Breaking Bad - Incredible show, or ridiculed with inconsistency in character writing

So let me just say this now, from the start. I think that at times this show is the greatest thing I've seen, and have regularly argued that character depth, clever plots and interesting stories make it, on occasions, better than the wire (Ok your either laughing now or shaking your head but there, I said it.) Well essentially the latest season, and in fact some of the season before, are just ridiculed with inconsistency. Without a doubt either the writers changed or they work shifts. It seems as if people are playing the game where someone writes a sentence and then passes the paper to the next person, who without looking at the things written before, writes the next. Ok that is extreem but it potentially ruined a fantastic show.

There are so many things I could point out, but thanfully someone I know, whose blog I follow regularly due to his incredible writing style and ability to take you in to his world with his captivating descriptions of his life in complete openess, has already covered this issue. Just a pre warning, if you haven't seen Breaking Bad season 4 finale, this is a spoiler.... SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!

Following on from this is his blog post - please take a look at his blog on www.pokerheadrush.com I know if you like reading my blogs you will like his because his openess and honesty was one of the reasons I decided to write myself.

"Why Breaking Bad Pisses Me Off
Posted by Alex Fitzgerald on December 14, 2011 · Leave a Comment

I finished Breaking Bad the other day. Yeah, I know, I’m a little behind, but I don’t get the kind of free time I wish I did. That and my internet connection is bad ass stable here…for poker, it really sucks at downloading things for some reason. Some websites I can download things decently fast but torrents are annoying.

The first six episodes of this season were painfully boring too. I’ll admit, I was into it for the last three episodes, and there were some scenes that were just mind blowingly cool.

SPOILER ALERT -

I’M GOING TO START SPOILING THINGS -

TURN YOUR EYES NOW IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN BREAKING BAD,

I HATE SPOILERS SO DON’T READ THIS BLOG IF YOU WANT TO ENJOY THIS SHOW.

Anyway…

Spoilers coming, like now.

The scene where Gus died, that was just such an intelligent move. He’d become such an unbreakable seeming that it was conceivable he could walk away from that explosion, that it went off incorrectly. I didn’t see what was coming when they panned left…just didn’t expect it at all. I really could have believed they wouldn’t get rid of him till the final season, but damn…was that good.

But at the same time that scene is like masturbating with a cast on your hand. Sure, you’re happy to finally get off, but the build-up left you with scars it was so poorly conceived.

I just can’t get over the retarded plot points in this show. I try as hard as I can to turn off my brain when I watch television, and just enjoy it, but there’s so many parts in this show that just scream, “a clown ass graduate of some piece of shit writing college thought he got the character down and wrote this crap.” Like if I was directing this series, if this was my baby, I would be throwing the fucking scripts these guys write back at them.

Gus was a killer, killer character. Giancarlo Esposito proved television can deliver blood curling performances . And yet…they screw up his character so much.

Okay, so the guy who has detail so good that no one can approach his house, that he has cameras everywhere, that he can somehow convince someone who killed his best friend to swallow a whole jug of poison upon their first meeting in 20 years (amiiiiiigo….soooorrry I killled him….sure I will drink this special potion you brought in….what’s that?….none of your men will drink it?…no problem…the great smart Cartel who apparently owns so much of Mexico we can get up into America…we are all going to drink something a former enemy brought to us upon their first visit…what is that?…you need to go to the restroom 20 minutes after digestion…no chance you’re vomiting this up). This badass who apparently runs everything…this guy dies THIS WAY?

He sends his man to look everywhere in the place. The guy clears it without poking his head out to see if anyone’s close to the window, but okay, I’ll buy that, they were heated.

But that brings up another point. If the guy’s bell is going to blow up the pipe bomb, why is Walter there? To get close to the debris? So there’s a chance he can get caught, and show they’re working together?

But okay, all of that aside, Gus and his aid/henchman whatever walk in there. They wheel around the old Cartel remember, if I remember correctly. He stares at him, and even kneels down to get a better look at him.

At no point does Gus, drug dealing superman, sociopath, so brilliant he runs a gazillion companies, at no point does this guy with a 180 fucking IQ go WOW THAT IS A BIG FUCKING PIPE BOMB STRAPPED TO THIS WHEELCHAIR. It’s not like it was small. It looked like if you tilted your head to the side for a second you would have seen it. And they were wheeling the chair around and walking around it and everything.

