9.23.2013

"Stay. Face the music."

If there's one thing I'm good at, something par with my powerful binge eating skills and cuts up a huge chunk of my supposed-reading time, it's doing stationary marathons...

...of watching a bunchload of TV shows. It's a weakness I'm over the moon with.


The addiction started in high school, the affluence period of pirated DVDs in this country (thank you, China). I remember my first ever series marathon. I borrowed DVDs of The OC from a classmate and spent evenings watching it alone. Summer vacations also meant marathons with the family, noteworthy of which were 24 (one of the best) and Smallville (we watched it faithfully on Studio 23, and whenever my aunt receives her DVDs from the US, we'll binge watch; also, I had the biggest cheeky crush on Tom Welling back then -- I posted laminated photos of him in my desk at school, for shameless inspiration). The list also includes Taken, Charmed, and Angel, among others that I failed to remember.


Now, being the lola that I am at 24, I spend most of my time waiting on new episodes, getting all ecstatic with previews, praying online for torrent seeders, flailing mid-breath while watching, and flooding my Twitter timeline with feels from my favorite shows. This is what grown-ups are like, future daughter.


It’s now Fall TV season, the most wonderful time of the year. All my favorite comedies are back and it’s perfect timing because what I need most right now is emotional backup from all the clusterfucks Breaking Bad has laid upon the table. It's a feast of expletives that's meant to choke me in my sleep. 

Aah. Breaking Bad.

A high school Chemistry teacher learns that he has cancer and in order for him to save enough money to provide for his family before his health worsens, he starts cooking meth...and it's all downhill from there. I had a short post about BrBa when I started watching it last year. Since then, I have invested an overwhelming amount of feelings on this show. I got depressed. I sympathized. There had been anger and hurt and frustration and tears. It's a fruggin' roller coaster of emotions, to say the least. There's your jaw on the floor and you're trying to cover your hanging mouth while painfully overcoming what just happened in front of your TV screen. You are confounded and it's all Vince Gilligan's fault. And now it’s all coming to an end. An end that I’m horribly pumped to see. An end that I’d rather keep at bay because I’m not ready to leave it yet.

Last week, I cried like a baby while watching Ozymandias. In tonight's penultimate episode, I choked up tears twice. Or was it thrice? I never expected to see myself crying over a show about drug dealing and crime. But the core of this show is family. No matter how awful and selfish Walt has become, his family is still his priority. And I understand that. It's the last bit of humanity left in him. But then there's also his ego, and that makes you think, is he trying to really save his family? Or is this now just all about his salvation?

It's funny to still hear people gunning for Walt when, at this rate, it's so hard to root for him after all the evil he's done. Though my heart broke a little seeing him helpless and alone, in hiding, I can't find it in me to feel bad for him anymore because this was his own doing. He dug his own grave. He wasn't the kind and loving Walt that we saw in the first season. Because of his pride and hunger for power, he has turned into a monster. "I am the danger." He had permanently damaged the lives of the people around him -- people closest to his heart. Skyler, Flynn, Holly, Hank, Marie, Jesse. JESSE. 

Denny Duquette. George O'Malley. Ned, Catelyn, Robb, Talisa. Teri Bauer. They were all devastating TV deaths. In terms of botching your favorite characters, Vince Gilligan and George R.R. Martin are now Hall of Famers (with Shonda Rhimes trailing behind). Chris Hardwick called Gilligan the "silent assassin." I've been tweeting this a lot, and seriously, if Jesse Pinkman dies in the finale, I wouldn't know anymore. It's hard enough to see him deal with the deaths of his girlfriends and the children that were mercilessly killed in front of his eyes. To see him die would be suicide. Jesse deserves a decent, if not a happy, ending. There's still Brock. I need to see him still breathing before AMC cuts Breaking Bad to black.

It feels like hanging on a thin thread, not knowing who will make it past the finale alive next week, but we all trust Gilligan to tie all loose ends. There's still the M60, the ricin, Lydia, Crazy Todd and Uncle Jack. It’s going to be a deep, emotional withdrawal, I tell you. I’m bracing myself for catatonia. But with the writers and the actors' assurance, I know that it'll be a satisfying ending.

It's no wonder why I have all the patience and undivided attention when it comes to TV series, as opposed to movies where I get restless and bored easily. I live for backstories. I breathe for character development. I crave for suspense and cliffhangers. I'm all in for investing feelings that I don't get to use in real life. In a way, it's like delving into a book. It's guilt-free. It's magic.

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