Seven episodes of setup, that don’t really have a pay off. Season 1 of Breaking Bad is the shortest season out of the five season show which leads to odd pacing and a season that is just lacking in an overall story. Walter White (Bryan Cranston) is an overqualified high school chemistry teacher who is given the bad news that he has lung cancer. With only a few months to years to live Walt gets desperate to leave behind money for his family, so he resorts to an old student he had and now meth cooker, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). Together Walter and Jesse create and sell the most pure meth you’ve ever seen. The concept of the show is very interesting and I’m positive that the show will get better with more seasons and longer seasons, but it is just with all of the hype surrounding this show I was expecting a better beginning.
The story really picks up once Walter and Jesse make their first batch of meth and try to sell it to Krazy Eight (Max Arciniega). This leads to the first real confrontation as Krazy Eight tries to steal the recipe from Jesse and Walt until Walt ends up killing Krazy Eight’s cousin Emilio and kidnapping Krazy Eight. This is Walter’s first look into what this type of business really is, as Jesse has to disintegrate Emilio’s body and then Walter has to kill Krazy Eight. This is our real first look at Heisenberg, Walter White’s alias to anybody he’s dealing with in the meth industry. Our first official look at Heisenberg is when he goes to deal with the new distributor and ends up bombing the place to get what he wants, which is my favorite scene from all of season 1.
Bryan Cranston obviously did an absolutely phenomenal job as Walter White and I think having the second identity of Heisenberg is very interesting and can and has led to some great moments. Bryan Cranston just places this desperate man, who believes that he is going to die, but just wants to leave his family with money, so that when he is gone it won’t be a struggle to live, which honestly says a lot about our society, about how expensive it is just to live, but I digress. Walter White is a great lead in this show and Bryan Cranston was the perfect casting. The way he is able to show that Walter only really knows what he is doing when is in the lab cooking, but he is also a man without fear, so his actions are so tactless that they somehow just work because you can’t predict what a desperate dying man is about to do next. The way Bryan Cranston is almost able to just play like a thousand different characters in one person is crazy because Walter just has different personalities towards every different person in his life, and it is crazy to see an actor pull that off, without feeling disingenuous to the character’s beliefs and values. Overall Bryan Cranston deserves a lot of praise for his portrayal of Walter White.
Another actor that deserves a lot of praise is Aaron Paul. Jesse is probably my favorite character in the show so far. I think he is hilarious and Aaron Paul just has this ability to play a druggie who is just trying to make his way through life so well, it’s almost alarming. Jesse’s character definitely goes through the most growth as when we first met him he was just trying to make some quick money through drugs, but we see him grow from Walter and expect perfection in his craft. Jesse’s growth might be the most interesting thing this season, as this season was just a big setup for season two, but we first see Jesse depicted as just this uneducated druggie, but throughout the season we see him become more than just a addict and although not the most honest work, he does become a hard worker and a person who has values. We saw when he goes back to his parents how they probably played a part in getting him to where he is, with how perfect and proper they try to be, and how they clearly favor their son that is this supposedly gifted kid who has everything going for him, especially compared to Jesse who clearly had a hard time in school and probably got into drugs by trying to be rebellious towards his parents. He is just, like every human, more than meets the eye and more than just the drugs he does.
Cranston and Paul star in this show, but other side characters definitely make their mark on this show. Anna Gun as Skyler White is the most normal character in this entire show. She’s not a drug dealer, not a thief, not a racist, just a wife who cares about her husband who has been diagnosed with lung cancer, and a mother who cares about the baby in her stomach and her son who has cerebral palsy. I have heard that she becomes one of the most annoying characters in the show, but all I can say is that after season one, she is definitely not. Honestly, I think that title may go to Marie or Hank. They both are just kind of there sometimes and I just don’t care about their characters sometimes, like if the story isn’t about Walter and Jesse dealing drug stuff or Skyler dealing with being the wife to Walter, I just don’t care about the story that much, like they are trying to give Marie (Betsy Brandt) a story of being a thief and I just don’t understand why, like one she is the wife of a police officer and two I just feel like there is no real reason to give her this story as the show isn’t and shouldn’t be about her. The only reason to give her this story I can think of is to make what Walt is doing seem better or more understandable and more reasonable like any person could be committing criminal acts and you wouldn’t even know it. Pertaining to her husband, Hank (Dean Norris) I just find him annoying, so the less screen time he has the more enjoyment I feel.
A show is only as good as its villain. This season doesn’t have a real clear villain. You could honestly argue any character depending on who’s eyes you look through. Walter and Jesse are literal drug dealers and Walt is a murderer, Skyler, Marie, and Hank just keep getting in the way of Walt, Krazy Eight was the main villain for a bit, but then Walt killed him, and Tuco wasn’t in enough episodes to really call him the main villain. There’s just a whole bunch of characters doing morally wrong stuff, or getting in the way of our protagonists that there isn’t a main villain like a Darth Vader or Joker. I think it works/can work for this show, as if this is supposed to be believable, like this can happen in real life then not having a big villain makes sense, because most people don’t have this bigger than life archenemy like Harry and Voldemort, but most of us have people that we don’t like and just make our lives harder like Harry and Umbridge. I did not expect to have two Harry Potter references in a Breaking Bad review, but here we are.
Overall the show is good, but it isn’t anything crazy. I am expecting better seasons to come, otherwise I’m going to be annoyed because all the hype surrounding this show has got me excited for what is to come. But for this season I have to admit I am disappointed. The entirety of this season was just to set up for a season two. If I feel like somebody could’ve just told me what happened and then I just started on season two and feel like I hadn’t missed anything then I can’t be that impressed with the show.
7.0/10 ☆
7.0/10 😁
It’s a good show, it just isn’t anything special. It has an interesting concept that as it is explored more will be better, I just can’t pretend that I would rewatch this season. It does get a raise in enjoyability due to how short it is. I was kind of excited for the seven episode format, because I thought I was going to fly through this series, but next season they almost doubled their runtime. Thirteen episodes isn’t that bad, as other shows I have watched have been up to twenty some odd episodes and just as long episodes, but the difference is I really enjoyed the twenty episodes of those shows, whereas the first seven episodes of Breaking Bad were just alright. I can’t rate it any lower however, because the concept of the show is very interesting and I really think I will enjoy later seasons more than this.
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