The average human watches five hours of television a day. That can fit five full episodes of Breaking Bad into one sitting.
The sheer abundance of episodes make for a great watching marathon, and you will likely love every second of it. It shows, in depth, the rise and fall of a Chemistry teacher named Walter White. 62 hours of Breaking Bad are currently up, as the last episode aired on September 29, 2013. Although the show might seem old, the relevance of the story keeps the audience intrigued and interested.
Without spoiling too much of the plot, the down fall of Walter White has many different thematic meanings, including the “darkness” that envelopes Walt’s life, as shown in the darker clothes that he wears during the finale of the show. The show also gets slightly darker as it goes on. I could talk about the themes of the show all day, however, one sticks out above all.
The absolute despair on Walt’s face as he learns that he has cancer is heartbreaking. Any father would want to spend as much time with his family, as Walter attempts to do. However, he makes the mistake to hide his cancer diagnosis from his family. Cancer treatments are expensive, as many know. Walter is a teacher, and Skyler, his wife, is unemployed as she is pregnant. The easiest way he sees to solve this problem is to cook drugs with one of his old students, Jesse Pinkman.
Walter, however, fails to realize that by cooking a certain… uh, unnamed drug with his student is more risky than anything else he could’ve thought of. You see, Walter helped found a company called Grey Matter with his friend Elliot. Walter quit the company before it became successful, resulting in no pay out for him. Grey Matter later became extremely successful, making billions. Elliot later found out about Walter’s cancer diagnosis and offers him back into the company, with health insurance. Instead of accepting, Walter sees this as pity from Elliot and denies his offer. This shows how, even in the face of a person who wants to help, he turns it down due to his pride.
Before I sum up the whole show, the overall appeal of this show pulls you in and helps you understand anything you don’t exactly pick up on at the start. One episode in particular happens in season three. Episode ten, “Fly,” You see, flies have been a repeating theme in Breaking Bad, signifying guilt, irrational obsession, and loss of control in Walter’s life. Walter attempting to ill this fly shows how little control he has, and also how obsessive and controlling he is to those around him, especially when he is working with his accomplice, Jesse Pinkman. This one episode signifies almost all we need to know about Walter. He will stop at nothing to get what he wants, and no matter how much he says it is for his family, he is selfish and does it for himself.