Breaking Bad

[mrcat1990]

If TSAR thinks Breaking Bad had plotholes he should stay clear of the History Channel and all their programmes on the so-called "World War II".

Let's start with the bad guys. Battalions of stormtroopers dressed in all black, check. Secret police, check. Determination to brutally kill everyone who doesn't look like them, check. Leader with a tiny villain mustache and a tendency to go into apopleptic rage when he doesn't get his way, check. All this from a country that was ordinary, believable, and dare I say it sometimes even sympathetic in previous seasons.

I wouldn't even mind the lack of originality if they weren't so heavy-handed about it. Apparently we're supposed to believe that in the middle of the war the Germans attacked their allies the Russians, starting an unwinnable conflict on two fronts, just to show how sneaky and untrustworthy they could be? And that they diverted all their resources to use in making ever bigger and scarier death camps, even in the middle of a huge war? Real people just aren't that evil. And that's not even counting the part where as soon as the plot requires it, they instantly forget about all the racism nonsense and become best buddies with the definitely non-Aryan Japanese.

Not that the good guys are much better. Their leader, Churchill, appeared in a grand total of one episode before, where he was a bumbling general who suffered an embarrassing defeat to the Ottomans of all people in the Battle of Gallipoli. Now, all of a sudden, he's not only Prime Minister, he's not only a brilliant military commander, he's not only the greatest orator of the twentieth century who can convince the British to keep going against all odds, he's also a natural wit who is able to pull out hilarious one-liners practically on demand. I know he's supposed to be the hero, but it's not realistic unless you keep the guy at least vaguely human.

So it's pretty standard "shining amazing good guys who can do no wrong" versus "evil legions of darkness bent on torture and genocide" stuff, totally ignoring the nuances and realities of politics. The actual strategy of the war is barely any better. Just to give one example, in the Battle of the Bulge, a vastly larger force of Germans surround a small Allied battalion and demand they surrender or be killed. The Allied general sends back a single-word reply: "Nuts!". The Germans attack, and, miraculously, the tiny Allied force holds them off long enough for reinforcements to arrive and turn the tide of battle. Whoever wrote this episode obviously had never been within a thousand miles of an actual military.

Probably the worst part was the ending. The British/German story arc gets boring, so they tie it up quickly, have the villain kill himself (on Walpurgisnacht of all days, not exactly subtle) and then totally switch gears to a battle between the Americans and the Japanese in the Pacific. Pretty much the same dichotomy - the Japanese kill, torture, perform medical experiments on prisoners, and frickin' play football with the heads of murdered children, and the Americans are led by a kindly old man in a wheelchair.

Anyway, they spend the whole season building up how the Japanese home islands are a fortress, and the Japanese will never surrender, and there's no way to take the Japanese home islands because they're invincible...and then they realize they totally can't have the Americans take the Japanese home islands so they have no way to wrap up the season.

So they invent a completely implausible superweapon that they've never mentioned until now. Apparently the Americans got some scientists together to invent it, only we never heard anything about it because it was "classified". In two years, the scientists manage to invent a weapon a thousand times more powerful than anything anyone's ever seen before - drawing from, of course, ancient mystical texts. Then they use the superweapon, blow up several Japanese cities easily, and the Japanese surrender. Convenient, isn't it?

...and then, in the entire rest of the show, over five or six different big wars, they never use the superweapon again. Seriously. They have this whole thing about a war in Vietnam that lasts decades and kills tens of thousands of people, and they never wonder if maybe they should consider using the frickin' unstoppable mystical superweapon that they won the last war with. At this point, you're starting to wonder if any of the show's writers have even watched the episodes the other writers made.

I'm not even going to get into the whole subplot about breaking a secret code (cleverly named "Enigma", because the writers couldn't spend more than two seconds thinking up a name for an enigmatic code), the giant superintelligent computer called Colossus (despite this being years before the transistor was even invented), the Soviet strongman whose name means "Man of Steel" in Russian (seriously, between calling the strongman "Man of Steel" and the Frenchman "de Gaulle", whoever came up with the names for this thing ought to be shot).

