The episode that opens the most faithfully HBO show that isn't broadcast on HBO begins with the birthday party of Walter White, a boring chemistry teacher from Albuquerque (New Mexico) with a laconic thoughtful character and a suspiciously similar appearance to Ned Flanders's. Immediately we see how, in spite of being a a celebration in his honor, he's a brother-in-law of Hank Schrader, who becomes the center of attention. An agent of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration), chatty and swaggering, who doesn't miss the chance to boast about the weapon he owns and about the drug dealers he detains. All man of action —he got "couhounes", as they frequently say on the O.V.— next to whom Walter seems to feel hung-up, like a nerd with no charisma or bravery.
But both characters' following evolution shows us Hank —in spite of his supporting role— as the leading role's true alter ego. Both of them experience a similar change, but in the opposite sense. This way, once Walter is informed that he will die of cancer, a transformation begins deep inside of him: on coming to terms with the certainty that he's going to die he'll be scared to nothing any longer. And that will make him capable of everything, even of getting into drug business.
His brother-in-law, to the contrary, after surviving death several times, will lose the certainty of his invulnerability and that will lead him to a halting fear, with more and more frequent panic attacks. Even though after the first gunfire he endures (in the ending of a simply superb episode) he gets the nerve and enjoys all his office's admiration, as much the peculiar bomb whose blast he survives as the following murder attempt will end up eroding his spirit and making him fall into the "fighting fatigue".
Psychiatrist Luis Rojas Marcos says that we all have a limit for the number of calamities we can bear and that such extended tendency that the more we suffer, the tougher we'll become, is senseless. Life's blows make us mature and grow up, yes, but only the first ones. Because, by gathering, they finally end up beating us down. Or as Houellebecq would say, "ce qui ne me tue pas m'affaiblit". It's what ends up happening to good old Hank, a character initially supplied with an infectious joy of living but who is becoming more and more fragile and gloomy, and whose poignancy (in the best sense of the word) is still more intense to the spectator who knows what he does not: the family that supports him and makes sense of his life becomes part of that thing against which he fights and that almost kills him.
*The actor who performs him, Dean Norris, is the alien mutant with a big scar on his face from Total recall.
But both characters' following evolution shows us Hank —in spite of his supporting role— as the leading role's true alter ego. Both of them experience a similar change, but in the opposite sense. This way, once Walter is informed that he will die of cancer, a transformation begins deep inside of him: on coming to terms with the certainty that he's going to die he'll be scared to nothing any longer. And that will make him capable of everything, even of getting into drug business.
His brother-in-law, to the contrary, after surviving death several times, will lose the certainty of his invulnerability and that will lead him to a halting fear, with more and more frequent panic attacks. Even though after the first gunfire he endures (in the ending of a simply superb episode) he gets the nerve and enjoys all his office's admiration, as much the peculiar bomb whose blast he survives as the following murder attempt will end up eroding his spirit and making him fall into the "fighting fatigue".
Psychiatrist Luis Rojas Marcos says that we all have a limit for the number of calamities we can bear and that such extended tendency that the more we suffer, the tougher we'll become, is senseless. Life's blows make us mature and grow up, yes, but only the first ones. Because, by gathering, they finally end up beating us down. Or as Houellebecq would say, "ce qui ne me tue pas m'affaiblit". It's what ends up happening to good old Hank, a character initially supplied with an infectious joy of living but who is becoming more and more fragile and gloomy, and whose poignancy (in the best sense of the word) is still more intense to the spectator who knows what he does not: the family that supports him and makes sense of his life becomes part of that thing against which he fights and that almost kills him.
*The actor who performs him, Dean Norris, is the alien mutant with a big scar on his face from Total recall.
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