There are silences in life. Quiet moments that appear to move more slowly than the frantic, rushed world we live in. In a world where time is a commodity and we are barraged constantly by more information at once than we could ever process efficiently, these moments have a weight to them. These heavy seconds suffuse insignificant actions with meaning. A man sitting at a coffee booth takes a sip from a mug. But as he does so, his brow furrows. Is that anger? Annoyance? The man sitting opposite him on the tattered vinyl seat simply stares, revealing nothing. You can see by the first man’s inability to sit still and unwillingness to look his (lunch? Breakfast?) partner in the eyes that he is clearly not the one with the upper hand here. They continue to regard one another in awkward, pregnant silence. Dishes clatter loudly, silverware rattles. When there is no noise to drown it out, no competing for reverberation, everything becomes loud. More than that, it becomes a kind of punctuation for our emotions.
***** spoilers after the jump. you have been warned.*****
The clatter of the silverware jangles along with the nervous man’s hands, betraying his apprehensiveness. The loud slurp as the older man sips his coffee emphasizes his dominance. A glass crashes angrily. Or at least it seems that way, as you hear the tiny shards smash against the cheap linoleum floor, shredding the quiet as they shatter.
I may have gotten wrapped up in the emotion as sound idea and made up the bit about the glass, but the rest of this was from Sunday night’s episode of “Breaking Bad”, at least from this viewer’s perspective.
And therein lies the brilliance at the heart of these beautifully-crafted, weekly dramas. Nothing is spoon fed to you on these shows. The tortured, trouble-ridden sidekick is not going to breakdown and tell you just why he’s so miserable. He is also, most likely, not going to be the underdog who turns it all around at the end. I adore the way these shows simultaneously draw me in and test my attention span. The characters remain ever mysterious, slowly revealing bits of themselves through small gestures and exchanged, guarded glances.
It's a lot like life that way. We are social creatures and, while our basic wants and needs remain essentially unchanged, it's our perception of people and events that truly drives us.
This is illustrated perfectly by Walt's character, especially in this latest episode. From the outside looking in, it is easy to judge his erratic decisions and actions as irrational. But what appears rash and idiotic on the surface takes on greater significance when you remember how this all began: a dying man desperate to leave something to his family before exiting this earth. And this leads me to thoughts of how we constantly seek some measure of control in a chaotic world, one made all the more chaotic to Walt by the news that he is not long for this life.
At this point, though, he has simply become the person he has been playing for so long. Do anything long enough and it becomes normal. Now he has become a man desperate not for money but for a means of keeping the house of cards he has built from tumbling. The desperation remains the same, only the focus has shifted. I could get lost in analyzing it all for hours.
And I won't even begin to list the countless reasons why "Mad Men" is so wonderful, because that would make this post far longer than a blog post should ever be.
Instead, I will just say thank you to AMC and all the writers of these shows for creating television that a chronic, unapologetic literary nerd like myself can love. AMC has proven that it's not the medium that makes the art, it's the art that makes the medium. Thanks, AMC, for helping to make television intelligent and thought-provoking.
Also...is anyone else beyond excited for the new season of "Walking Dead"?!
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