Kermode & Mayo’s Take - SHRINK THE BOX: 2: Breaking Bad - Walter White

Episode Date: February 7, 2023

Sliding on their gloves, and stepping into their Hazmat suits, Ben and Sasha distil one of TV’s most infamous characters: The mighty Heisenburg. On this week’s Shrink the Box we uncover why Walter White is often in his underpants, how he taps into his ‘shadow side’ and we explore if the ‘Revenge of the Nerd’ is really a thing. Don’t forget to check out Season 1 of Breaking Bad to avoid spoilers. If you enjoyed delving deeper into the world of Tony, be sure to follow Shrink The Box so you don’t miss future episodes. https://listen.sonymusic-podcasts.link/ARAR32077 Do you have a character suggestion for us? Get in touch! Please email [e-mail] If you have been affected by any of the issues discussed in this episode: For the UK, call SAMARITANS on 116 123 samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan. Internationally: https://www.befrienders.org/. For UK help via talking therapies contact your GP or the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy bacp.co.uk Shrink The Box is a Somethin’ Else Production with Sony Music Entertainment. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get holiday ready at Real Canadian Superstore. Will you find more legendary ways to save than any other major grocer? Until December 13th, you'll get a free PC turkey when you spend $300 or more. That's right, free only at your Super Holiday Store. Conditions apply to fly for details. And one of us deals with the body situation. Well, the other one of us deals with the crazy aid situation. In a scenario like this, I don't suppose it is bad form to just... flip a coin.

Heads or tails? No, I'll do the body and the acid, okay? Head's your tails. Hello, I'm Ben Bailey Smith. And I'm Sasha Bates. And thank you for joining us on Shrink the Box. This is where we put TV's most intriguing fictional characters into therapy. We psychoanalyze the likes of Tony Soprano, Don Draper and Fleabag.

Sasha here is the expert of course an integrative psychotherapist. Me, I'm an actor, script writer and have had therapy myself and still having a bit more, so I know a bit about finding narrative professionally and personally. At the top there we heard a clip from what, Sashar? That was Breaking Bad from the AMC network in 2008 and we're going to be looking at Walter White. Yes. Often thought to be one of the greatest fictional characters ever created. Oh man, I can't tell you how pleased I am that we're kicking off this one with Walter. You know, I can't tell you how pleased I am that we're kicking off this one with water. You know, I don't think many of us had seen a show quite like it before, but the more I

look back on it, and I've just re-watched the entire series, even though there's so many crazy things happen, the thing that really still pulls us in is that this is somebody that we all recognize. There's a normal person, a schoolteacher, who, as the Americans say, breaks bad. Feels like a sliding door's thing because all of us wonder, what would have happened if I'd changed something fundamental in my life when the opportunity arose? Yeah, I mean, I think that's why it's so brilliant because it looks at what does turn a good person bad to put it simplistically. But what's also great is that they never do just look at it simplistically.

They look at all the nuance and the complexity. What might push somebody to change his character so radically? Absolutely. And what is good or bad? Can you do a bad thing for a good reason? Can you do good things for bad reasons? I think that's a constant question that the writers and the performers are posing us with throughout the show, which makes it so

constantly intriguing, regardless of whether you're into violence or drugs or whatever the plot might or whatever line the plot might take you down. And for those of you who need a reminder, anyone out there who hasn't got around to watch in this show, is chemistry teacher Walter White who's been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. That's why we meet him. And he teams up with his own former student, Jesse Pinkman, to make or in their terminology cook and then sell crystal meth, meth and theta mean. Water does it initially to save money for his family and you know the cost of fighting cancer, but in the obviously he gets into deep. We should say there's going to be spoilers galore in our discussions and there's gonna be some adult language. So coming up, we've got explosions, why sex gets better with danger,

and why the hell walks always in his underpants. Ladies and gents, it's shrink the box. Okay, it's 2pm, so Wednesday, S's just got back from lunch and her next client is awaiting with the magazines in reception, Sasha. Tell us about your next client, Walter White. Walter is, as he said, he's a chemistry teacher, but he's not just a chemistry teacher. He has so little money that he also works as a car wash attendant. He lives in Albuquerque in New Mexico. He's got lung cancer and he's married to Skylar, who is about seven months pregnant,

with their second child, their first child as a teenager, Walt Jr., and he's got cerebral palsy. Classic accidental pregnancy. It seems to be that way, yes. Some other characters that Lume large in Walt's life are his brother-in-law, Hank, who is a drug enforcement agency officer. Real man's man, very manly, almost too manly. Yeah, you would not, I mean if I was Walt, I would not really want Hank's my brother-in-law.

