Breaking Bad: The Purple Bandit
In addition to being the best acted, best looking, and most brutally intense drama on television, Breaking Bad has kept up its reputation as the most addictive show still airing for how brilliantly plotted each season has been. Whether going in with a meticulous schedule of events, or free-styling to see what diamonds come out of the pressure, the writers have always found a way to make nearly every element of the Breaking Bad story important to Walter White’s journey from hapless chemistry teacher, to cancer survivor with a stranglehold on New Mexico’s meth trade.
Now, any tangent from a story this good is going to look like chaff, so while not empirically bad, Marie’s subplot as an uncontrollable klepto has always stuck out as unnecessary, rearing its head every season or so when it seemed like an episode was coming in under time. Granted, the forays into suburban theft have always been so brief and infrequent so as to not to be overly detracting from your enjoyment, but even the slightest slackening on a show this tightly wound can feel like a huge drag.
Introducing the plotline early in the show’s run limited Betsy Brant’s performance to that of a bitter housewife with a secret passion, but she quickly outgrew the role and developed into one of Breaking Bad’s secret weapons. As the title suggests, Walter White is just a litmus test for how any seemingly normal person can stray from the path of decency when backed into a corner, but Marie’s pathological stealing habit has always felt like a vestigial element that the show never outgrew.
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