I mean, wouldn’t that be surveillance part number one, to check under the chair? An old enemy goes to the DEA after his whole family is killed, and then prepares a suicide bombing for when his torturer arrives…yeah…that sounds kind of logical. What does he have to live for? What other way could he hurt him but a bomb? The guy can’t really grab a gun. Wait, is there anyone on the loose right now I have a beef with who knows anything about explosives?

HE MUST suspect some kind of an explosion, considering the scene where he’s walking to his car in the hospital parking garage…and he gets a sixth sense…so he (wtf) walks to the edge of the parking garage where any sniper could hit him? Okay, maybe Walt’s not that good, couldn’t procur that rifle in a short time, or an assassin to do it, but if he left his car in the garage and didn’t take basic steps to prevent himself from being shot by sniper rounds, he must suspect a bomb, and a bomb only.

And then his old enemy, who has never had interest in squeeling, even on his enemies when he’s had the chance, signs up to go to the DEA? You plan a meeting that day with him, with supervision so bad you don’t check the backyard, or what’s under the wheelchair?

And how the hell is his security so good that they just happen to be watching this old crippled man on the day he decides to take a trip to the DEA. Okay, maybe someone called him from the hospital, but then does he really have no one in the DEA? This guy who knows everything about every one of his employees, he doesn’t have one guy who can tell them the old cartel told them nothing.

While entertaining, wasn’t that a stupid move, to tell the DEA to suck your dick? Those cops will talk to other people, who likely Gus could talk to. Not one guy working the coffee machine can tell this titan of the drug trade “the guy came in and said nothing.” Wouldn’t that lead him to believe it was a trap?

It’s just so obvious this is written by a number of people. The acting is incredibly good that it saves the wavering writing from time to time, but there’s just such gross differences in the characters from scene to scene.

Like Skylar. One moment she’s so scared about lying to her sister and DEA brother-in-law about the car wash that she writes a script, and she’s so unnatural at REHEARSING a lie that she practically stutters through phrases like “its a dooozy!” and is choking on each word like it will get her killed. Then the next minute, to save Ted’s business, she’s the best dumb ho in the world? She has on-point answers to every question the IRS grills her with, and is just a ridiculously good character actor all of the sudden? She shows no fear about putting herself in the line of fire like that?

Jesse, who has a Mexican girlfriend, who has Mexican friends, who has lived in Arizona for a long time, at one point deep in the series states, “how am I going to read anything there when the instructions are in Mexican?” Really, he doesn’t know its called Spanish?

I was hoping this season wouldn’t have more of this crap, because I almost died laughing at Hank running away from the RV stand off in the season before that. The guy has been searching for this meth lab for months and months, and then gets a call that his wife is in an accident. At no point does he ask for more details, or to be redirected to someone, because, you know, he’s a fucking cop and he probably can speak to someone I imagine if his wife has been in an accident, hell he might know somebody overseeing the traffic cop who worked the case. But aside from that, he doesn’t think to call his wife till when he’s at the hospital? Just to, you know, see if he couldn’t be the person with the world’s worst timing?

It’s just shoddy writing. Which is annoying, because this series had/has so much potential. I’m falling asleep during this show and not paying attention at all. I miss plot points all the time and frequently don’t figure out anything in a show. I shouldn’t be bothered this much, I know, but I hate being taken out of a show like that.

I really enjoy this show, and want to see Season 5, but…god, Gus was such a good character. I wanted a greater build-up and payoff. I wanted there to be more narrow escapes than, “hey I’m ready for sniper fire” and a more elaborate assassination then “we forgot to check the backyard or if the one button this guy could press is hooked up to an explosive.”""""


Ok so there are a lot of things I agree with here Skyler's character and Giancarlo Esposito incredible acting ability, and even agree that occasionally I would look away from the screen and suddenly have no idea of what was going on, but having then gone back through those episodes before watching the next it is clear that there are so many elements of genius in the story, Gus' death and Walt's ability to manipulate and premeditate everything leading up to it to name just one. To clear it up though, I didn't think Walt was at the Nursing home when the explosion went off, there were too many cars hence why he was listening to the radio to hear confirmation on the news that shit had most certainly hit the fan, but anyhoo Alex's blog post above is genius.

To have a direct link to his blogs, and this one in particular take a look at http://www.pokerheadrush.com/2011/12/14/why-breaking-bad-pisses-me-off/ and look around the site, it's not often you get a poker pro giving readers more substance then "lost a flip for 20k FML"!