Breaking Bad: Nothing Stops This Train

The world's most qualified amateur

One of the pleasures of the early episodes is that being very good at chemistry doesn't make Walter good at this. He brings a teacher's certainty to a business he barely understands. Jesse knows things that Walter regards as beneath him, and Walter knows things Jesse couldn't begin to do. Neither is particularly comfortable admitting how much he needs the other.

Bryan Cranston makes that mixture of expertise and embarrassment wonderfully believable. He can be fussy, frightened, indignant and unintentionally funny within a single scene. The comic instincts are doing serious work: you recognise a man who has spent years trying to retain a little authority, even when the situation gives him none.

It is an inspired starting point for a crime drama. Instead of meeting someone who already knows how to run the room, we watch someone trying to learn while insisting he understands perfectly. Mistakes have weight here. A clever explanation won't necessarily make the practical problem go away.

Walter's version of events

Breaking Bad is very persuasive when Walter is being persuasive. Give him a little time and he can assemble a justification for almost anything. There is always pressure, always a reason this particular decision was unavoidable, always something he will be able to put right once the immediate problem is dealt with.

The writing lets those explanations sound convincing without asking us to accept them. His pride is there in the ordinary exchanges, long before a grand speech is needed. He resents being underestimated, but he also resents advice that would require him to admit somebody else might know better.

“Nothing stops this train.” It is a splendid line and a terrible basis for making decisions. That determination is thrilling to watch; the refusal to reconsider is precisely what makes it frightening. Walter can talk like the one who knocks and still be a man working very hard to persuade the room that he is in control.

On a rewatch, the little reactions are especially good. The pause after somebody challenges him, the extra detail in a lie, the wounded expression when gratitude doesn't arrive: Cranston gives you so much to notice without interrupting the story.

Jesse makes it personal

Aaron Paul is every bit as important. Jesse's slang and restless energy are funny, but Paul never lets him become merely the idiot Walter has to explain things to. He can be impulsive and foolish while still seeing something Walter would rather talk around.

Their relationship gives the show an extraordinary range. They can sound like a teacher losing patience with a pupil, two partners arguing over work, or people who know exactly how to hurt one another. Even when a disagreement is ridiculous, the need to be taken seriously underneath it isn't.

The series also keeps returning to the household Walter says he is protecting. Anna Gunn makes Skyler's attention feel entirely reasonable: the unexplained absence, the answer that has been rehearsed a little too carefully. A crime story becomes much more uncomfortable when the person asking the sensible question lives in your house.

Dean Norris brings another kind of pressure as Hank Schrader, Walter's DEA-agent brother-in-law. His loud confidence can be funny and irritating in equal measure, but Norris gives him enough substance that he never feels like a convenient obstacle placed beside the family dinner table.

It knows when to leave you waiting

Breaking Bad is often described through its biggest moments. What makes those moments work is the time spent getting there. A task has to be completed, a conversation has to go well, an ordinary interruption has to end before somebody notices something they shouldn't. The programme can make a small practical delay feel unbearable.

It also trusts the audience to watch. It doesn't need dialogue explaining every expression or a constant musical warning that the situation is serious. A person sitting still can create more anxiety than a frantic chase if you understand what they are waiting for.

The Albuquerque setting suits that approach. There is space and hard daylight rather than the reassuring cover of a permanently dark criminal underworld. Mundane buildings and long stretches of road become familiar enough that trouble feels as though it is entering an actual place.

And it remains funny. Walter and Jesse's arguments, the awkward excuses and the sheer indignity of some of their problems keep the series from becoming a five-season grimace. The humour makes spending time with them enjoyable, which makes the tension much harder to shrug off.

The people who don't need to shout

Giancarlo Esposito has a remarkable ability to hold a scene by doing very little. As Gus Fring, the neat appearance and measured courtesy make you pay attention to every small change. A raised voice would almost be a relief.

Jonathan Banks gives Mike Ehrmantraut a different kind of economy. He looks like a man who has already heard your explanation and would prefer you to get on with the job. His dry delivery is funny without begging for a laugh. The contrast with Walter's need to explain himself is particularly satisfying.

Then Bob Odenkirk arrives as Saul Goodman, apparently capable of supplying an answer before anyone has finished describing the problem. The suits, the patter and the appetite for business could have made him a disposable joke. Odenkirk makes him somebody you want to keep watching.

These performances give the criminal world different textures. It isn't a queue of interchangeable dangerous men waiting to be confronted. People have their own methods, habits and ideas about how business should be done, and putting them in the same room is often enough.

El Camino belongs after the series

El Camino is excellent too. It is a film to watch after all five seasons, not something to sample halfway through. Its appeal depends on the time you have already spent with these people, and even a synopsis can tell a new viewer more than they need to know.

What I like is that it feels worth returning for. The television series is complete in itself; the film doesn't need to pretend otherwise to justify another visit. It gives Aaron Paul room to carry a different length and rhythm of story while remaining recognisably part of the same world.

Better Call Saul is the other obvious destination. The appeal isn't simply getting more references or recognising locations. Odenkirk can sustain the attention, and the patient observation that makes Breaking Bad so rewarding has room to develop in a different direction.