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[JoshuaFH]

After so many years of putting it off, I finally finished Breaking Bad + El Camino; took several days of binging cause it's so goddamn long, but I got through it finally. Gotta say it lives up to the hype. I watched BCS first, so I went in with the knowledge that endowed. They have extremely different mouth feels though, despite being set in the same universe and story.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I had joked in the wtf thread about a combination of Death Note and Breaking Bad, but I really was hoping for something a little more like that, strategic mind games and trying to intellectually outmaneuver the law. It does kinda get there and do that in the last season, but up until that point the show mostly feels like a gritty show that examines characters as they slowly erode psychologically until becoming completely unhinged. In that sense, my opinion of the first 3 and a half seasons was very "feel bad". I had tried to watch BB once and quit because I really hated Jesse, but this time through I can appreciate him, because he's the only character that makes a serious effort to hold onto his humanity, and tries to stop himself from entering the abyss of amorality that Walt throws himself into. In El Camino, he can't be juxtaposed against Walt anymore, but he is instead juxtaposed against Todd; that juxtaposition lets you see that Jesse managed to hold onto his conscience, while Todd has no conscience whatsoever. I understand that he was meant to be killed off in an early version of the story, but then the writers changed their minds after he became popular; and while I hated what it was that made him popular, I like how he developed. Walt's degradation into megalomaniacal drug kingpin is surprisingly fast. At some point, it felt like Walt was just being an asshole for the joy of being an asshole, and no other reason. On a meta level, it felt like there was a writing requirement for every episode that was basically "And how is Walt going to be a complete prick in this episode?". I genuinely think they added the Nazi characters into the show because you'd be hardpressed to find anyone else who's more openly evil than Walt is, and Walt needed some kind of villain he could kill justifiably in the finale, to offer him the slightest bit of redemption.

I'm not sure how accurate it is, but it sure does feel like the cops in BB and BCS are ridiculously, ludicrously competent. If anyone calls the cops, they're fucking swarming the place in like a minute. In El Camino, there's a caravan of cops ontop of a lojack alarm in almost no time at all. Jesse's squealer pig-loving parents have 3 cop cars watching their fucking house in the middle of the night. When Saul had the cops called on him as part of the finale of BCS, even with the authorities having to go through Life-Alert first, he was fucking swarmed, pincered, and surrounded in a dumpster in what was like less than 5 minutes. Like, Jesus, it feels like there's a police station on every corner with how many cops there are, and how quickly they respond to any call whatsoever.

Have to say I really liked the show, but getting through the middle portion of it was so hard. The beginning and ending portions are great, but the middle portion worked hard to grate down my patience for all the characters' psychological bullshit, and I had to really force my way through it.

[Vector]

Did you like Better Call Saul? I hated Breaking Bad (quit at the beginning of season 3 since I just couldn't take it anymore) but BCS seemed vaguely more watchable.

[JoshuaFH]

Better Call Saul is a modern masterpiece. I enjoyed it much more than Breaking Bad, even though BB is pretty great itself imo.

What BCS has going for it is that it is entirely different in tone and themes. Jimmy Mcgill (aka Saul Goodman) is much more nuanced and likable than Walt ever was. In fact, while BB suffers from having a lot of characters that are difficult to like until you get to know them for a while, almost every character in BCS gets such great writing and dialogue that you can't help but love every single one of them. Especially Lalo, who was mentioned in a single throwaway line in Breaking Bad, but you actually get to meet him in Better Call Saul and he's an amazing fan favorite, and I love him.

One thing that the creator Vince Gilligan made sure to do in BCS was to include lots of layered meaning and symbolism everywhere and in everything. I watched through BCS twice, and both times it blew my mind; and then I'll watch some youtube video about the extensive usage of color theory that endows every single scene and object with hidden psychological meaning, and it'll just blow my mind again.

I'd also say the pacing is super excellent in BCS, I never felt bored in any of the episodes, cause the show uses its time extremely well. Going from episode to episode is very enticing and it was easy to lose an entire day as I watched and rewatched the series. BB had a pacing problem, I think, where it would slow burn me too much and wind up boring me, but BCS gets the mixture just right so it can slow burn while keeping my attention the entire time.

So yeah I'd say Better Call Saul gets my glowing recommendation.

[Vector]

Cool. I might actually go ahead and watch then!

[KittyTac]

I'm back to hyperposting, suckers.

[EuchreJack]

Look you don't have to agree but as voltaire said, I would give my life so the INRA gets to distribute pamphletsGuns.

fixed that for you, it made me happy at least_{my apologies for your brain damage in advance}
(and shit, I was referring to the National Rifle Association. It's even better with National Republican Army!)

[dragdeler]

fghj

[Great Order]

I've now been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, hooray! I can get on with transitioning.

[Vector]

I've now been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, hooray! I can get on with transitioning.

Hooray hooray !!


My happy is that the 9th Department Q book is going to be released in the next couple of days, in English ... I can't freaking wait ! I preordered so that I would have it right away but it has been so hard to wait while the Danish reviews go up online.

[MaxTheFox]

Congrats!

[None]

Local park had a night hike/dark sky program tonight. Realized it's the first time in some five years that I've hiked around in some forested area at night. Cloud coverage was pretty bad, but it was lovely to drink the marshy night air to the chorus of grasshoppers and the night-sky glow of the town a mile over.

Then I got frustrated about my visual snow against the dark of the night and ruminated about neurological conditions and helplessness in how something so fundamental as a person's brainmeats can be defective.

8/10 would recommend

[Frumple]

visual snow in the dark is when it's at its most vibrant

all the pretty swimmy colors (if you get multicolor anyway, some poor bastard out there probably has monochrome and my condolences, it's much better with a good color selection), shame about seeing other stuff

who needs psychedelics when you've got that stuff, though, 24/7 hallucinations just add water (so you don't dehydrate and die)

[EuchreJack]

Funny you should say that, I only get the snow when I'm dehydrated, tired, and probably suffering from a salt deficiency.

[King Zultan]

I don't think I've ever had that visual show stuff at night, maybe it's because I do a lot of stuff at night.

[None]

It's got comorbidities with migraines and tinnitus, so it'd be more likely you just don't have it if you don't have those or haven't noticed TV static in your vision.

Makes for a pretty noisy head, eh.