What show are you watching right now?

[StCapps]

I wanted Walt to die horribly and Hank to come out on top. Hank was the only protagonist in the entire show.

Hank not coming out on top, especially the way that they did it, makes for way better drama though. Ozymandius is the greatest episode of television ever. Just because the guy you liked the most didn't win, that doesn't mean the ending sucked, it just means that your cheerleading for characters gets in the way of enjoying quality TV. The fact that you like Hank so much should have made the ending even more badass, instead you take it the wrong way and pout.


Breaking Bad's ending is awesome, don't listen to StA, he doesn't know what he's talking about. StA is the equivalent of people who shit on The Shield's ending because they receive an epic emotional gut punch to wrap up one of the major story archs involving a beloved character, not even realizing how much better it made the finale because they choose to wrap it up that way, character cheerleading gets in the way and they can't get over their favorite character not living happily ever after. Some people need happy endings for their fave characters, or they think the ending automatically sucks, even when the ending is amazing, StA seems to be one of those folks.

[pineapplemike]

Yeah the ending to Breaking Bad was solid, I really don't think they could have pulled it off any better. Love that show, the entire 4th season was fucking intense

I started Game of Thrones the other day, only a few episodes in but I know enough internet pop culture to know that several of these characters don't make it to the new seasons. Still good so far.

[Fife]

Breaking Bad ends poorly. It should have ended with Hank victorious.

Walt dies and I thought that was what you wanted?

I wanted Walt to die horribly and Hank to come out on top. Hank was the only protagonist in the entire show.

Not a fan of tragedy, I see.

The fault of the show is not that Hank died horribly; but that Pinkman somehow didn't (in a way that further eroded what was left of Walt). Skyler and the kids could have eaten a dirt sandwich also (in a way that laid Walt far, far lower than Hank's death did), and Walt's actual death could have been a HELLUVA lot more horrible.

I do agree that Walt got off way too easy. But Hank's salvation wouldn't have addressed that problem in the story at all.

The way Hank died, with a true show of bravery, right in front of Walt, shot in the scene with a black hole, literally, where Walt's soul used to be, was good, good shit.

The Bard himself would have been proud of this scene.

[StCapps]

The fault of the show is not that Hank died horribly; but that Pinkman somehow didn't (in a way that further eroded what was left of Walt). Skyler and the kids could have eaten a dirt sandwich also (in a way that laid Walt far, far lower than Hank's death did), and Walt's actual death could have been a HELLUVA lot more horrible.

I do agree that Walt got off way too easy. But Hank's salvation wouldn't have addressed that problem in the story at all.

The way Hank died, with a true show of bravery, right in front of Walt, shot in the scene with a black hole, literally, where Walt's soul used to be, was good, good shit.

The Bard himself would have been proud of this scene.

Walt did not get off too easy, he lost everything he cared about except the pride he had in his work. Jesse got tortured mentally and physically, and also lost everything he cared about, so he didn't get off too easy either, he just lucked out that Walt changed his mind at the last second so he got to survive.

Both characters paid dearly for their character flaws and sins throughout the show, so poor analysis Okee, aside from the break down of Hank's end, that was actually pretty good. Hank's last moments reminded me a lot of Stringer's.....

Now there are two characters who knew how to spend their final moments, and decided to go out as a man, once they realized the end was inevitable. Masterful storytelling on both counts, props to David Simon and Vince Gilligan, they know how to send a character out in style.

[StCapps]

One thing that is particularly great about both The Wire and Breaking Bad is that, even if you know the entire plot inside and out, the impact of rewatching scenes you know the outcome of, is not really diminished in any meaningful way, these shows don't really rely on plot twists to keep the audience interested as much as other TV shows do, so that is a big part of it, not that they don't have great plot twists, I'm just saying.

For example, no matter how many times I watch One Minute (S03E07), the heart is racing the entire fucking time during the scene that gives the episode it's title, and Ozymandius (S05E14) hits just as hard as it does the first time you watch it, if not more so. Here is probably the best example from The Wire's first season:

That shit gets me everytime, as do the events that lead to that scene. No real difference between the first viewing and subsequent one's, just phenomenal television drama, at it's finest.

If you've had a plot point or two spoiled from either show and haven't seen it yet, it doesn't take that much away from watching it, trust me, I had several important plot points of Breaking Bad spoiled before I even started watching, including a very key character death, and it's still my favorite television drama of all time, in spite of that disadvantage going in. So don't worry about that kind of thing, if you're someone like Monte, just dive in, you honestly won't regret it.

The first scene I ever saw from Breaking Bad, was the end of Crawl Space, context free flipping through the channels, when I happened upon that scene, and that was the moment, I was like "Fuck it, I can't not watch this show, I don't even know what the fuck is going on and that was one of the best scenes of television that I ever saw, hot damn! Since when has the dad from Malcolm in the Middle had dramatic acting chops like that?"


Seriously, just watch either show, if you haven't already, Television doesn't get any better, and if you've already seen it, rewatching it is pretty much as good as watching it for the first time, in either case. There is only one other TV drama that deserves to be mentioned in the conversation as the greatest TV drama of all time, and that is The Sopranos. All three of these shows are cut above every other TV drama you've ever seen and hold up extremely well on rewatch.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Breaking Bad ends poorly. It should have ended with Hank victorious.

And he calls me a statist.

[heydaralon]

This is an extreme minority opinion, but I consider Breaking Bad to be the most overrated show of all time. The ending was bad, and it was very cartoonish. In fact, the entire show was cartoonish. The show was boring when it needed to be interesting, and unnecessarily convuluted. Ooh look Walt is using some weird chemistry science stuff to commit crimes! You had to suspend too much disbelief too often. From the nitroglycerine tuco scene, to those autistic mexican axe brothers. Just comic book crap. The villains etc. I can never imagine anyone from a drug cartel, to a meth head actually speaking that way. None of the villains seemed remotely plausible to me. And they made stuff weird and longwinded just for the sake of being weird and longwinded. The cartoonish nature and corny writing sucked me out of the show. Like, I was very aware I was watching a show that wanted to be considered deep, but the world the guy built always seemed very boring and unrealistic to me. The writing for the secondary characters was lousy too, like Jessie's friends. A lot of the build up did not pay off either. I did not care about Walt's annoying wife or retard son either. Don't get me wrong there were some great scenes in the show, but I do not feel that the acclaim it gets is remotely warranted. Reasonable people can disagree, but to me BB is not great.

[Okeefenokee]

so poor analysis Okee

What's that?

[Speaker to Animals]

Blade Runner was really good. Very cerebral. I didn't think Hollywood would make something like that again.

It wasn't just true to the original film, it played out like something PKD would have written himself.

[TheReal_ND]

BB was ok. The plot kept me entertained and some of the drug use writings seemed accurate and gritty. I watched the whole thing and kind of binged on it through Netflix. I can't really say that all that time was worth it.

I just finished season 5 or 6 of GoT and while I have plenty of reasons to not like it based on the specific tribe of one or two of the writers and the way they worked in certain themes, I won't get into it. I will say that I'm quite done with it now.