He shows up everything that Walt isn't. Pretty intense. And then Hank's wife, who is Skylassista, is called Marie. She flirts with Clepter Mania as we come to see that, you know, she also has her own kind of darker side. She pinches shoes, she pinches a tiara. Interesting character, very sort of anxious kind of, kind of constantly on edge. Yeah, she does seem to have a sort of nervous energy about her, very different to Skyler, as sisters often are. So let's re-acquaint ourselves with Walter Y

and the figure that looms largest in his life, Jesse Pinkman. You got nothing. Square one. But you know the business. And I know the chemistry. I'm thinking, maybe you and I could partner up. You uh, you want to cook crystal mat? You.

You and uh, and me. That's right. Wow. Either that or I turn you in. The incredible Brian Cranston there as Walter White alongside Aaron Paul playing Jesse Pinkman from episode 1, pilot of Breaking Bad series 1. Vince Gilligan is the creator, head writer and director of Breaking Bad, made by Highbridge and Grand Vier Productions in association with Sony Pictures for American movie classics. It's available to stream on Netflix, we'll

give you the full credits for all the clips used at the end of this podcast. Sasha, if Walt came to you, what would his initial problem be, do you think, just trying to sort of preempt what he might bring to the table? Well, he's been handed a death sentence. He's been told that his lung cancer is inop football, and so he is facing his confronting his own death, which is quite a wake-up call for anyone. And it can lead people, it often does, lead people into kind of thinking, not just about the time they've got left, but reflecting back on how they've lived their lives today. And yeah, well, like a lot of people would start thinking, is this all there is? Could I have done more, could I be more?

What can I be? But interestingly, and I really felt this the second time I watched it, he's about 10 years older than his wife, who's very attractive, still looks, you know, in the prime of her life, he looks like he's lived the life. Some of the decisions, even stepping into a room for therapy could be down simply to his age. We do see him at his 50th birthday party and yet I mean poor old

well you know he's really washed up he's hopeless he's got this second job, his the students in his class don't respect him. Skyler doesn't seem to respect him. She sort of infantilises him, tells him what to say, what to do a little bit. When we saw, we just mentioned before about Hank, the brother-in-law, even at Walt's own 50th birthday party, Hank makes fun of him because he doesn't have to hold a gun properly. They then all have to stop the party and watch Hank be on tele, being interviewed about a big drug's bust. So he shows up everything that well isn't. Yeah. Is it normal? Is it usual? Is it something you see often to sort of come alive or come out of your shell and find purpose in the face of imminent death? Well,

it is. And it's a really kind of counterintuitive thing that many people say that that's when they start living, when they get a death sentence. There's a branch of psychotherapy called existential psychotherapy. It's obviously very similar to the existential philosophers who think that it's only by living our lives as though we could die at any time, that we can kind of find meaning. So if we go about as most of us do, assuming we're going to live forever, I mean, none of us wants to confront the fact that we're not going to do that. Then we're only half living, whereas if we wake up every day thinking this might be the last time I walk out the door and get to say goodbye to my wife, then we're going to have a much more fulfilled existence. And what Breaking Bad does is it shows us a very real version of that. Who could you be? How would you live your life if you knew you might die tomorrow or very soon? Two ways you could read what you just said, I suppose, which is one in a very positive way, live every day as if it was your last

and go out there and fulfill your dreams. The other side I suppose is that life itself is a deaf sentence. Sorry, guys. There's a famous existentialist called Victor Frankl, who was actually in the concentration camps in... Frankl, yeah. ...second World War. And he kind of developed a version of existential therapy called Logotherapy, where he said our primary reason for living is to find our meaning, find our purpose. And in a way, Walter finds his purpose by becoming a drug lord. I mean, it is a big stream, but you know, that's the joy of the drama of it.

