Breaking Bad, Season 5, Episode 16 “Felina”

Wow. The final episode of this magnificent series is nothing short of a masterpiece. There are many reasons for its greatness, the first being that it neatly resolves all of the series’ plotlines, both longstanding and recent. In the end, Walt wins. He accomplishes most of his goals, or he does his best to see that they are carried out: he manufactures a way for Flynn to receive and even possibly accept the money Walt has left (even if he can ensure neither that Flynn will use it as Walt wishes, nor that its source will remain concealed)*; he settles scores with both Lydia and with the Aryans; he gets to say goodbye to his wife and daughter; he frees Jesse and makes a sort of peace with him; he dies on his own terms, and most importantly, he gets to keep what has always been most important to him - his reputation, and in turn, his pride. I’m sad Breaking Bad has to end, but an ending this rich and rewarding is worth much more than being unable to enjoy more new episodes.

Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 15, “Granite State”

I thought last week’s episode went about as far as Breaking Bad would go in destroying the lives of its characters, but the penultimate episode has proven me wrong, as this week, things fall to pieces even further: Walt must flee New Mexico and hide out in a cabin in New Hampshire; he loses what little connection he thought might still remain between himself and his family, as well as what little pride he had left in his accomplishments, and he also inadvertently invites into Skyler's life the threat of danger that so terrorized her when she first began to learn about Walt’s life as a meth cook.

Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 14, “Ozymandias”

Many points of no return are finally reached in this week’s amazing episode: Walt finally tells Jesse he watched Jane die; Skyler finally listens to her conscience and breaks with Walt; Walt Jr. finally finds out the truth about his dad; Walt finally gets found out by the greater law enforcement community, and he also finally has stripped away from him the last vestiges of the illusion that he can survive the consequences of his actions with his family intact. These were plot points I hoped and suspected that Breaking Bad would hit eventually, but despite the show’s excellent track record, I was still unprepared for how stellar (and devastatingly) they would be handled. This episode is unequivocally the best of the season so far, and perhaps the very best of the entire series.

Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 13, “To’hajiilee”

This whole final season (in fact, much of the entire series) is like a five or six-way chess game, with characters making moves and counter-moves and thinking three turns ahead. Or perhaps a better analogy is that Walt is playing multiple games of chess at once, like a Bobby Fischer prodigy: currently, Walt’s game with Skyler involves keeping her placated by containing Jesse’s rage; his game with Jesse has always involved manipulating Jesse into doing what Walt wants; his game with Hank revolves around not getting caught, and he put Hank in check two weeks ago with his false video confession. This week, Hank and Jesse are maneuvering the pieces to try to nail Walt with evidence, while Walt sets up a defense, trying to flush out Jesse by contacting Andrea and Brock. Walt’s play with Andrea is a good one, and probably would have worked too, but Hank has foreseen it, and has preemptively put Jesse’s communication with the world on lockdown, snuffing out the threat.

Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 12, "Rabid Dog"

This is a sad episode for Walt, possibly one of the saddest of the series, as it shows how thoroughly Walt has lost the trust of nearly everyone to whom he’s closest. He’s manipulated everyone so fully for so long that no one trusts him anymore, even when he’s being genuine. He’s a bizarro version of the boy who cried wolf (bizarro because in his case, the lie is that everything has been normal, rather than calamitous). Admittedly, Walt has been lying a lot lately, as evidenced by the song and dance he does for Skyler and Walt Jr. when he realizes he’ll be unable to completely hide Jesse’s break-in from them. He pours gas on his clothes, splashes it in his car, and then makes up a half-baked story about spilling gas on himself at a gas station. The story isn’t even good enough to fool Walt Jr., who senses Walt is lying, but doesn’t understand why (he thinks it’s to cover up for passing out again). Skyler sees right through the entire story, however, and when she forces Walt to tell her the truth, she encourages him to kill Jesse. Saul does the same thing earlier in the episode, and each time, Walt is shocked and dismayed by the suggestion.

Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 11, “Confessions”

Finally! Finally, Jesse the ticking time-bomb has been activated. It would not have been very satisfying for Jesse to have gone away quietly into the (Alaskan) night, never having learned what Walt did to Brock and/or Jane. Ever since we discovered Walt poisoned Brock (or ever since Walt let Jane die), Jesse’s discovery of Walt’s depravity has been like a shoe waiting to drop. While Jesse might be disillusioned with Walt, sick to death of Walt’s attempts to manipulate him, and strongly suspect that Walt killed Mike, Jesse still has not yet had a good enough excuse to turn on Walt, and certainly not a good enough reason to betray him to Hank, whom Jesse still loathes (Jesse has not, evidently, forgotten about the beating Hank gave him).

Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 10, “Buried”

Something this show excels at is creating dynamic, psychologically rich situations – the goals, intentions, beliefs, and emotions of each of the characters in many situations are strong and clear, which creates a lot of rich opportunities for us to infer what’s going on in the heads of the characters on an almost beat by beat basis (especially when the acting is this good). This is the case not only for one or two principle characters, but for most of the main characters on this show. For example, after Walt leaves Hank’s garage (amusingly shot like a western standoff, complete with twitching trigger fingers, but ending with the closing of a door rather than the drawing of a gun), they both immediately call Skyler, who is the linchpin in both men’s plans. For Hank, she’s a potential witness to Walt’s crimes, one who can provide crucial evidence. For Walt, she’s his confidant, money launderer, and a potential security risk. He needs to warn her that Hank knows he's Heisenberg, that she should not divulge anything to him, and that they will need to move their money. The great thing is that none of this information needs to be told to us explicitly – when Walt can’t get Skyler on the phone, and when he spots Hank in his rearview mirror, also talking on the phone, the two lock eyes, and we can infer it all.

Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 9, “Blood Money”

Breaking Bad show runner Vince Gilligan is smiling upon me, as he has granted the wish I made in my write-up of the half-season finale last year: I wanted to be able to see Hank’s extended reaction to his discovery of the book of Walt Whitman poetry upon leaving the bathroom. And indeed, this last half-season (almost) begins with that exact scene. Hank lumbers out of the bathroom, book of poetry in hand, his face a mix of shock and disbelief. He quickly makes up an excuse to get him and Marie out of the White household, and on the drive home, the shock and disbelief in his face becomes a mixture of disgust, humiliation, fear, and rage. It’s a nicely played scene by Dean Norris, who did great work throughout what ended up being a good Hank episode in general.

Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 8: “Gliding Over All”

“Gliding Over All” is a fairly calm and quiet episode to close out this half of the final season of the series. Overall, I found it somewhat lackluster, and while still a good hour of television, probably the weakest of the 8 episodes to air thus far. Given that we’re only halfway through this final season, I suppose I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up for a suspenseful climax like those Breaking Bad usually accomplishes. However, even by the standards of a typical episode of this show, this particular episode seems to coast along with very little eventful happening, outside of some developments near the end. But then again, perhaps that’s part of the point.

Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 7: “Say My Name”

Poor Mike. Mike knew something like this could happen; he could see it coming in the second episode of the season, when he referred to Walt as a ticking time bomb whom he wanted to be far away from when he exploded. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to realize that Walt’s fuse is best lit by a wounded pride. Or perhaps he realizes it, but thinks that he’s impervious to the blast if there are no cops around. Twice this episode, Walt expects Mike to thank him when the two are about to part ways: once for getting Mike his $5 million at the start of the episode, and then again at the end, for tipping Mike off that he is about to be arrested and for retrieving Mike’s “go” bag. In the first instance, Walt’s request for Mike’s thanks is somewhat insincere: both of them know there will be no love lost, and Walt is still high off of his impressive negotiation with Declan (more on that scene below). Mike simply stares at Walt with his mackerel eyes and reiterates the need for Walt to remove the bug from Hank’s office, and Walt smugly nods his head and walks away. At the end of the episode, however, things play out differently.

Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 6: “Buyout”

“When it comes down to it, are we in the meth business, or the money business?” Jesse asks Walt midway through this episode. It’s an apt question, one that points to a larger issue the show has dealt with from time to time: what is Walter White’s motivation to cook meth? On the surface, the answer to this question seems to keep changing: he wants to make enough money to pay for his cancer treatments; he wants to make enough money to provide for his family; he wants to cook because he takes pleasure in the excellence he brings to the craft; in Gus Fring’s steady employ, he’s able to make more money than he’s ever dreamed possible; he enjoys being Heisenberg too much to let go of it, and so on. However, as we’ve gotten to know Walt over the years, the answer is actually much more consistent: Walter White is a prideful man, and both his failures in his previous life and successes in this current one have stoked the fires of his pride into megalomania.

Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 5: “Dead Freight”

“Yes, I have children, so what? You think because we’re both parents that I won’t let my partner do what’s necessary?” Walt asks this of Lydia near the middle of the episode, when Lydia is trying - once again - to talk her way out of being murdered by Mike. Lydia wants Walt to swear that she won’t be killed after she divulges how they can steal an “ocean” of methylamine, and tries to prey on Walt’s sympathies as a parent. Little do we realize how prophetic these words will be at the episode’s end, when Walt stands by and watches, to his horror, as a partner shoots dead a little boy, doing what’s “necessary,” for the episode’s thrilling heist to come off without a hitch.

Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 4: “Fifty-One”

When this episode began with Walt picking up his Aztek from the mechanic, I thought to myself that show runner Vince Gilligan likes that car just as much as Benny the mechanic does, considering all of the paces it has been through over the seasons. I also recalled Gilligan once stating in an interview that there’s a very specific reason Walt drives an Aztek and not some other car. When Walt finds his Heisenberg hat in the backseat, and decides to sell the car to Benny the mechanic for a pittance, this episode finally delivers that reason. The Aztec is a relic of Walt’s former life as a downtrodden chemistry teacher. It’s an ugly but practical car, one well-suited for a humble family man. This is not at all who Walt is anymore, and seeing the Heisenberg hat sitting in the passenger seat makes the contrast very salient for him. The Aztek is no longer fit for the person he is now (or the person he thinks he is), so he sells it for next to nothing, and leases a flashy car in its place, one more appropriate for Heisenberg. And then, in one of the funnier montage sequences the show has done, he also decides to re-up Walt Jr.’s Challenger, which Skyler had previously nixed. Walt was beholden to his wife’s wishes, but Heisenberg is not so easily cowed.

Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 3: “Hazard Pay”

It’s been interesting to learn more about the scale of Gus’s operation in these past two episodes. We knew it was extensive, given the resources he was able to devote to it, and these past two episodes have explored both the corporate/supplier and enforcement/distribution sides of the enterprise. In this episode, we learn more about the men under Mike who distributed the meth, both as Mike visits a prison inmate in the opener, and then later as he parcels out the “hazard pay” for those who need to be “made whole.” Having Mike clean up the mess Walt created by killing Gus has provided a nice way filling out the details of Gus’s operation.

Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 2: “Madrigal”

Tonight’s Mike-heavy episode has a rather intense and thematically indicative opening. Mr. Schuler’s stoicism starts out funny, as he robotically eats from a bowl of tater tots and ignores the eager-to-please team of food scientists who have prepared a tasting, but then it becomes suspenseful as his stoicism continues through the rest of the scene, from his avoidance of the police through to his suicide on the toilet. It’s probably not a coincidence that he reminded me of Gus, especially in last season’s premiere, when he silently arrives at the lab, kills Hector, and leaves. If Gus and Mr. Schuler had switched places, might not Gus have behaved exactly the same way?

Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 1: “Live Free or Die”

Once again, a new season of Breaking Bad begins at a point in the future, to which the rest of the season will work its way toward. This flashforward makes itself evident through Walt’s hairstyling: he sports a full head of hair, shaggy beard, and hipster-chic, thick-rimmed glasses. It’s a nice reveal, as the episode takes its time in showing us the new-look Walt, first spending considerable time showing him playing with his bacon (making what appeared to me to resemble the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion).