He is not a very charming character, especially in the first season of his poor appearance, useless work, useless family, and even more useless fate. When encountering such an unfortunate uncle on the road, who would pay more attention for a second? But he is no ordinary person after all. This "uncommon" does not mean that he has a superior IQ and an unparalleled drug-making ability - of course, this is also a necessary condition, otherwise the story will not be able to continue - but his unwillingness to fate Unconvinced strength. You know, he is not handsome, not young, has no money, and has no connections. In short, he has no capital to play a drama of conquering fate. He was originally the silent majority of the 99%, but this person was unconvinced and wanted to experience the 1% drama before stretching his legs.
His starting point is family. The wife is pregnant with the second child, has no job, and the eldest son is lame. He passed away from lung cancer, how can he live without his family?
So he went to make drugs, making ice like a chemical experiment, and earning extra money. Jesse, the bad boy in the previous class, became his partner, the generation gap between the old and the young + the torrent of fate, and there were many bad jokes and black stories.
Ordinary people, such a bad person, can make small troubles, but Lao Bai does not. He didn't have much time, he was disgruntled, he had to run his small drug workshop like a nerd and run a business, talking to Jesse about wholesale, direct sales, logistics, profit margins. Jesse is an idiot, but Lao Bai is lucky. He has been in bad luck all his life, and his life's luck is condensed on drug production and sales. The workshop has become a studio, and the studio has become a top laboratory. The equipment is bright and bright, the professional raw materials are supplied seamlessly, the logistics channels extend in all directions, the entire production operation is technically standardized, and the ISO9001 index is directly followed, which is jaw-dropping.
But the key to the story is Lao Bai, Lao Bai, the arc drawn by this character in the face of the great change of fate. But if you want to talk about Lao Bai, you must talk about the people around him.
Power Contrast
To a large extent, I think Lao Bai's dissatisfaction comes from his dissatisfaction with his brother-in-law, Hank, a drug detective in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The initial relationship between the two was clearly set in the first episode of the first season: at Lao Bai's own 50th birthday party, Hank not only stole Lao Bai's limelight, but also sat in front of the TV like a master. Showing off his guns and his achievements to Lao Bai's son is awesome. What should I do with the depressed and lonely old white next to me? While embarrassingly took Hank's gun, and once again became the object of goodwill mockery in the eyes of everyone, he reluctantly retracted into the corner, full of envy, jealousy and hatred.
Later, the process of Laobai's drug-making and drug-selling process, to a certain extent, was a process of gradually changing from quantitative to qualitative in the power comparison with Hank. Among the key strokes of qualitative change, there are a few opponent scenes that are particularly memorable, and can be described as "wonderful". One is the second season, episode 8. For the first time, Hank experienced the cruel methods of the Mexican drug lord. He saw his colleague die in front of his eyes and was sent home after being scared. The dialogue between the two men in Hank's bedroom was delicate. , is wonderful, and must be replayed here:
Hank, a consistent tough guy, can't express his shock and fear in front of his relatives. He can only shut himself in the bedroom and say, "I'm fine, let me stay by myself."
See you. When Lao Bai came in, Hank immediately sat up from the bed, pretended to smile, and greeted calmly, but his eyes were always fixed on the bed, unable to look at people.
Old Bai walked to the end of the bed and sat down with his back to Hank. I think this back-to-back action has two meanings: one is goodwill, not facing Hank's weakness; the other is embarrassment, the usual embarrassment of lack of real communication between Lao Bai and Hank.
Old Bai asked Hank how he felt. Hank hides his true state with silly jokes. Then he peeked at Lao Bai's reaction from behind, and talked about his dissatisfaction with the police sending him home. In short, he was trying his best to show his masculinity and continue to maintain the image of a successful tough guy in front of Lao Bai, a weak loser.
When Lao Bai said unnaturally to Hank that you could have a heart-to-heart with your family, your wife, or me, Hank hesitated but said what was on his mind: "I don't know what to say," sighed , "What I did..." Pause, "Between you and me, in your words, there is not much common experience."
