I fear this is a monumental ask
It’s not a comedic role, and he does just fine.
Kinnear won an Oscar FFS, so it’s not impossible to be a good actor and on daily tv.
Since my words can only do so much justice, here is a breakdown of some of the more high level plot points.
Do not, and I cannot stress this enough, do not watch past the 6:45 mark. Johnny warns you but I am doing so as well. He will spoil the major plot points of S1 after that point.
I finished the season, and while the first half is marginally better than the second, the entire thing is very very good and knowing we wont be cock blocked with an unfinished story with a S2 ordered and confirmed makes it all the better. I will compare this favorably to Arcane, my surprise hit of the previous year. This show should be highly considered for the Emmy and if it is it will likely win like Arcane did
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Girl, he simpin’ (Simpin’)
I walk up in the club with a limpin’ (limpin’)
God listen, what you gonna do with this pimpin’?
What you gonna do with this pimpin’?
Girl, I’m a call ya (call ya)
E-40 and T-pain! Amazing song. I think e-40 was using simpin’ long before that because we were saying it before then. Me and my friends would always give each other hard time if we bailed out to go hang out with a chick instead of the boys. “ “oh man you simpin, it’s Saturday night” or damn your leaving to go to watch a movie with her? You simpin’”
Slang is super regional and crazy to me when I think about it . We were a bunch of mostly white kids on west coast just repeating a rapper we liked.
I watched White Lotus S1 based on the discussion ITT, went in knowing absolutely nothing about it. A+ results.
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Holy shit is that real?
Its actually really easy to root for Walt on first watch. Gilligan sets up the first season to draw you that way before the rug pull. By that point some people are already pot committed
Right - that’s one thing that’s so great about the writing. You root for Walt for a long time then finally realize, wait, he’s the baddie. Even then, you still kind of root for him a bit.
I did not find that to be the case. I honestly found myself just wading through the wreckage of the show literally adding up crimes on a piece of paper and finding that Marie was basically the only morally good character. I hated Jesse too, even though he’s endearing sometimes, on first watch.
Walt Jr? Gomez?
Walt Jr. seems like he, well, takes after his father. I mean, how old is the kid supposed to be? Does he have a speech impediment or is his leg crippled? There’s no evidence in the show itself that he ever commits a crime, though. He’s sort of a non-entity from the standpoint of the action. Is there something I missed with him?
Gomez is likely in on Hank’s efforts to stall the DEA and help Walt evade capture.
Right, and then when you watch it a second time you realize how much of a giant dick Walt is almost from day 1.
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Walt jr and Marie are about equal parts when it comes to being non-entity.
The only real major act Walt Jr does is a pretty heroic one when he throws himself in front of Skyler at the end of Ozymandias.
Walt Jr reminds us that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
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I actually agree with this. I think it’s because there is no clear good guy. Everybody except Walt Jr. is bad to a certain degree.
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I thought the Marie-Skyler scene was a key turning point in the show, and that Marie slapping Skyler was a sort of heroic act, in its I’m-scared-out-of-my-mind way.
In terms of combining being morally good with actually taking action, Kim seems like the most likely candidate for being the hero, but as I recall Kim is only in Better Call Saul.
[Edited because she wanted me to backpedal a little bit, tone it down, and not rush to conclusions.]
Kim is only in BCS, but she is in no way a morally good character. The entire first half of the final season (and particularly Bad Choice Road) is Kim attempting to ruin a man’s life for essentially no reason.
Yes, the act and the aftermath end up breaking her in the end and leading her back into a mostly moral life, but she had her outs plenty of times to make the right decision and went with the intoxication of the high she got from scamming.
And I like Kim. She is by far my favorite character of both shows, but she is not anywhere close to the most morally good player.
Honestly, Id give that to Howard. He was the most consequential side character (way more than Marie or Walt Jr.) who never really did anything wrong. He punished Kim once for Jimmys actions, but almost everything he did in the first three seasons were under threat from Chuck, so its hard to hold him responsible
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Oh, honey, no. There’s a baby Walt in your ear telling you that
Well I had the wrong episode anyway. I meant Axe and Grind. It was Kim’s way out. Her “Schwartz will pay for your entire treatment, Walt” moment.
He has cerebral palsy, as does the actor who played him.
I didn’t view Hank’s efforts as stalling to help Walt evade capture, he was more just being either selfish in trying to be the one who caught him or displaying hubris in thinking he was the only one who could catch him - though he may have been right about that.
My favorite thing about it is that it’s such a complex character drama. Who’s good? Who’s bad? No major character is perfect, except the kids. Even Marie has the klepto thing going on. I don’t think Gomie ever does anything bad but you could debate whether he’s a major character.