Nina: Hey, guys; welcome to Podcast Fandom, the official podcast of ProjectFandom.com. I’m your host, Nina.

Meghan: I am Meghan.

John: And I am John.

Nina: Aaaand, I think we’re okay. Meghan--

Meghan: Yes.

Nina: Can you hear me?

Meghan: I can hear you.

Nina: Okay. We’ve been having some technical difficulties; this is like our fourth time trying. Um, so, tonight we’re going to be talking about--for the very last time--Breaking Bad. We put out our episode last week to discuss the series finale “Felina”, and it was already so long when I was editing it--we got into so many discussion about the series as a whole, that it seemed best to do a series retrospective where we could kind of gather our thoughts about everything we’d experienced with the show for five years.

Meghan: Sounds so traumatizing.

Nina: It is! It’s very traumatizing. And so, we put up some questions no our site last week when we released the episode, and we had a few responses on Facebook. Some interesting stuff that I think is going to be pretty interesting. We had started off discussing what our favorite episode was, and I had a hard time narrowing it down, but John you have one episode that you can say is your absolute favorite.

John: Mmhmm…

Nina: And it is--

John: Oh, you want me to say it.

[group laughter]

Nina: Yeah, I setting you up.

Meghan: “But I’m not telling you guys.”

John: Yeah, that’s a secret. I don’t want to tell you my secrets. “Dead Freight” is my favorite episode. I have a top five:

5. “Fly.” 4. “Face Off” 3. “Granite State” 2. “Felina” 1. “Dead Freight”

Nina: Okay, and Meghan--

Meghan: I had a hard time narrowing it down to one single episode, but I think my tried and true favorite is “Face Off”; just because I can watch it over and over again (and I have), but I also love the penultimate episode of the series, “Granite State”, a lot… and also “Ozymandias”. The tail-end of season five held a couple of favorites for me.

Nina: And I had put out a post on our site, and I just picked one from each season. I came up with:

From season one: “And the Bag’s in the River”, the episode where Walt kills Krazy-8 From season two: “Phoenix”, where Jane dies. From season three: “Half Measures”, where Walt runs over the two drug dealers. From season four: “Salud”, where Jesse, Mike, and Gus go to Mexico and take out the Mexican cartel. From the first half of season five: “Dead Freight”. From the second half of season five: “Ozymandias”, and it might be my favorite of all five seasons.

Did you guys have a favorite season, as a whole?

Meghan: I would have to go with five; the latter half of five. Every episode--just nail-biting the entire time.

John: Yeah, even with the things that I didn’t like about a couple of the episodes (like “Ozymandias”), it was the best season.

Nina: I’m gonna have to go with five, as well. Probably more so because of the latter half; so many great episodes, and so many great scenes within those episodes. I will say that, as a straight season--because this one was technically split in two--I think I had a lot of fun watching season four.

John: And really season three may be--each season got better.

Nina: Yeah.

John: That season three is when a lot of people started watching the show; that’s when a lot of people got on board.

Nina: That’s interesting because we actually talked about this--me and two other Project Fandom contributors did a podcast where we were talking about Scandal--and we talked about the ratings for the third season premiere of Scandal; it was like 10.5 million people. It was there highest-rated episode for that show, and Breaking Bad’s series finale, “Felina”, got 10.3. They were saying just how huge that was, and remember two episodes before, “Ozymandias”, got 6.6 million, which was the highest they had ever gotten, up to that point. To put it into perspective, the season four finale, “Face Off”, which we all agree is a really good episode; it made the top of all of our lists. It only got 1.9 million viewers. At the time, that was a big deal. In one season, to go from 1.9 to 10.3, that’s insane.

John: That has a lot to do with Netflix. I think I would contribute most of that to the fact that the show is on Netflix, and everyone was able to--they heard about it, they heard this was the last season, they heard there were only eight episodes left, and they were like “Let’s just marathon through.” It’s not a whole lot; it’s five seasons, but there’s only 54 episodes to watch before this season. That’s not a lot, so people were able to catch up really quickly, and that seems to be why the ratings really blew up in the final season.

Meghan: I totally agree with you on that one; I mean, that’s how I watch the show. I was seasons and seasons behind, and I plowed through those seasons thanks to Netflix. Strong point.

John: And I think the reason Scandal got 10.5 and got more viewers than Breaking Bad’s series finale is really just the difference between cable and network television. Ten million in cable television is monstrous. Ten million for Scandal is really good, but that’s on network television, so you have to weigh it differently.

Nina: I’m looking at the questions that we put up, and I’m trying to ask them in a way that starts at the beginning and leads up to more-recent events; the first one I think I’m going to go with…

“What did you guys think of the Skyler hate?”

John: I thought it was very warranted.

[group laughs]

Nina: “It was well-deserved”

John: Yes, it was. The character got a lot better in the second half of the fifth season. It’s surprising that it took that long, if they wanted her to be liked; I don’t think they wanted the character to be liked. I mean, despite what Anna Gunn argues, I don’t think they wanted that character to be liked. Everything else is written with such precision that I can’t think they would’ve made that character someone that would be so easily hateable, if they didn’t want her to be. I don’t think they wanted you to like the character, until they wanted you to like the character in the second half of season five.

Nina: Do you think it’s a case that they didn’t expect people to hate her that much?

John: Eeeeh, I don’t… I mean, you never know what you’re going to get when you write something, but I don’t think--I think Anna Gunn didn’t want people to hate her that much, and she didn’t expect it. I don’t think the writers were like “Oh, they’re gonna love Skyler!” I think the writers knew people weren’t going to like her, because she was going against the hero of the show. That’s what happens when you have someone who’s against your hero; people aren’t going to like her, because you want people to root for your hero. That’s the point.

Meghan: Yeah, and from the very beginning, she came off as a nag.

Nina: Yeah.

John: Yeah.

Nina: I find it funny, because my sister really, immediately, liked her--well, not that she liked her, but she just didn’t have a problem with her. I was waiting, as my sister was marathoning it, for her to write me and be like “I hate her”, but she was like, “Yeah, I don’t have a problem with her. He lies to her constantly; she doesn’t know what’s going on; she’s keeps catching him in stupid, little lies that anybody else would think their husband is cheating on them.” She was the first person who didn’t have a problem with her, so I just wondered if it was just a case of them not realizing it was going to be so intense--like “I hate Skyler” Facebook pages, and stuff like that.

John: I think that’s part of the fun. Like with Game of Thrones, you hate Joffrey, but because he’s in the show, it makes the show better. Because you have characters like that, it makes the show better; it makes any show better, when you have someone you can dislike to that level.

Meghan: Yeah, she wouldn’t have come off as a very good wife, if she was like a Rita from Dexter. You know, where she was very complacent; that wouldn’t have played well, at all. I appreciated her character, but--yeah--I still didn’t like her.

John: You dislike her as a person, but as a character, she’s good.

Meghan: She fits.

John: Yeah, she fits the show. You couldn’t have the story without her.

Nina; What do you think of Jesse? Do you think that Walt cared for Jesse? In hindsight.

Meghan: I never really questioned that. I think he did care for him; we have those scenes at the latter half of season five where shit really goes down and--after Hank was shot--when Walt hit that breaking point, but it comes right down to the end of the final episode, and he saved his life; he didn’t have to do that.

John: When they started, he didn’t care for him; he didn’t care for him, at all. He just knew that he was a

drug dealer. He was probably the same middleclass guy like Hank, or like Walt. Jr, or someone who just sees “drug dealer”, and they think “Oh, he’s an evil person.” He was like, “I will use Jesse, and that’s the only reason I want to befriend him; I can use what he knows.” Then, over the course of the series, he grew to like him and understand him and understand that he’s not just this faceless drug dealer; he’s actually just a guy, a student who was in his class, all those years ago. He’s not a one-dimensional person, and that’s the thing with the show; over the course of the series, you get to see what these characters are, beyond their initial face-value.

Nina: One of the things I thought was interesting was--like you said, Meghan; that was never in question for you--for a lot of people, it was. There was a lot of--because of the things he did to Jesse--you know, letting Jane die, keeping secrets from him, poisoning Brock--to manipulate him. To me, it was: people manipulate people they love, all the time. I’m not saying it’s right, but that was just the way he treated everyone; he treated Jesse like he treated everyone that he cared about, you know?

Meghan: That’s true.

John: I think he treated Jesse a little bit differently, in the beginning. Once Walt started embracing the Heisenberg side of himself, he really started treating everyone that way and using them. Like, he only saved Jesse’s life, so that he could use Jesse; that’s the way Walt is.

Meghan: The relationship was more like a business transaction.

