📺 Just finished Breaking Bad, years after everyone else

For years I nodded along whenever someone mentioned Breaking Bad at lunch. I had no idea what they meant. Then I had a dead week at work, nothing due, and I started from episode 1 on a Monday night. I finished the whole thing in about 3 weeks. Most nights I watched 2 episodes, some nights 4. My eyes were red by the end of week 2 and I didn't care. I think I watched it better as an adult than I would have as a teenager. The main character's slow change made me uncomfortable in a way I didn't expect. I kept thinking, I would've cheered for him at 17. Now I just wanted somebody to stop him. Don't know if that makes me old or wiser. Probably old. My partner saw it years ago. She sat next to me for half the episodes with a very fixed face. Before every big scene her mouth would twitch. I started pausing just to watch her try not to talk. Twice she said, oh, you'll see, and then clapped a hand over her own mouth. By the last week I was telling her to leave the room and she refused. Some episodes felt slow while I was in them, then paid off 3 episodes later. I don't get that with new shows. They hurry to the next twist like they're late for something. Now I'm in the strange spot where I finished something huge and nobody wants to talk about it. Everyone I know moved on years ago. If you came this late, how did you find someone to talk to?

Your partner's face giving it away made me laugh. My sister does exactly the same thing to me. Whenever I catch up on something she's already seen, she gets this look right before the big scene. It gives away more than any spoiler could. I've started watching her instead of the screen. She has never once stayed quiet through a full episode while I'm sitting next to her.

Same thing happened to me with The Wire a couple of years ago. Everyone had moved on. I kept catching small spoilers in casual chats before I finished it. Then I found an old college friend who had never watched it either, which felt like a small miracle. We did a slow parallel rewatch over messages and the late start felt less lonely.