Quote:
Originally Posted by bhutocracy
A. I don't really turn on my TV unless I have acquired something specifically to watch and B. It's the context. I wouldn't be tearing it apart if it didn't stand in stark relief with the rest of the series. It's coming to expect a high bar which then isn't met. Like going to your favorite resturant expecting confit duck in a sticky cherry sauce with a smear of parsnip and thyme puree and side of duck baklava and being served up a lukewarm grilled sandwich. If all they ever did was serve grilled sandwiches I wouldn't complain that much, I probably wouldn't ever go there in the first place, but I wouldn't be expecting much more if I did. BB is/was easily a top 5 TV show of all time, up with the usual suspects like The Wire , Sopranos, Mad Men etc etc. But these last episodes are threatening that status with shitty writing. Currently I'm watching Boardwalk Empire and BB, Treme will start soon and that should continue to be decent. In a lower tier of shows that I keep up with but don't rate highly - Dexter, Trueblood, Walking Dead and Homeland. However with those shows I know I'm just getting a grilled sandwich.. and with Trueblood it's basically a hollow brain dead sandwich. I don't expect that much from them so I'm not disappointed. Walking Dead in particular is cursed with the kind of bad writing I'm talking about. Characters that do one thing one episode and do a complete irrational U turn the next.. Where zombies teleport right behind people, where a bad guy can chase someone and magically find them like they are a homing needle in a haystack, where one guy can kill 30 zombies but another guy can't fight off 1, where people randomly decide not to kill people they really, really should. It took them 2 entire seasons of fighting zombies with guns that drew in more zombies before they realised maybe, just maybe silencers were a good idea. I literally thanked the TV screen the first scene they used one and said a silent thank you to the writer for having half a brain. I probably would have given up after season two if the writing didn't IMMEDIATELY get better in season 3 after some writers were laid off and new smarter people came on. It's still pretty lame but watchable.
Anyways because BB has proven to be so epically great in the past, when it is just average with the kind of writing you expect in far shittier shows it REALLY STANDS OUT.. like a turd in caviar. Having your suspension of disbelief splattered all over the floor from bad writing really does ruin it.. I don't want to be thinking about the writers.. I want to be engrossed in the characters, which means they have to behave in vaguely realistic ways. You'll notice I never said the characters SHOULDN'T be on the arcs they're on, just that they needed better writing and/or more time to make these actions believable and not seemingly entirely arbitrary. I'm more like a tiger mom than a hater. I only want the best out of the show and don't feel I need to uncritically praise it no matter what just because it's generally better than whatever other stupid shit is on TV.
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Fair enough.
I too consider the show to be among the best shows ever along with Sopranos, The Wire etc.
I look at it like this. Walt is not some hardened criminal mastermind who has spent the last 20 years building a criminal empire. He is a high school chemistry teacher who got cancer and decided to take a risk in order to get money for his family before he dies. They showed how inept he was at things when he started in the opening of this last episode as he practiced how he was going to lie to Skylar.
He got himself pulled into it further than he likely ever expected. I remember early in the show his goal was to make something like $700K. There were setbacks and bumps in the road and he grew out of need and kind of made things up as he went along.
So when he suddenly does something out of character I forgive that. The same with many of the other characters. They are all living in uncharted waters and now it is all crashing down on them. People are strange. I know people in my everyday life who occasionally do things that are out of character for them. Here they are used as plot devices, but I can overlook that. If everyone acted exactly as they have throughout the show could go on for another 10 years with it just being one long stalemate. Somebody has to break for the walls to crumble.
The reality was upon Walt that the end was here. The gig was up. Once he knew that Hank knew the truth it was over. Hank wasn't just going to look the other way and Hank wasn't a guy he could just kill and be done with. At best Hank never gets enough on him to arrest him and his family is forever fractured by this. At worst Hank puts him in jail and his family is forever fractured by this. Hank, in reality, was a bigger threat to him than anyone else. That put immense pressure on him because for the first time Walt wasn't 100% sure how to deal with a problem.
When the empire crumbles around you and the pressure comes crashing in on you as you try to juggle all the lies and deceit you have built up, people do strange things. Nero fiddled, Hector stood tall and defiant, Hitler killed himself and Walter White crumbled, begged for the life of his brother in law and was willing to trade what he had worked, killed, lied and stole to accumulate to do so. I'm fine with that.