{"id":1053,"date":"2026-08-25T18:01:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T22:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/?p=1053"},"modified":"2026-09-04T12:14:45","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T16:14:45","slug":"breaking-bad-by-vince-gilligan-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/?p=1053","title":{"rendered":"Breaking Bad, by Vince Gilligan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Season 3<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Anna Gunn (pictured) got the worst of it in this series: both as the character she played (Skylar White) and the actor in real life. While Bryan Cranston soared into the heights of acting fame and Aaron Paul became someone nearly everyone wanted to bed, she became — and still is to some extent — someone those horrible fans actually loathed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s pretty common for people to confuse the actor with the acting, but I think the hatred of the character is what fueled the hatred of the actress, and I think they, the fans, are utterly and moronically wrong about both the character and the actor.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I’m up to season 3 and this season is really where the series starts to slow down, starts meandering, goes off on paths that might have a tangential relationship to the basic theme. Part of the problem with any long running and successful series is that actors and their agents start demanding more screen time, money and involvement in the plot. The union rules in England vs. the U.S. are extremely different, so it makes more sense for the English produce a show that is basically a single season of six episodes, like “Baby Reindeer,” or, in the case of a hit show like “Downton Abbey” a story line that kills off or gets rid of the actors who have offers to do other work. (I’m not sure it worked out for Dan Stephens, but so be it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the main point of this season, I think, other than drawing Walter and Jesse further into this drug world, is to lure Skylar into the crime. When she intuited at the end of Season 2 that her husband is a drug dealer, (he’s a distributor, not a dealer, Walter insists, which kind of reminds me of those gay men from ages ago who insisted they would never ever be passive in that kind of a relationship, but only the active one, or the one penetrating). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Skylar tells her lawyer about all of it and the lawyer states unequivocally “leave immediately.” She doesn’t, of course. But, as the lawyer tells her, the instant she doesn’t leave she becomes an accessory after the fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[There was a great moment in the relatively poor television version of the Bernie Madoff story where the two sons visit their lawyer and explain that their father has admitted to running a massive ponzi scheme. But it’s okay, they say, because “dad’s” going to make sure everyone’s taken care of before he turns himself in. The lawyer immediately stops the conversation, mid-sentence and says, “You’re talking about an ongoing crime.” They were so spoiled and deluded they didn’t even think about the fact that “making things right” is just “making things right with stolen money.” And once they know, their only choice, if they don’t want to go to jail, was to turn him in immediately. I believe they did. But in that sad true story, both sons died – one of suicide, and Madoff died in jail. Only the wife survived, and she had nothing left, except whatever they allowed her to keep.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well Skylar in this case thinks she’s protected because she won’t have to testify against her husband. Already she is starting to think like a criminal. But what she fails to take into account is that they can prosecute both of them without requiring either to testify against the other. Her naivete leads her to committing crimes and eventually entering into the money laundering aspect of it drug dealing. But with her, I didn’t think there’s any indication that she consciously wishes to break bad — and that is probably one of the over-arching themes of the show. Did Walter go bad because society mistreated him at every turn, or did he break bad because he really wanted to. Anthony Bourdain, in the documentary that came out just after Covid restrictions were lifted, talked about how he knew he was going to become a heroin addict and didn’t have to, but that he wanted to. I’m not a Bourdain guru like some people, but I thought this was beautifully honest. That same question is going to rise in importance as this series goes on. It might even be the final question — the dying question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, onto the body count. Where were we. I believe we were at 175 bodies that can be directly or indirectly attributable to Walter White’s decision to start cooking crystal meth and his pride which appears to be a wound that will not heal or even close up a little.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The end of Season 2 introduced Saul Goodman (every criminal needs a lawyer), Mike, the cleaner, and Gustavo Fring (Gus), who is one of the two main dealers in the area — the other dealer that controls the territory is a Mexican group called the Salamanca Cartel. The beginning of this season introduces “the twins” — nephews of Hector Salamanca, who are there to avenge their cousin Tuco’s death. (Remember that Hank was the one who killed Tuco.) The twins in either episode 2 or 3 of this season are recognized as they try to use an illegal migrant truck to cross the border. I guess because they were recognized, they kill everyone on the truck and the driver of the truck as well. The dialogue later said 9 bodies plus the driver. I counted 12 people in the truck plus the driver, but I’ll go by the dialogue. So <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Body count: 185.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The psycho twins also kill a lady in order to steal her mini van. +1 Donald Margolis (Jane’s father) is heard over the radio that he killed himself after the air traffic disaster: +1. In episode 7 of this season, the twins are encouraged to go kill Hank (not Walter) by Gus Fring, but Hank first pins one of the twins with his car and then manages to shoot the other twin in the head. An anonymous woman is killed but I can’t remember why. I also have in my notes “Miss Paketewya” and “Indian cop” killed by psychos. After this shootout, Hank is gravely injured, one twin is dead and the other has lost his legs. So I’m going to +4 not including the one twin because he isn’t dead yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Body count: 191.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in the next episode, Mike injects the still living twin with something that gives him a heart attack, and a character named Bolsa, who has become Fring’s enemy, is surrounded by Federales and he and his body guards are all killed. +4 or more (I’ll have to watch it again).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Body count: 195.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through various plot twists, Jesse meets a young woman who will become important to him. But right now her importance is that she has a son named Brock and her little brother named Tomas. Tomas is the one who killed Combo. Combo was killed because he was in someone else’s territory and they made a little kid do the killing. After some fights and so on, the drug dealers kill little Tomas, (+1) so Jesse vows to kill these drug dealers. This time he comes close, although you have the distinct sense that he will not be able to do it, or that he will fail and get himself killed. But before he can do anything, Walter runs the druggies over with his car. He jumps out and shoots the still living one in his head. He does this with almost no hesitation. (+2)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Body count: 198.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And finally, at the end of season 3, Jesse kills. He has to or he will be killed himself. Walt warms him through some trickery that if he doesn’t kill his new assistant (an oddball character named Gale Boetticher) they will kill him. Jesse’s only way to stay alive is to be Walt’s assistant and with Gale being a possible and better replacement, he has no choice. Oh, and they are also grooming Gale to become Walter’s replacement as well, so Walt isn’t exactly looking out for Jesse at this moment. In fact, I think before Walter is brought back to the lab by Victor (the new watchman after Gus killed the first one for no reason at all), he was on his way to kill Gale himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, Jesse has, basically, a 20 minute head start because of where they are in the city. The season ended on a kind of cliffhanger because they never showed Jesse actually shooting Gale. But he did and Gale is +1 for the 3rd season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think Aaron Paul won his first Emmy for this season or episode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Body count: 199.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-30-<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Season 3 Anna Gunn (pictured) got the worst of it in this series: both as the character she played (Skylar White) and the actor in real life. While Bryan Cranston soared into the heights of acting fame and Aaron Paul … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1090,"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions\/1090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thomasfcook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}