"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Saturday, May 13, 2017
My Nomination For New FBI Director: The One Who Knocks
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-by Noah How’s that for allegory? As soon as news came that President Crazy Pants, aka big orange traitor, aka Putin’s Butt Boy, had fired the man who he feared was getting too close to the truth, speculation as to what name would be issued forth from the bunker as a nominee to replace former FBI Director Comey ran wild. The first two names I thought of, of course, were Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie, but, my mind didn’t stop there. Interestingly, Howie presented a list of betting odds favorites from BetOnline.ag the other day and I had come up with very similar list. I think only David Clarke and Joe Pistol were not on my list of dubious probables. Paul Manafort, of course, is even more problematical than most of Trump’s inner circle in that he may end up in a federal penitentiary waiting for the arrival of some of the others. Ivanka would, no doubt, use the position to launch a new fashion line of FBI gear. And, Alex Jones would get so turned around twisted that he’d end up casting himself in his endless dark overlord conspiracies. Newt Gingrich is notably absent. The betting odds list reads as follows:
• Mike Rogers 5 to 1 • Trey Gowdy 5 t0 1 • Ray Kelly 6 to 1 • Andrew McCabe 10 to 1 • Joe Pistole 10 to 1 • Dana Boente 12 to 1 • Michael Mason 14 to 1 • Jared Kushner 14 to 1
• Rudy Giuliani 16 to 1 • David Clarke 20 to 1 • Steve Bannon 20 to 1 • Paul Manafort 20 to 1 • Ken Weinstein 25 to 1 • Chris Christie 33 to 1 • Bill O’Reilly 33 to 1 • Alex Jones 33 to 1 • Ivanka Trump 33 to 1 • Donald Trump Jr. 33 to 1 • Arnold Schwarzenegger 50 to 1 • Kellyanne Conway 50 to 1
It’s a good list, for Trumpian purposes that is. It fits the need for a total tool, a sycophant, one who will essentially bury any and all investigations into all things Trump. But, it’s certainly not a list that would bode well for the future of democracy, our Constitution, and the country. It’s the kind of list any 2-bit dictator with fantastical delusions of grandeur would come up with. I, however, have a list of additional names. First, there are a few that I would expect Trump to have on his list; Bernie “Felonious” Kerik for one, or maybe one of Giuliani’s old mistresses that he allegedly parked in positions all around the city. I also thought that Trump, in trying to convince us that he’s not really a racist, might include Frederick Douglass, who he recently complimented, saying
Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice.
So, if Trump thinks people that have been dead for 122 years (even if he thinks they are currently alive) are worthy of special notice, why wouldn’t he consider Wyatt Earp or say, maybe at least an actor who had played Wyatt Earp in a movie, like Kevin Kostner. Kostner would also qualify in Trump’s dysfunctional severely mentally ill mind since he once also played Eliot Ness in that “The Untouchables” movie. We know how much Trumpinsky loves celebrities. It’s only natural that he’d go in this direction, “Hollywood Elites” or not. Sooo, I’m going to follow this line of “thinking” help Trump out here. I’m nothing if not patriotic. First off, David Duchovny comes to mind. Duchovny even has the advantage of a Russian surname. Surely, Vlad the personal impaler would approve. There’s that X-Files thing, too. Duchovny played FBI agent Fox Mulder. Trump would naturally be attracted to anyone named Fox. The current White House is also very like an X-Files episode, too, what with freaks like Kellyanne, Stephen Miller, and that thing in the bushes named Spice Boy. Why not Gillian Anderson who played Fox’s partner Agent Scully? She’s a hottie and has orange hair! Nah, it wouldn’t work. He’d make a move to grab her by the pussy and she’d kung-fu him to the ground, complete with a couple of broken bones in a nanosecond. I’d pay good money to witness that. At this point, enough money could be raised by worldwide pay-per-view sales for such an event to pay separated at birth crazy twins Trump and Kim Jong-un to go away and get out of our lives for good. They could both share a room in an asylum and we’d be happy to pay the cost. But, the real X-Files guy to consider is Director Skinner (Mitch Pileggi). Unlike Fox, Skinner knows his way around politics and even knew how to beat the rancid evil of “the smoking man”. If you can do that, you can beat Trump. Skinner has the skills! There are other possibilities, of course. Take Bruce Willis, star of those Die Hard movies. He’s a Republican and, what’s more, he has an orange suit and a product Trump will appreciate. Sure, I also thought of Vin Diesel, Chuck Norris, Stephen Segal, and even Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry Callahan. I would love to see Columbo go after Trump but, hey, Peter Falk is dead. Lt. Frank Drebin would push Trump right over the edge, but, alas, Leslie Nielsen is also no longer with us. So here it is: Really. Who can top Breaking Bad’s Heisenberg, aka Walter White, mild mannered high school chemistry teacher gone wrong as a meth-cooking kingpin; played by the brilliant Bryan Cranston. Think about it. Isn’t a meth kingpin right up Trump’s alley? Meth is obviously the main sustenance of Trump supporters all across this great land where nothing says Trump like a beer, a bucket of KFC and a snort of “crystal blue.” Heisenberg knows how to kick ass, get his way, and really get down to the bottom of things, in every sense. He’s got the tenacity. He’s got the smarts. Republicans might not like him because he knows that science stuff but, he is the man! The man for the job. To our advantage, he can stare down Trump and make him say anything, including his name. He has no fear. He is…The One Who Knocks! Of course, none of this matters, simply because President Crazy Pants doesn’t want someone who can actually do the job that America needs done. He’s proven he wants the opposite of that and nowhere does he want the opposite of that more than in the case of a Director of the FBI whose job should include investigating corruption and treason. Congress obviously feels likewise. Trump sure doesn’t want anyone that could stare him down. Like I said, he wants another sycophant, someone who will swear loyalty. That, apparently is where Comey went wrong and lost his gig.
TV Watch: "Tio" Salamanca talks! Or, how much are we loving Season 2 of "Better Call Saul"?
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Look who's back! In case you were wondering, no, in the future, which is to say in Breaking Bad times, Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) and "Tio" (Mark Margolis) never did meet -- or never do meet? (It's hard to get the verb tenses right.)
by Ken
Okay, I'm reminded in the interview we're going to get to with that great character actor Mark Margolis that in Breaking Bad we actually did see Hector "Tio" Salamanca, the onetime cartel-kingpin uncle of the terrifying Tuco Salamanca, talk: in flashback. And I confess that when -- late in last week's Episode 5 of Season 2 of Better Call Saul, "Rebecca" -- a hatted gentleman strolled into the diner and slid into the booth opposite the still-visibly-battered Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), it took me a moment to recognize the younger self of one of the iconic Breaking Bad characters.
When last we saw "Tio," late in Season 4 of Breaking Bad --
He was still mute and virtually paralyzed in his wheelchair, with only those amazing eyes -- and of course the finger on his goddamned little bell -- to show us that there was something going on, and possibly a whole lot going on, inside his head.
There was a little surprise in store for arch-villain Gus "The Chicken Guy" Fring (played so gorgeously by Giancarlo Esposito), come to dispose of "Tio."
BRINGING "TIO" BACK TO LIFE
Even on second viewing, it wasn't until after "Tio" started talking to Mike that I recognized him. No doubt other Breaking Bad-aware viewers were quicker on the uptake, but whenever the moment of "Tio" recognition came for any particular viewer, how magical that moment was likely to be! Possibly even better than the moment in the series premiere when we suddenly found ourselves face-to-face with none other than the younger Tuco Salamanca, as gamely re-(pre-)created by The Closer and Major Crimes' Det. Julio Sanchez, Raymond Cruz. Cruz, as you probably know, is reported to have found playing the monstrous meth-addled Tuco so stressful ("frighteningly lethal" is how his IMDb bio aptly describes the character) that he implored the Breaking Bad creative team to set him free, leading to the terrifying Tuco's untimely demise.
What was so stressful about playing the terrifying Tuco?
Hey, it's just acting, right? Or --
Um, nobody ever accused Breaking Bad's Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) of being overly bright, but really, going into Tuco's lair alone and expecting to dictate terms to him? How much imagination did it take to see where that was likely to lead?
