My metric for good TV has always been Breaking Bad. For years now, I’ve been telling anyone who will listen just how much I love the show. It has the groundbreaking antihero, it has unparalleled acting, it has unexpected action and slow burn drama. Breaking Bad has those moments that good TV has, where the viewer’s mind is completely shattered by what just happened. The end credits roll, and I say to myself, “Vince Gilligan, you son of a bitch.”
Even if you weren’t onboard during the height of Breaking Bad mania, the premise is infamous at this point: Walter White is an average husband and father, an overqualified high school chemistry teacher who gets a cancer diagnosis, leading him to enter the methamphetamine business as a way to earn money for his family before he dies. His subsequent transformation from normal guy to drug kingpin is what drives the whole narrative.
Think of it this way: White is an intelligent but altogether unexceptional white man who steps into the meth world. Immediately, he’s a natural at it, and his obsessions with cleanliness and purity mean that within a year, he’s made the best product and conquered everyone else in the game, cornering a market that includes Mexican drug cartels and a hugely diverse Latinx population in the southwest. There’s actually a name for this character trope: Mighty Whitey. And we see it all the time.