In the awkward atmosphere, Lao Bai turned his head to look directly at Hank, and said, "If I say What about?"
Hank also turned his head to look at Lao Bai, but Lao Bai turned his head and stopped looking at him, saying,
"I have lived in trepidation all my life, always worried that something will happen, it might happen, it might not happen, it's been fifty years. , I wake up every day at 3 o'clock. But you know what? Since I received my cancer diagnosis, I have been sleeping soundly. Then I realized that fear is the worst thing in life, and fear is my real enemy. So, cheer up, Hank, go back to the real world, and beat that bastard so hard that he can find his teeth all over the place."
When he said the last sentence, Old White looked into Hank's eyes, and Hank also stared at Old Man. Bai, with a complicated expression, seemed inconceivable, and also seemed to be grateful and relieved, while taking a deep breath. Then the two men turned their heads away from each other, and the focus returned to the old white from Hank, where the camera cut away and the scene ended.
In this way, a weak person in life saved the strong for the first time.
Simple, just a few words of dialogue, the complex emotions between the two men were fully revealed. Old Bai's kindness as a weakling, his newfound confidence in his adventures, and his pity for Hank are mixed with some subtle demonstrations to appease him. Lao Bai is no longer the old good teacher Bai, and even Hank has uncontrollable fear and weakness, but he Lao Bai has already punched the powerful fate, "beating it all over the place to find teeth"!
In the fourth season, episode 4, Lao Bai has begun to advance from a small drug dealer to a big drug lord, but Hank was ambushed and shot, paralyzed in bed, and he enjoys collecting ores all day long. The power balance between the two is completely changed.
At the beginning of this episode, Lao Bai and his wife Skyler rehearsed at home how to explain to his sister and brother-in-law that Lao Bai became addicted to gambling. Lao Bai reluctantly cooperated with Skyler's The script, showing dissatisfaction with Skyler's "I'm ashamed of my actions" line written for him. At this stage, Lao Bai has gotten closer to his original state of mind. From the shame of breaking the law in the first season to the excitement and even pride of taking risks every day, he can no longer hide his sense of power in front of his wife.
After the family arrives at Hank's house, Hank wants to show Lao Bai and his nephew his mineral stone collection. Hank, who was in a wheelchair, turned around and bumped into the corner of the pillar, and Lao Bai stepped forward to help, but Hank declined. After entering Hank's bedroom, Hank showed his nephew a rose stone under fluorescent lights. When explaining that the manganese oxide in the stone gave off a pink glow, the chemist's old Bai gained the upper hand, making Hank in the wheelchair quite embarrassing.
This change of strength and weakness, I think, is the main reason why Hank will do whatever it takes to bring Lao Bai to justice after he finally learns the truth.
Gus Fring and Saul Goodman
The two best supporting characters in "Breaking Bad", I think, are the big drug lord Gus Fring and the unscrupulous lawyer Saul Goodman. The ins and outs of these two characters have not been fully explained, and only a few points have been raised. But they are so personal and charming, and their presence greatly enhances the drama.
Let's start with Gus Fring. In the limited background introduction, we know that Gus Fring is a Chilean, a chemical background, a criminal record, experienced the Pinochet military government coup in the early 1970s, and left his homeland very early to go to Mexico. Gus has a brother named Max, who studied chemistry with the help of Gus and became an excellent meth maker. The two brothers ran a very successful fried chicken business and a drug dealer and drug underworld business in Mexico, but they offended the local underworld gang "Juarez Cartel". Max was brutally murdered in front of Gus's eyes, and Gus fled the United States, rebuilding his own fried chicken chain in Albuquerque, New Mexico, secretly becoming the local ice king.
Gus is extremely cautious. When Saul arranged for Old White and Jesse to meet Gus for the first time, he didn't even show up at all, just surreptitiously observing their behavior. Because of Jesse's unpunctuality and addict characteristics, he refuses to deal with Lao Bai at all. It is such prudence and rigor that Gus can establish and operate the most rigorous and efficient drug sales network in New Mexico. It is the so-called corporate leadership that determines corporate culture, and corporate culture determines market positioning and sales strategies.
