I’m missing good TV right now. I’m REALLY missing the best show of all time that we had the good fortune of watching (that also happened to have a MAJOR Native influence—coincidence??): Breaking Bad. See, some Natives have this conspiracy theory that TV executives WILL NOT show fair/realistic/respectful images of Natives. Not true. TV executives will show ANYTHING that makes money; if we can show a compelling story that captures the public’s curiosity and, most importantly, MAKES MONEY, they will support it.

The way that Breaking Bad did.

WHY AM I TELLING YOU THIS?

Breaking Bad was historic and amazing for a couple of reasons. Number one, the show was simply the hottest freakin’ show ever. Number two, its individual episodic budgets were astronomical—like movies. But for our purposes, it was historical because here was this MAJOR big ticket show that had a backdrop of Indian Country and Native characters in a lot of the episodes. Almost as amazingly, that nobody on the show REALLY CARED about them being Native or not. No, those poor Native saps on Breaking Bad were just another person on the show who died a horrible death (because everybody died a horrible death on the show), not because they were Native, but just because.

Imagine that—Native people who were just “people.” They didn’t have to wear tons of turquoise or earrings or “represent.” They didn't have to. They just lived. And died. And got murdered. And got arrested. Beautifully. Like everyone else in Breaking Bad.