Breaking Bad - Season 3 - Page 12

You thought wrong. "Fly" is brilliant.

The sense I get is this episode is a bit of a divider. I can see why, the plot doesn't progress too much and nothing really happens to the story overall.

One thing I was going to post but forgot to was how much I love when a story veers off its paved path. Where you're at point A and all you have to do is go to point B bores me. I'm going to sound even more stuffy than I usually do but Ray Bradbury has a quote, "digression is the soul of wit. Take the philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or Hamlet's father's ghost and what stays is dry bones." "Fly" is an attempt at getting to the core of what this show is about. The teacher and student dynamic, their neurosis, and their not black, not white, moral natures. It's stuff that is delicious to take in.

I don't know what it really adds though. That Walt's kind of crazy? That Walt's personality and relationship with Jesse is strong enough to get Jesse to participate and even eventually relate to his insanity?

I don't remember every detail of the episode but I just kind of felt like it was a bit of 'digression' that I don't think really added enough to justify its existence. With a show as tightly paced and the scarcity of episodes as Breaking Bad I just don't really need to see an episode like this.

People can disagree and like similar stuff for different reasons. Your first paragraph actually sounds like a good enough premise for an episode for me.

But anyway, post episode 11 "Abiqui":

Skyler: "If you're going to money launder you can at least do it right, Walt."

Wow. Things are sort of running in place this episode but what's happening with Skylar, maybe my favorite character on the show, is truly fascinating. I know that Jesse wrote about the idea of duplicity, of repetition, being present in Lost, but I think its even more present in Breaking Bad. We see characters falling into the same spinning spiral one after another. And it starts off the same way, with one little immoral act leading to greater and badder things. It's like Walt was saying in "Fly", that the events occurring to these characters don't make sense in a universe made of chaotic tiny particles. More like they are living in a universe controlled by old school Greek Gods, intent on enforcing a strict moral code.

EDIT: Speeding through and got to ep 12: "Half-measures"

Mike: "Moral of the story, I picked a half-measure, when I should have gone all the way."

Other than immediately smacking of iconic (and how often do you see that happening?), Mike's speech also laid down one of the sacrosanct rules of the crime genre. How many times have we seen a character indulge in an uncharacteristic bout of altruism or a temporary moral failing then pay heavily for it? And in this show, how many times have we seen Jesse or Walt use a "half-measure" when a better choice would have been to be completely merciless or not bother doing anything at all? And with this episode, with one of our characters, the vacillation is over. Jesse might have said he was the bad guy but Walt proved it. What a fucking journey it's been to watch Walt's transformation to this cold-blooded character that can blow out a crippled man's brains out. When watching the chicken shack scene, I thought of how oddly out of place Walt looked with Mike, Gus, and the other hardened criminals surrounding him. Man was I wrong.

Last thing, the cinematography of this show is jaw dropping. Michael Slovis is a god. The eerie green backlight in the motel room with Jesse and the prostitute was amazing. It sold the moment as an uneasy, alien, and just fundamentally wrong. With lighting!

Looks like a good discussion here, so I'll have to read through the whole thread soon.

Damnit, I wish this would just hurry up and return before next year. Anybody know why it's being delayed? I love this show to pieces, but when marathon watching it, I felt it lost some momentum by season 3. Think I'm a little paranoid - even with my favorite shows - after everythng that didn't happen in the final season of LOST. In any case, I really miss BREAKING BAD.

Don't know if it's the official reason, but I read where Cranston stated that AMC is hoping a Summer launch will give the show more attention and less competition among all the network first-run shows that air in the spring.

Even if "Fly" wasn't brilliant in its own right, which it is, the slower segments of the show are crucial to achieving the tone that makes it unique. By padding out and settling in to the stretches between the fireworks, it builds up the sense of constant dread that has crept over Walt's life, and makes the show so impossibly tense even on fairly uneventful weeks. The fact that the show is so unconventional with its set-up/pay-off structure and uneven pacing allows it to play with our implicit assumptions about televised storytelling and Chekov's gun to keep us truly unbalanced. Most shows would not have ramped up and resolved the Tuco situation as quickly as it did, or put the Cousins in Walt's bedroom an episode after their introduction, or resolve their story in that particular time and manner, or to tease the entire second season around a holocaust on the White homefront only to reveal that it was an external disaster that our protagonist was only related to in a tangential or karmic fashion.