And we see one of the big catalysts for him quite early on, you know, as well as the cancer diagnosis. He went on a ride along. It's another very American thing. I can't imagine jumping in a police car here. I just want to see what you guys do. He goes on a ride along with his brother-in-law Hank, the DEA agent, to see the police do a meth lab raid, which is where he spots his ex-student Jesse, a huge turning point. And he seems to flip pretty quickly from mild mannered, Laura Biden, chemistry teacher to drug dealer.

Is it plausible for someone to radically change with such speed? I think that can happen. I think what is interesting is that a lot of people fear that that is what they would do. They worry that if they let their kind of darker side show through, that it will be a slippery slope. Freud, his theory, was that we all have this id, this sort of inner drive to just fulfill all our needs for sex and regardless of how that affects. Yeah, yeah. And he saw therapy as a way of

taming the id. Another part of that approach is that we have a super ego, which is basically society and morals. And the only thing that keeps the id in check is this super ego, the bit of us that's always criticising saying you mustn't do that and what will people think. And in the middle you've got the ego, which is the healthy sense of self. It's not quite, ego's not used quite in the way that we tend to use it in normal life about somebody having to big an ego. An ego is a healthy thing. You want to feel a sense of self. You don't want to be ruled either by the super ego that's constantly telling you what not to do or by the id that you feel is this rampant monster inside.

Which of those three do we go to most regularly to sort of protect ourselves or for security, or do we take bits from each? Yeah, I think it kind of depends whether you're a very controlled and somebody who likes to play by the rules or whether you're somebody that's a bit more of a kind of fuck it. But you've played a character who has really had to access his shadow self, his darker self, playing Agent Levin in Star Wars and Orr. I mean, how is that to to play such a character?

Within the Star Wars universe, it was relatively straightforward because I felt like everybody knows that world, including children who will be watching. So to give him depth, I imagined him as a coward. The main reason he does what he does is because he's scared of being killed, which is what could happen if you work for the Empire and you get your job wrong. It's not like working for Sainsbury's, you're not going to get killed for not restocking the shelves quick enough. So that's what I brought to that to give it a little bit of death. But at the end of the day, it's Star Wars. What was way tougher in a way was a show I worked on called The Split, which is about a family of divorce lawyers. And I played an emotionally and physically abusive husband. And that I found incredibly tough, being horrible to an actual human being, who to be fair to her, the actor

was Donna Eyre. She was incredibly game. She said, just, you know, just go for it. You know, I know, I know, you know, I know you're real intentions. So that did make it a little easier. But I sort of accessed that part of me that just said, imagine if you opted for your bassist desires regardless of anybody's feelings, including your children, and this character had two children, young children, you know, innocence, and that ugliness, I sort of lent into it, thinking solely of the self. What is the ultimate selfishness? That's to take, take, take and take for yourself. And if anybody gets in the way, you completely disregard them. That was the only way for me to make sense of it. I can't imagine being, you know, sexually

or physically abusive. I just can't imagine it. No, and I think at the start, Walter probably can't either. Absolutely. And it's quite extraordinary. But he gets it. Yeah, to see how quickly he can access those really dark. I mean, he ends up killing people.

OK. He's definitely on a slippery slope. Early on when he first kills Crazy Eight, the guy that they've taken hostage and put in the basement. It, you can see him really struggling. He does not want to kill him. You do feel for him. And there's a crucial thing I suppose that they've thought about intently in the writing of that scene, which is that there's a bond that appears to be building between them. And then crazy eight goes for him, and he reacts, and he's able to do the deed, and it's very clearly self-defense.

