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.
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