Journal 2
Breaking Bad
I finished my midterm exams and started watching Breaking Bad on Netflix. I had heard it was really good, and once I began, I honestly couldn’t stop. Every episode made me want to watch the next one.
The show is about Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who finds out he has lung cancer. He feels scared about leaving a big burden on his wife Skyler, his unborn daughter Holly, and his son Walt Jr. So he teams up with Jesse, his former student, to cook and sell meth. The funny part is that Skyler’s brother-in-law, Hank, works for the DEA, so Walter has to hide everything from him. At first, Walter and Jesse are just small-time dealers, but things get bigger and more dangerous very quickly. Walter’s cancer gets better, but his personality changes. He becomes more confident, more greedy, and more willing to hurt others. Many innocent people get caught in his problems. When Hank finally discovers that Walter is the person everyone calls “Heisenberg,” things fall apart. Hank dies because of it, Walter’s family leaves him, and Jesse turns his back on him too. In the end, Walter dies, and Jesse escapes.
What shocked me is how smart Walter is. He makes meth that’s more than 99 percent pure. But even though he is so talented, he once sold his shares of a company for only five thousand dollars. That company later became worth billions. Because of this mistake, he ends up living a small, difficult life, working as a teacher and part-time at a car wash. In the beginning, Walter cooks meth to help his family. His reason seems good. But he keeps going even when he already has enough money. He slowly loses control, and the drug world pulls him in deeper and deeper. The show also shows how cruel the drug world can be. The cartels use kids to kill and move drugs. Some parents stop caring about their children because of addiction. Some kids die for no reason at all. Walter also kills people to protect himself. In the beginning, he feels bad, but later he doesn’t seem to feel anything. Watching this change is really scary.
Jesse is the character I feel the most sorry for. He goes through so much pain. He sees his girlfriend die. He sees kids who have no one to take care of them. He finally decides to help Hank stop Walter, but this choice also gets him into even more danger. Walter starts as a simple, hardworking man, but he turns into a criminal who loses everything. His family breaks apart. Skyler has to work to survive, and Walt Jr. hates him. It shows how one bad choice can destroy a whole family. Even though the story is dark, the acting is amazing. Every character feels real, like someone you could meet in real life.
After finishing the show, I added Better Call Saul and El Camino to my list. These two parts are respectively the prequel and the sequel of Breaking Bad. I’m pretty excited to watch them. Good shows like this really make my weekends feel satisfying.
