SPOILER ALERT: If you have not watched Breaking Bad and hope to avoid plot details, please LEAVE THIS PAGE NOW. (-;
So.
It always seems like a good idea when I sit down to binge-watch the entirety of Breaking Bad again. And generally speaking, it is. I mean, it's an incredible piece of drama with some of the best writing and acting on television.
But every time I watch it (this was my fifth time) I'm done with the "protagonist" (anti-hero) Walter White sooner. It's just hideous, the monster he becomes. It's even more hideous how long I actually rooted for him the first time I watched.
So here are my thoughts on how his story follows (although in an inverse way) a traditional Hero's Journey. A couple pieces of public domain music can be heard in the background: "Rhapsody in Blue" (Paul Whiteman and George Gershwin, in an original 1924 recording) and Chopin's "Funeral March" (The Edison Concert Band, 1906). Both are available at the site publicdomainreview.org.
If you're a Breaking Bad fan, you'll notice that "Rhapsody in Blue" is one of the ONLY songs about "blue" that wasn't used in the show. (Quite an oversight, I think....)
I've also hacked into a cartoon from freecartoonwallpapers.com to provide the graphic of Walter's Anti Hero Journey. I'll post it here (below) in case you can't see it all as the cover of the Soundcloud podcast.
