Breaking Bad

Christopher Sharrett

• Publisher: Wayne State University Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780814342558
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Television

Breaking Bad (2008–2013), a remarkable synthesis of the crime film, the sitcom, the western, and the family melodrama, is a foundational example of new television in the early twenty-first century. Receiving multiple Emmy Awards, it launched the careers of its creators and stars, most notably Bryan Cranston as high school teacher turned drug manufacturer Walter White, whose attempt to grab the American dream results in the destruction of family, home, community, and himself. In this book, Christopher Sharrett examines the innovations of Breaking Bad through a study of its main character, using psychoanalysis, genre study, gender studies, American studies, and the graphic arts to assist an exploration of the supreme danger of modern, postindustrial toxic masculinity embodied in Walter White. Serving as a fresh start for the American Movie Classics (AMC) cable outlet, Breaking Bad is probably the most uncompromised rendering of the white American male's rage in early twenty-first-century fiction. Set against a deindustrialized American landscape, its conflicted morality can seem less ambiguous than repugnant when we note the use of humor throughout, particularly as characters are introduced and killed off. Walter's relationships with his son, who has cerebral palsy, his former student turned business partner, his long-suffering wife, and his DEA brother-in-law are layered on top of the show's reflection of the very real challenges facing America today, which are not limited to the opioid epidemic, lax gun laws, and racial violence. Some critics have accused Breaking Bad of inciting a disturbance rather than criticizing, as it relies heavily on the audience's humor. Sharrett's argument for why the show is the canniest dramatic insight of our times is worth the price of admission for scholars and students of media studies and superfans alike.

1

The Revenge of the Husband-Father and the Case of Walter White

Understanding Walt’s destruction of his family and the respectable—if economically beleaguered—life he endures in the suburban Southwest requires attention to specific aspects of his personality and the everyday ills he confronts as an “underachieving” (the commonly applied term, used by Hank to describe Walt, assumes that people must indeed achieve, and in a big way, in order to be acceptable to white middle-class society) schoolteacher. In a short span of time, Walt accepts the invitation from brother-in-law and DEA agent Hank (our idea that Hank may be the true anchor of normality is quickly overturned) and partner Steve Gomez to go on a ride-along drug bust.

When Hank mentions at a birthday party that crude meth labs can go wrong, creating “mustard gas,” Walt corrects him, saying “phosphine gas.” We quickly learn Walt is a near genius—but was he already reading up on meth after the party, when news of a crystal meth bust and the huge cash haul was shown on TV, Hank making his macho asides? Walt already has his cancer diagnosis, but his snap decision to make meth, especially prompted by his glimpse of former student Jesse Pinkman at the ride-along crime scene, conveys motives found in earlier pilot scenes, moments showing his contempt for his circumstances. Below are some of the larger issues about Walt and his relationships and complaints.

“Because You’re a Liar, Walt”

The role of the White family within media representation, and Walter White’s reaction to his role as husband and father—making him want to poison the world with methamphetamine—depends on seeing clearly the series’ elaboration of a core issue, one that precedes meth manufacture and hidden relationships: lying, and the politics thereof related to married life. Walt’s mendacity is his key characteristic; he lies with some facility, although Skyler has her doubts about his odd excuses and assertions early in the series. The idea of infidelity is central to lying within the rules of heteronormative married life. The issue of Walt having an affair keeps raising its head, although Skyler, certainly by “ABQ” (season 2), figures out, through her investigations that his lies are not about sex. Lying is about contempt for social norms in general, a trait shared to a degree by most major characters of the show. Walt becomes burdened by his web of deceit, but only when he is extremely debilitated (“4 Days Out,” season 2). When he bounces back, it is obvious that holding back the truth is precious to Walt, as his lies become so elaborate as to be ridiculous. His lies convey contempt for the family, the unit about which he claims to be “doing everything.”

Not ironically, when Skyler starts an affair with Ted Beneke (Christopher Cousins) to “get back” at Walt, she is dishonest mainly to herself—her emotions are confused, her life upended.

So Skyler is the locus of sexual transgression and family insult through adultery, the behavior she imputes to Walt. Yet her self-deception is manifest in assisting her husband, even though she doesn’t believe Walt’s teary-eyed tale of self-sacrifice for the family when he shows her the duffel bag of cash in “I.F.T.” (season 3). Walt’s lies fall apart as Skyler makes him leave home (“ABQ,” season 2) just after he has returned victorious from cancer surgery; an extra cell phone (the signifier of adultery), one that she thought for weeks Walt possessed, is the quotidian object that makes Skyler investigate the many odd tales he has told. She tells him the list of lies she has uncovered, told to mask his meth-making but also reflecting his lies’ basic impulse—contempt for her. Yet her anger wears off, she soon lets Walt back in the house, and she then becomes part of his criminal enterprise, as she deludes herself into thinking she will keep her family together. In this, she is the dutiful wife, concerned about saving children, home and, hearth, finally assisting her criminal husband, taking his orders. But Skyler is very conflicted. What isn’t yet revealed is the myth of family sacrifice, exploded by Walt in the series’ denouement.

