Breaking Bad: Pilot First Watch

August 3, 2014 11:54 AM - Season 1, Episode 1

Unassuming high school chemistry teacher Walter White discovers he has lung cancer. Desperate to secure his family’s financial future and finally free from the fear that had always inhibited him, Walt teams up with a former student to turn a used RV into a mobile drug lab.

Welcome to Breaking Bad, first-timers. Hold on to your hats. (Reminder to folks who have already seen it: this is the SPOILER-FREE zone.)

posted by scody (5 comments total)

To people who have never seen the series: it is bleak, depressing stuff, without a lot of redemption. And a trigger/sensitivity warning: violent killings, and violence to children, but nothing gory or graphic.

I've had co-workers who have seen too much of themselves in Walter (unappreciated, underemployed professionals at a later stage in their lives/careers) to watch beyond the pilot, and I can't tell them "it gets better," but having seen the whole five seasons, I can say it's a really well-done show.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:30 PM on August 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

Also on the subject of triggers/sensitivity: for all the violence in the show, there's very little by way of brutalization or exploitation of women. It's not 100% free of it, but relative to most other crime dramas, it's blessedly low.
posted by scody at 4:34 PM on August 3, 2014

Oh, and just to clarify the SPOILER-FREE thing, in case I accidentally made it ambiguous: I mean spoiler-free regarding future episodes or developments (as is the case with all FanFare first-watch threads), not spoiler-free regarding the current episode. The recaps linked in the sidebar will also all contain spoilers up to and including the current episode, but not for any future episodes. So if you're spoiler-sensitive, don't read the recaps until after you've watched.
posted by scody at 4:43 PM on August 3, 2014

Crap! I just saw the post for ep. 2 go up, but I missed this one. Time to catch up!

Thanks for putting this together, scody!
posted by alynnk at 2:10 PM on August 7, 2014

I am launching myself into the show (for a second time), now that I am fully enveloped by the world of Better Call Saul. I realize that's a bit "cart before the horse" territory, but the first time I tried to watch BB, it felt just too slow and sad and didn't really connect with me.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 7:10 PM on March 29, 2016