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Just a brief post this week - I am presenting on negative fan reaction to Skyler in two days and that paper is (ahem) not quite ready for public consumption.  Should be a fun time, though.  Details are here and the schedule is here - if you're near the Upstate area of South Carolina, come on by - free to attend!

Yesterday, we received the full typeset pages of Wanna Cook? and I have to say, I nearly fell out.  (That's a Southernism for "collapsed," for those in need of translation.)  This book looks GREAT!!  I mean, seriously fantastic!  To see it in this form, instead of our electronic typewritten pages, is just such a kick that I had to sit back in my desk chair and just look at it for a moment.  Our next job is to carefully go through these pages with a fine-toothed comb (and a red pen) to nitpick anything that made it past both of us and two editors.  It's painstaking work that is best done in small doses - speed up too much and you get sloppy and we don't want sloppy.  96% pure; that's the minimum we'll accept.

Speaking of which, Breaking Bad continues to attract attention, often in unusual ways.  For instance, the teenage son of a friend of mine (I'm keeping names out of this; one day the kid will apply to college) threw a Halloween party, with his parents' permission.  Said parents were trying to walk that tightrope of responsible supervision and "let the kids have their fun."  Now, the light-blue rock candy that the Breaking Bad crew used as meth made an appearance, packaged in little plastic bags.  What also made an appearance was a gorgeous hand-crafted knife (made by my friend's grandfather, I believe) - a big thing, with a horn hilt.  The knife is usually displayed prominently on the family mantel.  Yep, you guessed it - Teenage Son used the knife to pound the rock candy to powder while screaming, "TIGHTTIGHTTIGHT!!"  My friend doesn't know whether to be amused or deeply disturbed that her son was snorting crystallized sugar off a sharp blade.  (Oh, and Teenage Son was dressed as Shaggy from Scooby-Doo, which is a whole other level of hilarity in this tale.)  And fear not, the knife was whisked away quickly.  Kids.

Also, I thought Ensley and I had done something amazing in writing a book together and maintaining a solid marriage (and I still do, by the way), but this couple takes things to a whole new level of Breaking Bad love!

Where's that red pen?

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For this week's Breaking Bad post - it's the Valentine's Day edition!  Now, Breaking Bad isn't exactly a hearts-and-flowers sort of show, but there are a few things worth examining here, so settle in with your heart-shaped box of Whitman's chocolates and ponder the following:

Review:  To quote another favorite show of mine, "Love makes you do the wacky."  I suppose it can be successfully argued that it's love that makes Walt "break bad" back in Season 1 when he throws his lot in with Jesse, but I'm not so sure about that.  Walt's much more about power (wanting it, anyway) and control.  Hank and Marie have a stronger - and certainly a "realer" - marriage.  Heck, even Wendy's more upfront about what she's out for.  Also on the plus side, Jesse has shown himself to be capable of deeper feelings, although he's careful to (mostly) keep them masked with a hearty "Yo, bitches!" 

Speculation:  Junior idolizes his dad (hmmm - that smells like teen spirit trouble).  In fact, when that breaks, I think the Johnstown Flood might look like a summer shower.  And, despite his undeniable loyalty to "Mr. White," Jesse's wrath if/when he learns of Walt's involvement in what happened with Jane and with Brock is likely to be white-hot.

Underline: Walt is undeniably brilliant as a chemist and throughout the run of Breaking Bad, he's been shown to be learning the steps of a dangerous dance as he moves from milksop high school teacher to badass drug kingpin. But as with all beginning dancers, he steps on toes and sooner or later, someone's not going to shrug it off by saying that Walt's too important, so just deal with it.  Then things are going to get very interesting for Walter White.

Don't forget to check in here every Wednesday and also make plans to check out my co-author Ensley Guffey's "Meth Monday" posts!

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BE WARNED THAT SPOILERS ABOUND FOR "BUYOUT"!!

So Walt thinks of himself as being in the "empire business" and he sees the meth enterprise as being some sort of "see, I told you so" to Gretchen and Elliott who took Walt's ideas and kicked him out of Gray Matter all those many years ago. Only we know from Gretchen's uncomfortable conversation with Walt (really, is there any other kind of conversation with Walt in the last year?) that his version of events and hers are vastly different.  And referring to his letting Gretchen and Elliott buy the "birthright" of his children?  I'd be careful about throwing around Old Testament concepts when you just got finished dissolving a kid's dirt bike, among other things.  Note:  that lingering shot of the child's upturned hand in the mound of dirt in the dump truck is going to haunt me.

On the other hand (bad pun there), Walt seems perfectly okay with it.  Yes, it's a shame, so sorry it happened, don't want to have to deal with that again, but well . . . business.  Jesse is clearly having a hard time dealing with his part in the murder of a child and Walt claims he's been losing sleep over it, too, so Jesse - hey, rough couple of days, partner, go on home and I'll finish up here.  Then he starts whistling.

I think that's when Jesse makes his decision.

So Walt is faced with the breakup of the band - Mike is sick of the DEA tails and he's found a buyer for the methylamine, but Declan also wants the blue off the street, so the whole thousand gallons needs to be part of the deal.  (Declan - what's an Irishman doing in the Southwest?  Oh, right - the desert is a place with no memory.  Declan's built up quite a nice meth empire one state over in Phoenix and he has designs on expansion.)  Jesse, Mike, and Walt each stand to clear $5 million from the deal and have the ability to walk away.  Jesse's happy, Mike's happy - but there's Walt.

