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Is This Show Our Best Hope For An Heir To 'Breaking Bad'?

By Joanna Robinson | TV | October 3, 2013 |

By Joanna Robinson | TV | October 3, 2013 |


FX’s The Bridge wrapped up its first season last night and okay, I admit it, I was very wrong. So very wrong. This show ended on a high note with three gangbuster episodes back to back. I am intrigued. I am impressed. I am aghast.

And though the show didn’t fall into the same trap as The Killing, the major case was wrapped up by season’s end, there are enough cliffhangers and loose ends to make me doubly impatient for next summer. So here’s my reccomendation. Give it a whirl. It’s a slow burn but well worth it. I can’t speak to the Danish/Swedish version but, heck, give that a whirl while you’re at it. It has to be at least as good and I’m sure it’s probably better.

As for my claim that it could be a successful heir to Breaking Bad? If you think back to the first season of Vince Gilligan’s much beloved show, it wasn’t quite yet what it became. The symbolism, the imagery and the literary qualities hadn’t taken root. I’d argue that by the end of Season 1 of The Bridge, we’re closer to what made Breaking Bad so great. I won’t spoil the plot of the show for those of you who need to catch up. (You only have 9 months, hurry!) But we got an excellent Gilligan-esque montage of illicit criminal activity set to, oh yes, a mariachi version of “Living On A Prayer.” And our hero, Marco Ruiz, played by the amazing Demian Bichir, finds himself in front of a huge roaring fire striking a devil’s bargain with, who else, “Fausto.”

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The plot of next season looks to be focusing on the “missing girls of Juarez” and I wish I could share the Dia De Los Muertos-inspired promo for Season 2. But it doesn’t appear to be online. The images of young girls in every day situations with sugar skull masks painted on their faces? Chilling. Surreal. I’m all in.