This story is from the August 2nd, 2012 issue of Rolling Stone.
I am not in danger, Skyler, Walter White told his wife last year. I am the danger. So heres what the danger looks like now, at the start of the new Breaking Bad season: The danger is eating bacon and eggs at Dennys, alone, waiting to meet a stranger in the mens room for a gun deal. Walt looks even more banged-around than usual, in a shabby jacket and some scruffy version of Spocks beard. He breaks up his bacon strips so they spell out 52 his age and tells the waitress its his birthday. She gives him breakfast for free, but he leaves her a Benjamin under the plate. Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta.
Breaking Bad has gotten more gut-wrenching every season, and its clearly not slowing down now. The most agonizingly vivid drama on TV is heading into its fifth and final season, split up into two mini- runs of eight episodes each. (The last eight wont air until summer 2013.) Its a long goodbye for an outlaw who deserves one. Walt White (Bryan Cranston) has become a lethal killer and drug lord, yet he remains the most terrifyingly ordinary of American crooks all the menace of Scarface in the body of Louis C.K.
Breaking Bad began with Walts 50th birthday, and its a shock how little time has passed on the calendar. This guy started out as a mild-mannered high school chemistry teacher who starts cooking crystal meth to provide for his family after he gets a lung-cancer diagnosis. But he didnt waste any time making the fast-track transition to hardened criminal mastermind.
Last season ended with a blast, as Walt took out his murderous boss, Gus Fring, with a wheelchair bomb in a nursing home. On the phone to his wife, Walt said simply, Its over. Were safe. I won. Thats three lies in six words. But when he says it, he really believes it, which makes him feel unconquerable and more dangerous than ever. Because its not over, nobodys safe, and hes lost.
The drive of Breaking Bad is the American husband and his quest for competence after years of being a mediocre employee in a very important profession, Walt switches to being a uniquely effective and competent operator in an antisocial, immoral and illegal profession. Its no surprise which gig he likes better. Competence is an even more addictive drug than crystal meth. Hell kill his enemies, poison children, anything to hold on to that feeling of being able to do something right for once. He loves his work, and though he can still kid himself that he does it for the sake of his family, we dont buy it, and neither does his wife.
Its safe to say that success has gone to his head. When one of his henchmen has doubts about Walts scheme Im supposed to take it on faith? How do I know? Walt replies, Because I say so. Thats no scientist talking thats a god, or at least somebody who thinks he is one. In a sense, maybe Walts most profound corruption of all isnt that hes sold out his moral principles, but that hes sold out his scientific principles.
Part of what makes Walt so devastatingly effective as a criminal, and as a character, is that he looks just like any other loser at any other Dennys. You feel guilty witnessing his schemes, because youre noticing the evil in him that others cant see. After all, his criminal alter ego is Heisenberg, after the physicist who proposed the uncertainty principle. The Heisenberg theory is that by observing data, you influence it by your observation. In a very real way, watching Walt makes you feel complicit.
If youre getting your hopes up for a late-in-the-game redemption story, youre probably smoking some of that Blue Sky yourself. Theoretically, blowing up Gus Fring means Walt could walk away clean. But he cant let go of his hustle, because he cant resist the opportunity to say I won. Its just that demon life thats got him in its sway.
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