Badass is what it is

2017

It was the second year of my college life.

Anna University was, is and will be the shittiest university of all time in India. Even gruesome, I pursued my engineering degree in a college that was affiliated to that University.

They have this crazy syllabus schedule.

On the contrary, the exams will be super easy.

YES!

We just had to fill the 42 pages length of Answer sheet booklet. It is that simple. Naturally, we tend to be a little, to be frank, a lot more, lethargic during our exam days.

My degree was in Computer Science.

And in the second year, they taught us only the basics of CS subjects like DBMS, MS etcetera.

Basically, you don’t need to write 2-page length programs to pass the final exam. You had to be a little more creative to clear the semester.

And as once a great man told. TO BE CREATIVE, WATCH MOVIES.

Anna University decided to provide a lot of study holidays for our fourth semester. I don’t know-how study and holidays go together but as I said before Anna University mofos are dumb AF.

We used their dumbness to our advantage. Instead of studying for exams, we started harnessing our skills on those holidays.

SERIES OR EXAMS: AN EASY DILEMMA

I don’t know the paper exactly, but I guess it was Operating Systems. We had a huge book to study and AU assholes had decided to give us a lot of time to prepare for the paper. We had like nearly 1 week of STUDY holidays.

I decided to watch Breaking Bad on those holidays. Long Back during my high school, I had watched the first episode of BB and frankly, I didn’t like it. I only remembered the last sex scene from episode 1 of BB. Nothing else. So, in a whim, without any expectations, I started watching it.

And I never stopped.

Literally.

As each season progressed, I was never even watching the the show, I was in trance because of this show.

TV shows are all about characters. If you don’t feel like rooting for even a single character of the show, you are watching, then the show is not worth your time.

One such character was Walter White.

Heisenberg

The great thing about this show is it is a Drama. Watching this show will bring a lot of emotions. Emotions of such kind are brought only by exaggerating things like in Kollywood commercial movies.

And that’s what I have been thinking until I watched BB.

FAST FORWARD TO THE FUTURE

2020

April

After 2 weeks of Vampire action, I thought of taking a break. I heard La Casa De Papel’s new season was coming that weekend.

I had watched like the first 20 minutes of La Casa De Papel long time back and I skipped watching the rest of it. I dunno why I did it back then but I kinda regret doing that.

As soon as I completed the first episode of La Casa De Papel I was hooked. This was the second Spanish show I was watching. The first was Narcos. After the death of Pablo Escobar, I stopped watching it, but I heard that the later seasons were also equally good. I had to catch it sometime later.

Okay, that was off-topic.

The thing I wanted to say is I love hearing Spanish.

Again! I dunno why,

Hearing Spanish turns me on.

Okay, that was off-topic too.

The reason that hooked me up with this show was not the whole HEIST concept, not the language being sexy and surely not because of the hype it was creating.

It was the characters that interested me more.

LA CASA DE PAPEL/MONEY HEIST:

A criminal mastermind who goes by "The Professor" has a plan to pull off the biggest heist in recorded history -- to print billions of euros in the Royal Mint of Spain. To help him carry out the ambitious plan, he recruits eight people with certain abilities and who have nothing to lose. The group of thieves takes hostages to aid in their negotiations with the authorities, who strategize to come up with a way to capture The Professor. As more time elapses, the robbers prepare for a showdown with the police.

That’s a hooky synopsis.

The subjective screenplay is a hard one to do.

When a thriller movie achieves it, then it becomes an exceptional movie.

Great TV shows have great characterization. Cinema lovers will go crazy for their favorite TV characters. When we delve into the realm of characterization, two things come to mind.

Good Characters
Bad Characters

But In my POV, there is no such as a character being Good or Bad. It is about how well you connect with that character.

For example, there is a character in this show named Berlin. You hate him first then you love him, then you hate him.

And Eventually, you’ll love him.

It is like getting mood swings by watching the evolution of a character. The same thing happened with Walter White. When Walter White lets his partner’s, girlfriend die in her sleep, we all feel rage and a little bit disgusted. I mean, why would he do that. Walter White senses a threat to his partner’s girlfriend. If his partner falls in love with her, then that would lead to many complications as he and his partner were making meths AKA drugs. That is seriously sick but eventually, we forgive the character or accept him and his mistake and start rooting for him.

When I was going through these emotions, one can possibly guess that the key to characterization is not the moral view preserved by the character, but it is the empathy we as a viewer feel towards the character.

To put it simply, when I watch Heisenberg, I would feel like as if I was Heisenberg. Basically, I try to empathize with the character.

What if I was to make a decision?

If my decision agrees with the character, I would start rooting him.

And if my decision contradicts with the character, well, then it would start something in my mind where I would be left questioning myself and my personality. Everybody would have experienced this and that’s what makes the characters so much freaking awesome.

RELATIONSHIPS

Another fascinating thing about La Casa De Papel is that the relationships that were shown among the characters.

And I am not only talking about romantic relationships

but

also the father-and-son segment and also the Brother-to-Brother segment.

**NO SPOILER ALERT**

Okay. There were many deaths in the 4 seasons of this show.

But there was this one death that affected me the most. I am not going to tell who it is but the way it showcased... Huh… Thinking about it makes my eyes sweat.

**OKAY MILD SPOILER ALERT – THE CHARACTER IS A MALE**

The character knows he is going to die and on the verge of his death he starts imaging things. His whole attire reminded me of the characters that Mario Puzo had written.

BTW Mario Puzo is the author of The Godfather.

I couldn’t able to get rid of that vibe. Even he felt like Italian. Mario Puzo’s style of portraying a character involves sarcasm in a badass manner. Those who read Vito Corleone must have known that feeling.

There’s a coolness to this character yet he was so wrong. He accepts his sins and he knows he is going to die soon. That realization makes him numb. He is just going to enjoy his final moments cracking up jokes and not letting anyone take pity on him. Then he dies. For one moment, you forget about him being on the bad side, him being the bad guy.

You remember a great father.

you remember a great husband.

And you remember a great human being who faces death and takes it with his heart content.

“Thieves are incurable optimists”

CAN’T WAIT FOR THE NEXT SEASON

Like all the great shows, we can’t able to accept the fact that it was ending. It was worse when it is an ongoing TV show and it was even worse when the latest season ends with a cliff-hanger.

So, I can’t wait to watch the next season. Reality is a cruel son of a bitch and these were the moments, we had to face that son of a bitch. Henceforth I am waiting for season 5 of La Casa De Papel.

This Corona Pandemic might delay the airing of the next season. Keeping my fingers crossed and let nature takes its course.

POSTSCRIPT:

My favorite character of this TV show is Agustín Ramos. 😎

ANOTHER POSTSCRIPT:

Meh! I love all the other characters.