14 | The DePaulia. Sept. 30, 2013
Focus
Broken
AMC’s Emmy Award-w drama was part of a te revolution, and created revolution of its own.
By Courtney Jacquin, David Webber Managing Editor, Sports Editor
It’s rare that a show is so widely loved by audiences and critics, but over the past year AMC’s “Breaking Bad” has bridged the gap. Earlier this month, “Breaking Bad” made its way into the “Guinness World Records 2014” as the highest rated show of all time, receiving a score of 99 out of 100 on MetaCritic. Paired with record-setting viewership in the latter part of season five, 6.6 million viewers tuned in for Sept. 22’s penultimate episode. “I started watching (“Breaking Bad”) probably about February of 2013,” Ryan McGovern, first year College of Law student, said. He has caught up on four and a half seasons of the series on Netflix in preparation for the final eight episodes that began airing in August. “I saw a recent episode when my roommate was watching it, and it seemed interesting. He recommended I start from the beginning so I did, and I was hooked,” he said. McGovern isn’t alone. The series split up its fifth and final season into two parts, part one airing in the summer of 2012. In that year viewship has more than doubled with the midseason premiere garnering 5.92 million viewers, more than double last year’s season premiere with 2.93 million viewers. “I think Netflix kept us on the air. Not only are we standing up here, I don’t think our show would have even lasted beyond season two,” Vince Gilligan, “Breaking Bad” creator, writer and producer said to reporters after the Emmy Awards Sunday, Sept. 22, according to Variety. “It’s a new era in television, and we’ve been very fortunate to reap the benefits” A new era indeed, one filled with more television devotees than ever before. Fat Cat, a bar in Uptown, airs television shows regularly,
and popularity of the viewings has been growing over the past couple of years. “AMC shows are really popular for us,” Andrew Barbera, manager of Fat Cat, said. “For the finale (of “Breaking Bad”), we’re Photo courtesy of AMC NETWORKS anticipating 60 to 100 people.” TOP: Bryan Cranston as Walter White in “Breaking Bad” season 5, episode 14, But it’s not just televi“Ozymandias.” BOTTOM: Anna Gunn as Skyler White in the same episode. sion fans that are changing. Larger American cities on the East Coast generally get Something strange in television has been happening over first dibs when film crews determine where to shoot their the past decade. TV was once the place where actors built movies. Out West, Los Angeles and Las Vegas are the sexy their careers before they made the jump to feature films, picks for a film’s setting. or where they ended up when their movie career tanked. Albuquerque, N.M.? Not so sexy. At least not until Network television shows were ordinary and dull. Vince Gilligan decided to make it the setting for “Breaking But in 1999, a man by the name of Tony Soprano came Bad,” forever changing the city’s role in popular culture. to HBO, changing the television landscape forever. The idea “‘Breaking Bad’ has had a tremendous impact and has of the anti-hero in television was born: the protagonist you given Albuquerque a fantastic exposure opportunity as a want to associate with but isn’t the “good guy” of the show. travel destination,” said Megan Mayo Ryan, the tourism After “The Sopranos” television became a darker place, but manager for the Albuquerque Convention and Visitor’s also a better place. Bureau. “We’ve heard from tour partners and businesses Twenty-one Emmy Awards later and TV would never that people all around the world are ordering their products be the same. From this model “Dexter” and AMC’s other and asking for tours.” heavyweight “Mad Men” were born, with “Breaking Bad” The show has turned Albuquerque from an afterthought following a year later. to a prime tourist destination, and people everywhere are In his pitch to AMC, Gilligan promised to turn “Mr. making sure to let their friends know when they’re near any Chips into Scarface,” a promise the show has lived up to of the show’s many iconic locations. over its five seasons. Without giving away spoilers for those Alex Roland, a recent graduate of the University of who haven’t seen the series, the viewer quickly gets pulled Scranton, is living in Albuquerque for a year through the Jeinto Walter White’s (Bryan Cranston) meth – or rather suit Volunteer Corps. He says that from the day he set foot “empire” – business, his moral degradation and the collapse in the city, he could feel the sense of community apparent of everything around him. in Heisenberg’s antics on the screen. “Breaking Bad” has even made an impact outside the “It’s amazing. The show has been a cool opportunity for realm of television. It’s put Albuquerque on the map.
Pre-finale predictions
Courtney Jacquin, Managing Editor
Haley BeMiller, Nation & World Editor
SPOILER ALERT– stop reading if you’re not caught up on the series through season 5, episode 15. By the time this goes to print, the season finale of “Breaking Bad” will have aired, most likely ruining the lives of much of The DePaulia staff. These predictions were written before the finale aired so we can all laugh at how wrong we probably were.
“Walt gets back to the house, like we saw in the Season 5, Episode 9 flash-forward, takes the ricin and kills himself. I heard a rumor a while ago that Vince Gilligan said that Walt would die at the end of the series, but why should we assume it’s the cancer? The DEA is onto him again, and he’s sure as hell not going to let himself end up in jail.”
“While I personally want Walt to get what he deserves, he’s our protagonist, and I think he needs to be the last one standing. However, it won’t be in a good way. His transformation from cancer patient to the power-hungry meth emperor will come full circle, and he will have destroyed everyone in his life. It’s hard to say what will happen to everyone, but I suspect Jesse, the person most directly affected by him, will die.”