Breaking Bad a Hero’s Tale? →

Emily Nussbaum, on a version of Breaking Bad that would avoid more heartache:

To escape this moral checkmate, [showrunner Vince] Gilligan might shift yet another character into the foreground, revealing that the show is actually (as a friend suggested) a hero’s tale in disguise. In that version of “Breaking Bad,” the protagonist is not Walt but Hank, a man with no children. Despite injury and depression, Hank brings down a vast drug ring, even when he discovers that the kingpin is his own brother-in-law, a sneering brainiac who has always considered himself superior. But because Hank is decent, and the show is on the side of good, Hank triumphs. That ending would have the virtue of symmetry, and pleasure, and closure, and relief, for the suffering audience.

I love the show, and I can totally buy in to this view of it.