THE REAL "TIO" TALKS
How can you not love that jaunty hat on the "young" Hector S?
I've made frequent mention of the lovely online features with which AMC backs up its shows, even the many crummy ones. Following the airing of the episode "Rebecca," I was delighted to find an interview with "Tio" himself, Mark Margolis. In case you missed it:
Starbucks Is So Passé! The Marketing of Coffee Takes a Turn
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Supposedly "translated" by Bing: "The café with care given the exposure the white-collar workers on LinkedIn.#walterscoffee" (Hmm, seems to lose something in "translation." But the link works.)
by Noah
Inspired by Breaking Bad, aka the greatest TV show ever, an astute Turkish food and beverage industry veteran named Deniz Kosan has created what looks to be the "world's first Coffee Super Lab," as reported by TODAY.com, and it's not even disguised as a laundromat, chicken restaurant, ordinary RV, or anything else. Walter's Coffee Roastery brazenly operates, as Gus Fring would say, "hidden in plain sight," in Istanbul, Turkey.
The Turks are known for their love of coffee, always have been, but it took Kosan to see that Breaking Bad was the perfect merchandising opportunity for his coffee, or, as Walter White himself would say, "the product."
Kosan has designed his coffee shop to look like Walter White's beautiful subterranean high-tech stainless-steel meth lab. His employees even dress up in those wonderful yellow hazmat suits and black masks that Walter and his young protégé, Jesse Pinkman, don for every cook of "the product."
That's not you-know-who and you-know-who, is it?
Kosan says that the precise moment of inspiration came to him as he watched Season 3, Episode 6 of the legendary show. That's the episode in which former high school chemistry teacher, now master meth maker, Walter White (Bryan Cranston) discusses fine coffee with Gale Boetticher (David Costabile), his ill-fated assistant. Walter marvels at Gale's brilliantly brewed coffee and wonders aloud, "Why the hell are we making meth?"
Why make meth, indeed! Kosan knows that, in the real world, coffee is a far more popular drug, and it has the extra advantages of not costing as much and being totally legal. Not only that, but you can add sugar -- as much as you want!
Speaking of sugar, Walter's Coffee Roastery also sells a beautiful blue candy that looks, very suspiciously, just like Walter White's classic blue "product." It's even sold over the counter -- again, in plain sight!
Ahem, samples of "the product"?
Unfortunately, Walter's Coffee Roastery only has the one location -- in Turkey. For now, that is. But, just like Walter White's meth spread 'round the world, there's always hope that one day soon there will be a Walter's Coffee Roastery near you. When you have what people want, expansion is easy.
Kosan's move is as good an example of inspired marketing genius as you will ever find. I'd be hard-pressed to find a better way to sell a food or beverage product based on the creepy factor or crime factor of a TV show or movie. I suppose one could start up a Texas Chainsaw Massacre Steak House. Silence of the Lambs, anyone? Maybe I'll just move to the Gulf Coast and open up a chain of BP Seafood Huts. "The secret is in the oil."
That's definitely not Walter and Jesse (or Skyler).
TV Watch: About the special "Better Call Saul" thrill of reencountering an old compadre from "Breaking Bad"
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It's kind of a shame that we already knew that Jimmy McGill going to tangle with this familiar-to-us face, but the producers had to give us something in the name of -- gasp -- publicity, if only to guard the important secrets.
"You also realize that it wasn’t the drug that made him that way. Deep down inside, he just has anger issues."
-- Raymond Cruz, on playing Tuco Salamanca again,
but now six years before Breaking Bad
by Ken
You know how I always say I'd like to know as little as possible about a TV show or movie I'm going to watch? Case in point: the premier episode of Better Call Saul. Which means that if you haven't seen it yet, don't read this!
No, I'm not thinking particularly of the driblets of information that the show's creative team was compelled to leak in the name of -- sigh -- publicity. Although, now that you mention it, some of the fun was taken out of that first unhappy encounter between not-yet-Saul Goodman lawyer Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) and the parking attendant who turns out to be none other than our old Breaking Bad compadre Mike Erhrmantraut. I mean, wouldn't it have been fun to have been surprised, that very first time, to see Mike there in his little booth collecting parking payments at the lot outside the court building? Just think, ohmygod, it's Mike!!! Still, it's a piquant enough bit that even if we've already seen it, it's still fun, especially now seeing it happen in context. And goodness knows, the show makes the most of repeat encounters between Jimmy and the man he screamingly dubs "employee of the month."
And obviously, in the interest of -- sigh -- publicity, the BCS folks has to spill some beans.
The better to protect the real jolts, like the one that came at the end of that first episode. You know, after Slippin' Jimmy tracked down his new young scam-artist protégés to the house where we last saw the brothers being unceremoniously dragged in the door by . . . well, who knew whom? And Jimmy knocked, and tried to peek inside, and did his "officer of the court" patter, and then the door opened, and . . . . And then, in the final shot of the episode, standing there in the door was --
(Again, if you haven't watched the episode, for Pete's sake don't keep reading!!!)
Standing there in the door was Tuco Salamanca! Yikes!!!
Of course, since the actor in question is Raymond Cruz, it could conceivably be The Closer and Major Crimes's Detective Julio Sanchez, for some reason holed up in Albuquerque. But no, glint in the eyes, the fright-inducing scowl, that could only be Tuco!
It's a younger Tuco than we knew from Breaking Bad, of course, since the action of BCS is set back in time all those years from BB. But nobody who watched BB is apt to forget the time we spent in the psychopathic company of one of the scarier presences ever captured in moving images. In a Q-and-A actor Raymond Cruz did with the AMC blogfolk back in the BB days, he said, "I’m not going to make a judgment and say Tuco is out of his mind, but his parameters are definitely a lot further out there than other people’s." I like that -- "his parameters are definitely a lot further out there than other people’s.")
For Episode 2, Raymond Cruz was listed right-and-proper in the guest-starring cast. But can you imagine how much less fun we would have had at that parting sequence of events at the end of Episode 1 if we had been tipped to Raymond Cruz's presence?
By way of celebration, the AMC blogfolk have posted a Q-and-A with Tuco, er, Raymond. If you think it's easy playing a character like this, think again. And find out how he winds down after a day of doing it.
Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) and Tuco (Raymond Cruz) in Episode 2
Q: How did you react when you first learned Tuco was going to appear on Better Call Saul? Did you ever think you’d get another chance to play him?
A: I really didn’t. I thought Tuco was a done deal, dead and gone, but I heard about the show and the fact that it’s a prequel, and I thought, “Wow! How are they going to twist this around?” It worked out, and I was excited about it.
Q: Better Call Saul is set six years before Breaking Bad. How does Better Call Saul Tuco compare with Breaking Bad Tuco? Did you approach playing him any differently?
A: Oh yeah, of course. Tuco, at this point, is not discovered through meth. He’s not as explosive, but you also realize that it wasn’t the drug that made him that way. Deep down inside, he just has anger issues! [Laughs] This guy is a complete walking menace, and the drugs just amplify that. When I first did Tuco, I had to first build the character and then figure out how the drugs — physiologically, psychologically, emotionally — affected him. You layer that on top of the character. With Better Call Saul, my work was done. It wasn’t like I had to build a whole new character. I was just revisiting him and taking him to a different point in his life.
Q: Are there any inspirations behind your portrayal of Tuco?
A: No. I use my imagination.
Q: It’s just all you?!
A: [Laughs] It’s all me! It’s very interesting, because when they were first looking for Tuco, before Breaking Bad ever aired, the casting director approached me and said they couldn’t find anyone to do the part. I read the script and said, “Wow, it’s great! The writing is great!” He said, “Can you do it?” I said, “Yes!” He said, “Will you do it?” I said, “No!” They didn’t know what they were asking for. I knew where they wanted to take it, and that to make it work would be so much effort, and it was. I ended up doing the part, and it was strictly because of the challenge of it.
Q: You’ve spoken before about the physical, emotional and mental demands of playing such a high-energy character. Were you at all reluctant to revisit Tuco?
