Thursday, November 15, 2012
Motivation for Pushing the limits
Motivation for pushing the limits
This is the seventh and final episode of Breaking Bad Season one and I think this one is the most revealing of his character yet! This show starts off reviewing the theft at the school, while hearing them read off the allegations and what is missing Skylar and Walt start acting sexually. Than have sex after the meeting in his car. Than they go to the doctor to talk about his improvements and progress during treatment. After the baby shower he decides to tell Skylar a lie about going to alternative medicine facility, but is really going to make Meth. He leaves for his weekend and meets up with Jesse. Finding out that one important ingredient is missing and they need that ingredient to cook and the RV is not working, so they decide to steal the ingredient and cook in the basement. They cook in the basement and also successfully steal the the wrong ingredient. The Meth comes out blue. He meets the dealer's desire for four pounds of Meth. He gets the money and goes home to his wife. Mean while Skylar got accused for stealing because her sister is stealing and not recognizing it. She gets out of the accusation and pressures her sister who owns up to nothing. When Walt gets back home, they talk about the stealing and he asks what if it was me? She just jokes the question away. Than the episode ends.
I think there are some very important themes going on in this episode. Walt is flirting with power and control. The sexual scene when the episode starts shows that when he is hearing about the power he had in stealing, he is dominating and getting pleasure out of his power. He wants to steal and do more adventurous things. He is pushing the limits and like how he feels with the power and control.
In life we all don't like being out of control. We find ways to be in control, whether is not eating or not talking to someone or in control of company or breaking bad, we find away to control. We need to show a world that is trying to control, that there is a God who wants the best for us and can handle the control. He is not flirting with power. He wants the best for us. He tells us to cast our burdens on him in Matthew, and we can rest in him, and we need to show a world that does not know how to rest to be able to do this!
Friday, November 2, 2012
Wanna Cook
Wanna cook?
This has been by far my favorite episode, just because of the varying relationships and how deep the characters are getting. The episode starts out with Walt and Skylar are visiting some old friends. Walt is apprehensive in going but his wife convinces him, they have to go. After being at the party, for a while he sees his wife and Elliot talking about something. He comes to Walt later and mentions a job and Walt declines. There is a lot of past history between Elliot, and his wife who was a part of Walts past as well. Walt leaves furious that Sky would let him know their business. Than relationships in the household get strained. The son try's to buy alcohol and gets call and calls the uncle because his family is not trust worthy right now. They are all trying to protect Walt. The end scene is the family finally having a meeting and intervention. Finally Walt speaks up for himself and say he wants to basically die.
He does not like help and does not like showing that he is weak. He finally gets some treatment and than decides he wants to cook again with Jesse.
Jessie's condition is improving. In the beginning is trying to get a job and get out but his past keeps pulling him back in.
Walt needs to control, when his life is completely out of control. That seems like why he is going back to cooking. I the end Jesse is left to decide is he wants to be partners with Walt again.
Sometimes when life is hard, we will do anything to feel like we are in control. I know that happens in my life. We need to let a world with struggle and trying to get control, that there is a God who will help, who can save them from there chaos.
This has been by far my favorite episode, just because of the varying relationships and how deep the characters are getting. The episode starts out with Walt and Skylar are visiting some old friends. Walt is apprehensive in going but his wife convinces him, they have to go. After being at the party, for a while he sees his wife and Elliot talking about something. He comes to Walt later and mentions a job and Walt declines. There is a lot of past history between Elliot, and his wife who was a part of Walts past as well. Walt leaves furious that Sky would let him know their business. Than relationships in the household get strained. The son try's to buy alcohol and gets call and calls the uncle because his family is not trust worthy right now. They are all trying to protect Walt. The end scene is the family finally having a meeting and intervention. Finally Walt speaks up for himself and say he wants to basically die.
He does not like help and does not like showing that he is weak. He finally gets some treatment and than decides he wants to cook again with Jesse.
Jessie's condition is improving. In the beginning is trying to get a job and get out but his past keeps pulling him back in.
Walt needs to control, when his life is completely out of control. That seems like why he is going back to cooking. I the end Jesse is left to decide is he wants to be partners with Walt again.
Sometimes when life is hard, we will do anything to feel like we are in control. I know that happens in my life. We need to let a world with struggle and trying to get control, that there is a God who will help, who can save them from there chaos.
Friday, October 19, 2012
The soul has no chemistry
In this episode, episode three, Walter is forced to clean up the remains and deal with the problem he has down stairs. The episode starts with them cleaning and than the show deals with the progression of getting to know the man he is going to kill.
I think this show is trying to say something about human life. Walter is really discouraged and afraid to do murder. He goes down to the basement and Crazy Eight tells him he does not have it in him. He believes him. After Jesse leaves he knows he has to make a decision.
