Anyone else seen it? Is she correct in her analysis?
I've heard people rave about it. Sounds like a tale with a tragic ending to me, but I don't even know how it ended, when? Last week sometime?
I agree with her...it is a story of descent and redemption. It embodies the old saying “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Highly recommend.
It really is an age old classic story. In a sense I liken it to King Midas in a way. The final season was titled Ozymandias which is a good poem that gives an indication of what it was.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
My neighbor calls it “Breaking Wind”.
I generally don’t read her stuff any more, but I read this piece, and I would say that she states it pretty well. Of course, all stories that ring true are basically Christian parables. If they aren’t, then they don’t actually ring true.
I TOTALLY HATE TV.
I never saw Seinfeld, Friends, Melrose Place, Bev Hills 90210 —ANY show like that I didn’t see a SINGLE episode, and I’m way younger than you think.
But I LOVED Breaking Bad..!
I haven’t seen the finale, but I did see many hints of conservativism in it.
Watched it for a bit but thought it was boring and gave it up, I got to series 4 episode 10.
Walking dead is much better
Not sure what Coulter is trying to say with this column.
Her conclusion: "Walt followed his "personal ethics" -- which Pope Francis has reportedly said is good enough for God. "Breaking Bad" demonstrates what the Proverbs teach: There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death. " Seems to contradict the Pope.
There was little redemption for Walt. His wife and all the others that benefited from his meth cooking are going to be okay, for the most part.
Hank, his DEA brother-in-law and his wife, who were the most righteous characters, will have suffered the most.
The rest of the world moves on as always.
A good show. Worth the time to watch it. Can’t say any more without possibly spoiling it.
I think it’s a good moral play. The more conservative social element may not like it due to violence and profanity but it is a good story. Walter White sins and suffers tremendously for it. If at any point he confessed and begged for forgiveness, a lot of people would not have suffered as much, including him.
love AC 95% of the time & watched BB last 4 years as I’ve never seen such stellar combination of writing, direction, acting on TV. Its comparable to The Godfather trilogy. I’ve NOT seen other series others compare to it (don’t have extended cable). I don’t openly promote BB as there is enough ANTI-Christianity in it. I’d not suggest BB onward unless its censored. Oddly AMC nicely enough censors many old movies and should have here but I’m just daft, eh?
There is some near nudity and the sexual content in the very few scenes it appears is disturbing as it was tossed in to make characters “real”.
There was foul language that one would expect with drug dealers but sadly we’ve come to expect from law enforcement, especially Hank. But in a recent episode the “f-bomb” was censored (I’d never noticed it used before).
There are rude words we hear in shopping malls and then REALLY FOUL words and BB avoided the latter.
What was really disturbing is, as time went on in the series, The Lord’s Name was tossed in vainly to practically every difficult situation. It was if the producers thought this was the only “expletive” that wouldn’t possibly be deleted.
AC is generally wrong anyways and is just stretching terribly. She’s secretive about the strain of “Christian service” she attends but it sure isn’t Catholic. BB could be aptly compared to many a classic work of tragedy.
While I’m here I’ll add that the actors in the last “Talking Bad” installment were reasserting the Name of God instead of using “gosh” (Oh my gosh). I’ve noticed the last decade or less this use of “gosh” has become the norm. sadly the enthusiasm of the fine actors has them pushing the envelope I thought society had accomplished.
Hoping BB can be censored for general audience as at least it shows how starkly evil the characters in heavy drug businesses are, how much intelligence and humanity is lost in it.
Its still Hollyweird.
Coulter ticks me off from time to time and its usually along this vein.
“Anyone else seen it? Is she correct in her analysis?”
I’m not much interested in her analysis but it’s got some of the best acting, production, writing, and character development that has ever been broadcast on TV.
Great show. Nothing else on TV could touch it for the quality of the scriptwriting, the development of the characters and the overall plot....
Gabe - said to be a “libertarian”, but later we learn more —three times we’re showing Karl Marx book in his personal collection, and later we see he has dedicated his lab book to Walt Whitman, the gay American poet.
Also Gabe gives off a weird homo vibe towards Walt, and after Gabe’s demise Hank scoffs as he regails a shocked Walt with the particulars of Gabe’s hippy diet (homemade tofu, etc).
BB has a conservative vibe.
Every work of fiction can be combed to find analogues in the Bible.
Yes, she is pretty accurate. The whole thing is an extended morality play, with the “tragic hero”, Walter White, eventually being shown to be quite a monster, who deserves his downfall. It does draw you in to sympathize with him at first, though, because, despite being very intelligent, he is kind of an everyman. He’s got real flaws, and real problems in his life, but also real joys, hopes, and dreams.
Maybe the best way to describe it is Capra meets Scarface. The overall message and moral is good, but there is also an unflinching portrayal of a lot of very bad and ugly parts of life on the way to that moral.
It amazes me that people as educated and meticulous as Ann can use a ‘reported’ quote from the Pope, just to get a dig into the Catholic Church, which they don’t take a moment not a moment to research.
The pope cannot say personal ethics are okay with God.
Everything the Church stands for is against coming up with one’s own ethics. The Church serves to tell us what God expects of us; it’s where all those rules, people complain about, come from.
And the Pope cannot just come out with things that pop into his head.
He has a masters in philosophy and a doctorate in theology, both from Catholic institutions. He has been serving faithfully in the priesthood (bishop and cardinal) in union with the popes and has earned the recognition of his obedience to the Church from all of the Cardinals, all over the world, not just the ones from our myopic, liberal western culture in Europe and the United States.
He cannot and could not just come up with some wacky dogma and if he did, under some kind of character altering event like out of the result of a head injury, it could not be counted as dogma, much, much more certainly than Obama cannot mess around with our constitution.
The press, as Ann seems to forget, certainly can misquote the Poe, and misrepresent the Church, and does so on a regular basis, more consistently than they do republicans and conservatives in this country.
She is acting like a headline reader. A low information voter.
Just prior to reading this piece, I was in the kitchen reminiscing about a conversation we had with a houseguest, a friend of the family who had just graduated from law school, getting settled in town.
Ann was on the radio, and I was straining to hear. The kids asked, ‘who is that talking?’
I told them. They wanted to know what she talked about, what was her gig.
I said, ‘she has some good ideas’. They asked if she was nice, like ... and named a few pundits.
My guest said, ‘only if you agree with her’.
I didn’t like to hear it. But couldn’t argue.
Lately she’s been out and talking - Red Eye- I was just thinking how I’m glad I don’t feel that way about her any more. I want to like her.
I take it right back.
This slam at the Pope is un-researched, at the level of a bad ninth grade paper and it is unnecessarily simply nasty.
And it is certainly, verifiably, untrue.
Glad to see that others are coming around to this point of view.
WWWWD?
Read this article for an interesting take on conservatism in the X-Files, which by extension, would include Gilligan.
I found it a perfect examples of Buddhism and it fits nicer than Ann’s sophmoric article.
*note: “Suffer” == Dukkha, where suffer is a verb and Dukkha is a noun. Think of it as a state of being.
Chiefly
We suffer in life. We cause others to suffer and others cause us to suffer.
Suffering stems from desires, jealousy, unfufilled goals and we suffer because we cause others to suffer.
Ridding ourselves of desires will alleviate suffering.
Take the Noble Eightfold Path for enlightenment which perfects our souls and makes them ready for God, Jesus, and Heaven.