Breaking Bad, Bitch!

I'm back! At long last. I wish I could say I was doing something fun and exciting in the three months since my last post, but the truth is that I just sort of lost the urge to write anything. This was, when all is said and done, a pretty shitty summer movie season; I tried my best to not think about movies too much. You can check out my reviews over at BackRowCritics to see how well I did with that.

I return now because the new and final season of Breaking Bad starts in less than a week. At this point, you either know what Breaking Bad is and you probably love it, or you've still somehow never heard of it. I'm not here to talk about its merits or my anticipation for the final season, or any of that. You can find that anywhere on the internet.

I actually wanted to talk about something I don't really see anyone ranting and raving about (granted, I don't look very hard). And that's the character of Hank Schrader. Breaking Bad has always had a diverse and interesting supporting cast -- Saul, Gus, Mike, and to a lesser extent, Skinny Pete, Badger, Jane, Gale, and Tuco. But in my mind, Hank is like the third corner of a triangle opposite Walt and Jesse.

Yea...this guy.

I argue that Hank's character, his transformation during the five seasons of the show, and his relationship with the 'main' characters is just as profound and ambitious as the dynamic between Walt and Jesse. In the first season, Hank comes off as kind of a goofball DEA agent. If anything, it seems that his existence is completely contrived; we have a show about a chemist who wants to cook meth, so of course his brother-in-law is a DEA agent. And at first, Hank is the comic relief supporting character, balancing out the irritating wife Skyler and her sister Marie.

But we quickly realize that Hank is not only a fantastic detective, he is also incredibly human. He never honestly suspects Walt of cooking meth; it would just be ludicrous. However, he is dedicated to his work. He gets an enjoyment out of catching bad guys and locking up 'monsters'. And then, when he tracks Jesse's car to Hector Salamanca's house and ends up killing Tuco out of self defense, his entire life changes. The near death experience jump starts his career investigation while at the same time initiating him into the brutal realities of the drug trade creeping up from below the border. Things only get more disturbing for Hank when he is promoted and sent to El Paso, where he barely survives a violent cartel 'message'. In season three, Salamanca's sons attack Hank, on Gus' orders, shooting him four times. He manages to kill both of them and survive, only to continue his hunt for Heisenberg.

What's fascinating about the show is that every step of Hank's journey is inadvertently orchestrated by Walt. It is never as simple as Hank being hot on Walt's trail. Hank's life, his security, his sanity, and his career have all been put in jeopardy because of Walt's decisions. By season five, though he's still cracking boner jokes and razzing Steve Gomez, Hank is a completely different person. His transformation has been just as remarkable as Walt and Jesse's.

And this, hopefully, is why the second half of season two is going to be so memorable. In that last scene -- of Hank on the toilet, of all places -- he realizes that not only has Heisenberg been under his nose this entire time (much like his boss learned of Gustavo Fring earlier in the season), but every little thing that has happened to him in the past couple of years, for better or worse, has been because of Walt. It was searching for Walt that led to the confrontation with Tuco, Walt's idea to pretend Marie was in a car accident, which ended in Hank putting Jesse in the hospital, Walt's situation with Gus that set the Salamanca brothers against Hank. It goes on and on. I cannot wait to see what these next eight episodes bring. To think Hank is just going to throw a pair of handcuffs on Walt and call it a day is way too easy.

From what I read, people always seem to say 'are you on Walt's side or Jesse's side?' Well, I am on Hank's side.

The actor who plays Hank is Dean Norris. He is also currently on the show Under the Dome, and is easily the best actor on the show (unfortunately, that isn't saying much). My reason for this post is because the actor and the character both deserve more credit. Gus is possibly my favorite TV villain; Saul Goodman is getting a spin-off series; Cranston wins an emmy just about every year. But where is the love for Hank?

Anyways, Breaking Bad.

It's about nothing! (Finding Bigfoot)

This post is about the show Finding Bigfoot on the Animal Planet. I like to think of this show as the smart man's Jersey Shore. It is a show that you know is going to be awful. And then you, for some reason, turn it on just to see how horrible it is. And while, yes, your expectations are confirmed and the show is laughably bad, you find that you can't look away.

Four adults, who consider themselves professionals of something, go all over the country trying to find evidence of the sasquatch. And even though, season after season, episode after episode, they find absolutely nothing, they are all convinced that everywhere they go, sasquatches are close by. Their methods for discovery include: 1) listening to hillbillies and young children describe easily contrived stories about seeing giant hairy monsters in the woods, 2) going into the woods at night and screaming at the top of their lungs (because they honestly believe that this attracts bigfoots) while often mistaking each other for sasquatches on an infrared camera, and 3) sidestepping every remotely scientific approach to each situation. And yet at the end of each episode, the lead member of the team sums up the episode by saying that after all that, there is definitive evidence that sasquatches exist in that area.

My favorite part of the show is how they use the made-up word 'squatch' -- as a noun, verb, and adjective -- to evade actual observations. For example, they often say an area is 'squatchy', which apparently means that a sasquatch COULD live there. But they do not give guidelines for what makes something 'squatchy'; it seems like the only requirement is trees. When they walk around in the woods, it is called 'squatching', and when they see anything at all, it is usually a 'squatch'.

But while watching this show, I had an epiphany. There is so much more to this show than four lonely idiots getting paid to yell at trees in the dark. It is actually about THREE lonely idiots...and the smartest bigfoot ever. You see, the fourth member of the sasquatch team is a guy named Bobo. Yes, Bobo (no last name). He is a giant, hairy buffoon who hulks around and says little, and yet mysteriously seems to have the most first-hand experience when it comes to sasquatches. And why is this? Well, the answer is obvious. Bobo himself is a sasquatch, and the show documents him infiltrating the world's leading bigfoot research team (probably) and sabotaging their "research" in order to keep the trail cold on the search for his enigmatic brethren.

This show is a real-life Breaking Bad. Bobo is the elusive Heisenburg, hiding his true identity in plain sight. Just as Walter stays close to his brother-in-law in the DEA to throw them off his trail, but occasionally remind them that he is still out there, Bobo, on the surface, is a hardcore sasquatch fanatic, but behind the scenes, he is manipulating his teammates and destroying any evidence before the team gets too close. Whereas Walter is hiding the fact that he cooks meth, Bobo is hiding the fact that he is actually the missing link.

When viewed this way, the show becomes so much more prolific. At every turn, you see the gears turning behind Bobo's blank drool-covered stare, as he choreographs an elaborate waltz around the obvious truth. And the fascinating part is that, unlike shows like Breaking Bad and Dexter where the character with the second life is the (anti)hero, here this revelation is not made clear; the audience is as in the dark as the rest of the team. I wonder how long until one of the team members gets too close; will Bobo cook up some ricin poison, or, more simply, will he just eat them?