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[John Dule]

I'm not convinced that Christians just want to see more Christians on TV. Rather, they want to see Christians portrayed on TV in a positive light. Modern TV shows (like Breaking Bad) are about exploring the moral assumptions we make about ourselves, and are often skeptical of objective morality. If a major Christian character were included in Breaking Bad, the show would have to make a choice about whether to portray that character trait positively or negatively. But we've already seen how the show portrays characters who purport themselves to be guided by strict moral compasses. The mustachioed twerp in this clip repeatedly espoused quasi-religious messages of forgiveness, but all this does is make him look hopelessly naive in the show's world.

Simply put, it would be hard for a show like Breaking Bad to portray Christians in a positive light, and even if it did, then it would come across like it was shilling for Christianity. So the answer is to just not address it at all (not explicitly, at least). And quite frankly, putting a Christian character in the show who actually acts morally would ruin the entire point of the series.

[John Dule]

I'm not convinced that Christians just want to see more Christians on TV. Rather, they want to see Christians portrayed on TV in a positive light. Modern TV shows (like Breaking Bad) are about exploring the moral assumptions we make about ourselves, and are often skeptical of objective morality. If a major Christian character were included in Breaking Bad, the show would have to make a choice about whether to portray that character trait positively or negatively. But we've already seen how the show portrays characters who purport themselves to be guided by strict moral compasses. The mustachioed twerp in this clip repeatedly espoused quasi-religious messages of forgiveness, but all this does is make him look hopelessly naive in the show's world.

Simply put, it would be hard for a show like Breaking Bad to portray Christians in a positive light, and even if it did, then it would come across like it was shilling for Christianity. So the answer is to just not address it at all (not explicitly, at least). And quite frankly, putting a Christian character in the show who actually acts morally would ruin the entire point of the series.

David Chase likes to describe The Sopranos as a show about the country becoming so individualistic and self-centered that "even the mob can't take it anymore." This characterization holds up more generally: The early prestige dramas about male anti-heros are all shows about the growing selfishness of the post-war United States driving men crazy, along with the people who depend on them.

The funny thing about Jesse's experience with therapy is that it's an inversion of the "you can't say that you have never been told" scene with Carmela that I posted earlier. My viewing doesn't exactly mesh with yours here: The support group isn't ridiculous because it's "quasi-religious," it's ridiculous because its therapeutic relativism offers no moral framework at all.

There is a sense of right and wrong at Jesse's core, and every time Walt crosses a new line without feeling guilt, it's Jesse's absolutism that becomes the more central source of tension of the series. This makes the show perfectly amenable to religious interpretation despite its lack of focus on explicitly religious content.

I also can't help noting that The Wire repeatedly presents support groups in a much more positive light, and that it's important that there isn't some mealy-mouthed pseudo-clinician present to delude people into believing that self-acceptance means that there is no content to their choices. It's also significant that, on that show, these groups almost always meet in churches.

All of which is to say that I think what I'm describing has more to do with difficulty depicting religion in these series than in recognizing it in interpretation. None of the best shows on television are shy about using religious symbolism and there's a lot that would be difficult to make sense of thematically to someone ignorant of this country's major religious traditions.

I wasn't really clear with that post. My point is that whenever a character in Breaking Bad has a moral code of some sort, it's almost always violated, degraded, or brought into a situation in which it's clearly not applicable. If an explicitly Christian character were placed in the Breaking Bad world, their faith would have to be tested (and likely broken) in order for the show to maintain its cynicism and edge. I sincerely doubt Christians would actually like the results of seeing themselves reflected in that kind of show.

That said, BB does have some subtle Christian imagery (Jesse as a carpenter who "rises from the dead" at the end, for example).

[John Dule]

Why is it so rare to find complex depictions of religious characters and stories that take religion seriously?

Because this would appeal to a very niche audience, and there's no reason for TV producers to purposefully put themselves in this kind of corner.

Most Americans are religious. And there's no reason to assume that nonreligious people wouldn't be interested in such stories.

Many Americans who self-id as Christian don't go to church and don't really pray, which was my larger point. I just have a hard time imaging this kind of thing working as part of the TV show unless religion was like, part of the premise itself.

Yeah, most Americans would probably call themselves "religious / spiritual," but would have a hard time describing what that means or articulating how it affects their daily lives.