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Television

Breaking Bad

Psychologist Joe MacDonagh and philosopher Sheridan Hough each watch what happens when society breaks.

The television series Breaking Bad has been critically and popularly successful on both sides of the Atlantic. It is the story of a chemistry teacher, Walter White, who contracts lung cancer and then decides to start ‘cooking’ crystal meth (methamphetamine) to earn money to support his family after he is dead. There are many plot spoilers ahead so don’t read further if you don’t want to know what happens at the end.

Though spread over six series, some critics have said that this new generation television series is actually one big film, a type of roman-fleuve for television screens. Though, to cut right to the end, his family life is destroyed, his family home is taken over by the Drug Enforcement Authority and he has lost most of the money he earned through manufacturing illicit drugs Walter has actually realised his existential potential through doing something he said made him feel ‘alive’.

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