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Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: May 24, 2009
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: Breaking Bad, “Phoenix” (Season 2, Episode 12) [Stream on Netflix]
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: Breaking Bad went through a good bit of an evolution through its second season. Not that the show radically changed the direction that Vince Gilligan was headed in or anything, but after the strike-shortened first season, Breaking Bad was falling well short of the Mad Men standard that AMC was likely looking for. It was season 2 that brought Breaking Bad into its own. It humanized Jesse Pinkman, for one, bringing him out of his one-dimensional ghetto-wannabe character and into a boy that bordered on sweet and likeable. A big part of that was his meeting Jane, played by a pre-Jessica Jones (and pre-Don’t Trust the B in Apartment 23) Krysten Ritter. Jesse and Jane’s tentative, drug-addicted, but ultimately rewarding relationship brought Jesse out of a downward spiral and made him start to think his life could amount to more than just slinging around that blue meth.
Of course, season 2 was where the dark pathology of Walter White really started to assert itself. After the first season, this was still very much the story of a good man who got caught up in the meth business to make ends meet. This was Weeds with tighty-whities. But as season 2 progressed, we got a better look at Walter White and why he wasn’t going to give up the sense of power he suddenly felt as the mysterious Heisenberg. So when Jane pressed Jesse to give up the business, take his fair share of the profits, and cash out, Walt knew that sense of power was going to take a hit. Unless he did something about it. “Phoenix” was the first episode that really showed what lengths Walter would go to to preserve his business (and thus his newfound sense of self). Watching Jane choke on her own vomit and die was a shocking moment for first-time viewers of Breaking Bad, not only because Jane was a character we knew and loved, but because one of Walt’s redeeming qualities was his (sometimes reluctant) fondness for Jesse. That he could allow something so devastating to happen to this kid was our first big sign that Walter White was a bad person. A bad man. A man with bad, selfish intentions towards the people he loved.
Breaking Bad leveled up in this episode, becoming something darker, deeper, closer to the inky black depths of human evil. In other words, Breaking Bad had really become Breaking Bad.
