Breaking Bad - The Final Episode Awaits

**spoiler alert**

I would have been completely happy if last night's Breaking Bad episode had been the lost. I love inconclusive endings like how The Sopranos went out.

My jaw dropped twice last night. The masked men along Hollys' crib, and the when Andrea got shot. Damn.

Loved the tension and action of the start in contrast to the cold, isolated stillness of shacked up Walt. It's a modern day Dostoyevsky novel.

What will next week's final episode bring? I have already been wrong about predictions. I had Skylar or Walt Junior (now Flynn) dying before Hank or anyone else, so, I'm sure I will be wrong here.

Here's some random predictions:

Walt: We judge ourselves by our intentions, others judge us by our actions. Walt still clings to his mantra "I did everything for my family." (His Ego is a member of this family and requires the most care.)  He has lost all self-awareness of the repercussions of his actions. The phone call to his son and being dragged down by the founder of Grey Matter are the final nails in the coffin of a simple chemistry teaching Dad. All that's left is Heisenberg.

Martyrdom or self-sacrifice awaits. I think all the running around with Guns in his trunk has to be to protect Skylar from the Lydia, who wants her dead. Walt's best redemption is to die in a prison hospital.

 

Walt who? I am the danger. And my heart wants what it wants.

Todd: you ever met a sicker fuck in your life? His uncle, Sir Aryan nation, seems safer. If Todd is alive at the end of next week, none of us are safe. I think he's dead by 10:15, Sunday, September 29th. After he killed the motorcycle boy, he saved the child's tarantula. Perhaps the spider gets revenge on behalf of the child. His crush on Lydia will be part of his, and/or Lydia's doom.

He's made this face so much lately, it will stay like that.

Pinkman:  Pinkman's consciousness and caring actually seems to have grown through the years the more bad he broke. If only he could rationalize and lie like Walt, but, alas, all the therapy in the world isn't going to make his life worth living. If he does live, he'll be off to Europe looking for some Heisenberg blue.

Beware of Marie Wearing Black

Marie- She's not done yet. I expect her to flex a bit and rage against the machine.  It will be much bigger than shoplifting.

It's really all just so Oedipal isn't it?

Walt Junior/Flynn- I think he's had his climactic moments the last two episodes. The true protector of Skylar. The true barometer of moral purity.  Couldn't you feel his head and heart swirl listening to his dad on the phone? He has never been more powerful than when fighting back against dad. Well played, Flynn. 

Skylar-  I certainly don't think she dies at the hands of Lydia, but I don't think her sister is done with her either.  Maybe she sees a message in her bacon to disclose all she knows to the DEA and give Holly to Marie while she goes to jail. Maybe she finally goes Ophelia. Maybe she survives but half her face gets a bit destroyed like Gus after the explosion and Jesse after the torturing. (that was no coincidence. Nothing is in the world of Vince Gilligan.)

Saul- Survives and does manage a Cinnabon store. Want a big ass? better call Saul.

"A Breaking Bad Marathon"

What if there really were a Breaking Bad Marathon?

No, I don’t mean a ton of past episodes played back to back to back. I mean if all the characters took part in an organized 26.2 mile run? How awesome would that be.

The final episodes are coming soon, and the show is tremendous. Sure, there's a Walter White inside of all of us, but what makes the show work is the distinctly drawn characters. They are all the heroes of their own story and running their own race. So, as they run, here’s my version of:

A BREAKING BAD MARATHON:

Marie Schrader – (Hank’s Wife)

Shoe: Saucony- Color purple

Finishing Time: 4:16

Marie has an ideal marathoners body and the neurosis of a runner. She finishes the marathon smooth and easy at 4:36. It would have been faster, but she had to dip into some stores for some shoplifting.

Skyler White

Shoe: Asics

Finishing Time: 4:22

When Skyler first starts to run, every step she takes makes you crazy.  You want to tell her off like Walt finally did when he says,  “Right now what I need is for you to climb down out of my ASS. Can you do that for me honey? Will you please, just once, get off my ASS. You know, I’d appreciate it.”

But as Walt breaks beyond Bad into something worse than Bad,  Skyler becomes someone you feel for. Her plight to protect her children becomes increasingly sympathetic as Walter's madness grows.  Running a marathon may be just what she needs to stop calling herself a “Coward.”

 

 At the end of the race, all she could say was, “I’m just waiting for the cancer to come back.”

Jessie Pinkman

Shoes: Nike

Finish time: 3:59

His race is perhaps the most emotionally tumultuous. Jessie has some swiftness in him. Some youth. Some bravado. Some impulsive immaturity, YO, and someone who is sick of hearing  others say to him; “apply yourself.”

The marathon is his chance. It will be something that can finallly make his mom and dad proud. He trains hard, and starts to realize that the Runner's High is like Meth but less costly.  He has parties at his house where runners crash for days on end and play loud music from their running playlist.  He brings them stacks of fat cash and makes it rain. They buy shoes. Jessie buys in.