So I think for him as a character and for us as an audience, we all go, I mean, that's what you have to do. That's what I, you know, if I had the, if I was in that situation, that's what I would have to do, and you're able to very much stay on his side. He's been a bit of a nerd all his life. Yes. And this feels a bit like the revenge of the nerd. The revenge of the nerd. He's sort of eaten a lot of shit over the course of the years. He obviously was brilliant chemistry brain and came up with,

didn't quite understand the whole thing about him come up with an idea with his business partner, Elliot Schwartz, but then Elliot Schwartz had gone on to make millions out of it and Walter had got nothing. So Walter's there with his sort of pathetic little second job as a car wash attend and while Schwartz is living the dream. And that's a huge origin story, right? Because bringing it back to therapy, a lot of the reasons why we find ourselves on that couch, you can trace back to resentments, right?

And what can happen, the flip side of feeling resentful and like nobody sort of sees your true worth, is to become quite grandiose, to think, well, I'm going to show them, I'm actually going to be the best drug lords this state has seen. Yeah, and that's going to build and build and build and inflate like a huge balloon. As we see, it's eventually it's going to go bang. So, so let's look at exactly how Walt explodes in more ways than one after the break. This is not a myth. Hi, esteemed podcast listeners, Simon Mayow. I'm Mark Kermot here. I'm excited to let you know that the new season of the Crown and the Crown, the official

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with Nord's 30-day money back guarantee. The link is in the podcast episode description box. This episode is brought to you by Mooby, a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great cinema from around the globe. From myConnect directors to emerging otters, there's always something new to discover, for example. Well, for example, the new AkiKarri's Mackey film Fallen Leaves, which won the jury prize it can, That's in cinemas at the moment.

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on a few of them already and I'd like to touch on sex because I always think that sex is one of those drivers that can make human beings do the craziest things. There's a moment in episode 7 in reference to sex where the quote, why was that so good? And Walter says, cause it was illegal. I think this is maybe when they had sex in public in a car, I think we've established that their sex life is less than wild, suddenly it's wild. What's going on here and where does the power light? There's a couple of questions

in there considering what we see him go on to. He's definitely finding his power and of course sexes can be very representative of that. I mean, the first time we see Skyler and Walt having sex, it's so depressing. I mean, she's she's doing her eBay auction at the same time and they couldn't look more kind of less interested. That has to be spooning position. There's no way she's on top. Swiping through eBay. No, well, it's, it's, it's just like, you know, her, her, her, basically, her climax is getting the auction, winning the auction. It's like that's so much more appealing. I can say that is a great moment. Yeah. It's not fair.

Well, quite possibly up there, but not that satisfying sexually for poor old Walt, I wouldn't imagine. I mean, neither of them went into it at all. And the contrast with that, and then, as Walt starts to discover his sort of his potency in all senses of the words, they go back to sort of being teenagers and having sex in the back of his car in the school car park where they could be found out at any any time and it's clearly they're really into it. There's absolutely no eBay shopping going on any more.

They're completely in the moment. And yeah, he thinks it's the thrill of the illicit that is powering it. And I think it's the thrill of the illicit that is powering it. And I think it's the thrill of the illicit that powers a lot of Walt from here on in, sexually and otherwise he's enjoying feeling like he's on the wrong side of the law. I can't say that doing it in a car would be the thing that that gets me got. I just can't get comfortable, constant panic about people seeing it's not for me. That said,

I've often had great sex, either directly after an argument or in the days following a flare up. Why, why is that? Nobody's very turned on by the familiar, and if we're all just... With the same person, I should say. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, we can just, we all just trudge through our lives and we stop thinking that it could be any different. And again, it's that notion of my life could end tomorrow. I've been given a death sentence that you start to seek more.

And actually seeking is, um, one of our primary instincts and in evolutionary terms we needed to feel excited and turn on by the thought of seeking otherwise we wouldn't get propelled out to go and look for food. That notion to go out and seek to investigate to be curious to find the next thing floods the body with dopamine. It's not so much about getting the rewards, getting the food, getting the sex, getting the new job It's about the search for it that kind of invigorates and energizes us Because if it didn't we wouldn't have ever bothered to go out and look for food and we would have died off as a species And we still have that. We still have that hormonal Instinct to seek out the next thing

Right, so to bring it back to me and get a quick bit of free therapy, if you have a big flare up or an argument or something like that, then there's like a sort of fear of loss, something like that. Yeah, you're seeking to get it back. So then suddenly you're seeking again and it's like a refresher, like a restart, almost. Yeah.

