[ENG] A love letter to Breaking Bad & Better Call Saul

A love letter to Breaking Bad & Better Call Saul

Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, Saul Goodman (Source: GQ)

In 2013, a few weeks after the series finale, the Great Anthony Hopkins wrote a letter to Bryan Cranston crediting his work on Breaking Bad as the best acting he’d ever seen together with the whole cast and crew of the long-running show. In the letter, Mr. Hopkins says: “From what started as a black comedy, descended into a labyrinth of blood, destruction and hell. It was like a great Jacobean, Shakespearian or Greek Tragedy.” 

To me, this is such a perfect way to describe Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, true odysseys of love, hate, violence, peace, friendships, enemies and plot turning moments filled with laughter, tears and the most true and heartfelt ways of filmmaking.

Breaking Bad is this story of a man whose actions you empathize with very easily, life has fucked him over thousands of times, and you feel for him, even when his actions at the beginning of the show are questionable, you understand. And his companion Jesse Pinkman is a person who is lost in the world, who can’t find a place he fits in comfortably and who is just trying to make some money to escape and settle down once and for all, but never can. These internal conflicts also come with the other characters, Mike is this guy who never questions what he’s demanded to do, he just does it for the money, but yet he remains utterly professional and has his family behind him who he cares for; Skylar White does not want Walter to participate or get mixed up in the drug business, but she does not dare to report it to Hank Schrader or the police because in some ways she still loves Walt, and the money he makes. These dilemmas all remain present through the show, but change along the way and modify the way we see the people in the series. The most important change is Walter Hartwell White, whom as I’ve said starts off being this incapable and “wrongfully mixed up in some bad business” protagonist far away from being any kind of hero or anti-hero; but as the show progresses, we see his personality modify itself, as he learns and masters the business of meth and grows as, what he eventually becomes, the antagonist of the show.

Better Call Saul is the story of a man who is looking for a way to break through in the tough business of the legal system of America, but the world also decides to screw him over and over constantly. At the same time though, he screws himself up over and over with some of the questionable actions he takes in order to speed up the process of achieving his dream. And we see this pattern that Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould do so well, this man who we cheer for and love at the beginning turns into this monster who morally bends his profession to the fullest and becomes almost unrecognizable from what he was during the first episodes of the first season.

The spin-off is also great because it gives way to more screen time from characters like Gustavo Fring and Mike, who in Breaking Bad actually didn’t have that much space for a backstory; whilst introducing extraordinary new ones like Kim Wexler, Nacho Varga or Lalo Salamanca, who make the show absolutely perfect.

Kim Wexler is also this prime example of the transformation of Jimmy McGill to Saul Goodman, this romantic friendship that evolves and constantly turns around heading in a new direction, making mistakes and achieving greatness. The chemistry is perfect and at the end of the series finale the romance becomes this Shakespearean adventure of love and hate portrayed by these outstanding performances on both sides.

The two shows are these representations of the rise and fall of characters perceived as giants, the fall of giants, who once had it all and end up having nothing. The name Ozymandias rings a bell.

The setting is also perfect, and the way the cinematography uses it too. You get these great big shots of the desert and vast landscape of New Mexico under the blazing sun. The ugly looking buildings and the decay of some parts. The montages are perfectly done and the soundtrack and song selection is on point in every scene.

The script is the most amazing part of the puzzle, the dialogue is always perfect, and every character has their own unique and original way of communicating and speaking. From Walter White giving speeches on science, Jesse Pinkman cursing and yelling, Saul Goodman trying to convince somebody not to kill him, Gus Fring scaring the shit out of everybody with his pale expression, Mike remaining silent and serious except for when it is really necessary to speak, and Hector's bell ringing. The list goes on and on, everybody is so original and different from each other, it is almost like they’re all the main characters of the show when they appear in a scene. The writers are also super well-informed on the legal system and the scientific world, because some of the vocabulary used is extraordinary. Long story short, the script is perfect.

I am not a TV buff, I usually prefer movies over series and I watch very few TV shows every year, but the “breaking bad universe” is most definitely something I will forever remember and cannot stress what a ride it has been to experience it in this day and age. Because as Sir Anthony Hopkins adds at the end of his letter: “Thank you. That kind of work/artistry is rare, and when, once in a while, it occurs, as in this epic work, it restores confidence.”

Thank you Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, thank you for everything.