THE HEISENBERG UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE

Approximately two minutes into the premiere of the third season of Breaking Bad, viewers are treated to one of their patented WTF visual images. A man is crawling on his hands and knees through a Mexican dirt road. What is so striking is how people around this seemingly desperate man just ignore him. Soon we see he is part of a crowd of crawlers. Eventually a couple of obvious gangster types drive up and I wondered if everyone was doing this at their command. Nope. The two join everyone else in the dirt as they make their way to some kind of shrine. This must be some kind of act of contrition before some god. The two gangsters appear to be seeking success in an endeavor involving one elusive drug dealer named Heisenberg.

Fans know this man better as Walt. By his own words, he is at a crossroads. He has lost his family due to his efforts to provide for them. Now he goes so far as to set half a million dollars on fire in his grill to demonstrate his remorse. Of course, this does not last long and he douses everything in the pool. He has gone too far and done too much to just let it go up in smoke.

Walt has clearly connected the dots between his actions with Jesse’s girlfriend and the plane crash that has traumatized the community. I initially thought he was showing real guilt over his role in the loss of 167 lives, but we get an uncomfortable look inside Walt’s mind. He is a master of rationalization. I could not help but squirm as he spoke to a gathering of the student body and “encouraged” them to move on. The government is to blame.

This gift of rationalization extends to his efforts to reconcile with his wife. As he (somewhat) comes clean, he tries to explain, “there are many angles to this thing.” She just needs to look at his side. Skylar says bluntly, “You’re a drug dealer.” She sees him for what he is, but he refuses to. In a later meeting with his fried chicken drug dispenser, he says matter of factly that he is not a criminal. Not unless the manufacture and distribution of methamphetamine, money laundering and murder are no longer crimes, Walt. Jesse has embraced the notion that he is “the bad guy” but the irony is he is not as “bad” as Walt.

Overall, Breaking Bad is picking up right where it left off. The tone, the tension, the family drama and the black humor are all still perfectly intact. And I am still hooked like a meth-head on blue ice.