It can be really sexy. Yeah, exactly. I mean, your wife may leave you if you're too horrible to her. So you kind of, you have to like, win her back. So it's that same notion of trying to retrieve something, trying to be curious to get back something that might be on the verge of being lost. All right, let's get into the murky world

of a therapist's advice. Are we advising or are we suggesting that sort of gray area? I mean, Walt takes good drugs for cancer and he creates bad drugs. Barry, you mind he's a scientist. He never considers the harm that meth and ketamine is going to do to the addict, some of whom may be very innocent victims.

As a therapist, let's say he's exposed that in a session, would you try and show him that? Would you make a suggestion? Therapists do not advise or give opinions. What we can do is we can encourage people to look at the consequences of their actions. So we can challenge people on what they're doing, but we can't ever make them do anything, or we can't tell them not to do something, but we can get them to really explore what are the consequences. And to be honest, I don't think what would come into therapy. At the beginning, he's sort of two, he's given up, he doesn't believe that he's going to change, so he wouldn't come into therapy initially, I don't think Walt would come into therapy. At the beginning, he's given up. He doesn't believe that he's going to change.

So he wouldn't come into therapy initially. I don't think. I agree. And then later, once he's embarked on his drug spree, he doesn't want to change. He's enjoying it too much. But most people come into therapy because they do want to change.

I mean, even Tony Soprano, I mean, this is why I personally love Tony more than I love Walt because Tony wants to change. He has an awareness of the fact that he could do things differently. Walt doesn't want any of that. The two ways in which they even say the word family, I think, is profoundly and pointedly different. When Tony says it, you're right, there is a desire there to maintain something or to make something better for his wife, for his children, for himself. It was increasingly, it's almost like the chorus in a terrible pop song. Everything I did, I did for my family. And every time he says it, it feels less and less real and more and more

trite and more and more contrived. It's less and less believable. It becomes more and more about what Walt wants for Walt and what Walt wants is to find the self-respect and the self-esteem and the sense of purpose that he felt he didn't get from his previous existence. Even if Walt were to come into therapy, which I don't think he would, all you can do is get him to look at the consequences of the choices he makes. With wall, I don't think it's even about the consequences for other people. I think even if you were to sort of point out, oh, well, can you see what this is doing to others?

I think it's only by letting him see the consequences for him that he might want to change. Like, can you see what this is costing you? Is it worth losing your humanity for? Yeah. Sadly, I think what Puppy thinks it is, because he's going to die anyway. Let's pause here and think a bit more about what role pride plays in Walt's life, because for all of us, and I don't mean, I don't want to say particularly men, but

maybe I do. I think we have a thing where it's like, even if we're not old school providers or hunter-gatherers, we feel like we should be. We definitely feel like our wives should be applauding us every time we come into the kitchen and put a bowl of porridge on the table. What role do you think it plays for good or bad or both? It's really important to have self-esteem and to feel proud of yourself and of what you can bring to your loved ones. Walter, I think, was really missing that. He just felt like this student didn't think he was a good chemistry teacher.

Hank doesn't think he's much of a man. He can't even hold a gun, properly, skyler, just clearly thinks he's not providing enough financially. So you need a certain amount in order to kind of power you through, but he then gets so much self respect from all the wrong places. He comes up against this other drug lord Tukou. Terrifying. I'm just terrifying guy.

He's basically the human equivalent of that rock in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Yeah. You know, just rolling at you. Yeah, and it's a fantastic moment from Episode 6. And he's going into the meeting and he pretends that he's got crystal meth on him. But it's actually, there's a few Magyver moments, sort of 18 moments with Walter White. You remember, oh, he's got that superpower of being a scientist. And it's very much not meth. It's something else. And he chucks it across the room and chaos ensues. The fact that Walt wins, I guess, against him. It's huge. He suddenly thinks, oh my God, you know, I'm just going to push this and push

