6A - Monday, September 9, 2013
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
fiA - Monday, September 9, 2013 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom
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t and banter at "Glee") busy planning their des-
tination wedding. Please tell me
e forefront of a cake filled with donuts exists
in real life. We also finally get
FXX series to meet Ted, last year's Shiva
winner and perpetual no-show.
By KELLY ETZ Played to perfection by Adam
Daily Arts Writer Brody ("House of Lies"), Ted
moves the secret fantasy draft to
pite working around a con- L.A. (California, here we come ...)
ly stagnant plot - a draft, and brings the party proceedings
natch-ups, Shiva glory and to a stuttering halt with his AIDS
shame - announcement. Is it safe to riff on
League" AIDS yet? At least "The League"
h-season is universally shameless.
is an The League Meanwhile, Ruxin (Nick Kroll,
ored, Season "Kroll Show") attempts to opt out
y five of Sacko punishment - and with
. The premiere those balls, who could blame
cripted Wednesdays him? - so Pete (Mark Duplass,
ur com- at10:30 p.m. "The Mindy Project") forever
makes memorializes his vinegar strokes
uns fun FXX with yet another trophy. Here's
prov- where the premiere slips a bit;
phomoric there's not enough time for five
isn't always a cop-out. In separate storylines and the plot
rld of Top Groom and bro- fails to integrate Taco (Jonathan.
subtlety is meaningless. Lajoie, "Wrong Cops") or Jenny
premiere jumps in directly (Katie Aselton, "Our Idiot Broth-
ast season's finale, with er") as more than set pieces. As
(Paul Scheer, "Burning far as Kevin (Stephen Rannazzisi,
and Trixie (Jayma Mays, "Daddy Knows Best") goes, that
FXX
: delights 1in
on premiere
AIDS cocktail can't have been hope creators Jeff and Jackie
good, but at least there's the Schaffer don't get too compla-
promise of more in the next epi- cent. One-offs and gag-ready
sode. jokes are well and good, but even
The less-than-perfect plot only the bawdiest of series need some
highlights the seamless perfec- depth once in a while.
tion of the cast as a comedic unit. While the new season was
Practically overflowing with up- unceremoniously relocated,
and-coming talent, "The League" along with "It's Always Sunny
can deliver without a tightly in Philadelphia" and "Legit," to
honed script and sharply writ- FXX (not a typo; FX launched a
ten dialogue - or any pre-written new comedy channel that's lost
dialogue, really. One-liners are somewhere in cable's triple-dig-
the backbone of the series, and its), it doesn't appear affected.
the fifth season doesn't disap- The move could have proved
point. Flawless banter from Kroll worrisome if "The League"
and Jason Mantzoukas ("Enlight- hadn't already been renewed
ened"), returning as Ruxin's for 2014. As it is, the only thing
brother-in-law, Rafi, and a classic in danger is viewer numbers, as
"League" finish - "I don't know around five-million FX subscrib-
what a trident is, but these are dil- ers won't receive the new chan-
dos" - ensure that the opener is nel.
satisfyingly memorable. If you can find it, the premiere
Rafi's Domination League, is worth the time. Still one of the
featuring Dirty Randy (Seth tightest ensembles in the current
Rogen, "This is the End"), has TV landscape, "The League" is
season-arc potential, and the amusing at its worst and brashly
promise of more guest stars, side-splitting at its best. So don't
including Griffin Dunne ("House pull a Ruxin and get stuck at the
of Lies") as Andre's dad, will cer- bar drinking alone. Grab a pock-
tainly help propel the rest of the et-dog and settle in, the game
season plot-wise. Even so, let's only gets better from here.
Call: #734-418-4115
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Stop calling
Walter White an
anti-hero
ince Gilligan's "Breaking
Bad" is well into its final
season, and the Internet
is alive with a general sentiment
of "WHAT ARE WE GOING TO
DO WITH-
OUT IT?"
I'm among
the many
"Bad" fans
unprepared
to let go. But
first, I have
a few things KAYLA
I want to say UPADHYAYA
about Walter
White and
why I cringe every time I read a
tweet along the lines of "Heisen-
berg is such a boss!"
Early on, I viewed "Breaking
Bad" as another player in the
anti-hero game. As the show tore
through its explosive are, I start-
ed to understand it more as a
critique of "anti-hero" television.
Critics love to draw comparisons
between Walt and the iconic
anti-hero Tony Soprano (argu-
ably the man to spark the trend),
but place them side-by-side and
you'll see that they function in
entirely different ways. After
the series-defining fifth episode
of the show, when we see Tony
kill a man with his bare hands in
between college tours with his
daughter Meadow, there's little
doubt that Tony's a murderous
monster, capable of inflicting
harm upon everyone around him
in an unflinching, almost mun-
dane fashion. But when you look
at Tony's ongoing character are
throughout the series, it's flecked
with crises of conscience and
moments of moral clarity. Tony
was knowable, even charming
at times, defined by boring little
humanizing qualities we all
have.
That's been the general formu-
la for most TV anti-heroes today.
