Breaking Bad

During a less than arduous one-credit “science course” in college, I wrote a paper about the Lindbergh kidnapping and its ramifications on forensic evidence. I honestly don't remember if it had any; German carpenter Bruno Hauptmann was convicted of first degree murder of the Lindbergh child based in large part on his possession of several thousand in gold certificates that had been fruitlessly paid in ransom by the family and traced back to him.

What stuck in the back of my mind until the other day was the trial testimony of a carpenter who connected Hauptmann’s carpentry on the makeshift ladder used in the kidnapping. I believe he identified the handiwork with some contempt, citing it as crude or shoddy work and implying that anyone who would kidnap and murder a three-year-old would of course be a poor craftsman, his every gesture symptomatic of being a deviant.

So what happens when a very good man, a man of strong mind and excellent education and indefatigable work ethic, were to apply all of his skills to a criminal activity? That is one of the questions posed by the AMC series Breaking Bad, in which a mild high school chemistry teacher learns he is dying of lung cancer and, in an effort to leave his wife, son and unborn child something, turns to cooking meth.

It's brilliant, full of gut surprises and subtle character pivots. You come to realize that he might have other choices, but he proceeds anyway rather than suffer his family being taken care of by anyone else. It's my new favorite show. AMC has started over from the beginning of the first season (I think there are four seasons now) on Wednesday nights, so I'm only watching two at a time.