Breaking Bad and its many lessons on life
It isn’t over until I say it’s over, said Walter White, and I guess he said so because Breaking Bad is indeed over. “It’s the moon landing of meth-kingpin Greek tragedies,” as Vulture.com put it so aptly.
I am writing this before Sunday’s final episode, and it may be that this Monday morning I am so happy that I am floating like a putti, a toddler angel wreathed in curls and little trumpets of joy. Yeah, that’s likely.
But the odds are that, like you, I’m in shock. From five years of this great drama, we can draw important life lessons even if there isn’t even the smallest grain of Albuquerque left in our souls. By the way, people who weren’t BB fans can read this. You’ll have forgotten it all before you get the boxed set for Christmas, no worries. 1. You may be, as Saul Goodman said of his future in Nebraska, “a ( jerk) with a job and three pairs of Dockers,” but things can happen that will make you think of that jerk’s life as a kind of heav- en. Compared to death, managing a Cinnabon in Omaha looks good. For proof, read Stewart O’Nan’s novel, Last Night at the Lobster, about a guy named Manny who’s closing down a Red Lobster in a run down New England minimall. I was gripped.
2. Never wear hats. They are always a sign, whether of self-love or a feeling that there’s an emperor living inside you. There is not.
3. Never pour hydrofluoric acid in a bathtub to dissolve something. It’ll dissolve but so will the bathtub and the floor. Better to buy a particular type of barrel at Rona, although not for baths, obviously. Why are you bathing in a barrel? That’s just silly. Barrels are for cash, Pollos Hermanos chicken sauce and methylamine.
4. Never cash out too soon. If you’re working on a startup like Gray Matter Technologies and your feelings get hurt, don’t leave with $5,000 and a sore heart. Hang in there. The secret of life is never taking things personally. It’s true even if a psychopath like Todd says it just before he shoots you from behind. Here’s an example: if you buy a lottery ticket every Saturday night, and one night you forget, do not check the winning number on the Sunday. You will take it personally.
5. Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost was right. Meaning, Jesse’s parents should take him back. I know he stole his grandma’s house from them by means of meth residue and a dodgy lawyer, but it did have a bad smell and a strange oblong patch on the main floor hall ceiling. I might just mean that they should give Jesse a nice headstone. There, bets hedged.
6. Die with courage, with a snarl on your lips, your teeth gritted and a “Do what you’re gonna do.” This is if you’re in an ASAC Schrader situation. Personally I hope to die at 85 with a handful of Seconals in my belly after Canada finally passes an assisted suicide law. Basically I’m advising you to try for a stylish death. It won’t happen. The most we can ask is to die in our sleep. But not like Jesse Pinkman’s girlfriend, Jane.
7. “What’s with all the greed? It’s unattractive.” The fact that this line was spoken by a grizzled neo-Nazi with a wagon train of the murdered behind him doesn’t matter. Greed is bad. There will always be someone with a bigger yacht and more barrels.
8. You may need a criminal lawyer. You do not need a criminal. Lawyer.
9. Bleak is funny. BB was already a show without human warmth, yes, but Walt and Jesse spent a lot of time alone in vast unpopulated landscapes — Albuquerque’s central plaza, the desert, anywhere in New Hampshire. The planet is indifferent. I find that funny. 10. Memorize poetry. In an underground dungeon, sealed meth lab, crawl space, cabin or holding cell, you need something to recite. “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun nor the furious winter’s rages.” That’s Shakespeare, writing about the advantages of death. hmallick@thestar.ca
From five years of this great drama, we can draw important life lessons