So yeah. Stay away from the History Channel TSAR. Unlike Breaking Bad, they don't even try to make their stuff believable.

LOOOOOL. That was epic.

[P.C]

There will always been plot holes in anything you watch if you look at it hard enough, providing they don't undermine or time away from the story then let it go. For the amount of dialogue and plot that gets covered by the writers there will always be gaps

Tho lets take an example of a complaint prior to the finale that Walt couldn't possibly of got out the bar and away before the police arrived. The first scene in the last episode immediately addresses that

No show made is infalable, and lets face it the plot holes are the last thing that people will talk about for this quality series

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

Some toys out the pram stuff here. Just accept the finale and the whole ending was like a bad fan fiction. Everything tidied up with Walter getting the heroes ending and Jesse getting away scot free when those things were either very contrived or very unlikely given the plot of the show.

I hate that the show just skipped over the 4 months or so that Jesse was imprisoned by neo-Nazis as their meth slave, instead focussing on Walter's trauma of choosing to go into hiding. It was a white washing of Walter White. The show was about the reprehensible acts of a man that covered up his evil by blaming his cancer and the delusion that he was doing it for his family. The admission is the finale was great but Skyler should have called the cops rather than let him see the baby.

For a man who admits that he was motivated by his own selfishness seems to do an awful lot of making amends in the last act. Maybe it was an epiphany and he suddenly changed his ways but that didn't stop him murdering Lydia or massacring Jack and his gang. If he had truly seen how wrong he was he would have given himself up or committed suicide like Marie had suggested. There should have been no redemption for Walter Whyte like there was no redemption for Vic Mackie or Tony Soprano.

As for Jesse and his miracle escape. He is in the middle of nowhere with cops coming from all directions, how likely is it he even gets a few miles? Not to mention the finger prints and Marie's knowledge, Skyler is going to have to tell the authorities everything including all the things she knows about Jesse to get her deal.

[Mr. Brightside]

Yawn.

[DomDom]

I didn't think he should have been allowed his redemption either, but that's my own ideas of what should happen only. I get why they went the way they went and it was a nice simple way to sort it.

My real problem with the final season was that after two and a bit seasons of one major player, we wound up seeing the whole final run in dominated by folk we only see for about half a season. They were a terrific addition ( especially Todd, who wound up being a bit underused actually ), and I'm not sure how they could have ended it.

Of course, they could have ended it at the end of Season 4.

[BONACCORD1]

The man has stopped writing Jesse Pinkman now, so nothing is going to happen to him.

Thoroughly enjoyed that episode. Nice way to end it after the chaos from two episodes before.

Best TV series I've ever watched.

Finally a man talkin sense ,there will be no more Breakin Bad so no point in all the keeach about Jesse now ,Cracking show right enuff

Edited October 1, 2013 by BONACCORD1

[deadasdillinger]

I like how folk are going about how things should have ended.

That might be the way you personally wished for things to go, but that's not the story that Vince Gilligan wrote for those characters. Saying there shouldn't have been any redemption for Walt is pointless. There's no onus on Gilligan or any other writer to service justice upon their characters. All he's charged with is writing an enjoyable story, which Breaking Bad most certainly was. It can't always be a case of good guys winning and bad guys losing - Breaking Bad was never that black and white with its characters or storylines.

[DomDom]

I like how folk are going about how things should have ended.

That might be the way you personally wished for things to go, but that's not the story that Vince Gilligan wrote for those characters. Saying there shouldn't have been any redemption for Walt is pointless. There's no onus on Gilligan or any other writer to service justice upon their characters. All he's charged with is writing an enjoyable story, which Breaking Bad most certainly was. It can't always be a case of good guys winning and bad guys losing - Breaking Bad was never that black and white with its characters or storylines.

I don't see any problem with saying that you wanted something else to happen. I pretty much see it as Walt shouldn't have had redemption, but at the same time, I liked the way they ended his story arc.

People will have their opinions on how it could have gone, and what exactly is wrong with that? Is Breaking Bad somehow exempt from the same discussion as other forms of fictional entertainment now? I'd disagree that it ended badly, but I'm not gonna act like people are wrong for thinking different either.

