The 15 Best 'Breaking Bad' Episodes
As we get ready for Breaking Bad's spinoff Netflix movie 'El Camino', here are the 15 best 'Breaking Bad' episodes to watch.
We're back in Albuquerque.
Beginning this Friday on Netflix, viewers will be plunged back into the sun-soaked, crime-streaked, blue-meth ridden world of Breaking Bad with El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, the unprecedented but highly welcome feature-length story that picks up where the series finale "Felina" left off. Namely, what happened to Jesse? Time will tell if Camino validates answering that question or if creator Vince Gilligan (who wrote and directed the movie) should've left that loose thread dangling as is.
But Camino's impending release—along with the promise to feature something like 10 familiar faces from the series—has us driving down memory lane. Good God was Breaking Bad a fantastic series. So many episodes, sequences, and shit, just shots—from a show that was just as groundbreaking visually as it was narratively, boasting a director slate including Michelle MacLaren and Rian Johnson—are seared in our brains forever, and the advent of Jesse Pinkman's return has them rushing back to the forefront. So let's dive all the way in, shall we? Before we get into the new story, let's look back on the old. Breaking Bad ran for five seasons, with 62 episodes. Here are the top 15. Binge rewatch incoming.
18.
We're back in Albuquerque.
Beginning this Friday on Netflix, viewers will be plunged back into the sun-soaked, crime-streaked, blue-meth ridden world of Breaking Bad with El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, the unprecedented but highly welcome feature-length story that picks up where the series finale "Felina" left off. Namely, what happened to Jesse? Time will tell if Camino validates answering that question or if creator Vince Gilligan (who wrote and directed the movie) should've left that loose thread dangling as is.
But Camino's impending release—along with the promise to feature something like 10 familiar faces from the series—has us driving down memory lane. Good God was Breaking Bad a fantastic series. So many episodes, sequences, and shit, just shots—from a show that was just as groundbreaking visually as it was narratively, boasting a director slate including Michelle MacLaren and Rian Johnson—are seared in our brains forever, and the advent of Jesse Pinkman's return has them rushing back to the forefront. So let's dive all the way in, shall we? Before we get into the new story, let's look back on the old. Breaking Bad ran for five seasons, with 62 episodes. Here are the top 15. Binge rewatch incoming.
17."Crazy Handful of Nothin'" (Season 1, Episode 6)
Director: Bronwen Hughes
Writer: George Mastras
After the first five episodes of the series, most had Breaking Bad pegged as a show about a science teacher forced into a life of crime through unfortunate events and noble intentions. Cooking meth in an RV, selling drugs, even killing a rival dealer was a fresh take on an old story, all done by a mild-mannered husband and father, pretending to be something he wasn’t: a bad guy. "Crazy Handful of Nothin’" acknowledges those preconceptions, then shoots them in the face by writing Walt into a corner against the magnificently terrifying Tuco Salamanca. What emerges from the smoke is Tuco on his knees, wondering, like the rest of us, what the hell just happened? The answer: The birth of Heisenberg, the most terrifying bad guy of all, and whose self-deceit of still being the same mild-mannered family man would go onto become what Breaking Bad was really all about. —Nate Houston
16."Hermanos" (Season 4, Episode 8)
Director: Johan Renck
Writers: Sam Catlin, George Mastras
The seeds were planted since mid-Season 3, but "Hermanos" is the culmination. In the span of one episode, Vince Gilligan and his team of able geniuses successfully reverse-engineered one of the most delicious mythologies in TV history. Suddenly, Walter's criminal mastermind delusions are just one cog in the context of a decades-spanning saga of hatred, betrayal, and revenge. It all seems so perfect, a sentiment that only takes on greater emphasis when you learn that this idea didn't even crystallize until Vince and the writers were breaking Season 3 and realized the stylish, menacing but relatively Terminator-mute Cousins couldn't sustain a full season. Lost's mythology flailings spawned a generation of writers going into pitch meetings with David Simon-level binders that outlined seasons ahead, but "Hermanos" is proof positive that sometimes the best stories are born on the fly. —Frazier Tharpe
15."Cornered" (Season 4, Episode 6)
Director: Michael Slovis
Writer: Gennifer Hutchison