However, in the underworld such as the production and sales of methamphetamine, strictness alone is not enough to achieve dominance. Gus's greatness lies in his viciousness, which is based on absolute rationality and rigorous logical thinking.
There are two scenes in the third and fourth seasons that fully demonstrate Gus Fring's personality. In the third season, when Gus installed his long-trained chemistry graduate Gale as a drug-making assistant for Lao Bai, he was worried that after Gale completed his studies, Gus would kill the unlucky Gale with the killer's Lao Bai design. . Angrily, Gus rushed to the laboratory, and in front of Lao Bai and Jesse, he blankly stabbed the guard in charge of guarding. This knife completely frightened Lao Bai and Jesse, and it became the most critical driving force for Lao Bai's determination to kill Gus and replace him.
The fourth season where Gus takes Jesse back to Mexico to get revenge on the Juárez cartel is a fantastic arrangement. The success of this revenge plan not only requires careful arrangements and tight cooperation, but more importantly, the courage and determination to die. Gus did it, crisp, neat, sinister, and atmospheric. Based on this scene alone, Gus Fring can be called a hero of the previous generation!
The existence of Gus Fring was only used as an additive to the plot at the beginning, a necessary dealer on the road of Lao Bai's drug production; but as Lao Bai went further and further, the complexity of Gus Fring's role gradually increased. To a certain extent, Gus Fring can be regarded as a preview of the old white, and the two have a considerable degree of overlap in personality: cautious, suspicious, and highly intelligent. But Gus Fring was not lucky enough. In order to set off the old white, whenever he stood on the opposite side of the old white, he always had to be inferior. But this does not affect the charm of Gus Fring. As the boss of the gang, he has the courage to devise strategies and control the overall situation. It is conceivable that if Lao Bai succeeds, Gus Fring will be his development direction, an extremely terrible behind-the-scenes predator who secretly plays with power and human life, a new western godfather of methamphetamine Heisenberg.
So what about the role of Saul Goodman?
Similarly, the initial addition of Saul Goodman is also a natural need for humorous adjustment of the atmosphere and the plot - Lao Bai needs an unscrupulous lawyer to help him with advice: money laundering, buying murder, running away. But Saul is so interesting. In short, it is so perfect that it is self-contained.
Saul Goodman has several characteristics:
Ø He is not ashamed, not only is not ashamed of his own behavior, but even proud of his own behavior - such as the advertisements that fill the TV station and the print advertisements that fill the streets and alleys, and his surname is specially changed to "good man" ( Goodman);
Ø Strong professional ethics of lawyers, "reasonable" to exploit legal loopholes (be threatened by Lao Bai and Jesse, and only formally became their attorneys after demanding a dollar);
Ø Extremely responsible for the interests of clients, Regardless of money laundering or hospice, he is an absolutely trustworthy model lawyer who thinks about what the client thinks and what the client is worried about
;
The important point is that Saul is full of sense of humor, a sense of humor that will never disappear in the face of dangerous situations and absurd situations. As long as he appears, the plot will appear comedic colorful embellishments in the black channel, making people laugh. Applause.
Compared to Lao Bai, Saul is very sincere. He doesn't hide or whitewash what he does, knows exactly what he's doing, and takes full responsibility for his actions. As for Lao Bai, since the first episode, he kept telling himself that everything was forced to Liangshan by fate, that being bad is a last resort, and even sometimes it is necessary for "goodness". The path of Lao Bai's destiny is a process of self-recognition that constantly struggles with his own heart. And this Saul, who was so bad as soon as he appeared, a wretched lawyer who kept making tricks and tricks, was a man who was open-minded and open-minded from beginning to end.
Saul is so funny, his small triangular eyes and intricate part-supporting center-style haircut make people full of interest in this unscrupulous lawyer of unknown origin and rich body language, so after the end of "Breaking Bad", Saul Goodman This character will be a stand-alone drama: "Better Call Saul" (Better Call Saul).
Moral Dilemma
From the first episode of the first season, the moral choice problem runs through "Breaking Bad", and finally reaches its peak in the fourth and fifth seasons.
