Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Vamanos Pest

I'm rewatching the last half season of Breaking Bad. And for those who haven't seen it consider this your spoiler warning. 

It's obviously a perfect metaphor for the amorality of capitalism. It doesn't matter why you get into business. It can be for the most noble of reasons, to leave your wife and children with enough when you die, for example. But in the end you are going to be the guy who chooses future profits over justice for a dead kid. Profits first. Profits only. Profits over the wife and kids that you wanted to take care of in the first place. You could also break it down into World Systems Theory, if you're a bit of an old school structuralist like I am. But that is bit too easy, all nuclear families break down that way. It's even there, in the description. A core surrounded by the less powerful periphery. Nuclear.

Maybe I am showing my bias, but I hope it's Skyler who takes Walt out. Hank has the same amount of power and privilege as Walt. Jesse does too, though the fact that he doesn't recognize it doesn't make it any less true. But Skyler, she can't even keep Walt out of her bed. I think that's why she is smoking inside the house. For now, it's the only thing she can do. Smoke in the house where your husband, the guy with lung cancer, lives. Yes, I want the terrified wife to take Walt down. Because for anyone else to do it, it's just a change in management. Just a name change. To break the structure, the periphery has to take out the core.