Skyler’s way out: the affair with Beneke

Walt’s bald-faced lies are astonishing, yet familiar. Walt resembles the archetypal adulterer, ready to confess to all sorts of small things (always with a sense that he deserves pity) to conceal the real issue. During their first bedroom conversation about an extra cell phone, which Skyler suspects after a remark from her nosy sister Marie (Betsy Brandt), the object becomes a major challenge to Walt (“Bitten by a Dead Bee,” season 2). Walt is straight-faced, “sincere,” feigning sadness and a little surprise that Skyler would even ask the question. Later (“Down,” season 2), after Walt has prepared an elaborate breakfast for Skyler and Junior as a means of making up for his vanishing, his fake “fugue state” and disappearance (he and Jesse were captives of the psychotic Tuco [Raymond Cruz] at his desert lair, “Grilled,” season 2), he tries to make nice with Skyler by mentioning a class on writing that might interest her, the aspiring novelist. Then he goes too far by offering a ridiculously complicated story about how Skyler mistook an alarm for a cell phone, a story whose timing and awkward delivery by Walt are immediately suspect. Skyler leaves the house and begins a pattern of unexplained absences, imitating Walt in a hopeless gesture of marital-revenge-by-mimicry.

When Walt finally corrals Skyler for a sit-down to talk over their problems (“Down,” season 2)—actually his problem—he begs forgiveness for his absences, for being “emotionally unavailable” (he has a good command of Psychology Today psychobabble), and for everything but what is at issue—his preamble is his cloying story about an odd dream. As he winds down, he thinks that stony-faced Skyler still suspects something, Walt pleads “Ask me!” in a tone of desperation and sadness, as if Skyler is the guilty party. It is another unconvincing act, aimed at drawing sympathy even as it projects contempt. Walt is in real emotional need to fool his spouse rather than right any wrong done to her. There is a shot of Walt’s face showing a bit of relief, thinking his lie did the trick, only to register dismay when he sees that his performance isn’t working—actor Cranston deftly conveys multiple emotions at once.

The energy Walt puts into his lying is fascinating and familiar; lying isn’t easy and depends on a large amount of trust on the part of the person lied to and proficient acting from the liar. Walt lies, in one way or another, to everyone in his ambit. With Skyler, his opposition is powerful given her intelligence; we see Walt manifest as a scared child trying to put one over on mom, and with a casual attitude revelatory of this most basic kind of disregard for others. That Skyler sees through him informs us that she has an intimacy with her husband that is not reciprocal; she knows him, but he is not only distant but uninterested—it is this, the fact of his emotional “hiding” in the marriage, that is most disturbing, because it is most recognizable.

Walt’s strained lies start to anger Skyler

Walt’s contempt for Skyler (and his son) becomes reinforced with his confession in the finale that “I did it for me. . . . I liked it, I was good at it,” his pledges that everything he did was “for the family” at last erased. My remark about contempt might seem to fly in the face of the emotion in Walt’s farewell to his baby daughter and son in the finale, the latter accomplished merely through Walt’s gaze at his son as he leaves a school bus. Walt is capable of emotion, but we recall how son and daughter are wrapped up in his ego and grandiosity; he spends little time with them, and when he acts out the fatherly role, it is precisely that—we must keep in mind Walt’s changing driving lessons for Junior (“Half Measures,” season 3), which put his disabled son in danger, especially when he buys him the two Dodge Challengers, the first of which Walt blows up rather than follow Skyler’s order of returning it to the dealer.

Skyler’s lawyer, Pamela (Julie Dretzin), is quick to see the family dynamic without even meeting Walt (“Mas,” season 3). As she uses Pamela as a psychiatrist, Skyler explains her devotion by noting Walt’s motives. Pamela finishes Skyler’s argument by saying that Walt does his terrible deeds “for the family, right?,” obviously a male narrative she has heard hundreds of time for all sorts of reasons, making the White story familiar. She tells Skyler this is “a load of horseshit.” This may be the one true moment of female solidarity in the series, and it goes past Skyler. Skyler understands the risks yet denies them and continues to use Pamela as a therapist rather than attorney, her central rationale the well-being of her family, even as her lawyer tells her that she will lose everything by not telling the police about the meth-making. At points, Skyler is indeed a complement to her husband.

Walt’s contempt for Skyler is reflected in many small gestures, such as his response “I wanted to” (“Down,” season 2) when Skyler says he didn’t have to make his first big breakfast (Skyler later calls his cooking “desperate,” as his behavior starts to reveal the truth). At one point Walt gets up to clear the table. He leans over Skyler, his face in close-up, feigning a smile resembling that of a little boy trying to please a nasty mother—the smile captures the sense that Walt sees himself as the victim, the one who has been wronged and deserves sympathy. His smile is the proverbial shit-eating grin representative of a person who fakes well-wishing while wanting to stab the other person in the back. It is a smile without authentic feeling, part of the social mask that is essential to Walt’s criminal activity and free-floating loathing.

