Truly, They were an Aqua Teen Hunger Force
EJ
I’m pretty sure we may have mentioned this once or twice, but we love Breaking Bad. It’s a dysfunctional love, given that this season was violent, occasionally horrifying, and the darkest think on TV since they closed the doors on Oz. Sure, it’s still very funny, but it’s a very black humor these days. Hard as it may be to believe, the life of our favorite terminally ill chemistry teacher-turned crystal meth dealer has taken a very dark turn.
While the last episodes of the second season brought the long-awaited birth of Walter White’s daughter, we also saw Walter lose a little more of his soul. You see, while he’s desperately trying to make sure that his family will be secure after he dies, he’s gotten farther and farther away from being the man that they love. He has to lie constantly, and can’t even enjoy his family as actual people – they’re reduced to abstractions in his mind, a faceless motivating force.
All along, we’ve seen Walt compromise his ethics. At first, he really believed that he could sell crystal meth without hurting anybody. That lasted about a day, and it’s only gotten worse. Last week, he went to confront his partner Jesse’s new girlfriend, a woman who blackmailed him and threatened his entire operation. When he found them, the two were sleeping off a serious heroin bender. As Walt watched, the unconscious Jane went into a seizure and choked on her own vomit. Walter watched her die when it would have taken only the slightest effort to turn her over or wake Jesse. He stood there and let her die.
And in the horrifying final scene of the season, we saw that Jane’s grief-stricken father is an air-traffic controller. Clearly not ready to return to work, he makes a fatal error that causes a midair crash. The body bags we’ve seen all season? Just two of the many, many lives claimed in the accident. Whether or not he ever finds out, Walt is at least indirectly responsible for hundreds of deaths.
Meanwhile, Walt’s double life is starting to unravel. Between the low-level dealers and competitors who’ve seen his face in his “Heisenberg” guise, and his own increased visibility as the media takes up the cause of the brave husband and father facing terminal lung cancer, he can only stay hidden for so long. At least one major player in the drug game now knows that Heisenberg and Walter White are the same person. There’s no turning back now.
There’s so much more to say about Breaking Bad, but I can’t even begin to do it justice. It was an excellent season. We laughed, we turned away in horror, and we cried like prison bitches. Breaking Bad is TV at its best.
On the other end of the spectrum, I’d like to mention two animated series that went crazy on us this week.
Over on Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Paul Reubens voiced Bat-Mite, the irritating imp who idolizes Batman. It was a pretty hilarious episode with lots of in-jokes and nerd humor. Just check out the appearance of Calendar Man or the parade of variant Batmen, or the quick shot of Hank Venture’s Batman costume and the “That’s not my Batman” guy. And perhaps most inexplicably, there’s a lengthy shot-for-shot parody of the old Daffy Duck cartoon, “Duck Twacy”. You know what? That’s pretty awesome.
And of course, Aqua Teen Hunger Force ended its season with the long-awaited live-action episode. Fantastically low-budget, the episode featured T-Pain in a onesie as Frylock, Jon Benjamin as Master Shake, a contest winner as Carl, and an exercise ball as Meatwad. While they’ve indicated that this is actually the final episode of the series, I refuse to believe that our favorite sentient food products are going anywhere. Adult Swim doesn’t like embedded video, but you can see the episode right here.
