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Breaking Bad, Not Breaking Character

(Warning, if you haven’t seen Season 5, Episode 14, Ozymandias, read no further. It’s spoilers all the way down.)

In drama, as in fiction character is everything. Once you know who your characters are, what happens happens. That’s how tragedy works. The circumstances might change. That’s chemistry – the interaction of the different elements, elements in the form of other characters, and it always leads to an inevitable result.

We knew that Gomez and Hank were most likely dead men when we left them last week. We also knew that the writers and actors wouldn’t let us down, but would surprise us once again. After the beautiful flashback to pre-Heisenberg Walter, or maybe the beginning of Heisenberg’s emergence, we see Gomez’s body. It’s a tease in a way. We knew he was the redshirt, the one most likely to die. The writers are saying, “You were right. We can’t fool you.”

Then they show us a wounded Hank. Shot once more in the leg. We see the blood. He knows he’s a goner, even if we don’t yet. He’s going for Gomez’ gun because he wants to take a few of the nazis with him.

Is Walt’s giving up his money to barter for Hank generous? Is it a sign of his humanity? Maybe we want it to be. That’s a subjective read. What it was objectively was Walt trying again to control the Continue reading Breaking Bad, Not Breaking Character