If Season 3 wears the crown for best heart-pounding action, then the throne for dialogue, development, and performance easily belongs to Season 4 and "Cornered" earns the season that distinction in spades. Goosebumps-inducing-delivery of instant classic lines like “I am the one who knocks” and “someone has to protect this family from the man who protects this family” highlight the final transformation of Walter from man to cold-blooded monster, and Skyler from wary accomplice into Walt’s most formidable opponent yet. Even with the cartel kicking their war against the Los Pollos Hermanos operation into full gear, this is the first time the domestic conflict felt more dangerous than any outside threat. I’d say it’s Vince Gilligan and the cast in their bag, but if anything, this just proves they all have more than one. —Nate Houston
14."Grilled" (Season 2, Episode 2)
Director: Charles Haid
Writer: George Mastras
When we reflect on Breaking Bad's seminal moments, the marquee space is often reserved for the sequences that came during its peak years (read: Seasons 3 and 4.) Hank outside the RV. Cousins versus Hank. "I am the one who knocks;" "Say my name." The crawl space. But the moment that showed the series was capable of those nail-biting, physically uncomfortable flop-sweat holy shit scenes needs its due respect. The shootout in "Grilled" is basically an indie, first attempt of the blockbuster scene in "One Minute." And really, the whole episode is a masterclass in tension, with Walt and Jesse trapped in Tuco's bando (where we meet Tio and his bell for the first time!) in, arguably, their first "how the hell are they gonna get out of this?" bind. Their first Houdini act wasn't their finest, but it's still awe-inspiring nonetheless. —Frazier Tharpe
13."Dead Freight" (Season 5, Episode 5)
Director: George Mastras
Writer: George Mastras
Forget a cold open, “Dead Freight” has one of the coldest closes in television history. Cold like the end of the The Shield’s pilot episode multiplied by every parent’s worst nightmare. And it’s plain to see from the opening, which makes it an even more crippling gut-punch when the viewer gets lost in the nerve-jangling drama and forgets about a young boy riding a dirtbike through the desert.... More on that later.
The character work in “Dead Freight” is some of the finest on Breaking Bad, which is to say it’s beyond superlatives. Each scene pops with inspired individual invention and Walter White-level chemistry between the actors. Walt’s tearful confession of marital problems to Hank, expertly played to his macho brother-in-law’s arm’s-length, shoulder-patting uncomfortability around emotion to make him leave on a coffee run and allow for bug-planting! Grizzled Mike’s (Jonathan Banks) repeated matter-of-fact promises to shoot terrified Madrigal exec Lydia (Lara Fraser) in the head if she doesn’t perform a scripted intel-fishing call to the DEA, capped with a twisted schoolteacher’s review: “Where will I shoot you?”! Skyler’s infamous “I’m not your wife, I’m your hostage” jab and ultimatum that she’ll only keep up appearances and launder Walt’s drug money if their kids stay with Hank and Marie (Betsy Brandt), out of harm’s way! Any one of these scenes is a masterclass in writing and acting. Together, with the many others in the episode, they’re an advanced performing arts curriculum. (It’s easy to see why writer-director George Mastras earned an Emmy nomination for penning the episode.)
And then there’s one of the finest set pieces ever, in either film or television. Conductors’ caps off to Mastras for pulling off the elaborate heist plot, to stop a train in the middle of the desert and distract the two-man crew while siphoning out 1,000 gallons of methylamine and simultaneously replacing it with its equal weight in water. Like all of the wilderness scenes on this show, it’s gorgeously shot. It’s also edited to tense perfection, as the aim is to not only make off with the MMA but also to avoid detection. As the elated crew succeeds by the narrowest of margins in the swap, all, including the viewer, exhale. Which is precisely when the episode knocks the wind out of you with a brilliant, sad, and inevitable conclusion—because hubris is just a bitch like that.
Jesse’s ingenious plan and Walt’s careful scientific measurements, which he proudly says will only cause fingers to point at China for sending a weak batch of methylamine, can’t account for the x-factor of chance, a young boy on a dirtbike investigating when a train horn blows in the middle of the desert because the conductor has to stop for a car “stalled” in the middle of the tracks. As everyone frets over the lives of two railroad employees, the murder of a child is the furthest thing from one’s mind. Walt has broken bad to the point of blowing a guy’s face off and poisoning a kid (non-fatally) to manipulate Jesse, but he would never execute an innocent child, right? That’s some Gustavo Fring shit.