Runners' Resting



But then on race day emotions pour forth for Pinkman as often happens in a marathon. Ghosts of girlfriends overdosing on heroin run alongside of him. Friends and children shot and killed to cover his tracks claw at his heels. He tries to wipe these memories away like sweat at his brow but they stick to his skin.  Screams start from his insides but then blast outward at mile 23 as he cries to the heavens.  “It’s all so Kafkaesque.”

 

 At mile 24 it seems Pinkman may not finish, but he pulls out a Gu packet and has a snort of Meth (Heisenberg Blue) that electrifies his whole brain.  He runs past the finish line and all the way home, too tweaked to stop for his medal.

Mike Ehrmantraut

Shoe: Brooks

Finish Time: DNF (did not finish)

Mike. Poor Mike. He’s cold-blooded yet with a noble sense of justice in his twisted world.  He’s the guy you trust that you shouldn’t.  In some ways he’s sad.  In some ways he’s a hero. A smoker runner. 

So what does he do in the marathon? He moves along just fine, trotting steady and sure at a 13 minute per mile pace, slightly grumpy, slightly charming. When he sees his granddaughter with a sign in the air saying “Go Gramps Go” he flashes a crooked smile.  “There she is, Kid,” he says to Pinkman. 

Then Walt trips him. Mike’s old age can’t handle the fall to the pavement. Walt tries to apologize.  “Shut the fuck up. Let me DNF in peace,” says Mike as if he’s muttering his last breath.  We move on.

 Gustavo Fring

Shoes: Addidas

Finish Time: DNF

The marathon is an opportunity for Gus to shine under the community’s watchful eyes. In fact, Gus’s chicken place, Los Pollos Hermanos, actually sponsors the marathon.  The “Los Pollos Hermanos” logo is on the back of every marathon shirt, and at the finish line, there is free “Los Pollos” chicken for everyone.   Gus runs the marathon with a conventional smile and eloquent speech to thank those who cheer him on. He thinks he’s going to finish just fine until he runs into his old nemesis in the wheelchair.

Yep, Hector opens up his colostomy bag sending Gus slip-sliding away until he falls on the pavement and rips the side of his face off.

Hector "Tio" Salamanca

Shoes: none

Finish time: 2: 28

Speaking of Hector, he of course gets an age group award for the wheelie division. He carb loaded with burritos. He is wearing his pajamas. He hits the bell every mile.

‘Ding. Ding. Ding.’

 Saul Goodman

Shoes: Snakeskin

Finish Time: 3:12 (under investigation)

When the going gets tough, you don’t want a Criminal Lawyer, you want a criminal, lawyer. Saul runs the fastest time of all. But Saul cheats. He knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who figured out how to rig it. He qualifies for Boston, makes the trip to Hopkinton, and stands in the chute wearing his bluetooth handing out business cards.  “Better call Saul”

Tuco Salamanca

Shoe: Saucony Kinvara

Time: 4:10

Tuco runs the marathon tweaking the whole way, and he easily wins the award for the best grill in the event.  He’s also got an infectious, creepy bad-guy laugh.  When  the intensity grows in each mile he was heard to scream out loud: “BOOYAH!!! Kicks like a mule with his balls wrapped in Duct tape.”  Well, Psychopath runners don’t pace themselves well, and Tuco shot out of the chute a bit too fast and eventually limps to the finish.

Tucco’s Twin Cousins: Leonel and Marco Salamanca 

Shoes: Matching Lucchese Leather Boots ( retail $1,195)

Time: DNF

Running hand in hand, matching each other stride for stride, with smoothly shaved heads, they are the best dressed runners in the whole race. They get ejected for an incident whose description is not appropriate for this site. Yeah, it’s like that.  Days later, they sneak into the race director’s house, sit on his bed with a machete, and wait for him to get out of the shower. 

Hank Schrader

Shoes: New Balance

Time: Unknown

The classic Clydesdale runner at 245 pounds and one of  John Bingham's Penguins, the miracle isn't that Hank finished, it's that he had the courage to start. Hank started as the over-bearing, domineering  ass to Walt meekness, but when Hank suffers from Walter's insidious moves, he become the sympathetic guy to root for.  We’ve felt his trauma. At one point, Hank couldn’t walk (yes, due to Walt) and seemed to have given up (Maria got him up again.) He still walks with a limp, so running in the marathon is monumental. He’s the one I’m feeling for now as he rounds mile 20.  His shoes have been bugged, he’s at mile 26, about to cross the line, but first he has to have a showdown with….

Walter White: AKA Heisenberg.

Shoes: Mechanically Altered Vibram Five Fingers

Time: Unkown

Walt first started training for the marathon by sneaking out at night for two and three hour  runs. During the day, he would tell Skylar he was going for diapers and then grind out ten milers. All of this because he was running to fight cancer. It was noble. It was brilliant. Running brought out the parts of Walter that were unrealized. The parts he had put aside to lead his conventional life as a teacher. Running was the empire he was going to build as a chemist at Gray Matter before he took a buyout. We loved watching his mild-mannered nature and steadfast moves. A sense of sweetness. An everyman champion mixing in with the darkest of the running world.  He brought back the Tighty-whitey’s.

