Vince Gilligan
Breaking Bad

The truth is that I don't have many points of comparison because I can't really consider myself a series binge-watcher. Usually, they bore me as I tend to see them as generally mediocre products that, perhaps after a sparkling and promising start, aim to retain the viewer by stretching the seasons endlessly. I think of the terminally ill with the bitten apple; those who would rather undergo surgery without anesthesia than part with their brand to turn to the hated competition. Many series, let's call them classics, have therefore slipped off me like water droplets on waterproof fabric. I use this image because, in some cases, I've enjoyed watching some episodes haphazardly but never felt the need to continue and delve deeper. Recently, I particularly appreciated "Fargo," and at the time, two decades ago at least, "Twin Peaks" left a deep impression on my memory, but the barrage of sequential seasons of "Breaking Bad" has a sound that, to my ears, remains unmatched.

The day before yesterday was Friday, and like every Friday, I and my grumpy demeanor went out after work for a beer with a handful of friends: the painful braying of a live torture-note in a suburb dive as a crooked soundtrack as we started talking about this and that. After the first round, we returned to the usual sad and pathetic whining about how our colleagues are idiots, unlike us, obviously, and down we went a sloping path with a series of doodles about how unlucky, undervalued, unlucky, and blah, blah, blah we've been.

Double W is the protagonist of double B and he too laments about his life. He was a promising chemistry genius with a guaranteed multimillionaire future. Unfortunately, he had a serious problem with vaginal walls, sorry I meant a heart problem, and when he came to his senses, he found himself working in a gray high school in the middle of nowhere. New Mexico-Texas in an unpronounceable town that no one cares about. At least he has a pretty and curvy wife, a son with a disability, and with a baby on the way, he's forced to make ends meet with a second humiliating job to balance the monthly budget. He harbors the frustration of having played his cards poorly in silence because this WW isn't too talkative or particularly emotional. It's evident when the doctor, very quickly and bluntly, tells him that no, it's not just passing a bad cough, but practically incurable lung cancer. Of course, he doesn't smoke and takes the news in a seemingly inhuman way. In reality, he's processing the data, pros, and cons, and underneath feels almost relieved; past the despair, he feels absurdly happy because only those who have nothing left to lose can live life to the fullest.

Very often, important choices, decisive turns in an entire existence, are made hastily and instinctively; almost always driven and justified by a noble end but time is a bastard son of a bitch. In the process of changing the way we live, overcoming disappointment, it's entirely natural to have second thoughts, to feel the sweet temptation to go back, but as we proceed it's increasingly difficult to look back and find the starting point. I mean the exact little point and not the vague and blurred panorama. That damn click that, at the moment we made that decision, we were sure we would never ever be able to forget.

BB breaks through the screen and remains memorable because with its excesses it perfectly captures the nature of human beings. We are animals, even if we deny it, stripped of their instincts. Increasingly cowardly and fearful, we need an excuse to kick the routine: only a residual percentage moves without needing a push. WW is a person considered by his entire circle of acquaintances as moderate, reliable, predictable, sad, and perhaps pompous: exactly like his life. For years, he accumulated tons of frustration, soothed by some under-the-sheets fun with his wife and some evenings with his sparing friends, and mediocrity. The breaking point is the illness, and it is so disruptive and unexpected that the evolutionary process that will lead the protagonist to become a "cook" first and a greedy power addict second will be spectacular. He will lose control and won't be able to do without his unexpected success.

It's not a riveting series for its pace, almost never fast, neither for the violence, nor for the individual episodes, but for the way the plot unfolds as a whole and for the quality of the overall product. I find it satisfying how the script manages to mature the characters without haste, in a meandering way, with an alternation of crises and sudden accelerations; it's an overall simple and linear plot, (I hate overly complex plots), with targeted flashbacks that reveal without unveiling, combined with some tailored red herrings. The main characters, and this is an extremely rare quality not only for TV series but also for high-budget films, are all well-centered. I prefer Gus, but that's just a matter of taste. The quality of the photography in general, with purely enjoyable desert images, combined with a soundtrack that stitches itself into the plot's coils, makes for a smoother TV series that's hard not to captivate the viewer.

The epilogue arrives at the right moment, and the final season, which closes the circle with a sharp ending, is the shortest with only seven raw, violent, essential, and stripped-down episodes. The best way to put a seal on a high-quality product that I believe can age very well and become a cult. But maybe it already is.

P.S. I recommend you make an effort and try to watch Breaking Bad in the original language!