Breaking Bad: Season Two - Review

Tragic. Beautiful. Funny. Suspenseful. Inspired. Shocking. Challenging. Intelligent. The list of adjectives that I could use to describe this sublime show just goes on and on...

What can I say about this show that hasn't been said already. It's one of the most critically lauded shows ever and this season saw it being rightly showered with awards winning a Primetime Emmy award, . This show excels itself on what you can do with TV and perfects it to the level of high art.

The acting - brilliant. The aforementioned Brian Cranston is refined as his role as Walter White in this season. He portrays the sadness, the desperation and occasional mad fury of Walter in effortless detail. And of course he would be nothing without his White's Dr.Watson, Jesse Pinkman. In the first season I didn't think much of his performance. It's wasn't dreadful but it didn't jump out at me as much as Cranston did. But this season completely undoes all that criticism. He really opens himself up this season and all the pain and suffering he goes too feels really real, and it's all to do with the actor's fantastic performance. 

Actually fuck that. ALL the actors and actresses have fantastic performances. In particular Anna Gunn wonderfully portrays Skyler White and delivers an affectionate although very desperate performance as we watch her and Walter marriage deteriorate. Her character also has developed nicely as well, last season I don't remember her doing much important and being more of a background figure. Here however she takes a much more central role and really comes into her own. Hank as well is greatly improved form a simple macho hard-man into a real person with his own fears, hopes and also weaknesses which are needed in any character to make them believable. 

As well as re-enforcing the old characters it also craftily introduces excellent new characters. The dodgy scum bag lawyer that is Saul Goodman makes an apperance in this season and is a very clever move on the writer's part as Saul manages to easily organize things for Walt and Jessie and really saves a lot of time and enables them to get to the plot much quicker and easier. There's also Donald Marglolis played wonderfully by John de Lancie who has managed to easily bring out the sorrow and the sadness of this character and make a really sympathetic character who we feel deeply sorry for. There was also the introduction of Gusatvo "Gus" Fring and Mike Ehrmantraut each accordingly played by Giancarlo Esposito and Jonathan Banks, who had very minor roles in this season but will become very prominent and key characters as the show continues.

Oh the writing - stellar. Vince Gilligan and his team have pushed the level of what a TV show is capable off and have really outdone themself. I have rarely seen a show that manages to construct such intelligence, passion, heartache and complex intertwining storytelling and still make it engaging and engrossing to the audience. Oh and the season finale...oh my god...it's good.

So final verdict. Amazing and fantastic in pretty much everywhere I have struggled to find a fault on this season and on the show as a whole. Stop reading this review and rush out and buy it along with all the other seasons including season 4 which is coming out in the UK on October 1 2012.