Their creators push them as far
as they can into corruption and
villainy and then snap them back
with moments of vulnerability or
selflessness or compassion. "Mad
Men"'s Don Draper manipulates,
cheats, neglects. But he's also
haunted by death and pain, and
it'd be hard to build a case that
Don's a villain.
Walt's story moves differ-
ently. It isn't marked by the same
kind of moral oscillation of Tony
or Don. The most commonly
used descriptor in any review,
interviewor conversation about
Walter White is "chemistry
teacher turned meth maker." On
the surface level, it's a correct
assessment of the character's
trajectory. But it also reiterates
this somewhat misguided notion
that Walt underwent a complete
character transformation with
his occupation change. People
love to talk about Walt's "turning
point." When was the moment
when Walter White truly broke
bad? For some, it's when he mur-
ders Krazy 8. For many, it's when
he lets Jane die.
I don't see Walt's journey in
terms of a turning point or a
transformation. It's more accu-
rately characterized as a linear
descent that sometimes varies in
how fast it plummets but never
deviates from course. We're not
watching a hero lose his way.
We're watching a villain's origin
story and, as the eerily apocalyp-
tic flash forwards insinuate, his
eventual demise.
I can't pointto one murder or
lie or twisted manipulation and
say: "There. That's where Walt
crossed the line into unredeem-
able territory." You have to zoom
out to see that all of his wicked
actions compound, as Heisenberg
tears through his path of destruc-
tion, pulling others along with
him. You can sit down and tally
up everyone he has killed, lied
to, or hurt, but you still wouldn't
be quantifying his villainy. How
could you? Like any great villain,
Walt operates in insidious ways.
When Walt refuses to let his
longtime friend Elliott pay for
his medical bills - which would
effectively give him an out of the
drug biz - he's showing the true
colors of his relentless hubris.
Jesse may have pulled the trig-
ger, but Walt is just as culpable
t
for Gale's death, and not only
because he gave the order. Up
until Gale's execution, we always
understood Jesse as the quasi-
moral compass of the duo, simply
because he seemed incapable
of murder. Jesse was always
uncomfortable with any of Walt's
plans that involved taking life.
But Jane's death changed Jesse.
He blamed himself, became
convinced he was a Bad Guy, and
self-fulfilled the prophecy by
showing up on Gale's doorstep.
And Jane's death goes right back
to Walt. Hank's life started spin-
ning out of control at the hands
of Walt when he was still just the
elusive, mythical Heisenberg to
the DEA agentbrother-in-law.
And now that Hank knows the
truth, he's descending further
into his obsession with trapping
Walt, manipulating Marie, Skyler
and Jesse in the process. I don't
wish to argue thatthe characters
on "BreakingfBad" - who are all
flawed in real, textured ways -
aren't responsible for their own
actions. I'm just saying that Walt
has a hand in almost everything
"bad" that happens on the show.
The defining, noxious qualities
that make Heisenberg the terror
he is were always in Walt, just
under the surface. In an early epi-
sode, we learn that Walt's former
business venture Gray Matter
Technologies achieved huge suc-
cess after Walt sold his share of
the company. His partners made
millions while Walt walked away
with nothing. Even though it has
been decades, Walt confesses to
Jesse that he checks the com-
pany's valuations weekly, tortur-
ing himself with what could have
been. That's obsessive behavior.
Walt's obsession, pride, megalo-
mania - they didn't magically
appear when he stopped being a
chemistry teacher. These traits
just heightened when mixed with
the high-stakes chemicals of the
meth industry.
Heisenberg is
officially the
Big Bad of
this show.
Think about it: Walt's most
empathetic characteristic is his
cancer, and that has nothingto
do with who he is as a person. It's
just a condition that, yes, impacts
and informs some of his actions,
but it's not a human quality. In
fact, he sometimes uses his can-
cer as a weapon to control others,
like when he uses his relapse
to earn Walter Jr.'s sympathy.
If you're still convinced that
Walt's top priority is his family,
you're just as delusional as he is.
The cancer diagnosis triggered
something potent within him: a
desire to live. But that desire is
only partly about protecting his
family and mostly about preserv-
ing his own legacy. Have you ever
heard Walt describe himself as a
family man or a loving husband
or a caring father? No, he's in the
empire business. He is the one
who knocks. He is the danger.
Walter White is not an anti-
hero, so let's not call him one.
It suggests that he's deserving
of our laud and empathy. Call
him what he really is: evil. Gil-
ligan has geniusly made his
protagonist a villain, offering a
critique - an antidote, even - of
the anti-hero trope. As view-
ers, we still want to root for the
protagonist, because that's what
television has conditioned us to
do for so long, which is why so
many "Bad" fans end up cheer-
ing for the sociopathic drug lord
and viciously hating his trapped
wife. This final season has made
it all the more clear that we
really don't have any heroes on
"Breaking Bad." Gilligan trick-
ing us into believing we ever did
is a manipulation of Heisenberg
proportions.
Upadhyaya is asking Gilligan to
pay for her post-'Bad' therapy. To
help, e-mail kaylau@umich.edu.
4
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19 Light brown
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23 Cry of surrender
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