[Broken Algorithms]

I can understand what people are saying. I'll spoiler this in the event that people are still catching up but...

for me, the way the show ended felt as though it tied everything up in as much of a positive manner for Walt and Jesse as possible. Walt managed to make himself happy, admitting he cooked the meth, kept his family safe from the law and a ensured they had money for the future. He took out all the nazis and ensured that after he was gone, Lydia couldn't carry on the trade with Tod and a capitive Jesse.

Compare this to a show like the Shield. I'll go to a case of spoiler-ception here. But the end of the Shield sees

Their whole group end up fucked over. You have the four main Strike Force members: Vic, Shane, Lem and Ronnie. Shane kills Lem, and the whole thing begins to implode. Vic finds out and then sells the others out for the murder of a fellow cop and their continued crimes up to robbing a laundered money train. Shane kills his family and commits suicide while Ronnie is sold out and goes to prison. Vic ends up moved to a desk job away from the front line, which is his own purgatory.

TL:DR- Nobody comes out of the show happy, and the chaos of the show is left

As opposed to Breaking Bad where all the loose ends seemed a bit structured.

[P.C]

To be honest with the last 8 episodes and having a week gap between each has actually been really good to be able to read people theories on how the show much develop what characters might die and the direction of the show

Although the show is now done it wont stop us talking about it or suggesting what we think may have added to an already fantastic show

In the end Walt managed to do what started him down this path which was to make sure his family were provided for once he was gone (after paying for his treatment initally) tho along the way I think he rediscovered his spark for business that lit when Gray Matter was 1st formed and leaving is still something that both haunted and angered him. He got to carry on being a teacher for Jessie and proving his worth and forming an international franchise, maybe not the franchise he imagined all those years ago but still one where his love of science was the driving force

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

I can understand what people are saying. I'll spoiler this in the event that people are still catching up but...

I agree with all of that. The end of Breaking Bad felt like the end of a movie rather than the end of a great TV drama. This is a bad thing, movies have 2 to 3 hours to flesh out a character and plot so working with such a short time means not having unresolved plot threads or having a character as interesting as Walter Whyte.

The Shield punished viewers who stood with Vic despite his unforgivable crimes where as Breaking Bad rewarded viewers who revelled in Walter's deeds. The episodes of Breaking Bad prior to the finale were a much more fulfilling direction for the show to go. The world falling apart around him as he was shown to not be as smart as he thought in episode 14 and dying alone as his empire and his life decays with only sadness left for his actions.

In the end Vic committed his ultimate sin, he betrayed his partners. Walt had crossed that line by destroying and abandoning his family but that was undone with the last episode when it should have been a point of no return.

Edited October 1, 2013 by Jim McLean's Ghost

[T_S_A_R]

If TSAR thinks Breaking Bad had plotholes he should stay clear of the History Channel and all their programmes on the so-called "World War II".

Let's start with the bad guys. Battalions of stormtroopers dressed in all black, check. Secret police, check. Determination to brutally kill everyone who doesn't look like them, check. Leader with a tiny villain mustache and a tendency to go into apopleptic rage when he doesn't get his way, check. All this from a country that was ordinary, believable, and dare I say it sometimes even sympathetic in previous seasons.

I wouldn't even mind the lack of originality if they weren't so heavy-handed about it. Apparently we're supposed to believe that in the middle of the war the Germans attacked their allies the Russians, starting an unwinnable conflict on two fronts, just to show how sneaky and untrustworthy they could be? And that they diverted all their resources to use in making ever bigger and scarier death camps, even in the middle of a huge war? Real people just aren't that evil. And that's not even counting the part where as soon as the plot requires it, they instantly forget about all the racism nonsense and become best buddies with the definitely non-Aryan Japanese.

