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this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2024
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US Authoritarianism
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Plenty of people thought that Don Draper and Walter White were heroes.
Walter White was an antihero. The US healthcare system was the villain.
The healthcare system was just a catalyst for his transformation into Heisenberg. He had multiple opportunities to stop during the first seasons. His greed and pride wouldn't allow him to do so.
I'm pretty sure the rush of it was his addiction.
In all honesty, I haven’t watched it again since it first came out. When did he have opportunities to pay for his treatment? I don’t remember that. I definitely remember the megalomaniacal development that you mention in his character arc.
The best opportunity was when he meets up with his former partners, Gretchen and Elliot. They feel sorry for Walt's diagnosis and the fact that he left the company the three of them started before it became profitable, and offer to fully pay for his cancer treatment.
He then lies to his wife, saying that they are paying while he continues to make meth and sell it to fund his treatment.
There are others, but this one happens early on (around S2 I believe).
You’re right. I remember that now. I think I’d enjoy a second watch through.
The only episode I’ve watched multiple times is The Fly. It has almost nothing to do with the story, but it’s a legitimately brilliant standalone art house short story.
The Fly was definitely a polarizing episode. My biggest complaint about it was that it completely threw off the pacing of the story that season.
If you haven't seen it yet, I would highly recommend you check out the spin-off series Better Call Saul. I ended up enjoying it even more than Breaking Bad, although it does spend a long time setting up the pieces before everything starts falling into place.
I really should. I’ve been a fan of Bob Odenkirk since Mr. Show. I’ll give it a watch.
If you're a fan of Odenkirk and crime shows, I also recommend checking out Fargo.
There's a different cast each season, and in the first one he plays the bumbling local chief of police.
I will. Thanks! I’m a big fan of the Coen brothers film. I didn’t even know this existed.
Funny story. The show was over budget so they had to do something cheap. 'The Fly' let them do a bottle episode with an existing set and no new actors.
"Bottle episode" comes from Star Trek TOS. They once had an episode where the ship was trapped in a bottle because of budget.
I really need to go back and watch the whole thing, but I remember in one of the first two seasons there's another point where his wife discovers some duffel bags that he's stashed that are just absolutely stuffed with cash. Like, tens of thousands of dollars, if not a six-figure number. And when she confronts him about it (I think she knew what he was doing and he had promised to stop?), he says that he wants to make sure that she and the kids are taken care of after he dies.
But he was lying through his teeth. What started out as a desperate attempt to save his life quickly spirals into a power trip, and his ego can't let him stop even when he has no need to keep going. The money is just a side benefit at that point.
I highly recommend a rewatch. You'll notice what a piece of shit WW is very early on, now that you know what to look for.
No. Regardless of the healthcare system, White had the option of going to the people at Grey Matters and asking for help. There were plenty of times he could have just walked away with a boatload of cash. He was a cold blooded killer.
Didn't he stab or suffocate Krazy 8 to death in the first season?
He killed Emilio with some kind of gas, strangled Krazy-8 with a bike lock, ran over and shot the two drug dealers that killed Combo, arguably killed Hector and Gus, and poisoned Lydia.
Didn't he eventually kill the kid, too? Jessie's girlfriends son. At first it looked like he did, but didn't actually do it. Then later he poisoned him for reals. It's been awhile though.
Nope! He poisons Brock, but it doesn't kill him. Brock survives the series. Maybe you are thinking of the tarantula kid (Drew Sharp), but that one was Meth Damon.
Ah ok. No right kid, I forgot he even survived lol.
Jane? Also, Mike? Fring?
Planning a murder is just as bad as pulling the trigger.
In our defense, I'd like to say that we have been living in a society that has been teaching us from birth to worship - no, fetishize is a more accurate term - the Don Drapers and Walter Whites of this world for hundreds of years now.
It's not an excuse... more just a mitigating factor that should be taken into account.
Walter White was a classic anti-hero. He started out with a just cause, and was ultimately corrupted by the power brought on by his own self righteousness.
I disagree. White had a simple choice; he could go to his old partners at Grey Matters and ask for help or he could get involved with murders. He never had a just cause, just the desire to prove he was smarter than everyone in the world.
There's important context about his old partners though: Walter was in love with one of them when she betrayed him, got with the other guy and then they cut Walter out of the same company that Walter's research turned into a mega success.
Was Walter prideful about their offer to pay for his cancer treatments? You bet. I probably would have been as well in the same situation.
Was he prideful there because he wanted to be a drug kingpin? I don't think that was his primary motivation.
He walked away from her because she was rich and made him feel inferior.
Go back and rewatch. He knows exactly what he's doing from the very beginning. He has chance after chance to get out. Each time he makes the choice to double down, knowing that what he's doing will hurt somebody, and he does it all for his own self aggrandizement.
Draper wasn't as much a villain as White. Draper was just a fraud.
I've seen people unironically and without self-awareness admire Draper and want to “be like him”. I don't get it.