A: I was. It was more physical and mental than anything, and I remember getting injured several times doing Tuco. I almost broke my nose, and I pulled a muscle in my back. It’s such high energy, and his outbursts are so dramatic. You lose your voice by the end of the day, and you’re drained emotionally and mentally. It’s not a part you look forward to! It’s more like, “Can I do this again?”
Q: How do you wind down after a day with him?
A: I read, I don’t make a sound, I don’t even want to talk. When you shoot, you’re doing it for 12 to 14 hours a day and you don’t do a scene just once. You do it several times from different angles — and I never hold back. I remember when I was shooting Breaking Bad, one of the directors came up to me and told me I didn’t have to do what I was doing, but I do. Reactions are just as important as what I’m doing. It makes such a big difference, especially with this character.
Q: As a Breaking Bad alum, were you excited to return to Albuquerque to work with Vince and the crew again? What did you look forward to the most?
A: It was like going back home, going to a familiar place and seeing familiar faces. To come off of this great program and to go back into the same atmosphere with the same people and the whole crew, and you’re making great television. Albuquerque was one of the reasons I took the job in the first place. When I saw the cinematography, the vistas, this huge sky and how they were contrasting the dry landscape with this urban drama, it was so interesting to me. You would never expect it, and you look at the desert as if there’s nothing there, but there is — and you don’t believe what you’re seeing. There are harsh shooting conditions though, and sometimes the weather itself is a whole other character.
Q: You’re currently continuing a long run portraying a detective on television. Which do you enjoy playing more, cops or criminals?
A: I just look for challenges in parts. My detective character is so underplayed and is a complete contrast to Tuco, so to communicate his point of view is great. You want to watch a show and root for the good guy. Who would stop the bad guys?
Q: Is there any “good guy” in Tuco?
A: People aren’t one-dimensional. There’s always something, and with Tuco, it’s his sense of family and community. If he’s behind you, he’s behind you 100%.
Q: What’s your all-time favorite Tuco line?
A: I don’t have an all-time favorite. It’s just the combination of the writing, the performance, and this whole way of thinking about what comes out of his mouth. When I first read Breaking Bad, I thought “dark comedy,” and that’s how I approached it.
Q: I’m partial to his use of “bizznatch.”
A: [Laughs] I think people are going to walk around saying “bizznatch” now!
As you know, since you've already watched Episode 1, it was Jimmy and his young friends' misfortune that the very day they pulled their scam, not only did the brothers hit the wrong station wagon, and not only was their unintended victim a little old Spanish-speaking victim, but she happened to be the adored abuelita of Tuco, who by even worse luck happened to be visited her that day by her doting grandson. With the results we've already allluded to.
So perhaps you too are concerned that Tuco never did fetch that club soda his abuelita kept insisting he would need in order to get out that, er, salsa stain out of her rug before it dried, at which point it would be impossible to remove. Bad Tuco!
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY'S ON THE JOB
I see that, two episodes in, EW's Dan Snierson has really been doing a job on the first two episodes of Better Call Saul, tapping into the thoughts of the creative team for insights I thought we might have to wait for the DVD special features for.
I'm delighted that the BCS guys are becoming regular Chatty Cathies once an episode has aired, which is just the way it should be. As Dan S puts it in his piece following the airing of Episode 2 "Peter Gould on the return of a Breaking Bad villian" (prefaced with a lovely in-no-uncertain terms boldface spoiler alert):
The creators of Better Call Saul were not loose-lipped in interviews when asked which characters from Breaking Bad might pop up in their prequel spin-off, but they wound up giving the audience a tight! tight! tight! treat in the very first two episodes: the resurrection of Tuco Salamanca.
So how did the return of Tuco come about? Peter Gould told Dan:
It’s very simple. We had this situation where Jimmy was going to knock on a door with a full head of steam and we thought to ourselves, "Who is the worst person to be on the other side of that door? Who is the person you’d least like to meet with on the other side of that door?" We certainly thought about a lot of different possibilities, but I have to say, Tuco was the answer to that question.
(What I didn't realize was that the Breaking Bad team had always wanted more Tuco, maybe lots more Tuco, but Raymond Cruz found the character so demanding that he asked the BB creative team to kill the character off in Season 2.)
Bob Odenkirk reported a great reaction to the return of Tuco:
The first time I read the first script and got to the end and Tuco opened the door, my heart dropped. I went, "How did Vince and Peter get me to that place in one episode where I went, 'Oh, s—!' out loud?" It’s just amazing. They’re master storytellers.
Dan has lots more to share on the subject, including a stalwart refusal by Peter G to tell us how much more of Tuco we'll be seeing. Not only are Vince and Peter master story-tellers, they know when and how to keep their mouths shut!
And going back to the beginning --
I was even more delighted to see that for his piece timed to the airing of Episode 1 Dan S really went to town on the amazing six-minute pre-credit sequence of Episode 1, the altogether extraordinary flash-forward to Saul Goodman's post-Breaking Bad life in Omaha, shot in black-and-white and played out without dialogue to the soulful accompaniment of the song "Address Unknown." (I've already watched it four times, I think, and I hoped there would be a clip to share, but I haven't found it yet, though there are snatches in the producers' excellent "Inside Episode 101" recap.)
What the producers did was to give Saul exactly the future he had joked about before his departure in the next-to-last episode of Breaking Bad:
Vince Gilligan told Dan S that plunking Saul down in a Cinnabon in Omaha "was an idea that made us laugh." But it couldn't have happened if the Cinnabon people hadn't gone along -- and and not just gone along but offered lots of coooperation. (The scene was shot at a Cinnabon in Albuquerque, and the two female employees are the genuine article.)
Bob Odenkirk, Dan reports, "had two distinct reactions to the scene --"
one when he read the script for the first time, and the other when he saw the finished product onscreen. “Reading it was very sad and I was just thinking about this character and how completely f—ed he was, like a guy who’s dead but walking around,” he tells EW. “And yet when I watched it, because I’m also a fan of Breaking Bad, it made me satisfied. I was glad to see he was somewhere in the world, and it just made me happy to know where he ended up. It’s such a smart thing that these guys did. Because it made it okay for me to go back in time. If they hadn’t actually addressed where he went, it would have been harder to go, ‘Well, let’s go back in time.’”
Bob also had a lot to say about the second part of the sequence, showing Saul, or rather "Gene," as his Cinnabon name tag identified him, holed up in his Omaha apartment. If Dan keeps this up, I suspect I'm going to make it a habit to check out his episode-by-episode coverage.
TV Watch: "This show has been a crazy ride for us" ("Better Call Saul" showrunners Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould)
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Better Call Saul showrunners Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan
"The character of Jimmy McGill has taken us places we never expected. Jimmy's not yet Saul Goodman: he's his own man, and he's messy and struggling and still finding himself."
-- from the open letter from Vince and Peter
by Ken
I realize that I'm risking becoming a PR shill for Better Call Saul, the Breaking Bad prequel that AMC is unveiling in a two-part premiere Sunday and Monday, February 8 and 9, at 10pm/9pm CT. But frankly I worry more about the possibility of being let down by one of the few upcoming televisual events I'm actually looking forward to, coming as it does from people who have shown that they really and truly know what they're doing in producing TV drama.
The upshot is that here I am, passing along the latest promotional crumb from the AMC folks, or rather from the Better Call Saul folks, showrunners Vince Gilligan (creating and mastermind of Breaking Bac) and Peter Gould (a BB writer-producer who is credited with creating the character of that lawyers' lawyer Saul Goodman).
Bob Odenkirk as Jimmy McGill
Welcome to the world of James M. McGill, Esq.
For viewers of Breaking Bad, there’s much that will be familiar in this series: the bright Albuquerque skies, the dark humor, and — most of all — the passion and devotion to detail from cast and crew.
Having said that, Better Call Saul is a brand new show. We’re telling a different story here — one with its own rhythm, its own look, its own tone. We’re excited to share it with you.
This show has been a crazy ride for us. The character of Jimmy McGill has taken us places we never expected. Jimmy’s not yet Saul Goodman: he’s his own man, and he’s messy and struggling and still finding himself. One day he’ll transform into Albuquerque’s favorite criminal lawyer, but right now he’s a more or less law-abiding underdog on the bottom rung of the legal system.
