My personal opinion on Metástasis (some random thoughts)

I'm going to get a ton of flack for this, but I don't think it's THAT bad of a show. Are there flaws and issues? Yeah. Is it completely unwatchable drivel that is a carbon copy of the original? No, not entirely. There are complete composite shots that are almost stolen directly from the original and some cultural differences that are obviously lost on me, but there are some positives.

I'm not a Walter Blanco fan. I think he started off as a smug, insufferable, unlikable man who just gets worse as the show goes on instead of that "Mr. Chips becomes Scarface" concept. He tends to resemble a cosplay Walter White more than the actual Walter White. Bless his heart, he's doing his best. The actor wanted to be Bryan Cranston so badly and it comes across as someone doing an impression instead of bringing his own interpretation to the show.

I LOVED the actress playing Cielo/Skyler. She really sold me on the character and made her incredibly sympathetic! I don't have the vitriolic hatred that most seem to have for Skyler, but she's not my favorite character by any stretch. I kind of see her as a modern Lady Macbeth. She really came off as more compassionate than Skyler. Her manipulation from Walter comes across as much easier to buy than with Skyler. She isn't this pillar of feminine strength like Skyler is, but she seems to have more of that Mamma Bear "come near my family and I'll rip your arm off" than Skyler did. Even at that point where her fear of him was at it's highest, she still has some level of affection for him.

Jose/Jesse is way more emotional than Aaron Paul - not necessarily a good thing if your a reddit user who thought Jesse was too emotional as it is - but I completely bought him as a meth addict going through withdrawals way more than I did the gentle, baby faced Paul. He also seemed to show a strong interest in chemistry and learning more about science than Pinkman did. He comes across as an extremely intelligent kid who just fell in with the wrong crowd, not being able to see his own potential. I mean, by the end of it, this guy knew enough to probably get his own degree. I don't have the emotional attachment to Jose that I did with Jesse, but he's a very interesting character in his own way. He's probably the one actor who really decided to go against the original characterization, apart from Cielo/Skyler and Henry/Hank. He definitely went the furthest. The first few episodes felt sort of like he was trying to go the Aaron Paul route and then decided, "The Hell with it. I can't be him so I won't."

Henry/Hank came across a bit weaker. Not as an actor, but he let Henry be a little more vulnerable and more openly emotional than Hank. I did miss that swagger, that machismo that Hank had! I didn't miss the really racism. That was a refreshing absence.

The Blanco family dynamic was very different in Metastasis, but in a good way. You could really feel the love in that family. With 'Breaking Bad' I always felt a little awkward watching scenes with the White family since it usually was more of an archetype of a family instead of what a real family is like. The group's chemistry with each other was very strong and very believable, especially between Walter and Jr.

The relationship between Walter and Jose definitely lacked that spark that Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul had. To be fair the entire series was filmed in one fell swoop instead of the 6 seasons that the original had, but that was one facet that definitely bummed me out. That whole dynamic was really one of my favorite aspects of the original.

One thing I enjoyed (?) was that the drug users on this show looked like they literally pulled a group of meth users off of the street and gave them a script. Google image search "Mono and Tripa Seca Metastasis". I'll wait.

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THAT is what a meth user should look like.

The Gus and Saul were pretty bad. Saul was a bit better than the Gus here, but only just. A lot of what made Giancarlo Esposito's performance so wonderful was that you have this affable, smiling man that you have no clue has been responsible for some heinous crimes. It's so unsettling because you didn't know what he was capable of behind that smile or how far he was willing to go. The second Gus shows up here, you know immediately something is up with this man, and that would be if you were going into it without ever having seen the original. This guy might as well have some lady tied to a set of train tracks while twirling his mustache and laughing maniacally. On top of that, he's about as threatening as a 5 year old with a super soaker.

The subtitles are lacking, especially when my very limited knowledge of the language made me realize that they were REALLY off.

Vince Gilligan's name is all over this thing so I'm assuming he gave some form of a blessing to the crew. Same has to go for Dave Porter. The opening credits are a pretty hilarious rip off/homage to Breaking Bad's theme. The actual BrBa theme pops up in a few episodes every once in a while and it's usually at some inappropriate moment that makes it unintentionally hilarious. The music department really slipped up.

Now that my nonsensical rambling is out of the way, on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give it a 6.5, maybe a 7. Keep in mind that I would give the original a 10. It really doesn't deserve all of the grief it's been getting. Give it a fair chance without any preconceived notions and keep an open mind. It's really worth a watch, especially since it is on Netflix right now.