590 ChaPter^11
brother-in-law found a book that linked him to the meth trade in his bath-
room.
Walter White still escaped the law and was on the run. Missing his fam-
ily and knowing his days were numbered, he returned to Albuquerque and
finally succumbed to the cancer. But in its 5 seasons, Breaking Bad provided
a profound and frightening education on American society. Watching it, one
could not avoid understanding how little teachers were paid, how ineffective
the health system could be, how people turned to drugs both to make a few
dollars or to escape the reality of their dismal lives, how crime pays, and how
the lure of money can make men do the most extreme things. As for Walter
White, he was—unlike Homer and even Tony Soprano and Don Draper—dif-
ficult, and at times impossible, to like or to feel sympathy for. Still, he was
perhaps the most bleak symbol of how the American Dream had gone wrong.
It was “just” a TV show, like the others, but life in the United States now
included many of the same conditions and events that were being shown on
these series for years. Homer Simpon and Walter White, among others, were
fictional characters, but their problems represented the real tragedies facing
George Bush, Barack Obama, and hundreds of millions of Americans. Almost
a century-and-half since Reconstruction, the reality, and conflicts, of Power
and People still resonated throughout the United States.