I’m Having An Affair With Walter White

It’s dangerous telling you this.

I have a husband, after all, and he does read the blog once in a while, and with my luck, he’ll pounce on this post. And what about all those drug lords and junkies? How will those guys take this news?

But confess I must. Good for the soul, I hear, and while I’m not entirely convinced of that, here goes:

My infatuation with Mr. White (I still call him that sometimes) had a most inauspicious start. Let’s just say there wasn’t any . . . chemistry.

I didn’t find the image of him in his grubby shirt and not so tidy whities in front of the dingy RV cum meth lab all that appetizing. I mean, okay, even though I’m a city girl and do so love the great indoors, I could go in a big way for the Marlboro Man, or Robert Redford in his heyday, or any day. But this guy, all nerdy and needy, not to mention dusty, in that barren desert setting. I’d head for the hills, except that I’m not crazy about hills either.

Talk about Geographically Undesirable

I don’t know much about Albuquerque but am suspicious of any place with two q’s in its name, and as I said, I’m a city girl so New Mexico doesn’t float my boat. Is there any water out there to float anybody’s boat? Haven’t seen a lake or a pond, or even a puddle. in all the episodes I’ve watched, unless you count the blood.

Oy, The Violence!

Yikes, Walter, my soon to be obsession, killed a guy right in the pilot (that’s sooo painful) and then kept another one captive until he killed him too, in the second episode (also not pleasant). Okay,  they were bad guys. And Walt didn’t want to do it (he lost the coin toss). But still.

I watched the first few episodes with my unsuspecting husband, and we decided that it was all just too much for us, and would not be on our must-see list. A show we do watch regularly on Netflix, Midsomer Murders, is packed with as much or more homicide per episode, but is so unreal as to be a comic book or an opera, both of which I love. So, no Breaking Bad for me, or so I thought.

But I just couldn’t get Walter out of my head. . .

For one thing I was fascinated to learn that this was the first TV show ever where the character actually changes over the course of the series. Think about it. Monk always remained his own lovable obsessive compulsive self no matter what turns the plots took. Felix and Oscar were always neat and messy, respectively. And Dexter, well, once a serial killer, always a serial killer.

But Walter goes from being good (or was he?) to bad. Very, very bad. Although there are some moral relativists out there who say that it all depends on your point of view. Specifically, that he did it all for his family (Well, they’re relatives aren’t they?), so he’s really a hero. Besides, he made a shitload of money, and that’s the American Dream, is it not.

Not in my book (which you can get on Amazon, but that’s another story). I think bad is bad, and this guy breaks very bad indeed.

Funny thing, but of all the rotten things I’ve seen him do, and that includes 3 or 4 murders so far but who’s counting, what made me shout at the screen was his treatment of the car wash owner, who he not only screws out of money for the business the guy’s been building for 30 years, but also won’t let him take the framed First Dollar He Ever Made.

Walt rips it out of the frame and uses the dollar to buy something (chips maybe) from the vending machine. I guess it’s because I owned a business for a long time and watched helplessly as the government took an obscene amount of the selling price for taxes. I expected more from a meth dealer/killer than the IRS. Goes to show you.

His Wife Doesn’t Understand Him

Ya think? Just because Mrs. Walter finds out that her mild-mananered husband has been cooking meth instead of conducting experiments of a more mundane nature as a high school chemistry teacher. She’s upset about that? Picky, picky, picky. And so far, she doesn’t even know the half of it. Like the, you know, killings and stuff.

Actually, I don’t know the half of it either. I am only up to Season 3. That’s because this affair, as do all illicit assignations, must be conducted cautiously. Clandestinely. I watch the shows alone, whenever I can steal 45 minutes. Or better yet, an hour and half: enough time for 2 episodes. One is never really enough.

This isn’t love, it’s addiction. And you know how well that turns out. It never breaks good. . .

But it’s not over. So tune in next time for more in this sordid story.

TO BE CONTINUED. . .