Let's work through these moral conundrums along the difficulty ladder.
1. Saul's Dilemma
Saul's dilemma arises between his clients, when the interests of Old White and Jesse are at odds. This conflict started in the third season, Lao Bai decided to withdraw, and Jesse wanted to go solo and continue to make drugs. Saul was quite willing to continue the business of the duo out of his own interests. But the problem is that the big client Gus Fring is only optimistic about the rigorous scientist Lao Bai, and is not interested in Jesse, who is mentally unstable and impulsive. As attorney for the duo, Saul had to choose between the two. Of course, some choices are simple, such as whoever ships the goods with whom; other choices are difficult, such as whether to take precautionary measures, including extreme silence, when a party may be caught by the police and confess measures, etc.
Saul's moral index is very low, but he is not a murderer after all. In the face of thorny situations, he adopts a rational risk-return comparison method. Saul doesn't get into personal feelings, so he doesn't struggle too much when making decisions.
Difficulty Index (1-5): 1 Difficulty Index: 1
2. Jesse's struggle
Jesse belongs to the kind of gangster who inexplicably follows the boss on the pirate ship. He likes to pretend to be cool and looks like he doesn't care about anything, but he is actually the most innocent and kind child. The bad thing is that he declares to the world that he doesn't care about the way he behaves, but the more he declares that he doesn't care, the more he wants to be valued, loved, and needed in his heart. The love between Jesse and the little poisonous girl is pure and unforgettable. He has a real conscience and is used everywhere. It is precisely because it is impossible to be insensitive, that it is extremely painful to walk on an underworld. Jesse's struggles are clear, bottomless and consistent. His moral problem is very simple. He firmly opposes Lao Bai's ruthlessness in his heart, but his weakness of character, pure heart, and irritable impulsive temper make it easy for him to get on the boat of pirates and get off the boat.
Difficulty index (1-5): 2 Tangle index: 5
3. Hank's desperate fight
"Breaking Bad" has many accidental fates, such as Hank's discovery of Lao Bai's "Leaves of Grass", and finally realized When he came to his side, the poor man who had always been beaten with blood by fate was the poison king Heisenberg that he had tried so hard to find. Hank's arrest of Lao Bai, this is a thankless thing that will definitely harm others and not oneself. But Hank just couldn't let it go, even if he died.
Hank's problem is his dignity. He has been a big man all his life, and the most unacceptable thing is to be teased and looked down upon. He chased Heisenberg for two years, and he was always one step behind. Between the truth and family affection, Hank does not hesitate to sacrifice his life, but also to defend his dignity.
Difficulty Index (1-5): 3 Difficulty Index: 2
4. Old White's Angry
Old White's Moral Dilemma is a progressive series of puzzles. At the beginning of the first season, his problem was how to raise money to treat cancer and how to leave enough material wealth for his wife and children before he died. He and Jesse teamed up with drug dealers, which was a not-so-difficult turn of fate, and even killing people was just an accident for self-preservation. In the second season, as a new regional distribution representative, he began to taste the halo brought by the new poison king title "Heisenberg", the habit of power, the desire for money, the dissatisfaction with the situation, all kinds of subtle changes. Old White's fate. His moral conundrum in his new state is how to consolidate his business position and control his partners with the least harm to the innocent. However, as the situation further expands and complicates, Lao Bai's choices often fail to end well, and his sense of guilt becomes deeper and deeper. Unlike Jesse's way of dealing with guilt, the rational old white is not self-defeating or self-numbing, he is angry, blaming fate, slandering and taking revenge on everyone and everything that stands in his way. In the third season, Gus took advantage of Lao Bai's anger and used the "dignity of men" as a bargaining chip to finally persuade him to take over the drug laboratory. Facing the deepening desire and the mistrust between people, Lao Bai can take the initiative to plan and shoot the murder himself.
