Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Walter White Wednesday 30

Well, well, well - for the first time since high summer, I don't have a new Breaking Bad episode to recap and speculate upon. I can deal with that - "Gliding Over All" left me with plenty to chew on - but I will admit to wishing that it wasn't going to be the better part of an ENTIRE YEAR before I learn how Walt goes from serenely watching his children play around the backyard pool to buying a heavy machine gun in the men's room of a Denny's on his birthday.

Damn you, Gilligan! (An oath I'm sure Skipper wanted to scream to the skies from time to time on that island, by the way.)

So what's going on in the meantime? Wanna Cook? The Unofficial Companion Guide to Breaking Bad continues to take shape. The first three seasons are drafted and my co-author and I are taking a short break to prepare papers for presentation at the annual Popular/American Culture Association in the South conference, which is due to be held in Nashville, TN at the end of September.  Ensley F. Guffey will be presenting on how Breaking Bad uses space and place (think of the transformations the house we first see Jesse living in goes through to become Jesse's house as Jesse himself transforms) and I'll be presenting on how the show uses nonverbal communication (think dingdingdingding along with creepy-crawly  Cousins, among other examples). It'll take us until the conference to put these ideas down on paper and prepare our clips, so Season Four won't really get rolling into draft form until early October.

I have to say, I think you're going to be pleased with the final book. Wanna Cook? was always planned to be far more than a recap or episode summary guide. The book is full of notes about ongoing themes in Breaking Bad, camera shots, episode titles, and lots of extras about everything from Pablo Escobar and money laundering to Ted's heated floor and Walt Whitman.

We both plan on continuing our weekly posts about Breaking Bad - you can find "Meth Monday" over at Ensley's site and I hope you'll keep coming back here for "Walter White Wednesday." There's plenty for us to talk about!

Throughout the run of Breaking Bad, fans of the show have put together some amazing fan-work centered around the show - here's a link to a re-imagining of the opening credits that I think is well worth a look! Maybe this will help tide you over until we get our answers about Walt, Hank, Jesse, and the rest!





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