Walt’s insistence on lying is remarkable; it continues long after his crimes are known to Skyler, who becomes fully complicit in them, although it takes time for her to learn his full monstrousness. In the “Rabid Dog” episode of the final season, an outraged Jesse breaks into the unoccupied White home, dousing it with gasoline. He is stopped from setting the place ablaze at the last minute by Hank, who wants to use Jesse to arrest Walt. Walt arrives home to discover the gas-soaked interior. He calls a cleaning service and begins his own hands-and-knees attempt to get rid of the odor, an impossible task. When Skyler and Walt Jr. come home, he invents a bizarre, implausible story about an accident at a gas pump that soaked his clothes with fuel. Walt’s delivery of this ridiculous story immediately falls flat with Skyler (and Junior), who has long since been accustomed to her husband’s preference for prevarication. Walt’s delivery is that of a man vaguely peeved at his own carelessness but shrugging off the absurdity of the (invented) incident like a husband should as he cleans up his mess. He lies elaborately when a version of the truth will more or less do: a crazy person broke into their house and poured gasoline about. Walt, at this late date (Hank knows about Walt’s crimes and is on his trail), still needs to maintain some domestic tranquility, some normal facade. When Junior says he thinks his father’s story is a lie to hide the return of his cancer, Walt makes use of his son’s concern, saying he “might have gotten a little swimmy,” as he adds a little sympathy ploy to his lie.

Walt role-plays the good husband-father, who is basically the figure of the TV drama; he inadvertently becomes Ward Cleaver of Leave It to Beaver (1957–63), the man unruffled by the world. Walt wants to project normality at all cost regardless of the situation’s transparency. But again, one asks if the lie is about assuring his family that things are okay, or sustaining their support, which, for Skyler at least, is already guaranteed, if only because she fears jail (in fact, her affection for Walt has at this point enjoyed a precarious restoration, bringing into question the whole nature of marital love).

Breaking Bad underscores the lie as the husband-father’s crucial weapon, the means by which he exists within the framework of bourgeois responsibility. At points his lying is shocking, like the moment in “Blood Money” (season 5a), when Walt, knowing that Hank knows the truth about the meth-manufacturing, interferes with Junior’s visit to Marie. Walt knows that Hank and Marie now want to separate the children from Walt and Skyler. Walt reacts quickly when his son says he’s going over to the Schrader home, his Aunt Marie wanting him, so she says, to fix her computer. Walt sits Junior down and slowly tells him that his cancer has returned, assuring his son that there is no cause for alarm—it is one of his more sophisticated approaches, getting the boy’s attention to the point that Junior tears up. Walt then actually tells him to go to Marie; Junior says “no way.” So concerned is Junior at that point it is doubtful he will ever visit the Schraders again—of course, by series end, he screams at his despised father.

Walt’s greatest—and most deplorable (if we see Jesse as a “son”)—lies concern the manipulation of Jesse. While celebrating Jesse’s new relationship with Andrea (“Hazard Pay,” season 5a) Walt puts the idea in Jesse’s head that he must tell her the whole truth, including Jesse’s involvement in murder, and the Walt-ordered killing of Gale Boetticher. Walt pretends, as always, to be concerned about Jesse, when it is patently obvious—except to the loved-starved and lonely boy—that Walter sees a threat to his operation (he makes some use of the threat by poisoning—but not killing—Brock in his plot to win back Jesse’s loyalty as he plans to murder Gus Fring). Jesse is downcast as he considers Walt’s “advice.” Walt’s subsequent consolations lead to a revelatory moment. Jesse is about to leave when he hears Walt whistling from inside the pest-control tent they are now using as a meth lab. Jesse stops in shock. He has not been able to smile since the murder of Drew Sharp by the psychotic Todd, although there are moments of joy with Walt, like watching a Three Stooges short just before Walt’s advice about Andrea. How can Walt whistle after all the recent horrors?

Walt’s manipulation of Jesse works even when Jesse is finally aware of Walt’s tactics. In the final season (“To’hajiilee,” season 5a) Walt, Jesse, and Saul rendezvous in the desert as their plans fall apart, Hank now aware of Walt’s crimes. Walt says to Jesse, “it might be a good idea” for him to leave town and assume a new identity, courtesy of Saul and Ed The Disappearer (Robert Forster). Jesse suddenly asks Walt to “stop working me,” asking to his mentor/father figure to say outright that needs him to go away.

In one of many remarkable instances of his ambiguous manipulation, Walt embraces the distraught, crying boy-man, pressing his head to his shoulder, as if to affirm the father-son bond and the notion that “Mr. White” (the only way the respectful Jesse addresses the older man) cares after all. It is notable that while Jesse collapses against Walt’s body, he doesn’t return the embrace. In the finale, when Jesse aims a pistol at Walt, having just been freed from the Welker gang’s bondage by Walt, Walt invites him to shoot by saying “you want this.” Jesse, overcome with grief and rage, knowing of course that Walt’s opening the gates of hell with his machine gun has saved him, insists that Walt say “I want this.”

Walt does, for once, tell the truth. But Jesse’s contempt for the man he finally understands makes him leave the gun for Walt: “Then do it yours...