"Breaking Bad" has been finished for several years, and yet still remains one of the most influential television shows of our time, captivating tens of millions of viewers across its five season run on AMC, and now Netflix. The shows premise is immediately intriguing, a high school chemistry teacher, father, and husband has his mundane existence is turned on its head with the discovery that he has Stage 3A inoperable lung cancer. Knowing his days are numbered, and the cost of chemotherapy would devastate his family financially, Walt chooses to put his intricate knowledge of chemistry to use, and, with the help of his former student, begins cooking and distributing crystal meth to not only pay for his treatment, but to leave his disabled son and pregnant wife with enough money to sustain themselves after his passing.
A large part of "Breaking Bad"'s appeal is found in Walt's decaying morality, starting the show as a working class family man, and over the course of 62 episodes, gradually changing into a different man entirely. The show dares the audience to attempt to justify Walt's actions, to rationalize his decisions in whatever ways they can, just as Walt himself does throughout the series, as he begins to enjoy his new status in life, his new beginning. The show puts the audience in the boots of Walt, portraying him as an everyday working man, with a turn of bad luck that threatens to ruin everything he has spent his whole life building, and asks the viewer what they would do in Walt's situation.
When asked by a dubious business partner whats gotten into him, Walt simply responds, ''I am awake.'' Walt's inevitable doom frees him from society's constraints, allowing him to live his life without fear of consequence, and acting in ways the old Walt would have never dared. He acts out, fighting back against the society that has kept him down, and fulfilling the anarchic fantasy almost everyone has, of being truly free to act without fear, speaking and doing what you please, without having to consider the ramifications of doing so. The show immediately establishes Walt a sympathetic figure, showing his overbearing wife, his job teaching disinterested students who could care less about his lifelong passion, as well as his demeaning job at a car wash, encouraging the audience to root for his rebellion against society's norms.
As the show continues, the very same traits that caused the audience to like Walt slowly become the reasons why they turn against him. Walt's love for his family giving way to arrogance and hubris, as he uses his new found power to irreparably destroy the lives of others, all while rationalizing his decisions, placing blame on everyone except himself, his pride and ego not allowing him to show the raw human emotion that endeared him to the audience in the first place.
"Breaking Bad" is revolutionary, being one of the first and only shows to completely change the protagonist, the progression of Walt's character being so drastic that by the end, he is unrecognizable, both in physical appearance and mental state from when the show began. "Breaking Bad" combine a fascinating premise with complex and nuanced characters, not to mention its stunning cinematography, fantastic soundtrack and dark humor. "Breaking Bad" is a perfect example of why television is the best medium for telling complex, nuanced narratives.