That genuine unpredictability is what infuses even the quiet scenes with creeping paranoia, and also allows for a very particular form of realism in that once shit does go bad, it all unravels so goddamn fast. Not that the situations aren't heightened, but that's a very raw, real feeling that few shows are able to create. And it wouldn't be possible if the plot was always moving forward in a full bore, 5th gear fashion.

You're onto something here. Seppinwall has this great quote in his recap of "One Minute." Because the show is so good at dismantling our expectations, it leaves us in a rare position of ignorance and anxiety. We know no more than the characters we are watching. That is new and scary ground.

So, my perspective on episode 13 "Full Measure":

Walt: "Why be cautious? We have nowhere to go but up."

Just like the name of the episode states, this is a further cementing of the new status quo. Walt is the premier bad guy of Breaking Bad and any possibility of redemption disappears by the end of the episode. After watching the episode last night, what stuck with me is a feeling of sadness. These characters are damned. And not through some sort of cosmic mandate or quirk of fate, but through their own actions and natures. One of the truly great things about this season is that all the events that had happened did not seem imposed. They arose naturally from preceding events and characterization. Walt and Jesse could have avoided what happens by the end of the episode, but don't because of their internal choices. And that's truly the sad thing here. The nice scientist getting shot in the face was sad too.

Other thoughts:

- Saul breaks "good", perhaps the only character on this show to do so.

- I've often watched shows and movies and watched couples interact and think, "why the hell are they together in the first place?" It was great to see a moment of time where you can see Walt and Sklyar actually acting like an honest to god couple, joking with each other and just showing that they really enjoy each others company. Makes the contrast with the present day quite striking. And showing Farah Fawcett era Skylar kind of shows that the marriage had also changed her by the first episode of Breaking Bad.

- The shooting of the plain and harsh Arizona countryside is John Fordian (Fordesqe? Fordy?) in its ubiquity. It's a character on its own right.

- Gus gave the order to kill that kid. People working for someone as methodical and controlling as him wouldn't have done it on their own. And Mike seemed to give a quick, hard to read (and arguable) look that seemed to confirm it. By the way, Jonathan Banks is stupendous.

- Speaking of Banks, I really did appreciate the Shaft meets Aborigine horn-blowing soundtrack to his shoot-out in the warehouse. In a show that manages to regularly out-do itself stylistically, I thought it was an especially cool touch.

- I can't emphasize enough how great Breaking Bad is for building enough characterization for its characters that you can actually predict their actions. That's rare. And in this episode, there was enough detail placed in set design and costume for Gale, a post-grad intellectual complete with overflowing book shelf, world music tastes, and fleece jumper, to be fleshed out in two scenes. With set design and costume!

- The last shot of the episode really enforces the idea that while Walt might be "breaking bad" during the course of the show, Jesse is just being broken.

Watching this show has been exhilarating and draining.

Holy shit, that's a great summation.

As for Mike The Cleaner's soundtrack for badassery, that's a preexisting Beastie Boys song: Shambala.

Somebody with more disposable income than me really should bid on this.

I was drunk and bid... not wise, I'm kinda hoping someone else picks it up, lol.

Alan's interview with Vince is great. I have no idea what season 4 will show.
Just to emphasize it even more "The Fly" is brilliant.

I wonder if Heisenberg will try to get some leverage through brains or via brute force. The episode when White rescued Jesse with an explosion was a great blend of both.
Gus role is the more anticipated stuff for the next season.

So I've been going through the show finally, and Fly might be my favorite episode of the series. That or One Minute with the No Country for Old Men-esque standoff between Hank and the twins.

It's like watching Of Unknown Origin in a meth lab!

Last week's episode of Community did a good job of helping me articulate why it wasn't my favorite episode. Basically, from the start, you know it's going to be a bottle episode. And all of the emotional beats it hits are the same that are hit in almost any bottle episode. It's just a bit too obvious how it will play out and while the individual performances are fine. I'm disappointed that they felt they needed to squander an episode like that.

Just blew through three seasons of this show in like two weeks.  Loved almost every second. I didn't love the second season finale, but otherwise, the intensity keeps me from taking a breath most of the 45 minutes run time.  Holy shite. I love this show.

