Walter White Wednesday 17

. . . which is the one about family.

The concept of family runs throughout Breaking Bad - most obviously with Walt, who uses his desire to provide for his family as his reason for getting into the meth trade.  For new viewers, when Walt is diagnosed of terminal lung cancer, he begins to take stock of his life and he doesn't like what he sees.  Teaching high school chemistry to bored teenagers hasn't brought Walt happiness or prestige.  Desperate to at least leave behind a tidy nest egg for his wife and children (Skyler is pregnant with a "surprise" baby at the beginning of Season 1, remember), Walt comes up with the hare-brained idea of using his stellar background in chemistry to manufacture the purest methamphetamine on the market.  He's got the skills in the manufacturing arena, but doesn't count on the casual viciousness of the drug trade.  I've argued before that his motives aren't really that pure, anyway.  With Walt, it's more about pride than it is about providing.  He refuses help when it's offered (and offered by well-meaning people, including his brother-in-law) and digs his hole deeper and deeper until he apparently decides he likes the darkness he finds underground.  He doesn't like - not one little bit - his son's efforts to raise money for his treatment.  Walt wants to be The Man Who Provides, but he's busy keeping secrets and shoving away the very ones he's supposed to be providing for.

Not that he's the only screw-up in that household.  Skyler has her own sins to atone for.

But the White family is not the only example of family ties in Breaking Bad.  Look beyond that small circle and you find the strong bonds of family loyalty in the Schrader household, for instance.  Marie and Hank have problems (mild kleptomania and a streak of jackassery), but their loyalty to each other is above question.  Exhibit A - see how Hank tears out of the junkyard when he thinks Marie has been injured, even though it means leaving ABQ's drug kingpins behind to flee (and if you don't think Walt owes a debt for that lie, just ask Jesse, much less Hank, or Marie, or Skyler).  And Exhibit B - see how Marie transforms from self-centered memememe! to Tiger Wife when Hank's treatment options are being discussed.

Now expand out to Jesse's circle.  From what we see of Jesse's parents and brother, he was raised in solid comfort, but his choices have caused his family to make the painful decision to cut ties with him.  Call when you're ready to actually change, not just when you're in trouble and we'll talk is the message his parents send to him after years of shattered promises and broken hearts.  Jesse comes close - so close! - to forming a family of his own with Jane (I'm not counting Skinny Pete and Badger here, although a case could be made), but that ends badly.  The bad ending is the result of a toxic combination of miserable choices and Walt.  Collateral damage here includes Jane's father and an entire planeload of innocents.

But go even further from the bright firelight of the middle-class American family.  Look at the family in "Peekaboo," but don't stare too long - that cracking sound in your chest is your heart breaking for the child.  Oh, and drug lords have families, too.  Just ask the bloodthirsty Cousins, who arrive in Season 3 to exact vengeance on those responsible for the death of Tuco, a hit that has the blessing of the patriarch of the family.  Well, the family that slays together . . .

Normally, family ties are seen to be good things that serve to hold the fabric of society together.  But the family values of Breaking Bad challenge that viewpoint.  Is it love that holds these people together and drives their actions, or is it something more sinister, like the desire to control and to be held in esteem by those under you?  And just what sort of family is it that has these levels of secrecy, violence, and a running body count?

Tune in to AMC beginning on July 15 for Season 5 to find out!

Walter White Wednesday 8

The art museum edition!

Gray Line with Black, Blue and Yellow, c. 1923

Last week, I discussed Jane.  This week, I want to briefly look at the artist she mentions so prominently - Georgia O'Keeffe.  You might remember that she convinces Jesse to go visit a museum in Santa Fe.  (We see their visit in flashback in Season 3.)  He's a little reluctant, but his interest is piqued when Jane mentions that he'd like the paintings because "some of them look like vaginas."  This is the O'Keeffe Museum.

Pelvis with Moon, 1943

O'Keeffe was an amazing woman and not just for her body of work as an artist.    (You can find out more here.) Born in Wisconsin, she had worked and taught in South Carolina and New York before a vacation to Taos, New Mexico introduced her to the landscape that has so entranced Vince Gilligan in Breaking Bad.  O'Keeffe was still struggling to find her true artistic voice, feeling stifled by European style art.  The wide-open desert and saturated colors of the Southwest gave her what she needed to break free of traditional confines of visual art and O'Keeffe began her most productive period as an artist.  Her paintings included such unusual matter as bleached cow skulls and yes, doors (Jesse never quite got that, but Jane did).

