Media Studies - TV Drama Sequence

Media Studies – TV Drama Sequence

The television scene I will be analysing is Gustavo Fring’s death from the series “Breaking Bad” that aired on the AMC Network and how it creates an effect on the audience/viewers themselves.

At the beginning of the sequence we see the character Gus waiting in a car wearing a suit (which reveals to the audience that he is clearly a businessman of some sort and is classy due to car he was driven in as well) before deciding to walk up to a care home and silently murder Hector Salamanca due to the belief that Hector told the DEA about Gus’ drug operations. During this part the camera zooms in on the character’s face which lets us see and feel the emotions that he possesses which to the audience would reveal the idea that that maybe Gus is angry and serious about Hector’s actions. While Gus is getting out of the car walking towards the home, slow paced music begins to play as the tempo gradually rises in order to reinforce the emotions in Gus’ face while building suspense in the audience’s eyes (keeping them on the edge of their seat) as to what Gus is going to do next. The way the music is played could also give the audience the idea that this may be the last time we see Gus’ character or that this is Gus’ “last stand”.

 

During the section where he’s in Hector’s room, we see that Gus’ facial expression seems to be even more serious now that he’s in the same room as Hector revealing to the audience that he obviously has a very deep and severe hatred towards the character of Hector - something Hector also clearly feels towards him due to anger in Hector’s face later on. We can also tell as viewers that the “Hector” character is in a very vulnerable state from the fact that he’s in a wheelchair, lives in a care home and is unable to talk. This makes us feel sympathy towards him due to the fact that he’s unable to look after himself while Gus calls him a “crippled little rata” right before he’s about lethally inject him. During this part, we see the fear in Hector’s face transform into anger while Gus’s expression changes into shock revealing to us that maybe Gus is in for more than he bargained for as Hector begins to rapidly ring his bell which triggers a bomb attached to his wheelchair killing Gus, Hector and Gus’ right hand man. As Gus walks out of the room it makes the audience contemplate that surely he cannot possess this amount of power to be able to survive an explosion as we see that the right side of his body has been blown off. Right before he collapses, Gus’ performs his signature move by adjusting his suit as a way of telling the audience that his time is done while also creating the idea that he knew he’d finally been beaten.