Breaking Bad has progressed from a fascinating premise set around mundane lives in the pilot 5 years ago, to an edge of the seat soap opera set around extraordinary lives with seasons 3-5. I prefer the former to the later. As Breaking Bad nears its conclusion, "Confessions" feels closer to those earlier episodes than what I have seen with the rest of season 5.
The drug kingpins, incredibly fat stacks of cash, heavily armed cardboard mobsters, gun battles, and tightly wound plots jerking you desperately into the next episode are absent here. I felt like "Confessions" was a brief return to seeing Walt and Jesse as real people. For the first time this season I felt as if I could connect with them emotionally again. The acting from all of the leads was excellent and helped to draw me back into caring about their characters. For many episodes now I was loosing that connection. Walt, Jesse, Hank and Skyler had become more like archetypes supporting a pulsating and creative plot than real people. A totally engrossing story is great, but if you are not emotionally invested in the characters, the impact of the story is lost. "Confessions" brings that back for me.
I must add that Walter plumbs new lows in manipulation in this episode, so much so that I wanted to scream out loud, shake someone, smash something. It was so painful to watch. However, I had a different take on one of these scenes. Where others see manipulation, I see love. Walter and Jesse have an interaction here that for me shows Walter to have retained a tenuous hold on morality. I see him as still caring deeply about Jesse. There was a time when Jesse was the only person left that Walt could share a genuine relationship with; Walt's lies had distanced himself so far from his former colleagues, friends, and most importantly his family. The degree to which Walt has come to love Jesse is shown beautifully in a season 3 episode where he calls Walt Jr. "Jesse" as he is drifting off to sleep after a rare heart to heart with his son.
Anyhow, call me crazy, but I see Walt truly shedding the Heisenberg alter-ego before all is said and done with Breaking Bad. The guy with the M-60 machine gun and ricin sure as hell is not the Walter White we knew in seasons 1 and 2, but I suspect he is not Heisenberg either. After this episode I take "Remember my name" as Walt's plea to remember his humanity. His name is not Heisenberg. Remember, his name is Walter White. All these interviews with Vince Gilligan saying that Walter White was always at his core bad, rather than someone who was turned bad by circumstance - it's just a smoke screen.
Cheers!
The drug kingpins, incredibly fat stacks of cash, heavily armed cardboard mobsters, gun battles, and tightly wound plots jerking you desperately into the next episode are absent here. I felt like "Confessions" was a brief return to seeing Walt and Jesse as real people. For the first time this season I felt as if I could connect with them emotionally again. The acting from all of the leads was excellent and helped to draw me back into caring about their characters. For many episodes now I was loosing that connection. Walt, Jesse, Hank and Skyler had become more like archetypes supporting a pulsating and creative plot than real people. A totally engrossing story is great, but if you are not emotionally invested in the characters, the impact of the story is lost. "Confessions" brings that back for me.
I must add that Walter plumbs new lows in manipulation in this episode, so much so that I wanted to scream out loud, shake someone, smash something. It was so painful to watch. However, I had a different take on one of these scenes. Where others see manipulation, I see love. Walter and Jesse have an interaction here that for me shows Walter to have retained a tenuous hold on morality. I see him as still caring deeply about Jesse. There was a time when Jesse was the only person left that Walt could share a genuine relationship with; Walt's lies had distanced himself so far from his former colleagues, friends, and most importantly his family. The degree to which Walt has come to love Jesse is shown beautifully in a season 3 episode where he calls Walt Jr. "Jesse" as he is drifting off to sleep after a rare heart to heart with his son.
Anyhow, call me crazy, but I see Walt truly shedding the Heisenberg alter-ego before all is said and done with Breaking Bad. The guy with the M-60 machine gun and ricin sure as hell is not the Walter White we knew in seasons 1 and 2, but I suspect he is not Heisenberg either. After this episode I take "Remember my name" as Walt's plea to remember his humanity. His name is not Heisenberg. Remember, his name is Walter White. All these interviews with Vince Gilligan saying that Walter White was always at his core bad, rather than someone who was turned bad by circumstance - it's just a smoke screen.
Cheers!