Review: Breaking Bad Season One (2008)

A spoiler-filled review with a side of veggie bacon.

I’ve never seen Breaking Bad. I know, I know, but I’m correcting that now. It’s my latest binge and I’m excited. With these reviews, I’ll walk you through my personal ups and downs while you can relive this classic show.

1.1 "Pilot"

In the year of our lord 2025, when I turn on a new television program and it starts with what should be the climax, I'm immediately disinterested. It's a well-known streamer mandate that shows start with THE CRAZIEST SHIT YOU'VE EVER SEEN in an attempt to get you to stick around since you have other options, gluttony of choice, etc. It often seems like an excuse to show you the best part of the show and then make you watch four really boring hours of post-prestige television to figure out why that guy had that bomb strapped to his chest or whatever. It's a big turn-off for me.

But this isn't 2025, it's 2008. And this isn't a Netflix Original or Peacock Crap, this is AMC Network's discovery of fire. And so, as I begin to watch Breaking Bad for the very first time, I have to recalculate my brain to have the expectations and opinions of the time. When the show starts with Walter, without pants and wearing a gasmask, retrieving drug paraphernalia from a chemistry-bomb-wrecked RV and stranded in the middle of the desert, they're going to live up to that promise. And in only 30 minutes, sans commercials.

I chose Breaking Bad because it was from the Golden Era of cable television, a reasonable amount of critically acclaimed episodes that run 40-something minutes and not the HBO 57 minutes - sorry Sopranos, sorry Wire, maybe next time. For now, I'll enjoy an uncensored binge of what was certainly censored boundary-pushing tv. More thoughts about the show will transpire in the weeks ahead, but for now, I'll say this: I'm becoming nostalgic for 2008 the same way my Mom misses the '80s. Watching this show won't help.

1.2 "Cat's in the Bag..."

I spent a lot of this episode saying the following out loud (probably annoying Taylor, who is watching this for the second time): Why are they spending so much time on this? A whole episode on how to dispose of dead bodies? Obviously this is important to Walt's character, he has to change from a mild-mannered meek to a murderous manipulator, but this kind of stuff is going to become old hat soon enough, do we really need a whole episode?

Turns out, that's going to be the whole point of the show!

In Alan Sepinwall's Breaking Bad 101 (which is going to be an invaluable resource, I'm reading each breakdown after watching each episode), Vince Gilligan explains this by saying, "To me, that is the story. I think we've all seen the big moments in any crime movie. The in-between moments are really the story in Breaking Bad: the moments of metamorphosis, of a guy transforming from a good, law-abiding citizen to a drug kingpin. It is the story of metamorphosis, and metamorphosis in real life is slow."

This was the reminder I needed to recalibrate my expectations. I need to watch this without hype, presumptions, pomp or circumstance. There aren't five Emmy-winning seasons or books about how great the show is. I'm just heading into my third episode...

1.3 "...And the Bag's in the River"

This is the second part of the storyline that started in Episode 2, so a lot of my thoughts carry over. The best part of this episode is when Walt makes a pros and cons list about whether or not he should kill Crazy-8. Of course, there are some pretty good reasons to let him go, largely a result of the fact that Walter White isn't Walter White just yet. But the only reason has to kill him is good enough: HE'LL KILL YOU AND YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY IF YOU LET HIM GO. That's pretty hard to disagree with, I suppose.

1.4 "Cancer Man"

This is probably my favorite episode so far. Not only did I feel like we were getting past the Krazy-8 nonsense, but I felt like we learned so much more about our two main characters. Walter's family finally knows about his cancer diagnosis and we're back on track with the issue that got us here in the first place: money. How are they doing to afford all of these treatments or the premier oncologist that Skyler found? He has no other option but to sell drugs. And now is able to get back to the task at hand.

The real meat of the episode, however, was all that we learned about Jesse. He grew up in a nice house, with a nice family, and a white picket fence. His younger brother is the son his parents always dreamed of, while Jesse is the screw-up. The Pinkmans have done everything they feel like they can do for him and this will be the last time he stays in that home. He has no other option but to sell drugs. And now is able to get back to the task at hand.

1.5 "Gray Matter"

Bryan Cranston gets two moments in "Gray Matter" to show why he's one of our great working actors. The first is at Elliott's birthday party, feeling out of place, nervous and self-doubting while seeing how the other half live. Elliott is opening gifts in front of the whole party (How childish is that? Do adults do that? I'm sorry if I'm calling you out here, but I think the awkwardness of this scene might help clue you in a little) and Walt's gift isn't extravagant or expensive. In fact, it's the very thing most of us associate with being short on cash - ramen noodles. It's a gift of remembrance, of reminiscing, and the way that Cranston says, "For the man who has everything," is so layered and so emotional and so relatable.

The other moment is a much flashier, much more theatrical moment. After his family berates him for opting out of cancer treatment, Cranston does what he does best - monologues. "What good is it to just survive if I am too sick to work?" he asks. The chemo, the nausea, the mess, the tubes, the hair loss, the pills, the exhaustion. "That's how you would remember me," he finishes. He may have actually made his point, but getting it off his chest seems to be enough, and he has a change of heart the next day. All the shades of gray, the emotional gray matter, that's what Bryan Cranston does.

1.6 “Crazy Handful of Nothin'"

Episode 6, "Crazy Handful of Nothin," is where Breaking Bad goes from a biography of a man, Walter White, to a supervillain origin story for Heisenberg, Walt's new alter ego. It's a great moment, he's got a shaved head, a handful of fulminated mercury, and he's bluffing like all hell - or is he? It's in this episode that he becomes more than he currently is, more than he ever thought he could be. With his new name and new look, he's someone else entirely. He's now the face behind the show's iconography.

Unfortunately, it's in this same sequence that we get one of the worst offenders of "the 2008 of it all." The heel of the episode is a new character, Tuco Salamanca, and he is absolutely ridiculous. This isn't anything against actor Raymond Cruz, as he's just doing as he's told, but this cartoon character feels so out of place in this world. It's one thing when Jesse says something stupid like, "Yo yo, whaddup dawg," it's another when this drug dealer character says something stupid like, "Nobody moves crystal in the South Valley but me, bitch." It feels so shallow on a show that otherwise isn't.

1.7 "A No-Rough-Stuff-Type Deal"

Season One ends not on a high note, but not with a thud either. I just kinda shrugged. The last six hours had been six pretty good hours of television and it seems weird to end with neither serious plot advancements nor dramatic cliffhangers. The season was shortened by two episodes because of the '07-'08 WGA strike (the one that canceled many of your favorite shows and forced Conan to grow a beard), but last episodes are last episodes and this one just doesn't quite deliver dramatically.

The standout for me, however, is the difference in the two meet-ups with loco Tuco. The first meeting is reminiscent of the iconic scene in The Godfather, Walter is the ice-cold Michael Corleone while Jesse is the unstable Enzo the baker. Walter stays cool and calm in the presence of the unstable kingpin, while Jesse looks visibly sick to his stomach. Perhaps Walt really is made out for this...

But in the second meeting, when Tuco cracks up and beats the hell out of his henchman, both men are shocked, disgusted, and scared. Walter could handle this if it were easy, but we know that the next few episodes, and seasons, won't be easy.