this. And not only does he kind of win out over Tukur, but he starts saying, no, I want more money. I want more drugs. He's like pushing the boundary at every stage. He's got nothing left to lose really. So that is, again, the Idrun rampant. We need a healthy sense of balance. And he loses his sense of balance, I think. There's an earlier episode in series one where his son Walt Jr. is being laughed at by some older boys in the clothes shop. Walt goes out and comes back in and basically lays into them. And Walt Jr. and Skyler can't believe what they're seeing. They're so surprised. This is so out of character. And you see it in Walt's face. He's like, he's smiling. His whole body's like vibrating with the excitement of coming alive again. And that is him starting to get a sense of You see it in Walt's face, he's like, he's smiling, his whole body's like vibrating

with the excitement of coming alive again. And that is him starting to get a sense of pride in himself. So there's a tipping point where, yes, he needed more because he was so downtrodden, but it just goes too far. Takes it way too far. Actually, you know what, let's listen to a quick clip now where water does come out and defend his son. Hey, him, I think I pinched a loaf in my brand new Bitcoin pants. Actually, you know what, let's listen to a quick clip now where Walter does come out and defend his son.

Hey, mommy, I think I pinched a loaf in my brand new big boy pants. What are you doing? What's wrong, Chief? Having a little trouble walking? Get off me! Get off me! I'll mess you what, man. Or you'll have one shot. You better make it good.

What are you waiting for, your girlfriends? You better go. You better go. Take it. Take your shot. Take it! Come on. Come on, let's get out of here. Let's go. Psycho. Come on, let's get out of here. Let's go. Psycho. You see it represented as well, I suppose, in the way he refuses to take Elliot's money, refuses to take Hank's support. But Hank is an interesting one, in a way more than Elliot,

because we understand Elliot is like the superhero origin story. This is somebody he feels has forsaken him or Gretchen, who's a great character in this too. Whereas with Hank, it's like having a constant actual superhero right there in your living room for everyone to see, oh, here's what a man looks like. But again, it's not this idea of somebody's all good and somebody's all bad.

It just doesn't play out because we see Hank is not immune to having the odd illegal Cuban cigar. Yes. His wife's got her little kleptomaniac, they go on the same thing. He's a very casually racist, which is the other way characters are. Yeah. Now they've all got their shadow side, which is actually another way of looking at it. I was talking about Freud's theory of I'd ego and super ego,

young, another early psychoanalyst. He called it the Shadowside. He looked at it more in esoteric terms, really. He said, we kind of yearn for the light and for individuation, finding our best selves to put it in modern day parlance. And then we all have our shadowside, the bit of us that we don't want to allow out. We don't want any light to fall on it. But interestingly, it's also for

the good characters to find their bad side, we've also got to acknowledge that the so-called bad characters have a good side. And I think Jesse is the brilliant kind of mure image of that. Because we like to think of Jesse, his drug-making partner, as, you know, kind of iridimably hopeless. But in fact, Jesse does try to better himself. He tries to go out and go straight and get a job. And he's got this younger brother who seems to be the ideal kid. You know, he gets great grades and the parents seem to adore him. He's smoking pot on the side.

And Jesse, who's supposedly the awful one, he takes the wrap for it. Jesse has some really good bits. Got a huge heart. You always feel for him because he never loses his humanity. He makes the wrong decisions all the time, of course. But he's worried about how other people might feel. He mourns victims, you, even people who've been victimized. I promised underpants at the top of the show, I promised pants. I'm not getting mine out.

So let's talk about Heisenberg's pants. Let's talk about Walter White's pants. They were recurring sort of almost motif, I know. What do they mean? Yeah, I mean, the opening scene is so funny. It's him in his underpants in his shirt and he's kind of like driving like a nutcase through the desert after his first encounter with trying to cook meth.

But yeah, he keeps, we keep seeing him in the worst underpants imaginable, he's awful. Why? Why? Why? Not even tight. If they were tight, or if they were, they'd be better. It's the baggyness. It's too things, Sasha. It's the baggyness. And the factging us. They were tagging us. They were tagging us. They were tagging us. They were tagging us.