 

Walt shaved his head to run. “Bad Ass,” his son said proudly. Walt had new respect.

 

Sure he had to whack Crazy 8 in his basement, but who wouldn’t during the madness of a taper? Maybe he missed the birth of his daughter due a long, 20 mile run, but that was just bad luck.  Directly or indirectly, Walters death count piles up, and he may have caused a plane crash or two.

Walter is warned about the danger of Marathoning; of not hydrating, of hitting the wall, of not training correctly, of a million things that can go wrong on race day. He ignores all these dangers, puts on a black hat, and declares: 

“I am not in danger, I am the danger!  A guy opens his door and gets shot, and you think that of me? No! I am the one who knocks!"  

So, when Walter White runs a 26.2 mile Breaking Bad Marathon it might teach him some humility. It might shatter that growing narcissism which is making Walter into just a smarter, educated, and sophisticated Tucco. In the long run, Walter will learn that sometimes you are the windshield, sometimes you are the bug, but when you run enough marathons (or cook enough meth), sooner or later,  you’re gonna go splat.

 

Somehow Walt ends up like this.
A head full of hair, taking medicine, with a machine gun in this trunk.

Check out: "On the Lips of Children,"  $3.99 on Amazon 

Cooking And Running With Walt - Breaking Bad, Season One

I put on my apron, stole a gas mask from the local high school, grabbed some Bunsen burners, and I started cooking.  Yep, I’ve cooked me up some episodes of Breaking Bad, the story of Walt, the high school chemistry teacher who starts using his skills to make the best Crystal Meth around after being diagnosed with lung cancer and unable to afford cancer treatment.

I finished season one in less than a week and watched many of these episodes on the treadmill including 3 episodes back to back during one 20 miler.  I’ve had plenty of folks tell me I would love the show, and thanks for the push.  Loved the first season, and here’s my hodge-podge of thoughts.

The writing is incredible.  The conflicts always buzz in the background quietly, while the current crisis is exploding in your face.  So many of them are intermingling; it's like looking at a Christmas tree where the lights sparkle off the ornaments which sparkle off the tinsel which make the candy canes look tastier which makes the presents seem more luxurious.

The show sparkles due to the contrast between Walt’s conventional world as a teacher and his blossoming career as the best meth cooker around in the most dangerous drug trade on earth. Walt has a quiet, emotionally stunted face, but he’s a witness to the darkest of society’s underbelly, and once he shaves his head you can just tell there’s a cauldron of trouble boiling under the surface

Quiet, reserved, and soft spoken while with his son and his family, his assertive, aggressive side lets loose when he’s with Jessie, his meth-cooking defacto son.  It is like being a Cooker of meth has finally set him free.

Then there’s the comparison between the effects that chemotherapy has on the body compared to the deterioration caused by the meth.  They aren’t that dissimilar.

As a middle-aged suburban man myself (as far as I know, currently cancer free) the series still speaks to me.  It is suburban angst turned outwards, a metaphor of the battle of a middle classed man against the powers that might strip him of what he needs to fend for his family, powers that are greater than him and operate with little ethics or morality. Walt is certainly less naïve than you think, but still naïve enough to think he can step into the world of Meth and hold onto his values.

 
Of course, you also have to question the morality and ethics of his mainstream world which would allow a man to get less than the best cancer treatment since it is not covered under his HMO.

But Walt's adventure is about much more than just trying to raise funds for chemo and to secure his family’s future.  It is proving his might, proving he still has fight in him yet. Chemotherapy may make him bald but it wont’ break his balls.  His mad chemistry skills may be lost on the indifferent high school students, but it can be explosive in the underworld of Meth.  Just because he’s terminally illy doesn’t mean he can’t still make an impact. He is Walter, hear him roar. A megalomaniac is born.

The show is visually powerful. All addicts have triggers, but experience has shown me how the sight of just the tiniest dot of Crystal meth has a power unlike none other, and I am sure there are meth addicts across the country watching this show high as can be, saying all sorts of explicative’s.

It’s only been season one, of course, but the winter running season isn’t too far off, and it is comforting to know I have about 40 fifty minute episodes of Breaking Bad to still dive into.  I figure I can run about 245 miles on a treadmill in front of Walt, and you can just tell that some weird crazy shits about to happen to him.

And it's a huge blessing, because if I didn’t run like a junkie, I am sure I would be back as one of Walt's customers. In order to truly get into the show I’m thinking about watching and running in my Tighty-Whitey's

And please, no spoilers!  I’ve already ran across pictures of Walt apparently in Jail, getting shaken down by his DEA brother in law, and another with his face all busted up.  Hoping to catch up to watch the last ever episode in real time and have a Sopranos experience.  Thanks again AMC!.

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