Breaking Up (Badly) With Walter White

We knew it wasn’t going to end well. But this time, Walter went too far.

I could live with the drug dealing, the lying, the murders. But in the show’s finale, the erstwhile Mr. White dealt our relationship a fatal blow. He died.

He looked peaceful at the end. But I’m not. I’m upset.

Sigh. What do you say about a love affair that was too hot not to cool down? Write it off to experience, I suppose. Or, if you’re in song writing mode (more about that next time), write a song. I think I’ll call it, It Was Just One of Those Things. . .

Then there’s Billy Holiday’s At The End of a Love Affair:

So I walk a little too fast
And I drive a little too fast
And I’m reckless it’s true,
But what else can you do
At the end of a love affair?
So I go at a maddening pace,
And I pretend that it’s taking his place
But what else can you do
At the end of a love affair?

Well, I don’t drive too fast, or at all, not in New York City, where every pace is maddening, but I know what she means.

I miss Walter. . .

AKA Mr. White. AKA Heisenberg. The nerd turned kingpin who turned me on for five seasons worth of shows that I watched in a few short weeks.  I now have none of those illicit interludes to look forward to. The stolen 43 minutes on NetFlix. The nooners.

Inspector Barnaby of Midsomer Murders just doesn’t cut it. He’s nice. No dangerous edge. No need to keep him a secret from my husband.

Why do we always go for the bad boys?

And we don’t just fall for them. We become obsessed.

Never would have given Walter a second thought when he was Mr. White, white bread, white bred, high school chemistry teacher. But as the darker than dark Heisenberg, drug dealer, killer, egomaniac, well, I’ll never forget him.

One of the things I loved about him was his admission, in the last show of the series, that he wasn’t doing it for his family, the cop-out he and every other villain since the beginning of time have used to excuse their rotten behavior. Walter mans up and finally admits was doing it for himself. He liked it, he was good at it, he says. And we believe him.

He was good, very good. At breaking bad.

So where am I going to find someone to replace a guy like this? What am I going to do this afternoon when I’m taking a break? How did I become obsessed with a character on TV show? What other harmless secret can I enjoy hiding from the world? Are these obsessions really harmless?

And more to the point: Where is Sigmund Freud when we need him?