Not that the good guys are much better. Their leader, Churchill, appeared in a grand total of one episode before, where he was a bumbling general who suffered an embarrassing defeat to the Ottomans of all people in the Battle of Gallipoli. Now, all of a sudden, he's not only Prime Minister, he's not only a brilliant military commander, he's not only the greatest orator of the twentieth century who can convince the British to keep going against all odds, he's also a natural wit who is able to pull out hilarious one-liners practically on demand. I know he's supposed to be the hero, but it's not realistic unless you keep the guy at least vaguely human.

So it's pretty standard "shining amazing good guys who can do no wrong" versus "evil legions of darkness bent on torture and genocide" stuff, totally ignoring the nuances and realities of politics. The actual strategy of the war is barely any better. Just to give one example, in the Battle of the Bulge, a vastly larger force of Germans surround a small Allied battalion and demand they surrender or be killed. The Allied general sends back a single-word reply: "Nuts!". The Germans attack, and, miraculously, the tiny Allied force holds them off long enough for reinforcements to arrive and turn the tide of battle. Whoever wrote this episode obviously had never been within a thousand miles of an actual military.

Probably the worst part was the ending. The British/German story arc gets boring, so they tie it up quickly, have the villain kill himself (on Walpurgisnacht of all days, not exactly subtle) and then totally switch gears to a battle between the Americans and the Japanese in the Pacific. Pretty much the same dichotomy - the Japanese kill, torture, perform medical experiments on prisoners, and frickin' play football with the heads of murdered children, and the Americans are led by a kindly old man in a wheelchair.

Anyway, they spend the whole season building up how the Japanese home islands are a fortress, and the Japanese will never surrender, and there's no way to take the Japanese home islands because they're invincible...and then they realize they totally can't have the Americans take the Japanese home islands so they have no way to wrap up the season.

So they invent a completely implausible superweapon that they've never mentioned until now. Apparently the Americans got some scientists together to invent it, only we never heard anything about it because it was "classified". In two years, the scientists manage to invent a weapon a thousand times more powerful than anything anyone's ever seen before - drawing from, of course, ancient mystical texts. Then they use the superweapon, blow up several Japanese cities easily, and the Japanese surrender. Convenient, isn't it?

...and then, in the entire rest of the show, over five or six different big wars, they never use the superweapon again. Seriously. They have this whole thing about a war in Vietnam that lasts decades and kills tens of thousands of people, and they never wonder if maybe they should consider using the frickin' unstoppable mystical superweapon that they won the last war with. At this point, you're starting to wonder if any of the show's writers have even watched the episodes the other writers made.

I'm not even going to get into the whole subplot about breaking a secret code (cleverly named "Enigma", because the writers couldn't spend more than two seconds thinking up a name for an enigmatic code), the giant superintelligent computer called Colossus (despite this being years before the transistor was even invented), the Soviet strongman whose name means "Man of Steel" in Russian (seriously, between calling the strongman "Man of Steel" and the Frenchman "de Gaulle", whoever came up with the names for this thing ought to be shot).

So yeah. Stay away from the History Channel TSAR. Unlike Breaking Bad, they don't even try to make their stuff believable.

why did you spend time writing that out?

you should also read some books and fill yourself in on the details of the the development of the bomb and also that nuking vietnam was on the table and a popular option amongst some in the us military. also most of the concentration camps were actually work camps rather than death camps and the SS were working hard to try and maximize the output of their slave labour.

breaking bad isn't the second world war, it's the dirty dozen.

Edited October 1, 2013 by T_S_A_R

[Yoss]

Splendid stuff.

The finale wasn't of the same quality as much of what had gone before, but nor did it do anything to detract from it. It was a bit Hollywoodesque with the redemptiveness and the bad-guys-getting-their-comeuppance and what-have you, I just though yeah okay, if that's the way you're ending it I can go with that, rather than wow, as I had at previous episodes which had continued the real dramatic climaxes.

I'd have gone with a bleaker and more amoral ending, myself. Sure, all the same c***s that whinged about the Red Wedding would have been bleating about it all week, but it'd have been more powerful and stood the test of time rather better in the long run. (And would have been more in keeping with the character of the show.)

TSAR has a point about some of the plot holes, as it goes, but I don't really mind that - there hasn't been a telly programme yet that wasn't choc-full of them if you're looking to find them. The good ones carry you along with the drama of it sufficiently that it doesn't really matter.