Just finished season 3. Yeah, I'm way late to the party. 

I was saying to wifey, "I still don't think Walt's done anything unforgivable." I understand the arc, that's he's turning into a villain, but I haven't seen any villainy yet. Just fucked up responses to fucked up situations. Until they corner Walt into a cage, and he decides he has to kill Gail. Well shit, I say, even if it's necessary, that's pretty fucking unforgivable.

 

And, of course, the writers execute the predicament with grace and skill, and you're left sympathizing with Walt, because damn, "if it's me and you or Gail, then I;m genuinely sorry, but it's him." But even then, they amp it up, and get a gun pointed directly at Walt with the decision in balance.

So I'll say this, not knowing when exactly I'll be in a position to actually watch Season 4, but feeling greatly confident that Season 3 is the best thing I've ever watched on TV: when Walt finally bites it, you will all feel very bad for him. He didn't choose to break bad. Bad broke all over him.

 

The series, in my opinion, keeps getting better. I happy as hell I have friends with DVRs for season 4 because I don't get TV at my house(even local channels). I'm just scared they're going to go off the rails somehow, and they keep surprising me. Closest they came was the season 2 finale, all the coincidences and all that, and they still did interesting things with it in season 3, almost like they knew they had slipped-up a bit.

I don't understand why people arent bigger fans of the second season finale. It was one of the coolest, ballsiest things I've ever seen on TV. I mean, what a way of illustrating the far-reaching consequences of Walt's selfishness and that fact that he's pretty much a literal walking disaster. He's basically become the drama version of Larry David in Curb.

Yea, my problem with The Fly is that its just a little too heavy-handed.  I definitely liked the episode, but as you mention its a little obvious how it will play out as a character study once it starts, which is why I found it a little boring.

 

The whole show is a lengthy character study of a man changing from a chemistry teacher to Scarface. The Fly shows us Walt's own perspective on his development over the show up til that point which is juxtaposed by his self-destructive prideful efforts to kill the fly. Its not really important to the plot, but it reflects the main arc of the whole series.

 

I liked the episode because any character going through profound changes in his life as Walt is, should have moments of self-reflection from time to time.  And obviously The Fly also reflects Walt's irrationality, but that's my main problem with the episode.  It always felt like Walt was pushed to the point of irrationality or it came about believably due to his situation, but in this case it felt like he was just acting out and out irrational in order for the episode to reflect the main arc and his development in the show, it felt a little forced.  Despite his well established pettiness and bouts of irrationality, I didn't buy Walt putting himself in danger and going to the lengths he did in the episode all over a fly.  

 

Its a smart episode, and I certainly appreciate it, but I felt like the themes were driving the plot to the point of not being completely natural or believable.

 

Edit:  Whoops, I didn't realise this was the season three thread.  Thought this was a current discussion.

Edited by Nabster - 9/15/11 at 9:31am

Now I wish Cronenberg had directed that episode instead of the Brick guy.

 

 

 

The scene itself doesn't work for me like it's supposed to, however I do feel that Walt's "what you're left with casualty wise, is just the 50th worst air disaster" justifies the season 2 finale all by itself.
 

 

 

Not to mention the scene where Walt tries to parlay the tragedy into getting out of ticket.  The smash cut to the back of the police car had me spewing beer all over the room.

Lol, that would've been awesome actually.  I didn't even know Rian Johnson directed that episode, that's pretty cool.

 

Brilliant performances all around tonite.

Wrong thread, dude.

Oops.. posted in the wrong thread here too. Ought to read the thread titles next time, eh? :)

Edited by Anjin - 9/18/11 at 8:39pm

Just posting so your spoiler (in the wrong thread, no less) isn't on the main forum index.

Moved a post, sorry for confusion. Hope I don't cause more by bumping this.

Just blazed through the rest of Season 3 thanks to Netflix Instant.  Damn, I wish I could've experienced the show with you all.  LATE TO THE PARTY!

 

 

mcnooj, I'm glad to have found another person who sees the Jonathan Banks/Jackie Chan thing. I knew I wasn't going crazy!

Hey, I'm someone who used to think Jackie Chan and Dustin Hoffman shared a resemblance.

 

Between Chan and Banks... it's the eyes and the nose!  But I would've never thought about it unless you had brought it up.