We’re loving every moment of Bob Odenkirk’s deeply human performance as unstoppable, inventive Jimmy races through an ethical slalom course, trying to make a name for himself.
TV Watch: "Better Call Saul" is almost here. (Patience, people! It's just a few more weeks.) Now how 'bout "The Rise of Gus"?
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"Money is not 'beside the point.' Money is the point."
-- Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk), aka Saul Goodman,
in AMC's Better Call Saul
by Ken
Thanks for clarifying that, Saul . . . er, Jimmy. Note that as we edge closer to the two-night premiere of Better Call Saul, February 8 and 9, AMC has released this "extended trailer."
Which still leaves the matter of a second possible Breaking Bad prequel that has been discussed, The Rise of Gus. While rummaging around online, I found this interview with Giancarlo Esposito which was posted in May 2014. You've probably seen it, but I hadn't.
Amid the enormous gallery of memorable characters created by the Breaking Bad team, two always stood out for me as just plain riveting -- Saul Goodman, of course, but also the chicken magnate who happened also to be a big-time vicious drug lord, Gus Fring. In this interview Giancarlo has lots of fascinating things to say about the way he fleshed out a character who was originally written as a waiter appearing in one or maybe two episodes. By the time he got off the plane after finishing that first episode, he tells us in the interview, his phone was ringing asking him back. He also talks fascinatingly here about the experience of working with Bryan Cranston.
Giancarlo tells us that a phrase he was given by BB mastermind Vince Gilligan triggered his imagination in creating Gus: "hiding in plain sight." From that germ he imagined the character who was so meticulous and methodical and also personally gracious -- "someone we all might know" who is at the same time "doing something quite different from what we might expect."
In particular, Giancarlo talks about his hope that we may yet see a Rise of Gus spinoff from BB. Apparently Vince G and his people talked to the AMC people about spinning off either Gus or everybody's favorite shyster, Saul Goodman, and the Saul project, being more fully developed in the creative team's minds and also promising to be fun to do, won out.
As of the time of the interview, Giancarlo said he'd been asked to make an appearance on Better Call Saul, but said he was inclined to pass, to leave the Gus we know fully created, unless he could do several episodes which would allow us to see more of who Gus was. I have no more recent information, so I have no idea how those conversations turned out, but Giancarlo is awfully persuasive in suggesting that the way should be wide upon for showing us The Rise of Gus.
One thing we certainly saw in BB, thanks to Giancarlo's incredibly meticulous portrayal, was Gus's almost compulsive attention to detail just as a businessman, in the no-detail-too-small-to-obsess-over, service-driven way he ran Los Pollos Hermanos, his chicken restaurant. Back in the day, before I had Gus's name lodged in memory, in chatting with our Noah and about BB, I always referred to this guy, who after all was a big-time drug lord, as "The Chicken Guy." And while it's true that, as Giancarlo says, Gus was always hiding something, he also thinks there's more to his personality as "a citizen of our society," with a deep sense of responsibility that was shown in the elaborate lifetime-care plan he arranged for his chemist.
(I think my next two nominees for BB Hall of Fame-dom would be Jonathan Banks's Mike, Saul's one-man clean-up and enforcement squad, and David Costabile's Gale, Walter White's spectacularly competent meth-cooking assistant -- who, come to think of it, in the end, long after his own demise, is responsible for Walter's.)
Giancarlo would also like us to see Gus's prehistory in Chile, and what happened to twist this scion of a prominent family, whom he imagines as a "rogue son" in the manner of Osama bin Laden. He makes clear that he's happy for everyone involved in what became Better Call Saul, but he thinks there's still room for, say, a 13-episode Rise of Gus.
I find references fromJune and July in which Giancarlo continued to talk up the Rise of Gus idea, but I have no more recent information. So how 'bout it, Vince and AMC?
If you're reading this now, chances are pretty good that you're not in at the start of AMC's complete-series segmented marathon of Breaking Bad, which began this morning at 10am ET/PT, 9am CT, and 8am MT (as best I can tell -- if ever there was a time to consult your local listings, this is it), but you've still got oodles of time to join in. run continuously through Tuesday morning, December 30, then start and stop at various times, with some repeats, timed to reach the end in time for the launch of the BB prequel Better Call Saul, as we've reported, Sunday-Monday, February 8-9. The marathon schedule is here.
MEANWHILE, AMC'S BREAKING BAD BLOG OFFERS--
10 WAYS TO GET READY FOR
THE BREAKING BAD MARATHON
[Links here]
1. Explore the Breaking Bad Binge Companion, which includes behind-the-scenes details, videos and polls for each episode. 2. Transform your name into an elemental grid with the Breaking Bad Name Lab, then share it on Facebook as your profile picture or cover photo. 3. Test your Breaking Bad knowledge with these Ultimate Fan Games, then challenge your friends to see who among you is the Ultimate Fan. 4. Check out interviews with Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Vince Gilligan and the rest of the cast and crew to find out how Breaking Bad was brought to life each season. 5. Listen to Breaking Bad‘s Emmy-winning editor Kelley Dixon’s Insider Podcasts with Vince Gilligan, Bryan Cranston and other cast and crew. 6. Read the Breaking Bad comic book, All Bad Things, then play the graphic novel games: Track down stolen cash as Jesse in “The Cost of Doing Business” or interrogate a suspect as Hank in “The Interrogation.” 7. Check out Walter, Jr.’s Save Walter White website (as seen in Season 2, Episode 12, “Phoenix”). 8. Relive memorable moments from the series — like “I am the one who knocks!” — with these Breaking Bad quote cards. 9. Watch the video extra "Finding Comedy," in which Vince Gilligan talks about the show’s lighter side. 10. Rank your favorite Breaking Bad episodes by season: Season 1, Season 2, Season 3,Season 4, Season 5.
HANG ON! HERE'S ANOTHER BETTER CALL SAUL MINUTE: WHEN SAUL MET MIKE?
TV Watch: Come on, February -- "Better Call Saul" is getting closer! (And Mike Ehrmantraut lives!)
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Updated, with the actual clip embedded
Latest tidings from the Better Call Saul set in Albuquerque
by Ken
Be still, my heart! I know the above picture is crap [UPDATE: all fixed! see the explanation below -- Ed.], but yes, that really is our very own Saul Goodman -- or rather, I gather, some yokel named Jimmy McGill. And Better Call Saul is apparently on target for a February rollout. And the 2:27 tease is authentically worth the trouble for anyone who's looking forward to the series as much as I am. It's got a slew of in-front-of-the-camera as well as behind-the-camera people, many of them people we've known, or whose work we've known, going back to the early Breaking Bad years.
I'm sure it's of no concern to the folks at AMC that, with the passing of Breaking Bad and the countdown counting down to the end of Mad Men, I'm on the brink of being a former AMC viewer. The AMC folks seem to have as many fans as they need for their other shows, so they don't need me, or perhaps even want me. Which is fine, since I can't imagine watching any of them except perhaps on a bet. (If there are any takers, I could probably whip up a rate card for how much you'd have to pay me to watch them.)
So, in case you haven't noticed, I really have my fingers crossed for the Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul, masterminded by Mr. Breaking Bad himself, Vince Gilligan, and his BB associate Peter Gould, giving us the back story on one of the most inspired Breaking Bad characters, that lawyer's lawyer Saul Goodman, created by Peter Gould and of course played so memorably by Bob Odenkirk. If you haven't already zapped off to watched the clip, would it help if I told you that among the in-front-of-the-camera people you'll see is another of Breaking Bad's Best-Loved, Jonathan Banks? Yes, remember that the calendar has been rolled back to 2002, and Mike Ehrmantraut lives! After all, how could you have Saul without Mike?
Is it February yet?
FOR THOSE WHO SAW THE EARLIER VERSION OF THIS POST
The original graphic and caption (with the link fixed!): I wasn't able to embed it, but you can find this new Better Call Saul tease, along with some earlier ones, here.
