Friday, September 27, 2013

Breaking Bad: Kafkaesque

AMC is running all 61 episodes up until the finale. Episode 29 is titled "Kafkaesque."

Jesse Pinkman uses the word in a meeting with Badger and Skinny Pete.

Last night on his show, Stephen Colbert brought up his Americone Dream flavored Ben & Jerry's ice cream which was mentioned on Breaking Bad. Vince Gillgan will be on the show Monday night.

The next episode, 30, is titled "The Fly." Walter White speculates that if he had died before going to Jesse's house the night Jane died, it would have been perfect, but things went bad after that after his bad decision to let Jane die and then he coincidently runs into her father (Q) at a bar. Before bringing the money to Jesse - he was withholding it until Jesse got clean, but Jane blackmailed him into bringing it - he was at home listening to Skyler sing a lullabye to Holly via the baby moniter. And he was watching a Nature program on TV. Skyler hadn't found out about his cooking yet.

From start to finish, Breaking Bad has echoed the uncannily similar—and equally good—cop show The Shield. by Mark Peters

I enjoyed The Shield which put F/X on the map. It was no-holds-barred and pretty crazy as a pressure cooker where the protagonists turned on one another. Breaking Bad seems more intellectual and more darkly comic like a Coen brothers film. It's very, very slightly cartoonish with charactes that can be funny like Walt, Jesse, Hank and the assorted hoodlums and it's very realistic in the dark themes it explores. The Shield was kind of cynical as a cop can get cynical dealing with criminals day in and day out. The cops view civil liberties and following the rules as overrated. It had a lot of "enemy of my enemy is my friend" where the protagonists used bad guys against one another. Realpolitik. Small misdomeaners were overlooked.

Emily Rios who played Andrea is on The Bridge. Michelle MacLaren who directed and produced also directed episodes for Game Of Thrones.

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