They were tagging us. They were tagging us. They were tagging us. They were tagging us. They were tagging us. They were tagging us. They were tagging us. They were tagging us.

They were tagging us. They were tagging us. They were tagging us. They were tagging us. They were tagging us. They were tagging us. They were tagging us. They were tagging us.

They were tagging us. They were tagging us. They were tagging us. They were tagging us. They were tagging us. They were tagging us. They were tagging us. Walter had to die in order for the new Walter to be reborn. So I think it symbolises Walter having reached his lowest air, he's there, stripped practically naked, and he has to kind of re-birth himself into Heisenberg. And we haven't mentioned Heisenberg is the, he's also in, yeah, it's the drug name that he takes to distinguish, you know, mild-mannered wall to white from sort of superhero-hyzen books. And I suppose create an emotional distance. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Black hat. Yeah. Shaved head. Yeah. Which, you know, as he starts to get better, we realize he doesn't actually, he doesn't need to be bold, is it becomes a choice. It does. He looks harder and he does. He looks scarier. And he likes looking harder. He likes all he likes to have a with menist about him. Absolutely. And you know, it plays on his arrival into any room. I remember studying media studies at A level. There was a lesson we did on on the man in the hat. And it was looking at the significance of hats in in movies and was looking at the significance of hats in movies and their extension of the sort of male-pride, male importance, threat and power. They were showing us films that we all knew about.

Indiana Jones was, I think, where it started. He always goes back and gets his hat, even when his life is at risk, he gets the hat. And they were saying it's like an old Western trope, it's like with the hat on, they feel like a bit taller, a bit more of a presence and just more of a man. And that's the main thing. Interesting that he has the hat, but he's also got the polar opposite, the pants. These horribly vulnerable pants that show the sort of pathetic, like you say, old wolf that he's trying to distance himself so far. Yeah, and maybe that's why they are white and horrible. Maybe I hadn't really thought of that.

His call, Walter White, and there's a lot of, you know, light and dark kind of metaphors going on. Maybe it's the white underpants versus the black hat. Maybe those are the two extremes of what? Yeah, and we even have the direct comparison of him and Walt Whitman, the two different WWs, which of course end up being spoiler alert, one of the huge giveaways of who Heisenberg really is. That natural comparison of him and this great poet, this great intellect. I mean, you know, he definitely fancies himself as a great intellect. He is playing street politics when he doesn't understand the street.

Jesse actually knows those things way better. There's no way Walt is taking advice from Jesse or anybody else, which again, coming full circle is why he would never actually be in the reception of your office. No, certainly. Stomming through a woman's weekly. If you had to report back, what, what are we taking away from it? An in-depth deep dive into into water white. We all have a shadow side. It's you can't have light without dark. We all have the bits

of ourselves that we're a bit ashamed of. If we never let them out, then they're going to explode out in the way that they've exploded out of walls. So I think, yeah, so I think if walled had been less nerdy, less pathetic, less hopeless earlier in his life, his resentment wouldn't have built to the point that it does. So I think had he come into therapy earlier, had he confided more in Skylar? As you said, if it's told his friends, oh, actually, I'm feeling a bit undervalued or he would have got that a better mirror back,

he would have, as you have with your friends, they've said, oh, now I've also had those sort of problems. And then you don't feel so alone or so abnormal. I don't think he's ever let it out, so it explodes out. So I think, for me, one of the takeaways is don't let it get to that point. Don't wait for a death sentence to start admitting to the bits of you that you don't actually like very much, admitting to your lack of self-respect and just say this is how I feel and be a bit more honest and then it won't explode out.

And rock bottom is actually an opportunity. Absolutely. respect and just say this is how I feel and be a bit more honest and then it won't explode out. And rock bottom is actually an opportunity. Absolutely. Well for then a reason to go well I'm at rock bottom so fuck it. Yeah. Oh man. Well I like that a lot. I think we've dug pretty deep with a Waltz Mr. White.

I love the way Jesse calls him Mr. White. I know. I know. Mr. White. Listen, any other characters iconic characters? I love the way Jessie calls him Mr. White. Like right to the bit around. I know. Mr. White. Yeah. Listen, any other character's iconic character, I'd love to do Skylar one day to be honest. She is fantastic.