Walt's come a long way from just wanting enough cash (which he once estimated at $737K) to leave his family secure. He's not in it for his family - who's fractured beyond repair anyway.  That excuse just won't fly anymore, and Walt's really not even bothering.  Skyler can barely stand to be in the same room with him (Marie's spilling of the beans guaranteed that) and the kids are off at Marie's.  Walt has no allies and his wounded pride and greed are swelling him up like a puffer fish.  It's not about family and it's just barely about the money.  What's driving Walt right now is a desire for power and a desire to be feared.  he's a long way from the nebbishy chem teacher of Season 1.  And while I don't think Walt's as clever as he thinks he is, I have to give him badass points for his Mission: Impossible style escape from being zip-tied to the radiator.  As Jesse might say, "Yeah - science!"  See, Walt's got a plan.  And regular viewers know how much joy that usually brings.

Two episodes left in Season 5A.  I don't see this turning out well.  Especially since Mensa-reject Todd kept the spider jar.  You know, the one that has the kid's fingerprints all over it.

Could you please pass the domestic discomfort?

Also note to self:  Never accept a last-minute invitation to dinner at the White house.  What an uncomfortable dinner and what great comedic chops Aaron Paul has!  Did you notice that the ex-junkie is the one gulping ice water while the two supposed grown-ups are swilling liquor and guzzling wine from a glass the size of a colander?  The icy disdain at that table was enough to make me squirm, but I was enjoying watching Jesse try to bring the conversation around to the neighborhood of normal too much to not watch it.  Breaking Bad has always done a masterful job of mixing comedy with probing the darkness of the human soul and this scene in "Buyout" has that light touch that makes it possible to watch a show that so often goes so dark.

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Which is the one about meth.

The premise of Breaking Bad involves a mild-mannered high school chemistry teacher receiving a cancer diagnosis and deciding to manufacture methamphetamine as a way to provide for his family when he's gone.  The show is going into its fifth season and much has happened since that single sentence set the ball rolling back in Season 1. The "good man driven to bad acts" theme has been used before - viewers like seeing how a person reacts to desperation, I suppose.  But why methampetmaine (hereinafter, just called "meth")?  I mean, couldn't Walt just stick up liquor stores?  And how bad is meth anyway?

Hmmmm.

Meth is strange among drugs in that it is synthetic.  Most drugs - as is true of most medicines in general - are derived from natural components.  (Aspirin, for example, has its start in willow bark.  Click here for an interesting read on that - including the fact that both Aspirin and Heroin were trademarks that were given up as part of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.)  Meth is a weird one.  It was first synthesized from ephedrine in Japan at the end of the 1800s.  The term comes from the chemical structure of the resulting compound:  methyl alpha-methylphenlethylamine.  There is some speculation that meth occurs naturally in two varieties of Acacia trees, but that research has not been replicated, so as of today, meth is strictly a synthetic drug, meaning you have to have a lab to produce it.  OK - right up Walter White's alley.

As it true with all street drugs, meth varies wildly in quality - remember that in Season 1, Jesse's "signature" in his trash meth is the addition of chili powder.  Walt insists on "clean room" quality and his goal is to produce the purest meth ever seen.  He's a good chemist - an extraordinary one, in fact - and he does just that.  This is a skill that brings him to the attention of any number of (drug) business-minded folk and the danger escalates.

To Walt, it's all about the chemistry.  He doesn't use the product and doesn't have any desire to.  Walt is a scientist in the pure sense of the word.  Great, but that "pure sense of the word" ignores the fact that his product wreaks destruction on those who consume it.  I think of Walt in the desert and I'm reminded of the fact that the Trinity Test was also located out in the great sands of New Mexico.  Solving equations and formulas is just terrific, but it may be wise to occasionally ask, "Hey, why do those guys with the big guns want the answers so badly?  They don't look like they care that much about chemistry."

So just how bad is meth?  It's listed as a Schedule II drug of the Controlled Substances Act in the U.S., meaning it has limited medicinal uses (meth is sometimes used for the treatment of narcolepsy and considering its stimulant effects, that makes a certain amount of sense).  Since meth can be whipped up at home using trash recipes found on the Internet (seriously, anything that includes brake fluid and/or lye as ingredients should never be introduced into the human body), states have tried various strategies to make getting the raw ingredients harder, which is why Sudafed and other cold medicines containing ephedrine or pseudoephedrine is kept behind the counter in most drugstores.  Most cooks don't have Walt's skill or quality standards, but that really doesn't give Walt an out here.

Meth is a highly addictive drug and overcoming the addiction (which is often accompanied by mental depression, another factor in treating the addict) is notoriously difficult.  Use of the drug often leads to "meth mouth," which is advanced tooth decay due to a combination of factors, including aggressive teeth grinding, poor oral hygiene (most tweakers don't floss; imagine that), and consumption of a lot of sugary soft drinks and junk food.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the ingestion of brake fluid, lye and other such substances often found in meth just might have a touch to do with it, too.  Addiction leads to any number of bad decisions - "Peekaboo" gives us a peek at that aspect of the drug trade.

On top of all this is the debris left behind by the manufacture of meth, which is so long-lastingly toxic that hazmat suits are often required to conduct a safe clean up of the property.  Remember Jesse's basement?

Walt wants his legacy to be the purest meth on the planet.  He can do his best to make it clean, but what Walt is doing is not victimless and it's not an academic exercise in formula application.