The only thing was, the link didn't work! Luckily, Howie -- who tells me now that he's binge-watched the whole of Breaking Bad (he assumed he'd told me before!) and loved it -- found the YouTube version of the clip. I've substituted the correct original link here for the original bum one, so you can find this clip along with others the AMC Web team has posted, including this one --
BONUS: 30 SECONDS OF PETER GOULD AND VINCE
GILLIGAN ON JIMMY McGILL (aka SAUL GOODMAN)
"What kind of problem do you have that becoming Saul Goodman solved it?" (Peter Gould)
Roland and I are spending September watching every episode of Breaking Bad on the wall of his living room. I never watched it before and we just finished sea on one… pretty heavy. Roland says I ain't seen nothing yet. The other thing we're both doing this month is finishing our copies of Rick Perlstein's epic history, The Invisible Bridge. We can't ready it together but we talk about it before and after Breaking Bad everyday. We approach it from very different backgrounds. When Reagan was is office, Roland was between 8 and 16 in Maine and Reagan was a kind of hero to him. Reagan was the end of civilization as far as I was concerned. In the intervening years, Roland has moved closer to my perspective, but not 100%. Im hoping Perlstein's book, the most accurate picture of Reagan ever written, moves Roland even further along. Nixon's time in office wasn't something either Roland or I really experienced first hand. I was living abroad for most of it and followed it, more or less, in the International Herald Tribune or Time. And when I was living in a tiny hamlet in the Hindu Kush where no one had ever experienced electricity and no one had ever heard of the United States, the reality of Richard Nixon slipped from my mind almost entirely. Nixon was elected before Roland was born and Roland was one when Nixon, disgraced, was driven from office and shamed into resigning. We're both learning a lot about him and his horrific presidency from Perlstein's book. Today, on the 40th anniversary of the shocking Nixon Pardon, Perlstein made it easy for people afraid commit to a book with as many pages as The Invisible Bridge when he wrote about the lack of accountability for America's ruling elites-- Watergate's most lasting sin: Gerlad Ford, Richard Nixon, and the pardon that made us all cynics.
Gerald Ford had announced upon acceding to the highest office in the land, “Our Constitution works; our great republic is a government of laws and not men. Here the people rule.” For the sentiment, he reaped a harvest of gratitude. The very existence of this new presidency, everyone said, proved that “the system worked.” Then, four Sundays later, 11:05 a.m., when many Americans would have, like Ford, just returned from church-- in the mood, he hoped, for mercy-- Ford proceeded to read, then sign, a proclamation announcing that pursuant to Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, he was granting “a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20 through August 9, 1974.” It was an enormously unpopular act. Ford’s approval rating declined from 71 to 49 percent, the most precipitous in history. This pardon was proof, the people said, that the system didn’t work-- America was still crooked. Suspicions were widespread that it was the fruit of a dirty deal between Nixon and Ford-- the presidency in exchange for the pardon. “The son of a bitch pardoned the son of a bitch,” was how Carl Bernstein broke the news Bob Woodward on the phone. Since then, judgement on the pardon has reversed 180 degrees. First Woodward, then Bernstein, came to conclude there had been no deal, and that this was instead an extraordinarily noble act: Ford “realized intuitively that the country had to get beyond Nixon.” After Ford died in 2006, Peggy Noonan went even further. She said Ford “threw himself on a grenade to protect the country from shame.” They’re wrong. For political elites took away a dangerous lesson from the Ford pardon-- our true shame: all it takes is the incantation of magic words like “stability” and “confidence” and “consensus” in order to inure yourself from accountability for just about any malfeasance. In 1975 the Senate and House empaneled committees to investigate the CIA, FBI, and, later, the NSA after it was discovered these agencies had operated unethically and illegally. The House committee, under Rep. Otis Pike, who died last year in obscurity, discovered not merely that the CIA was out of control, but that it was incompetent-- for instance, predicting Mideast peace the week before the Yom Kippur War broke out. Frank Church’s Senate committee, meanwhile, proved the NSA was illegally gathering the telegraph traffic of American citizens, without even top executives of the telegraph companies being aware of it. But, in the spirit of the Nixon pardon, the idea of holding elite institutions to reckoning had fallen out of favor. At the height of the intelligence investigations Washington Post’s publisher Katharine Graham complained of the media’s tendency to “see a conspiracy and cover-up in everything.” Senator J. William Fulbright said “these are not the kind of truths we need most right now”-- that the nation demanded “restored stability and confidence” instead. The CIA had no trouble promptly drumming up a disingenuous propaganda campaign that all but neutered reform. And, 39 years later, these institutions are still largely broken, and still almost entirely unaccountable. Follow the thread a little more than a decade later. Ronald Reagan’s administration contravened law and its own solemn pledges by selling hundreds of thousands of missiles to Iran in an attempt to free hostages held in Lebanon. The president’s own diaries revealed that he approved the action; he lied about that in a press conference. The deal didn’t even work; Hezbollah just took more hostages. Then profits were diverted to the Nicaraguan Contras in direct violation of Congressional statute. But instead of a Watergate-style Senate investigation (the one in 1973 heard witnesses live on TV for over five months and produced 26 volumes of reports on), Iran-Contra was investigated by a panel convened by Reagan himself and led by a political ally, Senator John Tower; at subsequent congressional hearings, deliberately limited in scope, the star witness, Oliver North, testifying under immunity, bragged of destroying of thousands of pages of evidence. Six administration officials, including former defense secretary Caspar Weinberger, were indicted by a special prosecutor. But one month before leaving office, President George H.W. Bush-- who did not testify in congressional hearings about his own involvement in the affair as vice president, because the Democratic chairman, Senator Daniel Inouye wished to spare him embarrassment-- pardoned them all. Just like 40 years ago today, a longing for consensus over messy conflict, for elite comity instead of accountability, “stability and confidence” instead of justice, trumped all. Meanwhile, the congressional minority report on Iran-Contra, drafted by then-Rep. Richard Cheney, all but rejected the very notion of Congressional oversight over the executive branch-- and Cheney, as George W. Bush’s vice president, literally took Iran-Contra as the subject for a “lessons learned” workshop on how to put such a foreign policy into practice. Note, of course, that Cheney had once been top deputy in Gerald Ford’s White House. The Nixon pardon had to have been a lesson learned for him, too-- future administrations would let the Bush Administration get away with things like illegally spying on Americans, and starting a war on false pretenses, scot free. And he was right: following his 2008 election, President Obama announced “that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backward.” Comity over accountability. Denialism instead of risking national “shame.” In 2001, the John F. Kennedy Library awarded Ford its Profile in Courage award for the pardon decision. But the idea that “too big to fail” institutions are too fragile to handle honest reckoning with the truth is not courage. It is civic cowardice. Better, much better, that we keep the faith: that our Constitution can work, that our great republic is a government of laws and not men, and that here, the people rule.
Today one of Washington's trade publications, Roll Call did a voyeuristic look at the 50 wealthiest Members of Congress. They could have gone from voyeurism to journalism-- not especially a goal of any trade publications-- by asking how criminal types like Darrell Issa, Gary Miller (R-CA), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), John McCain (R-AZ), Tom Petri (R-WI) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) wound up so wealthy, many while "serving" in public office. That's never going to happen at Roll Call-- unless they're covering a corruption trial of someone like Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm, a Mafia-connected Republican thug serving as a Republican congressman for Staten Island and the Mafia-controlled areas of South Brooklyn. Last week, former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell wasn't being talked up as a potential Republican presidential or vice-presidential nominee. He was being found guilty on 11 counts of corruption instead. If he winds up on Lockup Raw in a few months, we'll know there's a glimmer of hope that the Watergate era may be ending. Just a glimmer-- with criminal types like Chris Christie (R-NJ), Nathan Deal (R-GA), Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), Rick Perry (R-TX), Scott Walker (R-WI), Rick Scott (R-FL) still respectable members of the ruling class instead of jailbirds.
The good news is: AMC's "Better Call Saul" is now in production, aiming for air in the first quarter of 2015
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In this powerfully dramatic Better Call Saul "first-look photo," we see the man himself, Albuquerque shyster Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), with co-showrunners Peter Gould (who created the character) and Vince Gilligan (who's directing the premiere).
"Production on Better Call Saul is underway, and we could not be more proud of, nor more excited about, the work to date. We join the fans in eager anticipation for this series, and today we happily confirm that our initial Saul order is for two seasons and a total of 23 episodes."
