'BREAKING BAD' #4: UNEVEN

EPISODE 4

This show is uneven for me, from one episode to another and within episodes. In Episode 4 the teaser is hilarious. Walt is the new drug kingpin? I laughed out loud. Then Hank the nark will take care of Walt’s family? LOL. Good examples of dramatic irony or superior position. Masterfully written.

But EP 4 is painfully slow and tedious at times. I had to grit my teeth and force myself not to fast-forward. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about Jesse’s tweaking. Seems pretty stupid, so he seems stupid, which is not appealing.

But later he suffers in a sort of noble cause when he doesn’t rat out his little brother. So he seems like a better guy. I found the stuff with Jesse’s family hard to sit through, in both scenes. When we meet them, they are unbearably dull. That scene would work better for me if I knew who they were. Such square people are J’s folks?

Walt’s revenge on the egotistical jerk is great. Walt knows just what to do. A little highlight.

I know you can’t use dramatic irony all the time. But in EP 4, two other sequences would have worked better for me if they had used it: if we had known ahead of time that the two bikers were actually Jehovah’s Witnesses and if we had known that the joint really belonged to Jesse’s saintly little brother. As it is, we are scared along with Jesse, and then the effect turns. And the family scene is really boring. Then it turns at the end of the scene. So dull-dull-twist, both times.

The family scene is similar with Hank and Walt recounting the dull details of courting their wives. Snore. Again, dull-dull-twist. I almost didn’t last through the dull parts.

These shows don’t have a captive audience. We can bail out any time, and I almost did, several times in EP 4.  

So far, the best episode was EP 2. Overall, I'd give the show a "B." It's not in the same league as "The Wire" or "Deadwood," but it's pretty good. So far.

-- Roger