Since most of the cast, the writers, and VG keep clubbing us over the head about what an awful person Breaking Bad’s Walter is (they routinely call him a monster as if it’s not even debatable, and give 20 interviews a week talking about what a bastard he is), and how frustrated they are with Team Walt supporters, I thought I’d explain exactly why I still like Walter (and maybe some others feel the same)…
1. None of the Other Major Characters are Real Prizes Either…
There are two schools of thought: The first one that says everything that happens on this show is Walter’s fault (which seems to be the view of some fans, most of the writers/cast, and even Vince Gilligan himself), and the second that says the show is really about everyone’s consequences and how they Break Bad. Walter can’t make Hank punch Jesse in the face when he lies about Marie’s wreck, that’s his choice. He can’t make Skyler cover up Ted’s embezzlement, that’s her choice. He can’t make Marie shoplift or Jesse deliberately try to knock Andrea off the wagon. All of these people are already bad with or without him, and he’s just putting their actions in motion.
In my view, Skyler, Marie, and Hank were already living mostly self-centered lives where they really didn’t care about much outside of their own little worlds when the series started. They weren’t really good people, so much as people that hadn’t much had the opportunity to be bad. And Jesse is a monstrously selfish junkie who endangers almost anyone who comes into contact with him. The other characters besides that have been hitmen, drug dealers, major drug dealers, an embezzler, hired goons, and meth heads. The only unequivocally good characters out of the major cast have been a disabled teenager, and a baby.
2. Walter’s the Protagonist, It’s His Journey We’ve Signed On For…
This may sound staggeringly simple, but Walter is the main character. It’s his journey we started watching, and his we want to finish watching. Sorry Dean Norris (who’s been complaining that more people don’t root for Hank…a borderline fascist cop), but if we were really that interested in rooting for a cop, we’d be watching a CBS procedural show. It’s not Hank’s story, and thank God for that because that show wouldn’t be nearly as interesting. [Just look at any cop show on broadcast TV.]
3. Walter’s the Most Interesting…
If this were Skylar’s story, it would be a one-dimensional drama on ABC. If it were Hank’s, it would be a cop show on CBS. If it were Jesse’s, it would be on MTV, and I would probably watch a couple episodes before forgetting it was on. Walter White is the most interesting character since Tony Soprano left our TV sets, and that makes Breaking Bad the best show on TV right now. If you take him out of the show, there really isn’t a show. Or at least not as good of a show. Just look at the spin-off Better Call Saul (centered around Saul Goodman), I’m sure the show will be funny and entertaining (he’s my second favorite character…and also the second least “moral” in a conventional sense) but it won’t be an epic tragedy that will go down as one of the best shows on TV. BB will be, and it will be largely due to Walter White.
4. No Other Antihero has Inspired This Level of Judgment…
I loved The Sopranos, The Shield, Deadwood, The Wire, Brotherhood, sometimes-love-Boardwalk Empire, used-to-love Dexter, etc. but I can not ever remember Tony Soprano, Vic Mackey, Al Swearingin, Avon Barksdale/Stringer Bell, Michael Caffee, Nucky Thompson, or Dexter Morgan receiving this level of moral finger-wagging. Is it that Walter is really so much worse than a dirty cop, a whorehouse runner, a drug dealer, a mafia don, an Irish mobster, a corrupt politician and bootlegging killer, or a serial murderer that’s killed literally hundreds of people? Why have people suddenly developed this puritanical scolding streak and need to feel morally superior to a fictional character?
I think it’s because people can more easily imagine themselves as Walter White than any of those others. Tony Soprano, Michael Caffee, Stringer Bell/Avon Barksdale, Dexter Morgan, Al Swearingin, Nucky Thompson, and gang-squad Vic Mackey are largely products of their historical setting, environments, jobs, past traumas, or inherited crime empires, but Walter had to build his from scratch and crossover from a boring suburban existence. In other words: he is the one who most consciously chose it. Most of the other antiheroes are characters that started bad and strove for some form of legitimacy, whereas Walter went underground and discovered it’s where he always should have been. I think that makes people more uncomfortable since some elements of Walter—-like being pushed around or undervalued his whole life and desperate to go out on his own terms—-could really resonate with a screwed-over middle-class.
Another great article. You need to get a job for Entertainment Weekly. They need some decent writers.