Black Door with Red, 1954

The majority of her sensuous close-up, large scale paintings of orchids and other flowers were done prior to her relocation to New Mexico, a fact that I'm sure didn't bother Jesse in the least.  O'Keeffe found beauty in non-traditional places - she referred to the area around Santa Fe, which many of us would think of as just empty space by the far more lyrical name "the faraway" (as a matter of fact, her ashes were scattered over "the faraway" following her death in 1986 at age 98) and her gift was in showing that to other people.

Little wonder Jane felt a connection to this powerful artist.  O'Keeffe was a woman operating at a very high level of success in a man's world and she saw the possibilities in objects and places that other people overlooked.

Yellow Calla, 1926

All photos courtesy of http://www.michelangelo.com/okeeffe/index-ns.html







And finally, the painting that I think of now as from O'Keeffe's Breaking Bad series.

Black Cross, New Mexico, 1929
Courtesy of http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/46327

There's something ominous about this one.  Maybe it's the bright line just under the heavy crossbar.  Maybe it's how much of the canvas is taken up by the solid plumb lines of the cross, which blocks out so much of the lower light and chops up the rolling lines of the hills.  Or it could be the feeling I get of looking outward to the land from inside a house - the lines seem like they might come from the muntins and mullions of a window.  And yet, I don't feel at all protected by being "inside."  I half-expect to see the cousins crawling their way toward some unholy shrine.

So yeah, O'Keeffe - good stuff!

Walter White Wednesday 7

The "Sweet Jane" edition. 

Warning:  Here be spoilers if you haven’t seen through Season 3! 

Jesse Pinkman has been evicted from his aunt’s house by his parents, who actually own the place.  Seems that Jesse has a little sideline that involved a lot of chemistry equipment being used to produce noxious fumes and high grade methamphetamine in the basement, so out he had to go.

Happily, he meets Jane Margolis, a Bettie Page look-alike with a half a duplex to rent.  Jane doesn’t ask too many questions – which is good, since Jesse would have a hard time coming up with a plausible answer to most of them (including, “Hey, why are you paying in wads of cash?”).   Jane manages the place for her dad and she works as a tattoo artist, but her own skin remains uninked – it’s too much of a commitment.

Jesse and Jane – I just love how those two names mesh, don’t you? – get along famously and soon, Jane is a lot more than just the “girl next door.”  Breaking Bad does such a nice job of developing secondary characters into fully-rounded people throughout its run and Jane is a shining example of this attention to detail.  For all his bravado, Jesse is often a sweet soul who craves approval and he finds comfort in Jane.    Just look at that shy hand holding at the end of “Negro y Azul.”  The newly-installed TV may still be “searching,” but Jesse’s found home. 

However, Jesse cooks meth and sometimes uses his product while Jane has a chip from Narcotics Anonymous marking 18 months’ of sobriety.  Let me make it clear – Jesse is not the cause of Jane’s downfall.  That’s Jane’s business.  We even see her make her decision in Season 2’s “Mandala” – watch  her hand on the doorknob.  As a viewer, I feel for Jane.   She’s funny and artistic and smart-mouthed and it’s hard to stay sober when your boyfriend’s smoking, even when he doesn’t do it right in front of you.  And – hello! – Jane needed that chip, as her drug of choice involves equipment such as a tourniquet and a syringe.  She shares this high with Jesse and the spiral downward becomes sharper for them both.

It takes money to get away from temptation and Jane tries mightily to be fierce for her man with her attempt to blackmail Walt into giving Jesse “his” money.  However, Jane’s playing a game she never can win when she goes up against the ruthless bewilderment of a cornered Season 2 Walt.  (Oh, and Walt’s non-involvement in the events of “Phoenix” so does not let him off the hook.  And he knows it.  Listen to him in Season 3’s “Fly.”)  When Walt is given a clear choice between taking a right action and doing nothing, but thereby eliminating a problem - well, Walt's moral compass points away from True North.

It seems that Jesse and Jane enjoyed their trip to the museum that we see in a Season 3 flashback.  It's heartbreaking to realize that the light may have been different in every O’Keeffe painting, but those are still on the walls and Jane’s personal light has been snuffed out forever.  There’s blame a-plenty for why that is so and, while Jesse may be dealing with his guilt and grief by listening obsessively to Jane’s voicemail message and gazing at her lipstick-stained cigarette in his car’s ashtray, someone else is also beginning to hear the piper’s insistent tune reminding him that payment is coming due.  And the interest has been compounding.