Nina: I think there were cases where he did things for Jesse that he didn’t have to do. He didn’t have to save Jesse when he killed the drug dealers, at the end of season three. He didn’t have to go and confront Tuco, at the end of season one. He had an emotional response to seeing Jesse being hurt and being taken advantage of. Even with Jane, he was keeping Jesse’s money, not to be selfish, but because Jesse was relapsing, and he was not going to give him all this money for him to fund his overdose.

John: The thing about it is that he grew to like him more, so it was mainly to help himself, but then--sometimes you do things to help yourself, but then you think “Well, it’s also helping that person.” You explain it away to yourself. With Walt, you know, he killed those guys with his car and told Jesse to “Run”; he saved Jesse, but he’s also helping himself because he needed Jesse to run his business. It’s a mutual thing where he was helping Jesse, but he was also helping himself.

Meghan: We’ve also talked about the whole “father figure” thing between Jesse and Walt. He has Jesse under his wing, but he also feels responsible for him in some manner, so that plays into it, too.

Nina: Someone had an interesting take, too--I think it was a podcast I was listening to where they were saying: obviously he has issues with how his life could have been and how he gave up his stake in Gray Matter. You look at the first episode--not the first episode, but there was an episode where we saw a flashback where he saw the house for the first time, and he was just like, “We need more bedrooms.” You could tell he wasn’t really impressed with it. Then you take into account that his first-born son has a disability, and they felt like Walt was someone who felt his life wasn’t the life he was supposed to have. Not that he didn’t love Walt. Jr, but that was just another thing. You know what I mean?

Meghan: It’s not how he imagined his life turning out.

Nina: Right, and Jesse was kind of a surrogate son. This was somebody who was doing what turned out to be his life’s greatest work: the Heisenberg blue meth. He shared that with Jesse, not his own son, you know? And there was that episode where he called Walt Jr. “Jesse”. I was so surprised that never came back up. I thought there was going to be an episode where Walt Jr. was being maybe confronted with what his father would done, and he would believe it; then somehow Jesse’s name would come up, and he would remember that moment. That would make him believe. I was just kind of surprised they let that go.

Were you “Team Walt” throughout the whole series? If not, when did your thoughts change?

John: I was the whole time, so my feelings did not change, at all.

Meghan: There was never really a moment when I was “team” anybody else. I mean, I was definitely “Team Walt and Jesse” as a unit. Towards the end, as we now know, it came down to: Are you “Team Jesse”, or are you “Team Walt”? I still was stuck on Walt, because I was like, “This is it. This is what it comes to. All the shit they’ve been through, I’m still on Walt’s side.”

Nina: Yeah, I never really stopped being “Team Walt”; I didn’t like things that he did, but it’s kind of like--the way I viewed it was: I was along for the ride, and you knew in the first episode that this was somebody who was doing wrong things. He was doing “bad” things, and they just escalated and escalated. I felt like it’s a hard thing--like, at the end, he admitted that it was something he did because he liked it and was good at it, and that’s a really hard thing to admit; that you liked doing something that you knew you shouldn’t’ have been doing. I think, too, that some of it just kind of got away from him. I don’t know if you guys have experienced this, but say you’ve done something wrong; say you tell a lie. You have to tell another lie to cover that lie, and then another lie. Or you keep something from someone to the point where, if you had just been honest in the beginning, they would have been mad, but they maybe could have gotten over it; the more time you let pass almost is as bad as the original transgression, so it feels like, as you watch the series, I kept rooting for him because I wanted him to turn it around. It wasn’t so much that I wanted him to poison Brock or let Jane die, but it seemed like it just kept getting out of control for him, and I always wanted to see him turn it around. It kills me that there are these people that--like, if you admit that you liked him--people… there’s a backlash; like “How could you still root for him?” He’s still the hero of the show; he’s a flawed hero, and that’s not a new concept, so I don’t understand why it was so hard to believe that people actually rooted for him. I was hoping people would write in and explain why they didn’t like him; we did get a response from Joseph Edmundson, to that question, and he said:

“I supported Walt in the beginning, then supported Heisenberg and hated Walt. Remember when Walt was running around crying in a panic, scared of everything? Fuck that Walt. I think when we finally saw Walt accepting his hard--”

I’m sorry, “Accepting his hand.”

John: That’s a different show: Breaking Hard.

Nina: Breaking Hard, right. “Accepting his hand, I came around to his side again. Even if a little Heisenberg-ish.”

Yeah, so even at the end, I see some critics’ point where they felt like the last season had to introduce--like, nobody like Nazis, right? If you think about it, in season four, Gus was likeable, Mike was likeable, but they were definitely antagonists to Walt. I don’t know about you guys, but I liked Gus; that was probably the first time I didn’t want to see Walt succeed. It was fun watching those two spar with each other, and I liked Mike.

