Think Tank 90

The Philosophy of Breaking Bad: Spheres of Control

Roughly two weeks ago, I decided, on a whim, to watch the Breaking Bad pilot again to see how well they stuck to the original premise of the show. I ended up being sucked in, yet again, and re-watched all 54 episodes in quick succession. From a technical standpoint, the series should serve as a masterclass on how a TV series should be created and built up. It was thoroughly thought out before it was written and shot, it plays with your expectations of TV screen time, it drops clues several episodes ahead to subliminally prime you for the varied plot twists and turns and it strategically uses dark comedy to lighten the mood. Not to mention that the cinematography is innovative and the acting is superb. The show is seemingly as psychologically addictive as the blue meth that its protagonist peddles. 

There’s a lot of depth to this show. Not only in the exquisiteness of its plotline, the seeming consistency in character traits even as they morph from one end of the spectrum to the other but also in its worldview—its perspective on how the world works and in its protagonist’s philosophy—how Walter White believes the world should work. 

Breaking Bad can be analyzed on many levels. On the surface, it’s a show about the destructiveness of meth, a poisonous cancer to society. Walt’s cancer eats away at him the same way meth eats away at his family and community. Dig a little deeper and it’s a thesis on what chemistry is, the study of change. Take a series of elements, combine them in controlled and uncontrolled reactions and generate a new compound. Take two people, put them in controlled and uncontrolled situations and get a new type of relationship. But at its core, I believe the function of the series is to serve as a study on control. Each season is a different struggle for control as the axis tilts and the camera focuses on a different slice of the globe. BB’s fundamental worldview is that the world is chaotic and the illusion of being able to dominate it and control it is just that, an illusion. Walt’s philosophy is that control is won by careful planning that leads to the domination and vanquishing of the enemy.

There’s essentially two views on how we cope with nature: we try to co-exist with it in as peaceful a manner as possible or we try to dominate and subjugate it. Much of civilization has been focused on the latter task and not just on the domination and subjugation of natural resources and livestock but of its citizens as well. And so, as people, we are the products of the systems that create and manage us, all vying for control just as eagerly as the systems themselves.

Breaking Bad presents Walter as a person who has lost almost all control in his life and his vengeful quest to regain it. We can start by analyzing all the spheres of control that he’s lost:

• Existence — We can all choose when we die but nobody really gets to decide how long they live. The first episode presents us with Walt’s ultimate loss of control - the right to life - as he’s given the “death sentence” of stage 3A lung cancer.
   
• Wealth — Much of the show is bathed in green (until Season 5) from the title card onward since this is the story of Walt’s quest for money and the things he’s willing to do to get it. In the pilot, we can tell that his family was already financially struggling, with Walt having to work two jobs to support his family. The diagnosis only worsens that reality. At the beginning of Walt’s struggle, he sees wealth as a means of providing security, something that will ensure some element of control of his family’s future after he’s gone.
   
• Pride — Walt’s subjected to humiliation when he has to wash his students’ cars at his second job. His son, Walter Jr., looks up to his uncle more than he does to him. And isn’t naming your child after yourself some point of narcissistic pride as well? He loses that too when Jr. decides he wants to be called Flynn. Pride is essentially an exercise in reputation management. You’re proud when you can project the image you want to the world and you’re ashamed when you’re no longer able to.
   
• Power — Power is the ability to control and influence others. The workplace is portrayed as a common power structure in the series. Walt’s told to scrub cars even though he’s the cashier and told his boss, Bogdan, previously that he doesn’t want to do it. Walt also loses his power at the high school where he teaches, where he’s ultimately reprimanded and fired from his job by the principal. And, of course, this loss of power runs parallel to his experience at Gus Fring’s meth superlab.

But Walt’s a survivor, as we come to learn, and his defense against all this comes in the following forms:

• Discipline — Walt has the ability to control his own behavior and others, particularly Jesse, who previously didn’t care for his discipline, but is forced to bend to it under threat of blackmail.
  
  
• Proprietary Knowledge — His major advantage in the meth market is that he’s a trained scientist who’s done some very advanced chemical research. It also helps that his brother-in-law is a DEA agent since it gives him an informational advantage on who’s going to be busted next. Walt is able to leverage this into power but he’s only able to do so by keeping this information proprietary, which is why he sets out to kill Gale Boetticher and even hangs Jesse out to dry when he’s sent down to Mexico to show the cartel how the cook works.
  
  
• Persuasion — Persuasion is essentially an act of mind control. It’s the next best thing when raw power alone can’t get the job done. Walt’s primary tools of persuasion are blackmail, misdirection (a.k.a. lying) and a canny ability to call someone’s bluff by utilizing game theory to figure out what their options are. The key line of the series is, “If you could kill me, you would have already.”
  
  
• Determination — This is perhaps Walt’s greatest strength. Breaking Bad portrays determination as a variation of a person’s will to live, in its most literal sense.

Walt manages to conquer and vanquish his enemies and to regain all the spheres of control that he’s lost. He beats cancer into remission, he gets insanely wealthy, he becomes a meth kingpin with the mythical, mysterious name of “Heisenberg” and he wields his power with a deadly accuracy, culminating in the simultaneous execution of nine inmates. But the irony, of course, is that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. He ends up living as a tortured man, who must at some point come to terms with what he’s done after all the self-rationalization and lies have run their course. The journey affects the quality of the destination and life itself, as evidenced by Holly—the surprise pregnancy, is often a game of unintended consequences.