Walt is devastated while on the phone on Breaking Bad
Full spoilers ahead!
A review of tonight’s Breaking Bad right after I put a baby
in a fire truck…
“What the hell is wrong with you? We’re a family… We’re a
family!”
-Walt
Breaking Bad is a show that has never been a light watch. It’s
never been a show that shies away from all the violence and destruction both physically
and emotionally Walter White’s downfall. Never though in the history of the show
has it been as brutally gut wrenching and disturbing as over the course of yet
another masterpiece of an hour “Ozymandias.” Walter White has now officially
hit rock bottom and all we can do now is sit and watch his punishment unfold.
Let’s start with Hank, or rather Rest in Piece Hank. Really
the only thing that worried me the more I thought about last week’s cliffhanger
was whether they were going to let Hank live or not. At this point it seemed
like Hanks turn to die, he had his moment in the sun and it was his time to die
a tragic death (as this is for all intensive purposes a tragedy). I had my
doubts as “Ozymandias” opened with everyone’s favorite DEA agent still alive and
sort of well (he did have a bullet in his knee). But as usual the show didn’t disappoint
and in one of the most devastating opening sequences in the show’s entire
history, Jack puts a bullet into Hank’s head right after Walt tells him where
all his money is. Of course the Nazis being evil and all take all of Walt’s
money, save for one barrel of eleven million dollars that they left for him (because
of Todd). The whole sequence is devastating down to the final moments where
Walt tells Jessie that he watched Jane die as strange sort of revenge as Jessie
is being taken away to cook for the psychopath Todd.
The worst of it is that this is only the first ten minutes
of an episode that was about to get more and more disturbing over the course of
the hour. After being pestered by Marie Skyler has to tell Walt Jr. that his
father is a drug dealer in a scene that is as dark and devastating as any the
series has done. Poor Walt Jr. is completely crushed as he can’t believe that
all this time he was being lied to by so many people. It’s one of the final
straws in the White household, now Walt’s own son is against him and the family
seems like a lost cause.
And it keeps getting more and more devastating as the
episode goes on. Walt comes home only to have Skyler yell out “Where’s Hank?” and
as Walt is trying to leave tries to attack him with a knife and calls the
police. Walt then in one of the most brutal scenes in Breaking Bad history
takes baby Holly and leaves, while Skyler runs after the car only to collapse
in tears in the middle of the road, devastated by the turn of events that has
passed and the evil that has just passed by. It’s a tragic sequence one that
reaches a whole new level of emotional rock bottom for a show that has
seemingly hit it a few times over the course of its fantastic run.
Finally there is Walt’s final phone call to Skyler, also
known as perhaps Bryan Cranston’s finest acting moment in his entire career.
Walt plays one last acting card and acts up Heisenberg over the phone to her
while the police are listening seemingly to take all the blame off of Skyler
and place it firmly on him. It’s a moment that is gut wrenching in so many
different and at times opposite ways. The conversation starts out devastating on
Skyler’s end as Walt is just laying into her like she is nothing, but as the
conversation goes on it’s clear to us (as well as Skyler I think, I think she
understands what Walt is doing after a little bit) that this is just Walt’s
last bit of master acting and that he still, even in a moment of total evil has
family in mind. Don’t get me wrong it’s still a cruel, cruel way to go along
with keeping his family blameless but ultimately as Walt is losing everything
it is a way.
That leaves us with the final moments of the episode as Walt
begins to set up a new life for himself. We know where it’s going to lead us as
the near the end of the series (a machine gun and some ricin) and it’s going to
be devastating. In this episode alone, Hank (and poor Gomez) are dead, Jessie has
got to cook for a psychopath, Walt Jr. has found out about the drug dealing,
the family is in complete shambles, and Walt is off on a new, most likely
tragic downfall. What a beautiful, devastating, emotional, disturbing, powerful,
and amazing hour of television this was.
And the best part is we still have two episodes to go….
What the heck could possibly happen now….
Some other musings:
- The best directors to ever grace this show are all returning! This episode was directed by the fantastic Rian Johnson who directed an amazing episode last year (“Fifty-One”) and also directed my favorite film of last year Looper. Johnson always has an amazing flair to his episodes and this was no exception. This episode looked absolutely beautiful in every way.
- What a brilliant flashback to open up the episode. Reminds us of a time in the past where things were only starting to go wrong and weren’t in a perpetual state of destruction. Hack the sequence even provided some amazing humor with Jessie playing with a stick in the background of Walt phoning a then happy Skyler.
- This has to be Brian Cranston’s Emmy episode. This whole episode shows every iteration of what he did throughout this series whether it is cold and haunted, to happy and guilty (cue the flashbacks), to being in tears, to being cold and deadly and in tears at the same time. Wow what an acting clinic he put on this week, perhaps it’s the best he’s ever being.
- Hopefully Todd doesn’t drink from the cup that Jessie drank out of in the same way he did with Lydia last week.
- I would have never expected that we would get the Jane revelation right from Walt’s mouth in such an unforgiving way. That was so devastating in ways I can’t even describe and it’s going to be curious where they go with Jessie’s emotional state after both this and cooking for Todd.
- Note that it seems (I couldn’t really tell on the crappy TV that I watched this episode on) that Marie is wearing black (or a very dark purple) as the episode goes by. Subtle enough symbolism I guess.
Wow! Again this episode was so fantastic. It’s the best
episode so far this season (and that says a lot) and one of the best and most brutally
painful hours this series has ever done.
That’s just me though. What did everyone else think?
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