But as Walt and Jesse’s celebratory faces go slack upon realizing they’re not alone, everyone’s fate as an accomplice to child murder is already sealed. The kid waves and Todd (Jesse Plemons), the new crew member into whose head they’ve hammered the hard–and–fast rule that nobody can ever know about the job, waves back and puts a bullet in him, snuffing out the kid and whatever shred of humanity remained in the group. The final shot, of the tarantula the boy captured in a jar looking hopelessly confined, says everything about Walt’s criminal descent. No matter how badass he looks sporting a shaved head, goatee, Heisenberg hat, scowl, and power, he’s well and truly trapped by that “glass.” —Justin Monroe
12."...And the Bag's in the River" (Season 1, Episode 3)
Director: Adam Bernstein
Writer: Vince Gilligan
Every Sunday, viewers tune in to Breaking Bad to see how bad Walter White will break and how much he’ll sacrifice for money, power, and survival. By season five, the answers to that are "really fucking bad" and "seemingly everything," but in "...And the Bag's in the River," before Walt's become Heisenberg, the bad guy in the black hat, he is still a well-intentioned high school teacher in way over his head—and up to his ankles in the gooey remains of a drug dealer who threatened to kill him and Jesse.
In one of the series’ goriest cold opens, Walt helps Jesse fill plastic buckets with the slop formerly known as Emilio Koyama, which lays splattered all over Jesse’s hallway because he failed to follow instructions on how to properly dissolve a corpse with hydrofluoric acid. While sifting through the muck, Walt recalls a conversation he once had with his college chemistry assistant and lover Gretchen Schwartz (Jessica Hecht) about the human body’s complete chemical composition. “There’s got to be more to a human being than that,” says young Walt, pondering an unaccounted for .111958 percent, while in the present old Walt dumps all the hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, calcium, iron, sodium, phosphorus, and whatever else constituted poor Emilio into the toilet and flushes it.
As jarring as it is to see one person send another swirling into the sewer system, the episode’s great turning point concerns the fate of Emilio’s cousin Krazy-8 (Maximino Arciniega). Walt has cooked meth and used his knowledge of science to kill and dispose of a human being, but there’s a difference between making a spur-of-the-moment decision to poison two men with phosphine gas because they have a gun to your head, and premeditatedly murdering the one who survived and is shackled by the throat with a U-lock to a pole in your partner’s basement.
Apparent in Walt’s nuanced, occasionally claustrophobic story is the fact that he is a decent guy. Hell, he cuts the crusts off of his captive’s sandwiches for him. Sitting on the toilet he’s recently flushed Krazy-8’s cousin down, rational Walt makes a pros and cons list looking for a convincing reason to let him live, but there’s only one argument that matters: “He’ll kill your entire family if you let him go.” Realizing this, Walt nonetheless splits a six-pack with 8 and attempts to get to know him, still searching for an out. He even opens up about his lung cancer for the first time, perhaps because it’s a personal thing to share in these circumstances, or perhaps because the secret may soon die with 8. It’s not until Walt discovers that the affable prisoner has secreted a shard of broken plate to use as a shank once freed, that he reluctantly garrotes him with the U-lock, apologizing while 8 stabs at him wildly, sinking the ceramic into his leg. In the end, they are two men who just want to go home, and Walt, it turns out, is capable of doing whatever it takes to make sure he’s the one who does.
What he loses in that bargain is immeasurable, but writer Vince Gilligan, on his A-game here, has a word for it. After disposing of 8, Walt parks and stares off into the oblivion of the Albuquerque highway, returning to that conversation about the missing elements of humanity. “What about the soul?” Gretchen suggests. In perfect summation of present Walt (and the even colder, more calculating and ruthless drug kingpin he’ll eventually become), his younger self laughs, leans in amorously, and replies, “There’s nothing but chemistry here.” It would take a lot more than a plunger for Walt to recapture everything else that went down the waste pipe. —Justin Monroe
11."Salud" (Season 4, Episode 10)
Director: Michelle MacLaren
Writers: Peter Gould, Gennifer Hutchison
Most of "Salud" doesn't feel like an episode of Breaking Bad. All of the series' trademarks are there—the tension, dark humor, criminal applications of science, magnificent enunciation of the word "bitch"—but it doesn't feel like we're watching another leg of Walter "Heisenberg" White's journey from empathetic protagonist to full on villain. No, this feels more like a spinoff starring the Chicken Man, his capable fixer, and their slowly emerging protege. What better way to explain why we're rooting for the de facto villain, Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), the man who's been putting our antihero under pressure for the entire season, the man who's win here only promises more trouble for our guy down the road?