She has her own or can be she changes her hell of a load as well. So anyone else you'd like to see Skylar or otherwise on the couch, please do get in touch. You can email us at shrinkthebox at something else.com. That's shrinkthebox at something without the G, because we're really cool here, else.com. And please do follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon, wherever you get your podcasts, and get the new episodes, and share them with your friends. Leave us a little review. Let us know what you think about the show.

And if you want to listen to shrink the Box, add free, like a true G, then subscribe to Extra Takes. Your subscription gets you add free episodes of this show. Plus, add free episodes and access to weekly subscriber, exclusive, extra episodes from our good friends over at Kermode and Mayo's take. So start your free trial now by clicking Try Free at the top of the shrink the box show page on Apple Podcasts or by visiting extra takes.com. Thank you to our tip top production team. Production management is Lily Hambley, the assistant producer is Bashak Erton, social media is Jonathan Imieri, the studio engineer is Jay Beal and Mix Engineer is Gulliver Tickle.

The senior producer is Selena Reem and executive producer is Simon Paul Sasha. What client have you got booked in for next week? Well, we're about to hear a clip of somebody being interviewed by Life magazine and there are camera shot and noises in the background, so see if you recognize this. Hmm, they're just pieces. And anyway, I was the board, I knew it was first. The board? Yes. It's an entire world of just 64 squares.

I feel safe in it. I can control it, I can dominate it. And it's predictable. I can control it, I can dominate it. And it's predictable. So if I get hurt, I only have myself to blame. Mmm, okay, all right, the clues are all in there. Life reflected through a chessboard, it has to be Beth Harman from the Queen's Gambit. There is so much to dig into with her.

Okay, really is. I mean, we've got loss, trauma, addiction, attachment, detachment again. And it's all available on Netflix if you want to rewatch before we talk about it next week. I really wish I was one of those, like a problematic, trouble people who also had like an incredible, like super power,

like bit of harming. It really takes the edge off. It's a heavy mix. I can tell you that much what's going on with Beth. If you haven't watched the Queen's Gambit, I can tell you it's also funny, it's glamorous. The chess matches are actually really gripping. Often they get sports and games really wrong

in movies and TV, but they've thought they're great. And even if you don't play, it's fascinating. It looks incredible. The production design is phenomenal. I didn't actually know this before I watched it, but it's based on a book by Walter Tevis of the same name. It's worth checking out. He had a lot of the same experiences as Beth.

So hopefully we can dig into a little bit of that too. And he consulted actual chess grandmasters to write the book. And the writer director of the Queen's Gambit, Scott Frank, said that Agnatole Joy and all the chess playing actors memorized and played every match, even the speed rounds, which is mental because being an actor myself, I could not be asked to learn any of that, just putting someone else's hands. I was going to say that shows commitment.

Yeah, maybe one day, you know, but I just don't see it, I love the pub too much. In fact, I think it's probably about time we hit the pub sash, so it's time to say goodbye. Goodbye. See you next week. Now, for all my fellow nerds out there who actually sit and watch the credits because we respect who made things, here's the information for all the brilliant moments we played, which

are all from Series 1 of Breaking Bad. The opening clip where Walter White played by Brian Cranston and Jesse Pinkman, Aaron Paul, discuss what to do with the dead body and a drug dealer in their basement, that's from Cats in the Bag Episode 2 written by Vince Gilligan and directed by Adam Bernstein. The explosion scene we heard just before the break where Walt visits the drug lord Tukko is from Crazy Handful of Nothing, episode 6 written by Vince Gilligan and George Mastras and directed by Bronwyn Hughes. And the scene where Walt defends his son in the store, that's episode 1,

written and directed by Vince Gilligan. Breaking Bad is made by Highbridge and Grand Vier Productions when used. And the scene where Walt defends his son in the store, that's episode 1, written and directed by Vince Gilligan. Breaking Bad is made by Hi Bridge and Grand Vier productions in association with Sony Pictures for American Movie Classics, available to stream on Netflix. Thank you for listening, and see you next week.