Skip to main content

ENDING GOOD - SPOILER ALERT

Breaking Bad's claim to be the best TV series ever is perhaps weak - there have, after all, been many zeitgeist shows like M*A*S*H, All In The Family, Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, Get Smart, Star Trek, X-Files, Twin Peaks, Brideshead Revisited, Columbo, Prime Suspect, House of Cards, Prison Break, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Inspector Morse, The Killing, Mad Men, The Wire, Homeland, The Sopranos, etc, to vie for such an accolade.  However, if the category is changed to best American drama series of the contemporary era (post-80s), then the list narrows - and one is left with perhaps a shortlist of Mad Men, The Wire, and The Sopranos, to seriously contest its supremacy; and then it becomes clear just how good these 62 episodes, as a whole are.

It is a very Aristotelian tragedy - for the most part, it centres on an extended family, in one general location, over a limited time span of two or so years, from cancer diagnosis, to cancer remission, to cancer return, to death by machine gun wound.  The main character starts good, and due to a tragic flaw best summed up as hubris (he discovers he is good at cooking Meth, and organising criminal activity, and enjoys it too much to stop), ends up very bad.  The writing is consistent across all episodes, the acting always excellent, and most episodes begin well and end on a stunning twist.  Each season advanced the plot, increased the moral tension, and also always ended on a high note.

At times, the machinations of the lead character, Walter White/ Heisenberg (a Whitmanesque everyman) astonished the most clever prognosticators among the fanbase - the series was always one step ahead, and, in the last eight or so episodes, reached a sublime state (except for episode 61, the weakest) of expectation and fulfilment that seemed like the crowds waiting for the latest Dickens instalment by the ports.  It is unlikely, as other critics have said, that we will experience such a seamlessly-crafted, morally driven, visionary, original, and concise show again in our lifetime.  It never strayed.  It always knew what it was doing.

For instance, there is no sexism and little sexual violence in any of the episodes - it was never exploitative.  Instead, the series relentlessly asked a good question - what happens to a man's soul if he does whatever he can, and keeps getting away with it?  What happens next?  Well, he ends up with dead friends and family, traumatised loved ones, and millions of dollars in barrels stolen by neo-Nazis. He ends up dead.  Crime did not pay.  Some will complain that White offed the gang at the end too easily, and that the contraption he devised was not chemistry.  He was an engineer of his own human soul's descent, he could build a toy gun if he wanted to.  I will miss this show deeply.  It is classic.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

CLIVE WILMER'S THOM GUNN SELECTED POEMS IS A MUST-READ

THAT HANDSOME MAN  A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought.  Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se.  What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".