[K.T]

What an end it was! Best show ever made. No idea what I'm going to watch now..

[Tamdunk]

Didn't like the nod between Walt and Jesse at the end, they are both responsible for fucking each other's lives beyond any reconcilliation at that point and clearly hate each other, so the American pie nod shouldn't have been in there. Other than that I really enjoyed breaking bad, thought it got way ott in the last couple of seasons. Ok, it was never the most realistic program, but the last couple seasons were ridiculous. It was still very entertaining and a good watch overall. Its not quite up with my fav dramas, mad men and game of thrones, but its not far off.

I made the choice to wait until all the episodes were out before watching the last series. Caught the first 5 on Thursday and watched the last three on Tuesday. Not sure if this was the best way to watch it, but some of the episodes flew by and I would have been disappointed to have to wait a week for the next one.

Edited October 2, 2013 by Tamdunk

[renton]

Splendid stuff.

The finale wasn't of the same quality as much of what had gone before, but nor did it do anything to detract from it. It was a bit Hollywoodesque with the redemptiveness and the bad-guys-getting-their-comeuppance and what-have you, I just though yeah okay, if that's the way you're ending it I can go with that, rather than wow, as I had at previous episodes which had continued the real dramatic climaxes.

I'd have gone with a bleaker and more amoral ending, myself. Sure, all the same c***s that whinged about the Red Wedding would have been bleating about it all week, but it'd have been more powerful and stood the test of time rather better in the long run. (And would have been more in keeping with the character of the show.)

TSAR has a point about some of the plot holes, as it goes, but I don't really mind that - there hasn't been a telly programme yet that wasn't choc-full of them if you're looking to find them. The good ones carry you along with the drama of it sufficiently that it doesn't really matter.

Thing is you can apply reductio ad absurdum to any work of fiction. I don't think anyone has ever written an entirely water tight story free from any and all writign tricks and mechanics, everything is on a spectrum in that sense, governed by whether you intend to write something character or plot focussed (or anything in between) Breaking Bad has always had a lot of good action and clever sequences, but it's primarily a character piece, in which case you can allow some creative license in delivering the characters into the appropriate situation in order to convey your point.

[forehead7]

Thing is you can apply reductio ad absurdum to any work of fiction. I don't think anyone has ever written an entirely water tight story

The Bible.

[T_S_A_R]

Thing is you can apply reductio ad absurdum to any work of fiction. I don't think anyone has ever written an entirely water tight story free from any and all writign tricks and mechanics, everything is on a spectrum in that sense, governed by whether you intend to write something character or plot focussed (or anything in between) Breaking Bad has always had a lot of good action and clever sequences, but it's primarily a character piece, in which case you can allow some creative license in delivering the characters into the appropriate situation in order to convey your point.

seriously? there are thousands of novels, plays and movies that are completely devoid of plotholes.

[DomDom]

I'd like to see at least a few major examples of each.

[T_S_A_R]

I'd like to see at least a few major examples of each.

the novel i take my user name from the The Sun Also Rises by hemingway has no plotholes. i am currently reading javier marias's Your Face Tomorrow trilogy and the first book in that series that has no plotholes. both of those examples are entirely realist works but there are other examples of novels which are fantastic or feature unreliable narration that you could apply this to as well such as blood meridian or american psycho. there are literally thousands of novels this applies to.

plays again are too numerous to mention but find me a plothole in chekhov, ibsen or beckett and i'll be impressed.

movies are obviously more prone to plotholes than plays or novels but there still plenty of examples i can think of. i rewatched the thin red line recently and there is nothing in that which could be described as a plothole. the movie i watched prior to that was five easy pieces with jack nicholson and again there are no plot holes in that. das boot was on film four the other week as well. no plotholes there.

they are all fairly straightforward examples and there are many more. in breaking walter finding an unlocked car with the keys in it just when the cops are arriving and uncle jack passing up two chances to kill walter for extremely strange reasons aren't just plotholes in the normal sense but extremely cliche as well.