Then there’s the point of view that Walt’s intentions don’t matter, that simply chalking the call up as an altruistic ploy neglects the truth of his words. 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. Walt’s language was pretty much a PowerPoint presentation of abuser behavior, designed to make Skyler’s case in court proceedings. Whatever his motivations - and they are many, and contradictory - Walt threw himself under the bus to give Skyler a way out, and further implicated himself in Hank’s murder to give Marie closure. But it also, she went on, undermined those who see Walt as purely evil, a calculating monster. It was the unmissably ugly embodiment of the way the Bad Fan views Walter White, the emotional endgame for a man who believes only in himself. The New Yorker’s Emily Nussbaum tied the reaction to the phenomenon of what she called the “Bad Fan” - that is, people who watch Breaking Bad to get off on the fantasy of Walter White as an all-powerful drug lord and resent it when Skyler or anyone else gets in his way. hat makes sense is the notion that Walter, like me, like you, like everybody, is complicated, and does things on purpose and on instinct, and on purpose while acting on instinct, and by accident, and in response to demons even he doesn’t understand and Walter, like you, like me, like everyone, can be more than one thing at the same time, just as a great work of popular art can be more than one thing at the same time, many of them in seeming contradiction. It’s about the discomfort that ensues when an episode or scene or moment forces us to take a hard look at why we watch a show, what we truly get out of it, and what that says about us…. The controversy over Walt’s phone call is really about the relationship between viewers and television. I don’t think that anybody - or certainly not Walter White - can just be one thing so there will be vestiges and there will be conflicts within.Īs the week went on, critics began to see the reaction to the call as a referendum not just on Walter White, but on the people who watch him - that is, Breaking Bad ‘s audience. He had to identify the monstrous qualities of himself in order to effect the lie and protect his family…. What was fascinating about writing that scene was that the vestiges of Walter White had to play Heisenberg who’s a very real part of him and not the other way around. I would hope that people got that it was an absolute ploy on Walt’s part.” But in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, she said: She told Vulture, “I personally feel like it wasn’t open to interpretation. Not even Moira Walley-Beckett, who wrote the episode, could seem to agree on the call’s true meaning. Quentin Tarantino's Favorite Movies: 40 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Luckiest Girl Alive' Review: Mila Kunis Leads Shaky Assault Survivor Story New Movies: Release Calendar for October 7, Plus Where to Watch the Latest Films When he accused Skyler of holding him back, of never being grateful for his actions, when he mocked her moral misgivings and called her a bitch, was that all just for show - the greatest lie in a long string of them? Or was there truth mixed in as well? Walt’s eyes flood with tears at the end of the call, but before that his voice is cold and rough, evoking the onrushing rage we’ve heard once before in his final confrontation with his ex-girlfriend Gretchen. The question was whether he might also have meant it, or at least some of it. The lone and level sands stretch far away.Although it took some viewers (including this one) a while to catch on, most everyone agrees that Walt’s call to Skyler was intended for the police he knew would be listening, that in casting her as a terrified woman under the thumb of a homicidally violent drug kingpin, he was trying to exonerate her, to absorb her crimes into his own. Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,Īnd wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Here is Shelley's "Ozymandias" poem in full: The poem for which the episode was based on, told the tale of a fallen empire and the powerful figure who once ruled it. The drug empire he had built as Heisenberg had officially crumbled. By the end of the episode, Walt was taken to be set up with a brand new identity while leaving his old life, or what he had left, behind. Related: Breaking Bad's Fly Explained: What The Divisive Episode MeansĪfter turning the tables on Jesse and losing the support of his family, Walt had no choice but to take what was left of his fortune and flee the area.
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