After watching the first season of Breaking Bad, I was left with a so-so feeling. Some episodes were very interesting, while others were a bit too weird in tone for this viewer. Because it has such an incredible track record, though, I stuck with it through this second season. While I'm still not yet ready to promote it to one of my "favorite shows", I am willing to say that it is starting to grow on me.
For the first half of this season, I was still finding the show to be lacking in progressive character development. It was always (as Walt so famously says about the meth business) "one step forward, two steps back". However, at about the halfway point of the season, the drama really kicked up a notch and hooked me.
Some of my favorite plots (minor spoilers) from this season include:
-Any episode primarily dealing with Jesse (Aaron Paul). I know that the show is supposed to center on Walt (Bryan Cranston), but at least so far Jesse has been my favorite character. While I'm always a bit befuddled by Walt's changing moods from one episode to another, I see a clear line of character growth from Jesse.
-A new love interest for Jesse, a character who shows a completely different side of him than we had previously seen.
-The continued exploits of Hank Schrader (Dean Norris), including a trip south of the border. He's just such a fun character, especially when we (the audience) know how close he is to the drug business while having absolutely no clue!
-Finally, in the last couple of season two episodes, a real sense of feeling for both Skyler (Anna Gunn) and Walter Jr. (RJ Mitte). Up until that point, both of those characters had never really resonated with me. Junior was hardly a part of the show at all, while I found it hard to believe with each passing episode that Skyler was letting so many things fly regarding Walt's secretive behavior. After this season, though, I feel like the drama moved forward enough where I can appreciate those characters more.
Basically, then, the reason I liked this season better than the first is because much of the hi-jinks is cut out. This is a show that often has a very strange tone (likely set by Vince Gilligan), with much dark humor and even some downright goofy stuff. From all the other extremely positive Amazon reviews, people seem to like that approach. For me, though, it gets a little hard to take a show with such dark subject matter seriously when it often descends into goofiness. I prefer it to be hard-hitting drama pretty much all the time, and this season really starts to deliver that.
So, while "Breaking Bad" still isn't on any of my "all-time favorite" TV show lists yet, it's second season grew on me more than its first. I hope that continues as I begin the third season, and I'm very hopeful considering the drama that was set up in the season two finale.
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