John: And I think that’s a good sign, when you have an anti-hero, and you have someone who is a fully developed person like Walt. You have those opportunities to say, “Well, Gus is pretty similar to Walt, so…” I mean, when you’re watching it, you can root kind of for Gus and kind of for Walt, and you don’t know who you want to win, even though you know who’s going to win. I think there’s a difference--like, people get confused between “rooting for Walt” and “liking him”. I don’t like Walt; Walt, over the course of the series, he proved himself to be a horrible person, but I liked the character, so I rooted for him to become a better person. That’s what I was rooting for, the entire series. I think that’s kind of what people get stuck on; they think when you root for him that you like him and like his decisions, but you don’t. At the end of the day, it’s a television series, so you have to like the series and the story; that’s what you like.

Meghan: Also, Gus and Walt is the perfect example; I just wanted to see the next move they were going to make. That’s where I was invested, and I knew they were gonna make a phenomenal next move, so I sort of rooted for both of them because I wanted to see what they were going to deliver.

John: It’s like when you watch the Super Bowl, and your team’s not in it. You’re not really rooting; you’re just kind of watching.

Nina: Who was your favorite character? One person from the whole series.

John: Other than Walt and Jesse, right?

Nina: No. One person.

Meghan: Well…

Nina: Okay, fine; you get two.

John: It has to be either Walt or Jesse; those are the two stars of the show.

Nina: Okay, including Walt and Jesse, you only get to pick one; who would it be?

John: It would be Walt, if you include those guys.

Nina: And if you don’t include those two, who would it be?

John: You’re gonna laugh at me… it’s Gomez; I like Gomez.

Nina: Oh my god!

[Meghan laughs]

Meghan: Yes! Gomey gets some resolution!

John: Yes, because even though he wasn’t--he was a tertiary character, so you only saw him in relation to Hank, but I like the way the character was written as this unflappable friend who is just, like, whatever Hank wants, he’s there. I like that, and he never did anything bad. You know, he was just there for Hank. It was a well-written “friend” character.

Nina: On Talking Bad, the one after “To’Hajiilee”, he was the guest with--I think--Samuel L. Jackson, and he said that he was the only character on the show who never broke bad. Every character had a moment where they did something they were not supposed to do; something illegal: Marie, Skyler, all of them. Well, I guess Walt. Jr.’s might be trying to buy that liquor in season one.

[group laughs]

John: He kind of broke bad on his dad. He was like, “Why don’t you get out of here and die?”

Meghan: His tuck and roll move.

Nina: Okay, Meghan; including Walt and Jesse, who’s your favorite character?

Meghan: It would be Walt.

Nina: And excluding Walt and Jesse?

Meghan: I always loved the scenes with Tuco, because he was so fucking crazy.

Nina: Really?

Meghan: Yeah. I like that actor a lot. I mean, my go-to would probably be Gus, because I love the whole

Gus storyline, and--again--”Face Off” is one of my favorite episode, so… but the Tuco Salamanca character; I mean, he was just a crazy bastard.

Nina: Okay, including Walt and Jesse, I’m gonna say Walt, and it’s so hard because it really would be so close; like, Jesse is right up under him…

John: Breaking Hard!

[group laughs]

Meghan: Everyone knows Mr. White is so gay for Jesse.

Nina: Yes.

John: Yeah, yo.

Nina: Excluding Walt and Jesse, it would probably be Mike. Jonathan Banks was so good in that role, and it’s just little things; just little things like his delivery of lines, his facial expressions, and I love the fact that he was the one character who always, always told Walt the truth. Like, “You are full of shit”, and that’s ultimately what go him killed, right? Walt took that gun from the bag, remember? He grabbed his running bad, or go-bag, or whatever he called it; we know now that when Mike looked in the bag, the gun was already gone, so you could assume that Walt considered killing Mike with it, or else he wouldn’t have taken it out the bag, but--when you see the way it happened--he walked away. When Mike cussed him out and got in the car, Walt went back to his car, so you thought “Okay, this is done.” Then you see him walk back, and it’s kind of like: did he change his mind, but then what Mike said really got to him? I think that whole speech where he told him that “this is all on you.” He just laid Walt out; he perfectly summed up the character, and I thought--I love that he was the only person, and then later Jesse; later, Jesse said to him, “Why can’t you ever just ask me to do something without manipulating me?”