Is AMC’s “Breaking Bad” the most relevant series on the air right now?
A knee-jerk response might be “not really.”
Returning for its second season Sunday at 10 p.m., this drama has a most unlikely hero: high school chemistry teacher Walter White, who cooks up methamphetamine and deals it big time. Without endorsing White, “Breaking Bad” holds up a mirror in which many Americans can see themselves.
When the series started a year ago, Walt was a painfully by-the-book scientist, husband and father who, caught in an economic squeeze, was losing his struggle to make ends meet. Then he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and told he had just a couple of years to live. Walt was jolted into action. He knew no social safety net would break his fall, or that of the family he’d be leaving behind.
As the first season of “Breaking Bad” unfolded, Walt forged a desperate alliance with a ne’er-do-well former student, Jesse Pinkman, to equip a motor home as a rolling meth lab. Thanks to the scripts’ twisted brilliance, the Albuquerque setting with its desert and suburban visual extremes, and a glorious cast (led by Aaron Paul as Jesse and Bryan Cranston in his Emmy-winning role as Walt), the series was never less than riveting.
Meanwhile, Walt won sympathy for his predicament from viewers as a born-again renegade.
“I think they saw that the show isn’t about the glorification of a drug,” Cranston says, “but about a man and what he does when he feels backed against a wall. People hate the abhorrent behavior, but they root for the character.”
In a scene from Sunday’s season opener (which Cranston directed), Walt makes a quick estimate of his family’s expenses in the years ahead: college tuition for two kids; mortgage payments; food, clothing, utilities. All told, $737,000 is what Walt figures he must raise for the family before he dies. This means quickly pulling off 11 more drug deals.
Can he?
Cranston, 53, who dealt in laughs as the addled dad on “Malcolm in the Middle” for seven seasons, lists a few things standing in Walt’s way. “His wife is finding out he’s telling her lies about what he’s doing,” Cranston notes. “His brother-in-law, who is a drug-enforcement agent, is getting closer and closer to the truth. And Walt is dealing with real criminals — guys who will stick a knife in you if you cross them, or they think you crossed them!”
Referring to the recession, “Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan says, “Here at the beginning of Season 2, I do find myself feeling that it seems more timely than I ever thought it would be. It does speak to the middle-class pinch. I’d be flying in the face of all good sense right now to say the show is not about the economy.”
“Breaking Bad” demonstrates the dramatic potential of ordinary people, and does it with extraordinary power. Savor Walt this season as he continues his slow but irresistible migration to the dark side. “He doesn’t have the skill set for that world,” Cranston says.
But you can’t blame him for trying. He’s one of us. This is why, more than ever, “Breaking Bad” keeps you hooked.
“Breaking Bad’
Returns: 10 p.m. Sunday, AMC