Even on first watch, there is no question that Gus is going to bend over for the cartel. By this point we've seen him magnificently double-cross The Cousins (Daniel and Luis Moncada) and Juan Bolsa (Javier Grajeda), and learned that he has a far-reaching, deeply personal beef with their leader, Don Eladio (Steven Bauer). For one episode, the Heisenberg narrative takes a backseat and Gus' ultimate revenge fantasy becomes very real, and thanks to the context provided in the chilling flashback two episodes earlier ("Hermanos"), we know he's earned this moment like a motherfucker.
It's obvious what he's up to as soon as he reveals the bottle of Zafiro tequila (after all, this is Breaking Bad, where the power of chemistry reigns supreme), but that doesn't rob the moment of its suspense. Instead, the moment is full of disbelief and suspense, as Gus is so committed that he downs a shot of the dosed spirit too. Don Eladio and his capos go down while Gus writhes in pain in the bathroom, mostly missing the cartel apocalypse that he's orchestrated and dreamed of for so long. Mike goes to work like the World's Best Henchman that he is until he's put down, and Jesse—Jesse!—saves the day.
And that's where "Salud" really soars, because the triumphs of the episode aren't exclusive to Gus. After four seasons of being berated, underestimated, and denied the surrogate-son approval he wants, young Pinkman gets his chance to shine outside of Mr. White's shadow and sans his derision. Aaron Paul recently spoke on the audience's unwavering inclination to root for Jesse even though he's a junkie and a drug-manufacturing murderer, and that's in full effect here. You can't help but be proud of Jess when he sons Don Eladio's snooty chemists during the demo cook before the massacre and what's more, Gus and Mike are proud, too.
When Jesse killed Gale at the end of season three, it was reprehensible and soul-rotting. In contrast, here he kills Joaquin Salamanca (that family's having a really bad year, huh?) and it's a fist pump. When Mike, debilitated along with Gus in the backseat, says "Get us out of here, kid," and they drive off into the sun, it feels like the end of an action movie. They, the battered veteran heroes; he, the promising rookie; their win a happy ending. And for the rest of the season, you're not really sure if you want Walt to win.
Meanwhile Walt's at the lowest he's ever been—but not the lowest he'll be—in the wake of the ugliest, most physical falling out he and Jesse have had to date. The conversation Walter Jr. has with his father will most definitely be a huge talking point in the kid's future therapy sessions, the one truly honest moment he's had with his old man. Backstories on this show are seldom discussed, making Walt's horrifying memory of his dying father all the more important. It's significant insight into the way this prideful bastard's mind works. Asking for help is weakness, appearing weak is a liability. Holding on to those notions has gotten Walter where he is in this episode, apologizing to the wrong son, and currently losing the crucial battle for Jesse's loyalties. Oh, the things he'll do to win them back. —Frazier Tharpe
10."Face Off" (Season 4, Episode 13)
Director: Vince Gilligan
Writer: Vince Gilligan
Each season of Breaking Bad concludes in emphatic fashion, with the last three episodes steadily ratcheting up the stakes. “Face Off,” the fourth season finale, immediately picks up the frenetic pace of the penultimate episode. Season Four was Breaking Bad’s most nerve-wracking for characters and viewers alike, with everyone’s adrenaline running like Walter White in the episode’s opening scene.
"End Times" concludes with the terrifyingly calm businessman and meth kingpin Gus Fring narrowly escaping death via a bomb planted beneath his Volvo by Walter. This sends our bespectacled lead sprinting to remove the bomb, then into a hospital with the explosive stashed inside of his daughter’s diaper bag. Walter has abandoned all chill; lives, mainly his own, are at stake and he elects to put even more in danger. Do desperate times really call for desperate measures, or is this just a testament to how reckless Walter becomes when he’s convinced he needs to get something done?
While Jesse gets hemmed up by two smug FBI agents, Walter launches a frantic search for Gus. Seeking the wisdom of co-conspiring attorney Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), he rushes to his office, but discovers the door is locked. His remedy for the situation is sending a rock through the glass door; this is how Walter White solves all of his problems—creating bigger ones, as that broken glass door ends up costing him $25,000 after Saul’s secretary shakes him down. Walter must do things his way (always the best way, in his mind) when he’s convinced he needs to, regardless of the consequences.
