TV SHOWS

Clash of the Titans: Breaking Bad’s Walter White vs Ozark’s Marty Byrde

Let the conquest begin

Breaking Bad was the best thing that happened to me when I started watching it, it had a very slow pace of movement in the narrative in real-time, but within that time hidden intentions were operating inside the narrative. Breaking Bad had one of the best character arcs out of all shows that I have seen, everything came full circle at the end of this amazing show. Breaking Bad was so good that even after so many years of its release no one show could rival it in terms of being better holistically as a crime drama/thriller TV show.

The similar trajectories

Ozark is a recent Netflix release that ran till 2022 but with a paltry 4 seasons. Though it was short, Jason Bateman’s character arc was supported by Laurah Linney or Wendy Byrde, his wife acting sort of Jason or Marty’s Jessie Pinkman being one of the deuteragonists took the acting to greater heights and her erratic and layered nature thickened the plot. Jessie was very supportive of Walter White, he was an arrogant kid who wanted to rebel and was impulsive but never really had any hidden intentions. He was open as a book. Wendy on the other hand was complex, she was a mix of both Skylar Grey (Walter's wife in Breaking Bad) and also acted as a lending hand and aide for Marty Byrde, her husband in his quest to land in the underworld’s underbelly, money laundering and drugs.

Meth and money laundering

As Marty’s problems with the drug cartel started with money laundering, and one of his friends dying on the spot because of a cash discrepancy in the hands of a Drug Lord, Walter was unhappy about his life and wanted to live before he died. His previous girlfriend/fiance stole his brainchild when he worked at a Chemistry lab and patented a million-dollar product but he was sidelined and he ended up as a school teacher of Chemistry. When he came to know he had cancer and in a methylamphetamine or meth drug bust episode with his DEA detective brother-in-law Hank he finally found a way to make money. I would say he gave life a chance. He was unfolding as this depraved man willing to assert and seek revenge from the world. With time, he got crazy neurotic and drunk in power. He became manipulative, and an easy killer and the one who had taken down many drug lords including Tuco one of the Salamancas and also the kingpin of their contender Gus Fring who owned a Fried Chicken restaurant chain called Los Pollos Hermanos in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The better halves

Ozark also had a similar trajectory but Marty Byrde was never a character that was as grand as Walter White. Wendy was going in that direction but her transition was more internal, she was getting vicious, even toeing the line against her husband Marty and trying to run kingpins in her way. It can be known easily through her wanting to enter the political scene seeking funding and backing of many corporate tycoons. Unlike Skylar who went berserk and was nervous most of the time trying to cover up Walter’s actions in front of her sister and brother-in-law and behaving exponentially rudely with him especially when he was done being meek. Wendy’s troubled past with her father and how that unfurled in the last episodes of the show and how for her choices her father called her a slut and wanted to take her children away from her, exposing how vulnerable Wendy was. She was with someone else, and Marty through a private detective’s assistance through a hidden camera recording watched her have sexual relations with a random person and engage in acts that she would never allow her husband to act on, and this was a catalyst in understanding how complex her internal conundrums were.

Her greed and lust for power and the most abhorrent act of killing her own brother though Marty was the one who subtly suggested to her and her brother being bipolar made her kids and family susceptible to violence. Marty, in this case, wanted out, but for some reason, he never got out, he formed meaningful relationships as well and he learned the art of surviving and of all he was laundering Wizard while Walter was a Methylphetamine wizard. Marty had Ruth as his aide who had shades of both Jessie and Saul of Breaking Bad.

The paradoxical fatherhood

Ruth was as vulnerable as Jessie was. The commitment tended to always shift towards both the character’s families when the testing tides came in. Walter used a highly potent drug on Jessie or Aaron Paul’s girlfriend’s son Brock despite him going the extra mile for Jessie showing his fatherly instincts. Jessie however wanted out and he was willing to quit everything and go and have a new identity. But after discovering this he goes out to find Walter White, what transverse after is a nightmare and things go down slipping how Jack came in Todd’s uncle, enslaved Jessie killed his former girlfriend Angela Brock’s mother to break his spirit as he was fighting to storm out later. After this Jack took all of Walt’s money and killed Hank the DEA agent who came to know Walter’s secrets.

In Ozark, Marty too acted as a father figure to Ruth. He let her shed her vulnerable self onto him. She was too impulsive and threatened to kill Marty like Jessie did with Walter, she was honest, blunt and very ferocious. She also had that arrogant, adamant nature where she does not give a damn who it is, and goes in on it and does her thing, accomplishes her intent and then Marty has to take care of it. Until Ozark’s end, Marty was fighting for her but Ozark ended on such a different note that made this show poles apart from Breaking Bad. Unlike Walter who somehow protected Jessie until the end, but then Jessielanded on Jack’s hand. Walter came in to seek revenge and killed all of Jack’s men saving Jessie in a way and dying fulfilling his thrill and doing.

The man in the frame

Bryan Cranston as an actor took Walter to amazing heights with his quirky nature, larger-than-life projection, and dynamism and sneakiness he had in his role. Marty on the other hand is a subtle, gloomy, practical and centered character in the story. He never lost it, while Walter was riding in power until the end where he ended up alone in a remote snow desert inside a hut with someone supplying him news paper. But regardless he came back and got his ex-fiance and her husband to donate his remaining drug money somehow to his son threatening them of shooting and also killing Jack and his gang freeing Jessie and dying looking at his meth-making appliances. He also gave that satisfaction and relief when he told his wife that he did all these criminal acts for himself to his wife Skylar when he came to see his daughter at a time when the cops were on a hunt to get him. He died happy and he admitted his faults and died from his cancer and not any wound.

But Marty’s life has swivelled up and narrowed as it already was, he ends up giving away Ruth to Javi’s mother who was seething in rage over who killed Javi, and then his son Jonah shoots the private detective Wendy’s father hired to find his son Ben who was missing (same brother Wendy ordered the cartel to kill who had bipolar disorder putting her family in danger), it was a step backwards because Jonah until then was extremely disappointed with his parents after knowing what happened to Uncle Ben. Ozark ended in concluding that crime is a looping continuity and it is generational also Marty is repellant to his acts but still doing it. While Walter White did his thing and also performed his justice then died in peace at the last, accepting he did everything for himself. As much as Ozark is known to be underrated which I think it is it did not do justice in developing its multi-faceted characterisation in the show's characters.

The final verdict

To share a side with a show like Breaking Bad is a big deal, and as good Ozark is with its spine-chilling cold cinematography and Wendy’s viciousness, it is by a long shot not as good as Breaking Bad and the same goes for its main male characters. However, Jason Bateman as ‘Marty Byrde’, Laurah Linney as ‘Wendy Byrde’, and Julia Garner as ‘Ruth Langmore’s’ performances were impressive. And, I can tell for sure they are at par with the performances of Breaking Bad including Aaron Paul as ‘Jesse Pinkman’ and Bob Odenkirk as ‘Saul Goodman’ or ‘Jimmy’ from Better Call Saul.

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