![]() 27.30 Walt makes Jesse an offer: you and I partner up, to cook crystal meth. Mid Point The offer Jesse can’t refuse (3mins)Ģ6.00 Walt goes to see Pinkman at night. From now on he will keep secrets – big secrets – mostly for the people he loves the most: his family. My absolute favorite examples are in Episode S2E12 “Phoenix”, which is possibly the best hour of television drama I have ever seen.” In this Second Act, already Walt’s health verdict leads to an immediate change in his behavior – but he is selective to whom he shows it. “Oh my God… Pinkman?” (in underpants).ĭid you realise that both Walt and Jesse are in underpants when we see them on screen for the first time? Breaking Bad is full of delightful parallels. 25.00 Walt sees former student Pinkman sneak out 1st floor window. 24.00 Walt wants to go inside, see the actual lab, has to wait in the car. 23.00 Hank and Gomez wait in the car before the raid. 21.30 DEO officers Hank and Gomez in car with Walter, waiting for the school bus to pass. Walt: “Fuck you – and your eyebrows!” 20.30 Walt calls Hank to asks if the meth raid ride-along offer is still open. 18.30 Walt comes home, Skyler fusses over credit card, asks “how was your day?” Walt: “Fine.” 19.30 Bogdan doesn’t get away with his attitude any longer. “I’ll live maybe another couple of years”. 17.30 Doctor delivers verdict: lung cancer, inoperable. The act ends with the Inciting Incident.ġ6.00 In the ambulance, the paramedic asks Walter: are you a smoker? 17.00 Full body scan. Later, the promise of excitement becomes a visual anticipation when Hank offers Walt to take him along on a meth raid. ![]() Here we are promised that this change will come about. Like all great transformational characters, the audience craves their change. Breaking Bad writer/creator Vince Gilligan is foreshadowing here what will happen to his hero. The thematic statement in this first act is expressed in Walt’s teaching, when he talks about chemistry as the study of ‘change’. This must end, either by death – or excitement. Don’t we all have at least something in common with Walt? He represents the metaphor of someone not really alive but merely getting by. Why doesn’t he just kill himself rightaway? Walter White is surely not the aspirational hero, rather the identificational one. Here is a man whose life can’t possibly get any worse. Skyler gives him a hand job while focusing on her ebay auction. “I’ll take you on a ride along! Get a little excitement!” 13.00 Walt in bed. 12.00 TV report on Hank’s meth lab seizure: $700k. 11.00 Hank shows off his hand gun and Walt reluctantly watches as he gives it to Walt Jr to hold. Skyler is pregnant, her sister Marie with DEA husband Hank. 09.30 The unruly student arrives with car and girlfriend. Boss Bogdan takes advantage of Walt’s compliance. 07.00 Walt teaches chemistry – the study of change. 06.30 Walt arrives at school with his son. ![]() 05.30 50th birthday breakfast: veggie bacon breakfast with wife Skyler and son Walt Jr. Was once member of Nobel winning chemistry team. It’s a familiar technique and Breaking Bad will rely on it often.Ġ4.30 5am and Walt lies in bed, awake. But by moving five minutes of excitement from episode climax to the front, the entire expositional opening becomes palatable. It would have been indigestible, dead boring and plain awful writing. Now this is exactly what Act One shows us, for a full ten minutes. Imagine opening a new TV show by showing the life of a 50-year old goody two-shoes chemistry teacher, whose greatest excitement is getting veggie bacon for breakfast on his birthday. Walter White faces the sirens, ready with a handgun. To camera: “This is not an admission of guilt.” Addesses family. 02.00 Underpants man goes back in, takes a vide camera, puts on a shirt. 01.00 The driver, in underpants, comes out, distressed. Most agree that Breaking Bad offers us the very best of what is currently on the screen – and it all started with a brilliant script.Ġ0.00 An RV with driver and three bodies races through the desert, goes off the road, stuck. The show is loved as much by its audience as by the critics and industry peers. The pilot episode planted this drama series squarely on the map and to my taste, Breaking Bad became an instant classic. With the 5th and final season of Breaking Bad underway, let’s look back at how it started.
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