It’s been a year since television’s finest hour of drama was on the air but this Sunday Breaking Bad returns for its fourth season. It’s difficult to express exactly what the show has become since its high-concept beginning. For those who are completely in the dark, Breaking Bad is about the exploits of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a high school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with lung cancer and turns to producing and selling pure crystal meth in order to support his family and pay his medical bills. White enlists the help of a former student turned middling drug dealer Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) and together they provide delicious meth for the children of New Mexico. Along the way they run into the usual: Drug cartels, twin assassins, elderly men who can only communicate via bells and sexually unsatisfied women.
The biggest asset in Breaking Bad’s favor is clearly the acting. Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul have been handsomely rewarded by Emmy voters but the supporting players such as Anna Gunn and Bob Odenkirk turn pretty typical stock characters (the angry wife! the bizarre low-rent lawyer!) into complex people. Showrunner Vince Gilligan (of X-Files fame) and the writers are masters at building tension. The best example of this is last year’s bottle episode “Fly” which consisted of the two main actors spending forty-plus minutes trying to swat a fly in a meth lab. The quality of the writing and depth of the performances was so incredible that it felt as action-packed as its cliffhanger finale.
Another thing that separates the show from other cable dramas is really how gorgeous it looks, all without the use of elaborate set pieces. Apologies to the great people of Albuquerque who are probably miffed everyone thinks they are meth-heads but the cinematographers do a great job with the location and capturing the natural beauty of the desert. The show can move at a snail’s pace for much of an episode only to pay off which some rapid bursts of action at the end and the visual tone accounts for that. I’m no expert on these matters but a lot of the shots pay homage to old Westerns.
Much like The Sopranos and The Shield, who paved the way for ultra-serious, ultra-dark dramas to be the norm these days audiences are basically subjected to a constant barrage of the supposed protagonist of the show doing vile things. Unlike those shows, Breaking Bad does not start with the protagonist already mired in moral ambiguity. Instead we see, slowly, just how years of repressed rage and inhibitions have built up in Walter White and how the thrill of illegal drug trafficking brings those emotions out. How much one can stomach really depends on the audience but I find this steady decline fascinating.
A final note of warning to people who are just getting started: The show moves insanely slow in the first season. The pace picks up considerably afterwards so if you stick with it I really doubt you will be disappointed. Also, please avoid spoilers in the comments.
