray into meth production was not merely a dalliance withdarkness, but was a full-blown awakening for Walt intrigued me.

And most of all, the idea that I actuallycame to loathe the protagonist of my favorite show utterly fascinated me from astorytelling point of view. How on Earth did these writers make me want towatch this guy every week when I had almost nothing good to say about him as aperson?

Yet they managed the trick.

Some years ago, with the help of my friendand collaborator Jim McDevitt, I threw myself into the darkness that was thework of Alfred Hitchcock with A Year of Hitchcock: 52 Weeks with the Masterof Suspense (Scarecrow Press 2009), unraveling what made him tick as acreator of dark and nasty deeds, then later plunged into the black heart of hisevil doers with Hitchcocks Villains: Murderers, Maniacs and Mother Issues(Scarecrow Press 2013), a foray into some of the ugliest minds ever to appearon screen.

With Breaking Down Breaking Bad, Iattempt to do the same, poking into the dark corners of Walter Whites mind,exploring the traits that make this show special, and generally reveling in thejoy that is arguably the best drama ever to appear on television.

I hope youll enjoy taking the ride withme.

Eric San Juan

September 2013

What is Breaking Bad? The questionis a big one or a small one depending on how deep you want get into things. Onthe surface its rather simple. You know the pitch by now: A high schoolchemistry teacher discovers he has incurable cancer, and in an effort toprovide for his family starts to cook meth, becoming a bad guy in the process.

"I originally pitched it to the studiowith one line," creator Vince Gilligan told The Guardian. "Itold them: 'This is a story about a man who transforms himself from Mr Chipsinto Scarface.'"

Its a good elevator pitch, really, eventhough Gilligan wasnt entirely sure how viable the concept would be. Thatsunderstandable .After all, what do you do with a concept like that? We know now, of course,but its the sort of pitch that could easily have been spun into a fairlyshallow show about a seemingly ordinary guy who manufactures drugs. Crime showsare a dime a dozen, after all, and few of them are any good.

So yes, Breaking Bad is about a highschool chemistry teacher who discovers he has incurable cancer and, in aneffort to provide for his family, starts to cook meth, becoming a bad guy inthe process. It sounds a bit offbeat, and it is. Yet it works. The show oftenveers back and forth between black comedy and straight drama, and does so withease. It's brilliantly written (even the most absurd turns feel totallynatural), stunningly acted (Bryan Cranston, also known for playing the dad on Malcolmin the Middle, won three straight Emmy's for his performance as WalterWhite and may win a fourth after this book goes to press), and impossiblygripping (the cut to black at the end of each episode leaves you begging formore).

But its much more than great acting andsharp entertainment. Strip away the surface trappings and Breaking Badbecomes a show about us; a show about you and me. Its an exploration ofthe dark places people will go to and the reasons they will go there. We dontnotice it because we are so engrossed in the story, but the questions it grapples withgrow larger and more difficult to answer by the episode. Even at their mostbasic they turn our stomach in increasingly complex knots:

Would you engage in minor illegal activityto provide for your family? Perhaps. Its a twist on the old notion of stealinga loaf of bread in order to survive, and most people (though certainly not all)feel that such a transgression is minor if survival is on the line.

Would you do something pretty damn illegalbut that harms no one (as far as you know) to help your loved ones, knowing itwill provide for them forever? Long-term security is difficult to come by,after all, especially for an aging schlep with no good future prospects. Aslong as no one is being harmed

Would you kill if it meant protecting yourown life, knowing your death means your efforts to provide for your loved oneswill die with you? Cold-blooded murder is not something most of us wouldcontemplate, but maybe if we look at this from the right angle well see thiswould just be a matter of self-defense.