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Watchers wonder whether Walter White would whitewash it away.
If Walt, played by Bryan Cranston, could go back to the way things were at the very beginning of Breaking Bad, would he do it?
Would Walt trade health and boredom for sickness and adrenaline?
"It's an interesting hypothetical," agreed Cranston, whose acclaimed series returns for its fifth and final season (although it'll be split over two summers), Sunday on AMC.
"We've all played that game around the dinner table, 'What would you do if you had a year to live? What would you do for a million dollars?' And Walt is living that life. It's not hypothetical to him.
"So for the first time really in his life, he has been living it. There's something very seductive about that."
Seduction is the code word for Breaking Bad as it has racked up awards in inverse proportion to Walt's moral descent.
Cranston won three straight Emmy Awards for outstanding lead actor in a drama (2008, 2009, 2010), and possibly the only reason he didn't win in 2011 was that the airing of the fourth season missed the Emmy eligibility window (you're welcome, Kyle Chandler of Friday Night Lights). The height of trophy recognition for Breaking Bad came at the 2010 Emmys, when Cranston's victory was complemented by a win for Aaron Paul -- who plays Walt's partner-in-crime Jesse Pinkman -- as outstanding supporting actor.
The original premise of Breaking Bad was simple enough. Walt was a bland nobody, teaching high school chemistry, when he learned he was dying of cancer. Determined to secure his family's financial future, Walt started cooking crystal meth and entered into a distribution partnership with a former student, Jesse.
Where Breaking Bad has gone from there has been astonishing to watch. In essence Cranston has played three or four transformational characters, all within the fragile body of Walt.
"The way we've been conditioned to think is that characters are one-dimensional," Cranston said. "Oh, he's a good guy. Oh, he's a bad guy. Oh, he's troubled. Oh, she's the vixen. Oh, she's the sex-pot. Oh, she's the manipulator. But what we really are is an amalgam of all these things.
"When I heard that Vince (Gilligan, Breaking Bad creator) wanted to turn this guy from Mr. Chips to Scarface, I thought, well, you don't just go from A to Z. There are steps. And in order to justifiably turn this guy, we have to witness and experience these steps."
As Season 4 of Breaking Bad ended (spoiler alert: up-to-date plot points are discussed in the following paragraphs), Walt had just engineered the stunning and violent removal of drug-lord Gustavo "Gus" Fring, played by Giancarlo Esposito. The things Walt did to achieve this, including endangering the life of an innocent child, were chilling.
So now what happens? With his cancer currently in remission, will Walt retreat to the safety of his former existence? Or, keeping in mind the economic factors at play, does Walt have the desire -- and more importantly the guts -- to become the new Gus?
"Walt has just defeated the mastermind, he outwitted the champion," Cranston said. "Bobby Fischer just beat Boris Spassky.
"Instead of becoming a shrinking violet, Walt has puffed out his chest and is saying, 'You're damn right. Look what I just did. I'm a man, and I'm going to go out on my terms.' "
Early in the first episode of the new season, there's a soft but weighty verbal exchange between Walt and his wife Skyler, played by Anna Gunn.
Walt: "Are you going to show some sort of mild relief that I'm alive?"
Skyler: "I am relieved, Walt. And scared."
Walt: "Scared? Scared of what?"
Skyler: "You."
That, according to Cranston, is the realization at the heart of Breaking Bad.
"What I believe from playing Walter White is that any person is capable of being dangerous," Cranston said. "Look at where Walter came from. Soft, meek, put-upon, intimidated, worried, embarrassed, humiliated. Then the diagnosis, and for once he made a bold move.
"So say he had a chance to go back to the old Walt, when he was teacher Walt, depressed, looking into a sea of apathy with his students, but he can live another 20 years. Or, the next two years are going to be the most exciting he's ever had at any time, and he comes out on top for two years, and he really lives it. What would you do?
"Hmmm, I don't know. It's not so clear-cut."
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2One more day! Who is excited?