Oh sure, I could be fulminating about that thieving fat bastard NJ Gov. Kris Krispy and the latest teams of investigators circling his smelly butt, focusing on some of his more colorful fiscal hi jinx with the Port Authority of NY and NJ. (I even have a title slotted in: "Is it time yet for that thieving fat bastard NJ Gov. Kris Krispy to pack his toothbrush for prison?") But NJ Fats isn't going anywhere, alas -- at least not till it's time for him to take up (hopefully permanenet) residence in prison.
But let us turn instead to breaking news about another lawyer, the kind Governor Kris probably would have liked to be if it didn't involve so much hard work and a certain deep-rooted but nevertheless present bare-bones human decency. Yes, we have the release by AMC TV of its first "first-look photo" for Better Call Saul, the "Breaking Bad prequel" that began production this month under the watchful eyes of co-showrunners Vince Gilligan (who's directing the premiere episode) and Peter Gould.
A "reel" of Saul Goodman testimonials and commercials
Vince G, of course, was the creator and start-to-finish mastermind of Breaking Bad, and Peter G, it turns out, is the BB veteran who created the character of Saul Goodman, the world's most unprincipled -- or should we say "flexibly principled"? -- lawyer, played so memorably by the one and only Bob Odenkirk. (We took an up-close and personal look at Saul G in August 2011, noting that the Albuquerque shyster was not to be confused with the New York Philharmonic's longtime and legendary principal timpanist of the same name.)
Not surprisingly, Peter and Vince are tapping the Breaking Bad talent pool. As today's AMC blogpost reports:
In addition to Gilligan and Gould, several Breaking Bad writers have returned to work on Saul, including Thomas Schnauz and Gennifer Hutchison. Bradley Paul has also joined the writing team, along with Gordon Smith, who was a writers' assistant on Breaking Bad.
Better Call Saul is executive produced by Gilligan, Gould, Mark Johnson (Breaking Bad, Diner, Rain Man) and Melissa Bernstein (Breaking Bad, Rectify, Halt and Catch Fire) with Breaking Bad alums Stewart A. Lyons and Schnauz as co-executive producers for Sony Pictures Television.
Presumably important parts of the Albuquerque team, not to mention the various other components of the behind-the-scenes team that did so much to make Breaking Bad what it was, have been reassembled for Better Call Saul. As network president Charlie Collier went on to say in the statement from which I've quoted at the top of this post, "We have a strong history with Vince, Peter, Bob, the studio, and so many involved with this production; we are enjoying the process on Saul and all share a focus on making it a true television event. No half measures."
It's official now that the 10-episode first season, currently penciled in for the first quarter of 2015, will be followed by a 13-episode second season, penciled in for the first quarter of 2016.
Movieline posted this Better Call Saul update five months ago. Already the cited premiere date, November, is history -- talk now is of first quarter 2015.
SIGN UP NOW FOR BETTER CALL SAUL NEWS
Sign up here for updates on AMC's now-in-production Better Call Saul, with a 10-episode first season slated to debut in early 2015 and a 13-episode second season to follow in early 2016.
TV Watch: Maybe it's lucky that Vince "Breaking Bad" Gilligan learned typing instead of calculus
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I never took chemistry and I feel that’s a shame. I actually wish I had. I was a bit intimidated by math in high school. I signed up for calculus and after about the first day or two I felt that it was so overwhelming that I changed to a typing course and learned how to type, which actually was pretty helpful given my chosen career. But I wish I had not allowed myself to be intimidated out of taking science and math courses.
This lovely reply comes in response to a question from BB fan Elizabeth: "Since you never took chemistry, I understand, I’m wondering how you knew the subject contained such a wealth of magic plot devices and what the research process was like." Vince goes on to say:
Having said all of that, even though I don't have a proper school understanding of chemistry, I read a lot of Popular Science magazine, and I have a lot of a layman's love for science and chemistry and physics. I knew enough from watching Mr. Wizard and Bill Nye the Science Guy that chemistry was obviously a very fascinating subject. But of course, the science on Breaking Bad sounds so real because of the expert help we received, starting with Dr. Donna Nelson at the University of Oklahoma. She was our technical advisor on the show -- we would come up with some of these ideas and then run them by her and see if they made sense.
Vince in fact goes on to provide a lovely example of how he and the writing staff collaborated with Dr. Nelson, in the matter of the famous Heisenberg blue crystal meth, in response to another fan question (the AMC blog feature after all is called "Breaking Bad Creator Vince Gilligan Answers Fan Questions -- Part I"), and we'll come back to that. But first let me say that I thought the Breaking Bad finale was just fine, thank you.
In the final installment of Talking Bad, the outstanding after-show that has been tracking Breaking Bad through these final eight episodes, Vince stressed that he and the other writers agonized long and hard seeking the right finale for this show. As regards the obvious contrast with David Chase's famously impenetrable Sopranos finale, in which at the end it's impossible for any viewer to know what they just saw, Vince said he in fact liked that a lot -- but that was the end point for a very different show. For Breaking Bad, he and the team felt, they needed a very concrete conclusion that tied up all the loose ends.
And on those terms, I don't see how they could have done much better. And I include in that the range of decisions by which the team meted out what we might call "producers' justice" to each of the characters. In the clip below (assuming it works; my clips hardly ever do) Vince says that no, he didn't always know how the series would end, but he did always have the feeling that Walt was going to have to die. How smart it was to endow Walt himself with this knowledge, and then to see how inventive they could be in showing how he orchestrates his final days -- with a good many twists and turns, not just for the viewer but for Walt himself.
In the process, the writers did a swell job of their patented misdirecting, leading us to expect an outcome to a sequence of events which comes out completely different. I mean, if there's anyone who claims to have guessed the true purpose of Walt's final visit to his old-time pals-turned-nemeses Gretchen and Elliott, I say bunk. Just as if there's anyone who claims not to have believed that his purpose was, well, you know, I'm extremely dubious. (In the clip, Bryan Cranston offers some thoughts of his on the visit to Gretchen and Elliott.)
While we're on the subject of the ending, in the clip clears up a question I had. It was fascinating in the final episode to finally encounter those "flash forward" scenes we saw at the start of this final episode arc, only now understanding what the heck is going on in them. As it turns out, though, when those scenes were originally written, the writers didn't know what they meant either! They were simply committing themselves to figuring it all out by the time they got back to that point. Vince notes that some of the answers would involve characters who didn't even exist when those scenes were written and filmed.
Still on the subject of the finale, here's another fan question with Vince's answer:
Q: I’m very interested to hear what other possible endings you came up with on the journey, and at what point you realized that the ending you had was the right one. -- Horton Jupiter
A: It took the longest time to come up with that ending, probably the better part of a year. I had a lot of worries along the way that we weren't going to come up with a proper ending. We had this image for the longest time that was more or less the ending that you saw -- except that instead of going to the meth lab, Walt went on and stumbled down the street and collapsed and he died on his own in a hospital hallway without anybody realizing who he was. Or we had a version where Walt actually survived and maybe Skyler or Junior and the whole family were wiped out. Stuff like that we considered but probably didn't think about for too long because our guts told us that was just too dark and too depressing. We wanted the right balance of Walt paying for his sins and yet we wanted some sort of a note of triumph at the end of it all. He got a whole lot of money to his family; trouble is he's destroyed his family in the meantime. Even the pick of the final song of the series reflects that – the Badfinger song has got a tinge of sadness to it and yet the chord structure is almost kind of triumphant.
Now to return to that point about the "science" of Breaking Bad, here's a great question-and-answer. Anyone who tries to shop for some Heisenberg-quality blue crystal meth is doomed to disappointment, and not just because there's no meth-cooking Heisenberg.
Q: I was wondering if you would comment on the origins of the blue color of Heisenberg’s meth? – Brenda Neary
A: We had this instinct that it would be helpful to have something distinctive about Walt's product. And we figured it should be nice and clear and not cloudy that a proper product would be. We thought yellow would be a terrible choice because it would remind people of urine, and we figured green would be an odd color and we thought blue was a good choice because it feels clean. We called up Dr. Donna with our fingers crossed, asked her if she thought it was possible for this product to come out as blue. She looked into it and said not really, and in fact, if you add a color, chemically speaking it would mean the product is probably less pure and been adulterated. And that worried me when I heard that. But she said, you know at the end of the day this is a fictional story and I’ll help you get the chemistry as right as I can. Sometimes technical advisors will be very rigid and say it will never work that way, never in a million years, but she was very good that way.