Walter is able to get access to Gus through a previous nemesis, Hector Salamanca (Mark Margolis), who Gus routinely visits at the Casa Tranquila nursing home for regular doses of psychological torment. It’s that burning desire to avenge his partner Max’s death at the hands of the Juárez cartel that drove Gus to become a ruthless tycoon and keeps him torturing Hector. Walter offers him a chance at revenge that he can’t turn down, but Hector decides he owes the DEA one last visit. His translator’s general cluelessness (“Honey, dea ain’t a word”) and his final “fuck you” to Hank and the rest of the agency bring some comedy to an otherwise heavy episode.
The White and Schrader families are holed up in the Schrader residence—now a guarded fortress—because the cartel has placed a target on Hank’s head. Skyler is forced to play dumb about Walter's whereabouts, praying that her captor of a husband survives the day. She fears that she might lose Walter, but she’s equally afraid of what might happen if he lives to see tomorrow.There’s something in her eyes, which can be credited to Anna Gunn’s excellent performance, that suggests she might be relieved if he perished.
When Gus learns of Hector’s visit to the DEA, he decides it’s time to put a permanent end to their communication. Their weekly meetings are a sick source of pleasure for him, but there’s no love in the drug game for people who talk to the feds. Giancarlo Esposito’s chilling delivery of “I do this” shows Gus’ willingness to get his hands dirty (something we've seen before) when it’s time to handle business. When Gus arrives at the facility, the camera slowly zooms in on his face. This, and the ominous music, let you know that this is it. Two old foes are finally about to settle the score.
There’s fear in Hector’s eyes as Gus prepares to inject him with a lethal dose. He refuses to look Gus in the eye. “A crippled little rata, what a reputation to leave behind. Is that how you want to be remembered?” Gus asks, delivering one final insult. Then Hector stares at him, all crazy eyes and furrowed brow, as he frantically rings the bell attached to his wheelchair. By the time Gus realizes what's happening, it’s too late. Following the explosion, he exits Hector’s room. For a split-second, your common sense betrays you; you think he's survived. That’s until the camera tracks around him, revealing that half of his face is missing. Gustavo Fring straightens his tie and dies like a consummate professional.
“Gus is dead. We’ve got work to do” is what Walter tells Jesse (who was kidnapped by Gus’ men after being released by the FBI—worst day ever) before the two destroy the megalab. On top of the hospital parking lot, Jesse, who’s been loosely strapped into an emotional rollercoaster for the last three episodes, fights back tears as he informs Walter that Brock (Ian Posada) wasn’t poisoned with ricin. It wasn’t Gus Fring after all, it was the berries of a Lily of the Valley plant. “Face Off” reveals the stellar job that Aaron Paul has done taking Jesse from annoying poser to semi-decent human being. He shares a handshake with the father figure who constantly puts his life in jeopardy before returning to the hospital.
Walter calls Skyler as the family is learning of Gus’ demise, and she quizzes him. “It’s over. We’re safe,” he tells her. “Was this you? What happened?” she asks. “I won,” he responds, delighted.
Taking out Gus Fring might've been his greatest accomplishment to date, but his "victory" was short-sighted. What long-term problems has he created? Will his brother-in-law and the rest of the DEA back off on investigating Gus Fring, or will the circumstances of his death make them even more suspicious? Walter's too caught up in the moment to consider anything other than his triumph. Despite his brilliance, Walter White is an underachiever so used to losing in life that he would confuse winning the battle with winning the war. A middle-aged man with a blossoming ego is a disaster waiting to happen.
The final scene of “Face Off” takes place in the Whites' backyard. While “Black” plays, the camera slowly zooms in on the Lily of the Valley plant that Walter’s gun pointed to during a moment of revelation in the episode prior. This is the moment you realize that Walter White, he of the superhuman ability to lie, poisoned a child to manipulate Jesse into helping him kill Gus. You realize that Bryan Cranston, who had to sell all of Walter White’s lies, could very well be television’s finest actor. You also realize that Walter White is no longer an antihero, he’s a villain to the core. He’s become Heisenberg.
