Breaking Bad is So Good

Being a big fan of AMC's original series Mad Men, I decided to give Breaking Bad a chance. First off, I love Bryan Cranston. I thought he was great as Hal in Malcolm in the Middle, and seeing him running around in tighty whities in the commercials for Breaking Bad somehow managed to strike a balance for me between horrifyingly tragic and tear-streamingly funny. I had to watch this show.

The basic premise is this: Cranston plays milquetoast high school chemistry teacher Walter White with a partially handicapped teenage son and a pregnant wife. He's doing everything in his power to make ends meet for his family, including working afterschool at a car wash where he must face ridicule from his upperclass students who bring their high dollar sports cars there for him to wash. When Walt discovers he has terminal lung cancer, his midlife crisis gets a hell of a lot more serious.

How is he going to provide for his family after his death? When he learns that a former student and current burnout of his, named Jesse Pinkman, is cooking meth, Walt decides to team up with the youngster. He'll use his chemistry skills to cook the finest meth in the region, and Pinkman can sell it. With hopes of hauling in hundreds of thousands of dollars right away, White sets his plan in motion.

From the outset, Walt White's plan to become a meth cook is fraught with disaster. Walking the thin line between hilarity and dark tragedy, Breaking Bad draws on your empathy to constantly put yourself in Walt's shoes. You're constantly prompted to ask yourself, "What the hell would I do?" And it's damn surprising in its twists and turns. And shocking. Last night featured one of the most truly shocking scenes I've ever seen on TV. Ever. All I could do is sit there with my mouth agape, thinking "Holy @#%^!"

It's so good.