Once again the writers seem to me to have gotten it exactly write. Of course the color of Walt's super-pure meth is blue. What else could it be?
Vince pretty well disposes of the question of improvisation in Breaking Bad:
Every now and then Bryan Cranston might come up with a different line or two, but on the whole the actors stuck pretty closely to the script. I would say it's not much in the way of improvisation, but the writers and I didn't worry too much if an actor transposed the word "the" with the word "a," or other stuff like that.
But the same question includes "What was the first character you created apart from Walt?," and he answers it:
As far as the second character created, I can't say for sure because I'm not sure I remember 100 percent. I probably started with Walter White and fanned outward from him. I probably thought about who would a guy like that be married to, so most likely Skyler was the second character I created.
Which is fine as far as it goes, but I wish he hadn't taken the question so literally, to cover only the first character after Walter. Probably he's already talked about this somewhere, or if not will eventually (eventually, surely, every imaginable question about the show will have to be answered), but I'd love to hear Vince talk about how the various characters were imagined.
STILL, THE MOST THOUGHT-PROVOKING QUESTION . . .
. . . seems to me this one (emphasis added):
Q: You've said that Breaking Bad became a sociological experiment. Are you ready to share the results? -- sonyaraskolnikov
A: I think the results are to be determined by the viewer. The individual fan needs to ask themselves if they rooted for Walt the whole time, or did they lose sympathy the whole way, and how do they feel about him now that it's over. And there is no right answer. What interested me is that I assumed that people would lose sympathy and lose patience with Walt along the way, the more greedy and selfish he became. But lo and behold, it seemed to be the opposite was in fact that case. It seemed to be that people who were fans of the show were sympathetic to Walt no matter what he did, which is I think very interesting. So that to me, was at least part of the sociological experiment; how viewers interacted with Walt and how they felt about him after six years.
TV Watch: As of now, the message from "Breaking Bad" to non-Blu-ray fans seems to be: Drop dead!
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[Click to enlarge -- it gets really big!]
by Ken
I resorted to my Plan C last night and watched the Breaking Bad finale in real time, and then the finale of the final-half-season after-show, Talking Bad. They were fine. No complaints about them. They did what the situation called on them to do.
But I might explain that my Plan A was to schlepp to Astoria to watch the episode live on the movie screen of the Museum of the Moving Image. The series is so meticulously photographed and edited that I bet it would look fabulous in big-screen format. (As I've mentioned, this is how I was introduced to The Sopranos. via an MMI marathon.) And I thought it might be fun to group-watch the episode in a theaterful of BB fanatics. Alas, though I think I RSVP-ed within an hour of receipt of the e-invite, as I found out a couple of days later, that was apparently too late! Oh well. It would have meant about 2½ hours' round-trip travel time.
Plan B was trickier. As long as I was going to be home after all, I thought, maybe I'll catch one of the many Breaking Bad repeat airings and take advantage of the opportunity to watch the Good Wife season premiere in HD. (When I got my first HD TV, I made the decision to leave my DVR on a non-HD TV, so I can't record in HD.) But then it occurred to me that CBS might have its legendary "football shift" on, whereby if it has a late Sunday football game, its whole Sunday primet-time schedule can be pushed back to, well, whenever the hell they feel like running it. I believe the network markets its schedule officially as "Bunch o' Crap Sunday." Which meant that I would be foregoing the Breaking Bad finale, or possibly the new Boardwalk Empire episode or the Homeland season premiere, for a show that would start . . . well, who knew when.
So instead, I set my (non-HD) DVR to record The Good Wife, kicking in an extra hour of recording time "just in case." And I watched Breaking Bad and Talking Bad, and as I said, that was fine. I'll probably have something to say in an upcoming "TV Watch" piece. That's not what I want to talk about now, though.
All through the run of the Breaking Bad after-show, Talking Bad, though the second half of Season 5, host Chris Hardwick -- who, let me say once again, has done a bang-up job -- has been talking up this gonzo complete-series video release that's in the works. During last night's hour-long final Talking Bad outing, series creator Vince Gilligan said how proud he is of the package they've put together, and mentioned that the script for a scene he wrote for the final episode, which for reasons of money and time was never even shot, is included in the package. Yes!
Of course all this time I've been wondering what kind of mixture of genuinely worthwhile supplementary material and ridiculous garbage is being thrown into the package, and what sort of price it's going to carry. As it turns out, I didn't have to worry, as I'll explain in a moment.
The Complete Series Collector's Set Includes:
• Collectible replica money barrel
• Over 55 hours of special features from all seasons
• All new two-hour documentary
• 16 page booklet with letter from Vince Gilligan
• Commemorative challenge coin designed by Vince Gilligan
• Los Pollos Hermanos apron
I'm certainly on board for the "over 55 hours of special features from all seasons," the "All new two-hour documentary," and (at least in theory) the "16 page booklet with letter from Vince Gilligan" (the obvious question being what's in the booklet). I don't want to be wasting money on the "collectible replica money barrel," the "commemorative challenge coin," or the Los Pollos Hermanos apron. (I have some sympathy for the idea of the apron, but my guess is that the actual object won't be durable enough to be used as an apron, and as a mere tchotchke it's of no interest to me.)
As it turns out, though, it appears to be academic. What's listed on Amazon is exclusively "Breaking Bad: The Complete Series (+UltraViolet Digital Copy) [Blu-ray]." The set isn't due out till November 26, and it's certainly possible that the full marketing plan hasn't been developed, but as of now all that's listed is this Blu-ray edition -- at $299.99 list, $209.99 (30 percent off) Amazon pre-order price. For non-Blu-ray fans, that's a net saving of $209.99 plus tax. Of course it also means no DVDs.
[Click to enlarge -- this gets really big too!]
There is a DVD alternative listed, supposedly comprising "Seasons 1-5," on 18 DVDs, but since this set is apparently already available, I'm guessing that in fact it contains Seasons 1-4 plus the first half of Season 5. Given the dishonest decision made by the network and/or producers to present what were really Seasons 5 and 6 as two halves of Season 5, it seems to me that the Breaking Bad producers and merchandisers have a particular obligtation to be crystal-clear about this. So far, what I'm seeing is murk. At the online Breaking Bad Shop there are separate listings for "Season 5" and "Final Season," the latter currently in pre-order. Apparently the marketing people seem determined to maximize confusion.
To make matters worse, as of this morning there were already 33 reviews up on the Amazon listing for the "Complete Series" package. This is pretty impressive considering that the item is almost two months away from existing. Of course most of the review are babbling on about the show. Anyone who imagines that at this point a review of the show is relevant to potential customers is someone I doubt very much I want to hear from about it. Even more nefariously, there were also 33 reviews -- the most conspicuous of which are the same reviews -- on the listing for the DVDs of "Seasons 1-5."
I assume the complete series will eventually be made available in some form to non-Blu-ray fans of the show, and as I noted, we're still almost two months away from the release date, and plans do evolve. But I have to say, I got a jolt when I went online today to check out the famous complete-series set I've been haring so much about. I thought all I was going to have to decide was whether the price was a budget-buster for me, and that in all likelihood I would be clicking on the "buy now" button.
TV Watch: Lessons from "the" phone call on last week's "Breaking Bad"
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by Ken
I hadn't planned to write about Breaking Bad again until the whole series was under our collective belts, but in a post prompted by last week's episode The New Yorker's Emily Nussbaum, "That Mind-Bending Phone Call on Last Night's Breaking Bad," has raised two large issues about the relationship between TV programs and TV audiences which I think deserve to be shared.
[Needless to say, a spoiler alert applies for anyone who hasn't seen last week's episode, "Ozymandias."]
Actually, the issue that interests me more isn't really raised as such in the piece. Emily N kind of takes it for granted. In much of her writing for the magazine she has made it clear that she partakes freely of tweets and social media and online discussion groups, forms of what I would call "communal viewing," which has never much interested me. But with Breaking Bad in particular I've found myself gradually nudged in that direction.
