Breaking Bad is Back in Black!

I cannot wait for Sunday, March 8th, when my favorite television show Breaking Bad returns! If you haven't watched this show, you are missing something, my friends! I believe that this show has actually filled the void left by The Sopranos. Like that brilliant show, Breaking Bad shows us two equally compelling yet distinct worlds: the world of meth and the world of Walter White and his family. I love this show for a reason other than its inherent brilliance. The show is shot and set in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In September 2008 I walked onto the Breaking Bad set at Eldorado High School and talked for 15 minutes with the show's Emmy-winning star Bryan Cranston! That's right people--I have shaken the hand of an Emmy winner.
Here's a quick run-down of the show. Walter White is an invisible kind of man--he leads a life of quiet desperation as a high school chemistry teacher with a badgering wife and a son with cerebral palsy. Walter's life has somehow gotten away from him. He once had huge promise as a serious research scientist (this part of his backstory is still a little thin. Hopefully we'll get an answer this season about why he left high-stakes chemical research). Now he has to work at a car wash for extra money to make ends meet. He has a bad moustache and bad glasses. He's the type of guy who makes absolutely no impression on you when you look at him. He has become, in essence, a nobody.
But then Walter gets diagnosed with Stage 3 lung cancer, and instead of being the death sentence it is for most people, it becomes Walter's wake-up call. He doesn't want to get busy dying, so he gets busy living. He decides to use his mad chemistry skills to cook crystal meth, aided by a former student turned drug dealer. With the money he could earn from meth he can pay either for his cancer treatment or to leave his family something.
From there, the first season's 7 episodes (cut short by the writer's strike) careen between the crazy world of crystal meth and the world of a family facing a cancer diagnosis. The show perfectly balances and contrasts these two environments and asks the audience to consider which is the more hostile. I do not think I have ever seen a more realistic fictional portrayal of cancer--not the deathbed theatrics, but the very real choices that millions of families have to make. What do you do when your insurance won't cover the best treatment? Should you even have the treatment if you can only add a few years to your life? Why does everyone automatically start treating the patient so differently?
The flat-out best scene of the show, and one which I'm sure won Bryan Cranston his Emmy, comes in the 5th episode. Walter's family has called a sit-down to discuss why he refuses treatment. Bryan Cranston does some truly exceptional acting here. The look on his face when he says sarcastically, "Am I allowed to respond" is just perfect. The most poignant, heart-breaking moment comes when he breaks down in tears as his disabled son holds up his crutch and asks, "What if you gave up on me?" This scene is just perfect--perfectly scripted, directed, and acted.
As someone born and bred in Albuquerque, I love seeing my city on TV and so realistically portrayed--the good, the bad, and the ugly included. I love identifying locations, and I love how the writers have captured the local vocabulary, with its Mexican jokes, occasional Spanish slang, and references to "the A-B-Q" and "505." The actor who plays the meth kingpin unfortunately comes from Los Angeles, but the dialogue the writers have given him is pure New Mexican: "Nobody pushes meth in the South Valley but me!" They've even gotten the sound-track down, filling the meth world with Hispanic hip-hop (reggaeton) that comes straight from Radio Lobo.
I had screamed at the television (or rather, at my laptop, as I had to buy the show from amazon.com while away at college) when I spotted my alma mater, Eldorado High School, in the show. It was a brief shot of Walter and his wife having sex in their car in front of the science building. In the summer of 2008, I began seeing green signs with "Br" "Ba" on them around town. These signs pointed to wherever the show was shooting. One time in the summer I pulled into a local church and saw big trucks.
But then Friday afternoon in September, I actually crashed the set. I had just been out shopping for my stripper outfit for the play Closer (see post below) and as we were driving up Montgomery past Eldorado, I had a vision. I think I saw only a few trucks, but I knew it had to be Breaking Bad. I squealed and made my friends pull in to the parking lot. I mustered up some confidence (I was feeling particularly confident at that time due to playing a stripper) and walked towards all the commotion. Now, I have been on sets and I have watched many behind-the-scenes features on DVDs. I know movie sets. For a few minutes I watched all the unloading of all the equipment, including a full set of actual director's chairs. I correctly identified the craft services tent (that's the snack table to you laymen), the makeup semi, and a couple of very nice port-a-potty trailers.
Then I saw Bryan Cranston himself. For a few minutes I watched him milling around and then, from who knows where, I summoned up the courage to approach him. I don't remember exactly what I said. I probably babbled incoherently. But I know I said that I loved the show and thought everybody did a fantastic job. I told him I was a fan and had bought the shows on the internet, which could have accounted for the low ratings. And then I actually talked a little shop with him. "I'm kind of in law school right now," I said, "but I'm also acting in this play." And then I told him that he had given me courage as an actor to run around in my underwear on stage, given that in the show he runs around in his underwear (I probably look better, though). I was actually able to say, "You're an actor. I'm an actor."
And then I told him that meeting him at this location had an added dimension of coolness because I actually attended Eldorado High School. And I had a crush on my chemistry teacher who at one time had quite the drug trade himself. And then my friend told Bryan Cranston that I had appeared on Jeopardy! And this impressed Bryan Cranston! I couldn't believe it. Here he is on a critically acclaimed show and all I did was win Jeopardy a few times. "Not as good as appearing on Seinfeld," I said. (He played dentist Tim Whatley).
Around this time the makeup ladies began to surround Mr. Cranston, so I bid him goodbye and goodluck. I didn't ask for an autograph (I'm not that much of a nerd) and had no camera phone, so I don't have any proof that I actually met him and talked to him. But he was extremely gracious and generous with his time and seems like a genuinely nice guy. A week later he won an Emmy for Best Actor.
So please watch Breaking Bad and root for my friend Bryan Cranston and the city of Albuquerque. The show is simply fantastic, and knowing that I walked on the set makes it even more of a satisfying show for me. Watch it on AMC Sunday night!