Arts: Breaking Bad Season 5

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Tv Club Breaking Bad Season 5 Lots of great parenting advice this episode! By June Thomas Posted Monday, Aug 13, 2012, at 10:07 AM ET This was an episode about helicopter parenting, right? Well, maybe not, though it was obsessed with the question of how much freedom we should allow our children. My first thought when we encountered the boy on the bike was that he was driving recklessly—he's out there, alone, in a communications dead zone, taking risks with no one to protect him. Yes, he was wearing a helmet—the stripes on it reminded me of the stripe on the hood of Walter Jr.'s muscle car—but if he took a spill off-road in the desert, that wouldn't save him. Walter Jr., meanwhile, is in the throes of adolescent rebellion—he's using the name Flynn again, and he's isolating himself from his family and friends. And it's all because, as Hank—excuse me ASAC Schrader—says, "His parents treat him like a baby." Surely there's a happy medium between tooling around the desert unsupervised and hiding in your room? One thing that kind of bothered me about this episode was everyone's sudden acquisition of extraordinarily specific skills. Jesse is now well-versed in wireless wiretapping technology? (And shouldn't they have someone listening to that feed? Lester Freamon and "Prez" Pryzbylewski spent untold hours in headphones before they got the goods on The Wire.) Jesse and Todd suddenly know how to do all that coupling and uncoupling in incredibly stressful conditions? I do, however, buy that Walt is able to figure out braking distances and ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate What's the Difference Between the 1992 and 2012 Dream Teams? Kevin Durant and LeBron James Played Tougher Competition. Taco Bell's Sophisticated Side The Longform Guide to Talk Radio	Advertisement
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