No, I don't see myself suddenly descending into the miasma of Twitterworld. But I've already noted here how much I enjoy AMC's Breaking Bad after-show, Talking Bad, and cited instances of stuff that was observed or explained by host Chris Hardwick or one of the guests.
Of course in the ancient days these were the kinds of things one might have discovered for oneself on repeated viewings -- the kind of texture and nuance that deepened not only one's understanding but one's appreciation of the show. But never mind, we want to know it all now, and if consorting with a commnity of viewers helps that happen, I guess this is a good thing.
And Emily opened up a whole train of thought for me. As the title of the piece (remember, "That Mind-Bending Phone Call on Last Night's Breaking Bad") hinted, the scene she was interested in was th eone with, er, that mind-bending phone call. "[W]hat the scene was doing," Emily writres, "finally struck me as far more layered, and more subversive, than anything I've seen in a late-stage show before."
The scene I refer to was that horrifying phone call, the one that seemed to be directed not merely at Skyler but at any fan who had started a Facebook page called "I Hate Skyler White." We all know this fan: this is the Bad Fan who didn't see it as abusive when Walt lied to Skyler nonstop; or when he sexually assaulted her in the kitchen; or when he overrode her restraining order and forced himself back into her home; or when he turned Walt, Jr., against her. These fans didn't see it as abusive when Skyler had that tragic showdown at the pool, trying and failing to negotiate with Walt to keep their kids safe. They certainly didn't see it as abusive when Walt continued to lie, long after Skyler had finally agreed to become, as they say in the wedding vows, his partner in crime.
But what was truly fascinating about that phone call was that if it was trolling the Bad Fan, it was also trolling me: the sort of feminist-minded sucker who took the speech at face value, for nearly an hour, until I suddenly realized, in a flash of clarity, that it was a fake-out for the police. (Skyler realized long before I did.) Once my analytical skills flared back into being, I was stunned by the moment's effectiveness. I mean, on one level, that speech was just what it looked like: Walt venting every toxic feeling he'd ever had about his wife. On another level, it was the opposite: it was Walt pretending to be an abusive husband, as a gift to Skyler. It was an apology to her, as well as an attempt to get her off the hook legally, to honor Holly saying "Mama." Walt's language was pretty much a PowerPoint presentation of abuser behavior, designed to make Skyler's case in court proceedings. And yet it still had the sting of catharsis, letting Walt say what he felt: that Skyler is a whiner, a nag, a drag, responsible for anything that happened to her. Like the Bad Fans who roam the Internet (and even some Good Fans, who can make a more reasonable case for disliking Skyler), he relishes calling her a bitch.
Now, that's all at the Walt level, inside the story. At the fan-response level, though, the scene also had two sides. There was the part that was directed at the Bad Fan who hates Skyler, and who has written entire posts on Reddit indistinguishable from what Walt said, and who now got his own language shoved back in his face, labelled "abuser-talk." And there was the part that was designed to sucker the Prissy Progressive Fan (me) who was all too eager to see Skyler as a pure victim, not merely of abusive Walt, but also of the Bad Fan. Vince Gilligan, you cunning bastard, I am confused and delighted. In one way, this scene was "Breaking Bad" having it both ways; in another way, it was the best kind of text, evading the simple read, as emotionally labile as I felt an hour after watching it.
Okay, Emily! You know, it never occurred to me that Walt was being anything except sincere throughout that phone call. As Emily points out, he sure seemed to be believing what he was saying, and after all, he was alone, with no need to disguise his intentions from anyone in the room with him.
As it happens, I happened to watch that scene again, and sure enough, there's a point in that convesation where Skyler at her end breaks into a tiny smile of sorts. And if you wanted to say that this was her figuring out just what Emily says she figured out: that this is Walt trying to get her off the hook on the (police) record. Son of a gun. I'm still not absolutely sure, and perhaps subsequent events may make this clearer, but for now it sure looks like you called this one, E! Thanks for being there.
Now the other large issue that Emily tackles in this piece comes to the fore in this excerpt: the whole idea of the "bad fan": that there is such a thing, and that show producers are only too aware of it, and have to grapple with it and what if anything to do about it.
So let's go back to the beginning of the piece.
A few weeks ago, during a discussion of "Breaking Bad" on Twitter (my part-time volunteer gig), we all started yakking about the phenomenon of "bad fans." All shows have them. They're the "Sopranos" buffs who wanted a show made up of nothing but whackings (and who posted eagerly about how they fast-forwarded past anything else). They're the "Girls" watchers who were aesthetically outraged by Hannah having sex with Josh(ua). They're the ones who get furious whenever anyone tries to harsh Don Draper's mellow. If you create a TV show, you're probably required to say something in response to these viewers along the lines of, "Well, you know, whatever anyone gets out of the show is fine! It's not my place to say. I'm just glad people are watching."
Luckily, I have not created a show. So I will say it: some fans are watching wrong.
Because TV is, in its way, a live performance that goes on for years, shows tend to absorb the responses of its viewers. There is also a tendency, in late seasons of ambitious shows, for scripts to refract these tensions more explicitly, sometimes in an effective way, sometimes defensively. On "Lost," the characters of Hurley and Arzt, and, later on, Frank and Miles, were clear stand-ins for certain types of "Lost" fans. On "The Sopranos," the parodic horror film "Cleaver" looked a lot like the version of "The Sopranos" that those lousy fast-forwarders wished they were watching. On "Sex and the City," the "face girl" -- the judgmental lady who wouldn't listen to Carrie's side of the story -- resembled, suspiciously, the fan who wouldn't listen to Carrie's side of the story.
In my earlier post about this season's opening episode of "Breaking Bad," I mentioned that Todd looked very much like the prototypical Bad Fan of "Breaking Bad": he arrived late in the story, and he saw Walt purely as a kick-ass genius, worthy of worship (like Jesse, he called him Mr. White). Two episodes later, my hunch was confirmed when Todd excitedly re-told the entire Great Train Robbery desert caper to his Nazi uncle, including every single awesome, suspenseful detail but one: that pesky kid he'd shot. Bad Fan recapping in a nutshell! It was a short scene, but one that underlined what we all knew: if you ignore the dead kids, son, you are watching "Breaking Bad" wrong.
If that earlier episode provided a bit of meta-commentary on the Bad Fan, last night's episode -- a fantastic one, but also, emotionally speaking, very difficult to watch -- included a sequence that, at first sight at least, seemed to take a thick black marker, underline the Bad Fan crisis three times, go over it with a meth-blue highlighter, and then scribble on the side "This!!!" But what the scene was doing finally struck me as far more layered, and more subversive, than anything I've seen in a late-stage show before.
Oh sure, it's occurred to me -- frequently -- that other TV viewers aren't seeing the same thing I'm seeing, accompanied by the suspicion, or even strong conviction, that I'm right and they're wrong. This has, in fact, occurred to me, in consuming most of the arts I regularly consume. It's why I tend not to associate much with, say, other passionate opera fans. My usual feeling is that I don't have much more in common with them than i do with most of the people who are unequivocal about their loathing for opera.
Still, it's never occurred to me to work out a whole Theory of the Bad Fan. And what Emily has to say about it outstrips anything I've thought about this subject of bad fans. She's quite right that it poses a real problem for the people who produce TV shows -- they can hardly afford to be in the business of warding off fans, when their livelihood depends on amassing as many as they can. So I'm intrigued as well by E's suggestions of things that Breaking Bad mastermind and has team have actually incorporated into the show to deal with their bad fans.
I can't resist further sharing Emily's final thought in the post. After noting that "last night's episode was certainly pungent," and describing it as "deftly plotted," and saying that "like so much of this season, it was nearly unbearable to watch, but a pleasure to think about," she concludes:
It's hard to say that I'm looking forward to next week's episode, exactly -- I'm dreading it, if there is some positive, complimentary sense of the word "dread." (They've probably got one in Berlin.) Either way, I'll be watching with my fingers over my eyes. Bad Fans, Good Fans, we are all in this together now, suckers eternally, marching toward the void.
