At Slate, Haider Javed Warraich writes about how awesome "Breaking Bad" is from the perspective of a guy who's a practicing resident in internal medicine at Harvard.
"If Walt had received aggressive social support early on," asks Warraich, "Would it have helped him cope better with his diagnosis and averted his foray into the 'empire business'?"
"Cancer, in Breaking Bad as in modern life, is a metaphor as well as a disease," he writes. "Breaking Bad is one of the best televised depictions of cancer the metaphor (the cancer of evil, drugs, betrayal, and greed) and easily the best depiction of cancer the disease. "
I'm going to ponder all of that during my next "cook." No, but seriously, I'm a little pissed off reading this piece because it's pretty close to the piece I keep meaning to write but haven't gotten around to: how I feel about the show as a cancer patient. The tl;dr: it's fiction, and it stretches reality in service of a thrilling narrative, but so much of it rings true in ways "medical dramas" generally don't. And even my chemo nurses know what a fan I am.
Photo: Xeni as Breaking Bad's "Uncle Ringding," aka Hector "Tio" Salamanca, during a chemotherapy infusion.
While you're at it, catch up on Boing Boing's episode recaps here.
Related: below, the Canada meme.
