I also wanted to write briefly about the ending to the last season of Breaking Bad.
Breaking Bad is a complex show with much that can be said about it. I suppose I've been asleep at the job in that regard. But the ending to the series is very interesting.
You would definitely call this show a tragedy. Like many of the other excellent premium channel shows in this new golden age of premium TV, its longer story arc is that of The Fall. The Fall is a fixation of our era and for good reason. It is reflected in our art, our comedy, our drama...
Now what is really curious about this particular fall is its shape. The classic tragedy, as far as I understand it, consists of a deteriorating state of affairs in which a redemption occurs when there is a rupture that obliterates all human attempts at control and the observer is forced to give up their commitments and let themselves be swept into the abyss along with the protagonists and antagonists, which is paradoxically cathartic.
In Breaking Bad this happens as well, but a little differently. The evil begins with the character of Walt attempting to seize back this vast store of power that he was denied, and the resulting degeneration of affairs as he claws his way to this prize. The arc is redeemed when it reaches its nadir, and upon its rupture, all of the evil is seemingly sucked back into its place upon the destruction of its apparent origin. However, instead of a chaotic descent where the lead manipulator is stripped of his or her autonomy, the lead in this story is almost completely out of control until the very end, where he is able to control his final descent with a rare perfection, and all loose ends are neatly sealed as the lights go out.
There is great destruction in the aftermath, but the observer is left with a sense of closure and catharsis when the smoke clears.
The real question we should be asking is what sort of environment, or society allowed for this grim progression of events in the first place? The entire time we have been focused laser-like on the interpersonal dramas between individuals, but what of the context? Why? But perhaps that is best left to the spectator.
The genius of Breaking Bad lies in the characters. Everyone is both a victim and a willing operator in their own trajectories. There is no clear way out. There is no clear cartoon villain, or hero (though Walt comes close to the former before partially redeeming himself). It is up to the spectator this time (as opposed to the artist) to sift through the ashes and rebuild reality in his or her own mind.
You can watch as those powerful elemental forces toss human actors violently about, with those actors attempting to control these violent events with their symbolic maps and manipulations, until the power grows too great and casts everyone violently into their place, with the symbolic realities dissolving hideously. And the spectator is forced to gaze on and make sense of it all.
