Love, Hate, and Breaking Bad
Editorsâ Note: Friend of the show Eric Schneider submitted an op-ed to us on the end of Breaking Bad and morality in TV shows. We thank him for his contribution, and hope you enjoy his review!
No more half-spoilers, reader. That being said, full spoilers for all of Breaking Bad ahead.
Thereâs a never-ending list of topics one could discuss about Breaking Bad. Color theory. Foreshadowing. Character development. The episode Fly. Moralityâthatâs the big one.
People talk about when Walt broke bad. When did the seemingly innocuous chemistry teacher become the evil man we all couldnât stop watching? Itâs not a hard question really; Walt breaks bad in episode one when he decides to cook meth. Anyone in general population would say that cooking meth is a wrong even under the threat of unpayable cancer bills.
Iâm not going to talk about morality in Breaking Bad because I donât think thatâs what the show is about because the morality of Breaking Bad doesnât walk a line and hover in a gray area. It leaps towards hell and into darkness.
Breaking Bad is not a show about evil. It is a show about love.
Walt loves his family; Jesse loves Andrea and Brock; Hank loves the Heisenberg case and Marie, and minerals; Mike loves his granddaughter; Gus (probably) loved his partner that the cartel kills during their first meeting. Almost everyone in the show is in some way motivated and often corrupted because of love.
The earliest love chronologically in the show is between Walt and Gretchen. They were together during the early stages of Gray Matter but for reasons unknown she leaves him. After that she begins to date Elliot and Walt sells his shares and leaves the promising start up. Itâs because of this love that many of the events of Breaking Bad transpire. After only a few cooks Waltâs treatment is offered to be paid for by Elliot and Gretchen and he could be out. The show could end right here. But because of his pride or past love he refuses.
Walt also love his family. He loves Skyler, Walt Jr., and Holly. He starts all of this because of them. He needs $747,000 to provide for themâthat number is why he starts. He wants the best for them. After his death he wants Skyler to live comfortably and Walt Jr. and Holly to have an easy life and go to college and have a promising future. Now he wouldnât have to keep cooking meth if he didnât have this lost love or pride issue with Gretchen.
Walt loves cooking meth. We wanted 62 episodes for him to say it but finally in the finale Walt says to Skyler:
âI did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And, I was really⌠I was alive.â
This is true; Walt wasnât just saying this appease her. Just because this is true doesnât make the fact that in some way he did it for her too; it got out of control because he loved it. He needed $747k and ended up with $80⌠million.
He loves the science. Cooking with Jesse probably felt a lot like writing on chalkboards with Elliot decades prior. Walt was stuck in an unfulfilling teaching job and working part time at a car wash where his students mocked him as he shined their parents cars. How could he not love the life of Heisenberg? Heisenberg was unstoppable, powerful, and respected. He loved Heisenberg because it was this new part of him that could do anything; Heisenberg let Walt provide for his family, fill his pride, and do something he liked. That made him feel alive.
These three loves, in one way or another, corrupt Walter Hartwell White and turn him into Heisenbergâthe man who, in his eyes, would do anything protect his family. Walt, like every character in Breaking Bad, loved something or someone and because of that he caused the people around him to die or hate him. Breaking Bad touches on many things, but none more prevalent than what happens when you love something so blindly that you fail to see the consequences of your actions.
Image Credit: âBreaking Badâ by ADN-z (x)