This final despicable act sets the stage for the megalomania he flexes during the first half of the fifth season. As the credits roll, you have little choice but to crown Vince Gilligan a twisted genius, just like his lead character. —Julian Kimble
9."ABQ" (Season 2, Episode 13)
Director: Adam Bernstein
Writer: Vince Gilligan
On the periphery of Breaking Bad's second season, destruction lurks. It’s in “Seven-Thirty Seven,” the first episode of the season, where we see the pink bear for the first time, face down in the pool, its fur charred, a frayed string hanging where its eyeball used to be. In “Down,” we yet again are greeted by the black-and-white domestic scenery, save for a flash of neon pink fur, and, what we can only assume are Walt’s glasses being placed into an evidence bag. And, finally, in “Over,” the men in hazmat suits return, the teddy bear's eye goes careening toward the pool's skimmer, and most ominously of all, several body bags can be seen. Will Walt kill his wife and children in a meth lab explosion? Will the Mexican cartel bomb his home?
In "ABQ," the large-scale doom hinted at across the season comes to pass, but not in the way we'd expected. Creator Vince Gilligan led us here by way of small clues. Indeed, the episode titles, when considered together, tell the tale: “Seven-Thirty Seven,” “Down,” “Over,” “ABQ.” 737 down over ABQ. 737, as in Boeing 737, and ABQ, as in the airport code for Albuquerque.
The first shot after the cold opening mimics the beginning of "Grilled," another mean visual gag. Here, the springs are bouncing because Jesse is trying to revive Jane (Krysten Ritter). Turning the rhythm on its head, there's a cut to Walt in his home, rocking his newborn daughter Holly, who’s swathed in pink. He's got a hysterical Jesse on the line, and we’re immediatley struck with the cold reality of Walt’s actions (and also how excellent he is at lying). Jane is dead, and it is Walt’s negligence that’s to blame. What at first might have read as a necessary measure for keeping Jesse breathing the episode before comes into focus for what it is—murder. Walt killed Jane.
Whether Walt is motivated by his love for Jesse (as his dragging Jesse out of a meth den later in the episode suggests), or by a selfish desire to keep his lab partner by his side, what Walt has done is terrible. He has a daughter of his own, yet he lets another man lose his daughter to the abyss.
Jane's father knew his daughter's life hung in a precarious balance. The moment Donald (John de Lancie) pulls up to her house to drag her off to rehab, and watches as a gurney is wheeled into the apartment, he knows she’s gone. There’s a sad acknowledgement in his eyes, an unbearable moment stretched wide open that de Lancie plays with quiet power. Jesse is sobbing, his neck hung heavy with guilt. Aaron Paul’s performance is most powerful for the contrast it draws between the two men.
And then there's Mike, the superfixer, making his first appearance. Of course he's calm when telling Jesse what to tell the police: “I woke up. I found her. That’s all I know.”
Though he isn't in the scene, Jesse’s demeanor also calls attention to how removed Walt is from his actions. Jesse is visibly shaking, counting down from 20 as he readies himself to call the police while Walt pours a bowl of Cheerios, asking Skyler if she’d prefer skim or 2%. How conscientious of him.
This is the episode where Walt’s character shows the first overt signs of rotting right before our eyes. We can find a saving grace in a man who has cancer, and no cash for treatment, who fears dying and leaving his family pinned beneath medical bills.
In “ABQ,” we catch a glimpse of the Walt to come: A man who is not wavering between black and white, human and monster. He's a devil, and the devil wears pink cashmere sweaters, apparently. In the other instances in the episode, pink communicates untainted values—innocence, childhood, and fatherhood. Here, it reads as a disguise—Walt is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
He's a man whose ego is so swollen that the very sound of incoming donations to the website Junior (RJ Mitte) set up for him (and his son’s subsequent elation) stirs a latent rage in him. Because he can’t take credit for the power he’s been accumulating and the wealth he (HE!) is providing to his family. It’s the reason why he seems so damn proud when he later admits to being “the one who knocks.” When Skyler says, “Don't you think a little 'thank you' is in order?" Walt is filled with disdain. Savewalterwhite.com was doomed from the start. There is no saving this man.
Walt comes out of surgery; he's beat cancer. But, in retrospect, this is when his real sickness, the awful condition of his soul, emerges.
Skyler sees it even before we do: Her husband has become a stranger, a man capable of telling lies without his face revealing anything. A man who she might have allowed to continue sleeping in her bed had he not let a small truth inadvertently slip out. Under the duress of drugs pre-surgery, Skyler asks where his phone is, and a medicated Walt mumbles, “Which phone?”
