Even more addictive in season two

Dark wit makes 'Breaking Bad' compelling

March 06, 2009|Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff

Emotionally, atmospherically, and morally, "Breaking Bad" is spellbinding. The returning AMC series, which won Bryan Cranston a best-actor Emmy last year, is a tensely crafted dystopian fairy tale set in the still, dry heat of New Mexico. You'll feel every anxious minute of this Southwestern drama pass, you'll inspect every clarion camera shot, you'll wince each time Cranston's well-meaning everyman stumbles further into crime and sociopathy.

The show, Sunday at 10, is a vivid recession-era nightmare; wait to see good news on the desert horizon and wait in vain. Cranston's Walter White has terminal lung cancer, and he's desperate to financially secure his family before he dies. So the former chemistry teacher is secretly cooking and dealing meth to amass $737,000 - that's two college educations and a mortgage - for his pregnant wife and son. But every step of his wrong-headed plan draws him further into mishap and violence, and further away from the family he is trying to save.

Created by Vince Gilligan of "The X-Files," "Breaking Bad" raises the ante on the flip comedy "Weeds," which follows a suburbanite into the pot trade to support her kids. There are blackly comic moments on this show, particularly in the sniping buddy chemistry between Walt and his dim-witted young dealing partner, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). But pathos and tragedy are the dominant motifs. Meth is a hard, ugly drug, and the underground world in which Walt and Jesse conduct business reflects that. In the first few episodes of the season, they face off with an anarchic kingpin named Tuco (a convincing Raymond Cruz), and some of those scenes match "The Shield" in raw impact.

The darkest twist of "Breaking Bad" may be that Walt, once an underachieving pushover, is flourishing in the drug trade. Faced with his own mortality, venturing out of his family cocoon, he feels stronger than ever - so much so that his sexual appetite with his wife, Skyler (Anna Gunn), is out of control. He's a natural as he schemes his way into Albuquerque drug circles, cultivating an outlaw's demeanor and outsmarting armed street crooks. He is a remarkably good liar, and he fabricates with impressive improvisation whenever Skyler gets suspicious. By selling his soul to make money, Walt has found himself.