I this episode, there is a flash back, this flash back shows him displaying all the elements of the human body. He feels like something is missing, his partner say what about the soul, and he says the soul has no chemistry. This is the passage for him to break bad. Human life in this episode is no longer scared.
He kills the guy because he was going to kill him. He leaves and goes home, but stops on the way and realizes that the human is just chemistry, life no longer has meaning and now he can really do what he wants, he is justified to break bad.
I think this show is trying to say something about human life. Walter is really discouraged and afraid to do murder. He goes down to the basement and Crazy Eight tells him he does not have it in him. He believes him. After Jesse leaves he knows he has to make a decision.
I this episode, there is a flash back, this flash back shows him displaying all the elements of the human body. He feels like something is missing, his partner say what about the soul, and he says the soul has no chemistry. This is the passage for him to break bad. Human life in this episode is no longer scared.
He kills the guy because he was going to kill him. He leaves and goes home, but stops on the way and realizes that the human is just chemistry, life no longer has meaning and now he can really do what he wants, he is justified to break bad.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Knowledge is power
Life is beautiful and sacred, sparse yet we seem invincible. This idea of life or being alive is challenged in this weeks episode (Season 1, episode 2) that I watched. I think both characters Walter and Jesse ask themselves the question of life and it's value.
Spoiler alert (but most of you have probably watched this by now)
The episode starts with Walter and his wife, having non-connecting or love induced-sex. After his sexual experience, he goes to bathroom disillusioned than the scene flashes back and shows the audience what happened over the last twelve hours.
They show what happened to them after their dessert fiasco, get their meth-RV on the road and start to discuss how to dispose of the bodies. In the last episode they had two thugs (more or less), threaten them when Walter releases the gas form of phosphorus, which burns and can be fatal. After they get the RV out, the realize, that it did not kill both men but only on and now have to dispose of the bodies and kill a man. They moved him to Jessie's basement.
This is where I will take a pause and talk about the conflict within the characters. Last update I had thought the characters were God-less and moral-less. I thought since Walter and Jesse had no empathic or emotional response to the initial deaths of Crazy Eight and his cousin, that they were already on some level of evil. They were already depraved before they even acted on it. But now, after seeing their fears and responses to actually having to kill someone, as in murder and not self defense, makes me see them in a more human since, in an almost caring since.
There is a scene when Walter comes down to kill Crazy Eight, when he hears him speak and plead for water. His response is to give him, food, water and a bucket to use the bathroom in. He even goes as far as to give him toilet paper. I begin to ask myself, in the moment, does a man who is heartless do these kinds of things? The episode ends with a motherly warning to Jesse from Walters wife, her being put in her place (as they say) and a very gory way to dispose of the body. Is Crazy Eight dead? I don't know but I will finish as I began,
What is the value of life, who decides wether someone is to be disposed of, for our safety or convenience? Does Walter contemplate this? One can only speculate.
In this show knowledge is ignorant but raw power, knowledge is Walter's catalyst in personality. We see him think that because he has the knowledge he thinks he gets the power and right to "Break Bad", the scene where his wife tells him what to do and where he puts her in her place, displays how he feels he has the right to make decisions and the power to carry them out.
His knowledge produces the power he uses to get control his world but we see this evidence of contradicting feelings where a human is grappling with depravity and price of his choices and having a hard time facing his decisions (ie killing the man down stairs) .
These Characters are becoming humans with complexity, which is a reflection of reality. People make murky choices everyday and we have to be a light in a dark era, helping along the choice of preserving life and preserving humanity. Helping others find love and not just any love but the ultimate love.
Spoiler alert (but most of you have probably watched this by now)
The episode starts with Walter and his wife, having non-connecting or love induced-sex. After his sexual experience, he goes to bathroom disillusioned than the scene flashes back and shows the audience what happened over the last twelve hours.
They show what happened to them after their dessert fiasco, get their meth-RV on the road and start to discuss how to dispose of the bodies. In the last episode they had two thugs (more or less), threaten them when Walter releases the gas form of phosphorus, which burns and can be fatal. After they get the RV out, the realize, that it did not kill both men but only on and now have to dispose of the bodies and kill a man. They moved him to Jessie's basement.
This is where I will take a pause and talk about the conflict within the characters. Last update I had thought the characters were God-less and moral-less. I thought since Walter and Jesse had no empathic or emotional response to the initial deaths of Crazy Eight and his cousin, that they were already on some level of evil. They were already depraved before they even acted on it. But now, after seeing their fears and responses to actually having to kill someone, as in murder and not self defense, makes me see them in a more human since, in an almost caring since.
