An excellent show about unravelling the psyche of a megalomaniac.

The pilot displays the world as Walter White sees it:
He's a genius chemist stuck in a dead-end teaching job, having to work extra as the sole provider for his family. He has a crippled failson who doesn't respect him, and a young trophy wife who he accidentally knocked up again, so she can't even put out for him now. His only friends are his cop brother-in-law, who is a hick, and his wife a klepto harpy. So when he gets his cancer diagnosis, what choice does he have other to use his untapped potential to make meth with the help of his dopey dropout sidekick?

As the show goes on, this fantasy unravels, and we realise that Walter is not a sympathetic hero. His pride and obsession with being a respected patriarch made him grow to resent the people around him and take them for granted. The cancer diagnosis was merely a catalyst to drive him to take the power and percieved glory he wanted by force, even at the cost of all those who love him.

Breaking Bad is a tense, expertly made show full of very realistically complicated and nuanced characters. Plus, it's strangely funny when it's not horrific. The only reason this isn't one of my favourite shows ever is because it's just too good at making me hate Walter's guts. By the end of the show, he's not even an anti-hero, he's just an irredeemable monster. The showrunners just have a bit too much of a boner for showing how cool and smart he is, in my opinion. Letting him learn a bit more humility at the end would've perfected the show for me, rather than letting him do the old blaze of glory.

Oh, and I don't mind tragic characters, but give Jesse a fuckin' break. His story turns into misery porn by the end.

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