In the fourth season, Lao Bai's moral problems become more and more difficult. He has to always guard against Gus's deadly move, and he has to design to regain Jesse's trust. At the same time, he has to continue to manipulate his wife Skyler to make her believe in himself. of remorse, and his sincerity to put his family first. At this time, the old white has completely broken the cocoon and became a king. He has surpassed the cold-blooded Gus in using extreme means to achieve his goals. In a way, he has come to terms with life because he has the upper hand of his destiny, but at the same time, the taste of betrayal and separation is very uncomfortable. Cheng Wang Cheng Kou is lonely, Lao Bai is wronged, and he is even more angry because of his wrongedness. This anger is no longer a momentary moment that points to a specific action, but a state that lives deep in the hearts of people for a long time and becomes a demon.
When I watched "Breaking Bad" for the first time, I really didn't understand the tenth episode of the third season, "Fly," which was an hour long and basically revolved around how Lao Bai wanted to kill a fly in the laboratory with great fanfare. Of course I know that this arrangement is deliberately showing Lao Bai's situation, his paranoia, fear, and growing sense of guilt, but does it need to be emphasized in an entire episode?
In the fourth season, the fourth season with no turning back, and thinking back to the episode of "The Flies", the importance of the concept of "inner demon" was finally highlighted. Heisenberg wasn't made out of thin air, the complete transformation of the old white - the death of the old old white, the coronation of the new Heisenberg, the episode of "The Flies" is the absolute bottom of the old white's spirituality. From that moment on, Heisenberg finally stopped tangled, and slammed into the abyss of fate.
Difficulty index (1-5): 3-4 Tangle index: 3
5. Skyler's paradox
If the old white's misunderstanding is the inevitability of fate, then Skyler's doom is doomed from the beginning Yes, fatalistic incomprehension.
The reason why Lao Bai was so useless was inseparable from the strong wife Skyler. It's an unusually gloomy character, and the five seasons of change make it hard to tell what this woman is after. She has written short stories, sold small items on eBay, and worked as a corporate accountant, with little steady income. She is ten years younger than Lao Bai, and the initial story of their love has not been explained. From the setting of the first season, she is quite an ego character and does not care about the feelings of the other party. At least half of the great pressure in Lao Bai's life comes from his family environment.
In the first two seasons, in order to hide the fact that he was a drug dealer, Lao Bai had to act in front of Skyler, lie after lie. The relationship between the two gradually broke down. Until the beginning of the third season, Lao Bai moved away and confessed to Skyler that he was a drug dealer. The two decided to divorce. This season, Skyler openly initiates an affair with former colleague Ted, the company boss, in order to stimulate Lao Bai; however, the need to protect family and reputation eventually prevails, especially after Lao Bai finally signs the divorce papers. It seems that he has changed his mind again. Coupled with the attack on Hank, Lao Bai has stood out from the family crisis. In the fourth season, the relationship between the two began to reunite.
But Skyler's reunion with Old White was based on lies. From disgusting against Lao Bai's criminal behavior to becoming an accomplice in money laundering, Skyler's moral dilemma mainly stems from two considerations: one is fear, fear of Lao Bai's crimes being exposed, fear of change and disaster; grams of physiotherapy expenses, the family's future living needs. Skyler took a very similar path of transformation to that of Old White, and she even started to use and enjoy the short-term results of illegitimate methods. But unlike Lao Bai, what Skyler did was more of a stumble in the tide of fate, not her own active pursuit. When she really discovered the change in Lao Bai's personality, when she finally saw her dark situation, her values had been distorted, and her whole person began to collapse. Fear, loneliness, guilt, and keeping secrets must survive. , family responsibilities, hatred of her own environment, all of which overwhelmed her and she was severely depressed.
Difficulty scale (1-5): 5 Tangle scale: 5
Jesse and Skyler are equally intense in terms of the intensity of the tangle, but the two handle it in completely different ways.
Jesse is a mentally immature child who has basically only one way to deal with stress: self-destruction. Either take drugs to paralyze themselves, or take extreme actions on impulse, regardless of the consequences, and die together. Jesse's personality is very simple, and his entanglements are transparent and clear at a glance.
Skyler is an adult character, a victim of domestic cold violence. In the early stage of discovering Lao Bai's illegal crimes, she still had the normal reaction of a normal person. She was disappointed, angry, asked for a divorce, and even started an extramarital affair in a fit of anger; She got out of this mess, she was actually in a worse situation than Jesse. She has children to protect, and she can't fail like Jesse; she has her brother-in-law's job and the family's reputation to consider, and she can't self-destruct and abandon the family. Skyler's paradox is very prominent in the fifth season, her way is blocked, but she can't abandon her morality and guilt to become a complete accomplice, which makes her stuck in a stalemate. In an embarrassing situation that can't go down, it's a day to live like a walking dead. Her tragedy comes from her inaction, but her inaction cannot be a complete inaction, it can only further aggravate her tragic situation. This is an extremely unflattering character, the most tragic cannon fodder in this story.
Who is Lao Bai?
"Breaking Bad" raises a very interesting question: Is human nature defined by his heart, his motives, or by his actions?
There is no controversy about Lao Bai's behavior. What he has done is enough to make him the most classic gang boss in the history of film and television. But he is definitely not a villain in the traditional sense, and while he is deeply hated, he is hopelessly deeply infatuated, even loved. He is more charming and memorable than any mere positive hero.
This kind of charm, at least for me, comes from his goodness that has not completely disappeared even in the midst of evil, from his ferocity to directly attack the torrent of fate and the fate that is destined to be swallowed by life.
Old Bai is a cruel character. He can use children quietly, and he can also design to kill the mighty drug lord. But the old white has weaknesses.
He treats Jesse like a father treats his son, the bad boy Jesse who doesn't grow up but has a good conscience. In the third season, there was obviously a better and more suitable assistant for drug production to help Lao Bai, but Lao Bai and the new assistant just didn't call. He is too thoughtful, as smart as Lao Bai, meticulous about details, and conscientious in his work, but Lao Bai can't rest assured about him. The assistant didn't understand what was wrong with him, because he didn't understand that what Lao Bai needed was not an assistant who might surpass him in the future. What Lao Bai wanted was admiration, dignity, and the style of a king who controlled everything by himself. He wants God's seat.
Jesse's innocence and his original worship are the beginning of Lao Bai's caring for Jesse all the way. But this is not the whole of Lao Bai's feelings for Jesse. He pitied Jesse as he pitied himself. They are all weak in life, and they are all marginal people who survive from the cracks. In the endless lies, his feelings for Jesse are sincere. Although Lao Bai used Jesse, he controlled him, and even wanted to get rid of him at one point, but at the end of this great tragedy, after Lao Bai's smile, was Jesse who would continue to live.
One of the extraordinary things about "Breaking Bad" is that in the process of Lao Bai's step-by-step journey of no return, even if he is heinous, I feel that I can still understand him, understand his motives, his starting point, and his difficulties and as a last resort. This iceberg-like old white has created a big problem for the whole world in terms of human nature. People and destiny influence each other and change constantly, reflecting one after another short-lived light on the eternal gray-black background.
Lao Bai, Lao Bai, this is the most melancholy person in 2013. My feelings for him are too complicated, and have long exceeded any moral judgment on the dimension of values. I saw the shadow of every ordinary person in him, just like Truman Capote saw his own shadow in the cold-blooded killer, so shuddering pity, regret, and confusion and happiness about the impermanence of fate.
Lao Bai is an ordinary person, ordinary people like you and me, but in the face of a cruel life, he made an extraordinary choice that surpassed ordinary people. He wanted to create, not accept fate. Every turn of his is an accident, and in the accident after another, he has drawn an arc of life that must be pathetic. He's a villain, but he's heartfelt love. The blackness and despair he wants to break, who of us didn't feel the same at a certain stage of life? To a certain extent, Lao Bai is a stage version of tragedy parallel to fate, he must fall, after breaking through the siege to cause damage, and finally facing his own heart, he must complete this Shakespearean ultimate tragedy, for the sake of Life devours relentlessly.
All the lights are on for you at this moment.
All tears are silent for you at this moment.
What followed was endless darkness and melancholy. And memory.
Goodbye old white, goodbye old white.
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