There is a scene when Walter comes down to kill Crazy Eight, when he hears him speak and plead for water. His response is to give him, food, water and a bucket to use the bathroom in. He even goes as far as to give him toilet paper. I begin to ask myself, in the moment, does a man who is heartless do these kinds of things? The episode ends with a motherly warning to Jesse from Walters wife, her being put in her place (as they say) and a very gory way to dispose of the body. Is Crazy Eight dead? I don't know but I will finish as I began,
What is the value of life, who decides wether someone is to be disposed of, for our safety or convenience? Does Walter contemplate this? One can only speculate.
In this show knowledge is ignorant but raw power, knowledge is Walter's catalyst in personality. We see him think that because he has the knowledge he thinks he gets the power and right to "Break Bad", the scene where his wife tells him what to do and where he puts her in her place, displays how he feels he has the right to make decisions and the power to carry them out.
His knowledge produces the power he uses to get control his world but we see this evidence of contradicting feelings where a human is grappling with depravity and price of his choices and having a hard time facing his decisions (ie killing the man down stairs) .
These Characters are becoming humans with complexity, which is a reflection of reality. People make murky choices everyday and we have to be a light in a dark era, helping along the choice of preserving life and preserving humanity. Helping others find love and not just any love but the ultimate love.
Friday, October 5, 2012
Chemistry is change
Whitney Tyler
Chemistry is Change
One must ask themselves when contemplating about the show Breaking Bad, what does Breaking Bad even mean. When I first thinking about it, I even wonder what it means. The main character Walter White uses this line in the first episode, he says "chemistry is change" and that is exactly what this show is about. Breaking Bad is about a catalyst of one man and the outcome and consequences of his decision and how he is changed by them.
We are first introduced to the main character in a bold way. Walter is fighting for his life naked and driving a 70's RV. You immediately wonder what is going on. Flashing back they show a man who is a chemistry teacher, working two jobs, a push over and has a mundane life, marriage and family. He works two jobs to make ends meet and to cap this glorious plot line, he finds out he has cancer on his birthday. Filled with rage and apathy and the drive to take his life in his own hands, he is pushed to the brink and off the edge, and decides to be a person who makes meth. Properly know as Methamphetamine, this drug is one of the most popular and dangerous drugs to make and use. This drug has been around since World War II and has been wrecking havoc on its users ever since. At the point where he finds out his fate with cancer, you see an immediate change in the way he lives. You see him quit his low paying carwash job, fight for his son and become a man again. He is tired of being used and not having the finances to make his life different and decides to make Crystal Meth.
After finding out and old student of his is involved in the business, he decides to get in. The join up and decide to begin making it. The episode ends as it begins, showing how he got to the place of nakedness and panic. They are using the RV to make Meth and sell it when two men come to take his recipe (which is close to perfect based on clearness of the crystals), he kills them in defense by releasing Phosphorus, which when released in a gas form, is deadly for those around. After killing them, a fire starts and to save the operation, he must go back in and drive the RV away.
At the final part of this episode you see him dramatically standing in the middle of the road, awaiting death, when he realizes there is another way out, and that is just looking normal, seeming like a nomad in an ugly RV, trying to figure out what is going on. He cleans up and returns to his family with this false since of accomplishment and catalyst in personality.
The philosophy, I believe in this show, is portraying Existential Nihilism, and Moral Nihilism, basically showing there is no meaning to life and morals do not exist. If the main character had a belief in morals, there would have been a conflict in doing what is considered wrong (making Meth, killing in defense etc). If the main character, cared about the meaning of life and after life it would show in his morals and decisions. He would have tried to preserve life at all costs. His decisions show that his life is meaningless and sad and move to worse and darker. The only motivation he has is his family, but his means to making a life for them is in opposition to morality, and shows he has no thoughts toward morals. There is no acknowledgement of a higher deity, goodness, kindness or even morality. It could be his way of coping, I am sure the attitude of Walter's character will have a flow and show regret, but I have not seen it yet and since we are exegeting the first episode it seems to have a very nihilistic feel. I don't believe Walter is incapable of having morals or a meaning for life. I think it is just not a way of life for him and I am interested to see how he changes throughout the season. You also see him losing control of his life and trying desperately to control his life from spiraling out of control. Which seems opposite of nihilism and gives some hope toward redemption, but we will see as the season goes on.
As someone who wants to give my life to ministry, not as in vocation but as my life, I need to pay attention to the ideas and thoughts of others. There will be watered down variations of philosophies we see in the media everyday and will be adopted unknowingly by those around me, and I need to counter these variations and show the meaning and beauty of life. If life is just means to an end, in since of just plain humanism, than life has no beauty, no morals, and no hope. I want my generation and all generations to have hope.
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