Is it just me or is it getting harder and harder to tell the good guys from the bad?
Breaking Bad’s Walter White was a good guy. He was a teacher, a father, a husband, and then a drug dealer.
Diagnosed with terminal cancer and already raising a child with cerebral palsy, he felt understandably trapped. But Walt was also a genius who decided the best way to provide for his family’s future without him was by making really “good” crystal meth.
Early fans emphasized that he was a good man doing the wrong thing for the right reason.
Fast forward five seasons and the series ends with a very different Walt. He is a killer and a major player in the drug trade. And yet viewers still loved him.
Which begs the question: at what point did he become the bad guy? And why was that OK?
Some would say that the moment he decided to break the law and make crystal meth, Walt was a bad guy. Others would argue that he wasn’t the bad guy. It was the actions of others that forced his hand.
Breaking Bad was a story of morality.
But I have to wonder how many viewers really got the point about that slippery slope – the ease of losing oneself while rationalizing bad behaviour and the true costs of these choices – while they were cheering Walt on amid the smoke and gunfire. What did they learn?
Years after the Lone Ranger and Lassie told us about right and wrong, we’ve grown up to discover a grey area. And we like the grey. We revel in it because it gives us more leeway in our own choices – even though too much moral ambiguity is its own slippery slope.
It also gives us all a better chance at redemption. The grey is the reason why I fell for Baby’s Johnny Castle, Buffy’s Spike, The Fonz, Dr. Mark Sloan, and 90210’s Dylan. (Don’t judge me. It was a moment.)
The grey is also the reason why The Blacklist’s Raymond “Red” Reddington is already joining their ranks as a beloved bad guy this season.
He’s helping to catch criminals.
He’s saving lives.
So we conveniently ignore that he’s been committing crimes that have cost both dollars and lives for more than 20 years.
And we still don’t know why he chose to do so after training for the FBI. We want to believe he had no choice. Or that it was necessary in order to fight a greater evil. But that’s likely a pipe dream – or in his case, a pipe bomb.
With Red’s ready sarcasm, manipulative intelligence and insufferable ego, he’s both attractive and … annoying. Yet, I feel he could teach us new lessons in morality. Possibly even redeem himself.
Okay, so I’d never take Red home to meet Mom. But I might have him over for dinner to pick his brain and bask in his company. After I hide the silver.
