This format is likely going to be very "figure it out as I go" but for now this is the template I imagine these posts will follow, me pulling together my scattered thoughts into the form of bulletpoints. Also this is a bit longer than I imagine they'll typically be. Pilots, turns out they're important.
TW: Racism, police brutality, misogyny
I think its very funny that I've decided to start this analysis of middle class suburban white guys through a guy literally named Walter H. White. Nomenclature aside this guy is so prototypical American normie that its almost painful. His heavily academic background is clear from the outset, with him staring at his awards for "research contributing to a Nobel Prize". Its the kind of thing the average joe equates with unimaginable success and brilliance and yet as soon as the rest of the world wakes up around him its clear he's struggling to make ends meet. I think it's fitting he's introduced to the audience in his tightie-whities. It's a visual metaphor that works on two levels. One, he's stripped bare, this archetype taken down to its essentials and exposed uncomfortably to the light. Two, he's literally caught with his pants down. Clearly he's in over his head. Its a simple (and effective) means of garnering audience sympathy and endearment. Most of us wouldn't know how to start being a drug kingpin either.
Despite both the high octane chase sequence and the Nobel Prize accolades Walt is pretty quickly brought back down to the audience's level. He handwrings with his wife about what card is appropriate to use to buy printer paper. He clearly feels pretty unfulfilled as a high school teacher, not to mention taking on a second job where he experiences further disrespect. His life seemingly revolves around money, with most of his conversations centering around the topic. There's almost a bureacracy to their home life, with the every day minutiae of coordinating schedules paired with bill discussions, and Skyler's time as a housewife occupied by buying and selling second hand knickknacks and writing short stories for a little bonus income. They're holding down the fort. Like most Americans, however, they're one emergency away from some serious strain. And what an emergency they will get
The veggie bacon is a dark joke made darker by Walter Jr.'s offhand comment that it smells like bandaids. Its a laughably ineffectual solution to what the problem actually is. No one at the table yet realizes Walt's not going to be around long enough to really worry about things like cholesterol.
Speaking of Junior, he's another big reason I wanted to do this rewatch analysis. Naming your child after yourself is already a pretty big red flag. It indicates something that will only be drilled down on further in: Walt sees his family as an extension of his identity. Some due credit, Junior is the subject of very little disability porn in the show. There's no heroic moment of him dragging himself crutchless towards his mother or anything like that. He's a fairly average 17 year old, with the usual flippancy and ego and selfishness and kindness that comes with that territory. However, its undeniable that his cerebral palsy, at minimum in universe, is used as yet another signifier of Walt's emasculation. Instead of strong proud heir he gets a """"broken""""" one. Walt harbors those feelings himself. Him tearing the disabled parking tag off his rearview mirror as he drives home is one of those things that doesn't make Logical sense. Its not like he can be flagged for misusing the tag for parking at his own home, it would've made far more sense to take it off when he left the school without Junior. However, coming on the tail end of him being mocked by his students for cleaning their car, its clear Walt wants to tuck away any other symbols that might indicate he's lesser than. I also want to point forward to him attacking the bullies: the only thing he can think to do is answer humiliation for humiliation, bringing him low by putting him on the level of his son physically ("having a little trouble walking there?") as a punishment. This doesn't change the fact that on a literal level it was probably pretty good for Junior to see his dad punch out some assholes on his behalf. But it does establish a subtext that Walt regards Junior's cerebral palsy as a punishment of some kind
The party scene is a great establishment of Walt's in-laws as our current in-universe standards for gendered performance. Marie snidely remarks on Skyler "showing a little" and Hank's entire scene is nothing but a series of jabs at Walt's masculinity. What I want to zero in on here is the fact that Hank projects a particular kind of blue collar masculine sensibility (as opposed to Walt with his "brain the size of Wisconsin [which] we won't hold...against ya"). He positions himself as a working stiff. Despite this its clear from the house that Hank and Marie are doing a lot better than Walt or Skyler.
This is further expounded on when Walt goes on a ride-along. Which apparently you can just....do. Hank is all jokes and bravado, swaggering up with functionally a fully armed squadron to take down one twenty something guy unaware that they're coming. He gives off the impression of being unrattleable. However, based on the way Hank reacts to Tuco later on, its honestly unclear how much active combat action Hank's actually seen. Not without 10 armored guys going in before him.
Final Hank note. I rarely see discussions of his racism. Little surprising considering how loud and constant it is. Perhaps it feels softened by Steve Gomez there, but the fact of the matter is this is a cop joking blithely about the high numbers of brown people he's arrested and anticipates arresting. Emilio Koyama being half Asian literally doesn't fit into Hank's worldview. He instead has to insist on "at least half a b**ner". This is all so loud and in your face that I have to assume its doing something with this.
After the disastrous handjob on his birthday (god that scene is well done) I think its notable that Walt's first glimpse of his future protege/victim is paired with him stumbling around post coitus. Eroticism being paired with criminality is a major theme in the BBCU and it starts here with Walt ogling the neighbor lady's tits and Jesse's half naked body rolling around off the roof. Its the contradiction at the heart of the character. Crime may be dangerous and the odds may be against you...but to the repressed suburban dad it's nonetheless titillating.
Jesse's own whiteness is worth focusing in on here. Despite the frequent AAVE usage and his pretenses of getting his education from "the STREETS, yo", Jesse's background is a lot closer to someone like Walt than Emilio. His family is also comfortably suburban, enough to want to pretend their burnout son functionally doesn't exist. The fact that Walt found his aunt's address on file makes it likely Jesse inherited her house either in senior year or shortly after, immediately jumping from his parent's home into another house in a nice neighborhood. The "street talk" seems to be an affectation, though likely one that's gone on long enough for it to verge on authentic. Notably, he dials it the hell up when he's around someone like Krazy-8, who he feels a need to perform for (lot of "ese"s and other Spanish tossed around that he doesn't often use when he's speaking to Walt). I think its worth questioning if this is authentic codeswitching, or a performance of a particular kind of (brown) masculinity that Jesse feels called to give in order to fit his mental image of a what a "gangster" is.
Whether or not the language is his authentically its definitely policed. Walt expresses a lot of aggravation with how Jesse talks, for the frequent slang and the imprecise wording. To someone like Walt, who prizes intelligence and education as a sign of worth, someone who says things like "cow houses" can't be worth very much at all.
And speaking of policing, Miami Vice reference brings me neatly into the discomfort Walt feels with addicts. Despite literally planning to profit off of them he nether wants to be involved in the sales process or let Jesse use it. There's a business reason of course, that its just smart not to use the product when it eats out of your profits. But it also starts us on the path of exactly how Jesse is going to be treated as a "junkie"
I wonder if the asshole bully that makes fun of walt jr in the brba pilot saw heisenberg’s picture on the news and was like, “HOLY SHIT?! that’s the psycho old dude that beat me up in the family 1st clothing store!!!”