When Skylar confronts him in their bedroom—about his second cell, about not getting the money for his treatment from Gretchen, about not visiting his mother or telling her about his disease, about his “fugue” state—she’s more empowered than we’ll see her in later episodes. She’s inches from Walt’s face; we can almost feel her spit and warm breath on Walt’s cheeks as she hisses at him. She doesn’t understand the full scope of what Walt’s doing, or who he has become, and she knows it's better that way. “I’m scared to know the truth,” she admits, before leaving a bewildered Walt in the driveway.
A plane explodes in the air above Walt’s backyard, and it's a brilliant, wild explosion. It also happens to be—in a sad, strange, twisted way—Walt's fault. Jane's father, torn up over his daughter's death, slips up at his job. And it's real bad news when an air—traffic controller slips up.
A child’s toy plummets from the sky and sinks to the bottom of his pool. Walt Jr. might think his dad is a “decent,” “good man” who “always does the right thing” but something up in the sky begs to differ. It’s all coming down, and Walt will be trapped beneath it all, picking up the pieces of the smoldering wreck, or perhaps, being taken away in pieces, in a body bag. Either way, one thing is painfully clear: Innocence doesn’t live here anymore. —Shanté Cosme
8."Fly" (Season 3, Episode 10)
Director: Rian Johnson
Writers: Sam Catlin, Moira Walley-Beckett
We’ve all had one of “those” days—a full 24-hour span where everything you touch turns to shit. And the harder you work to rectify the situation, the more fucked up you make it. Walter White is having one of those days.
The new facts of Walter’s life in his transition from cancer-stricken family man to badass meth cook are clearly weighing on him. And it's affecting those closest to him, including his now-estranged wife, Skyler, and his (literal) partner in crime, Jesse. In fact, things haven’t been right with Jesse for a while—not since Walter witnessed the drug overdose of Jesse’s girlfriend (and did nothing to help) or since Jesse began stealing from their own supply in order to make a little extra cash on the side (unbeknownst to Walter). So it’s clear that they’re just making (one-sided) conversation when the episode opens with Jesse yammering on about the pecking order of hyenas.
But Walter’s got bigger problems: the amount of meth they're yielding in their fancy new lab is short of what they're contracted to produce. And the numbers aren’t adding up to tell him why. So Jesse takes a stab at explaining away the half-pound of meth that he’s stolen, suggesting a range of somewhat-scientific possibilities. He may not know the word for “condensation,” but he’s clearly learning. And this sets up the scenario for one of the greatest bottle episodes in television history.
Created as a cost-saving measure, “bottle episodes” can make for some of television’s most interesting hours. Completely character-driven, the typical setup is that two of a show’s main characters are somehow confined together and must use words instead of actions to keep the audience’s interest. When you’ve got two actors as uniquely talented as Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul facing off, the results are bound to be quietly explosive.
The bulk of “Fly” happens within the partners’ meth lab, which has been infiltrated by a housefly. When Jesse arrives to find that an exhausted Walter has spent the night at the lab concocting a variety of highly sophisticated ways with which to vanquish the fly so that they can cook, he is understandably underwhelmed by the situation. Upon hearing that the “contaminate” Walter is raging about is, in fact, a fly, a dialogue ensues that defines the duo’s relationship:
Jesse: Dude, you scared the shit out of me. When you say “contamination,” I’m thinking like an Ebola leak or something.”
Walter: Ebola?
Jesse: Yeah, it’s a disease on the Discovery Channel where all of your intestines sort of just slip right out of your butt.
Walter: Thank you, I know what Ebola is. Now tell me: what would a West African virus be doing in our lab, hmmm?
Jesse: So you’re chasing around a fly and, in your world, I’m the idiot?
One wonders whether watching the Discovery Channel is a new pastime for Jesse, one prompted by the once-positive influence that Walter once was on his protégé.
Like two matching puzzle pieces, it’s Walter and Jesse’s differences that make them such a perfectly suited pair. Jesse has street smarts where Walter has book smarts and, whether he chooses to recognize it or not, Walter’s learning from Jesse, too. In the case of Breaking Bad and “Fly” in particular, the teacher is sometimes the student.
While mostly dialogue-driven, a bottle episode necessitates a certain amount of visual acuity in order to keep one’s eyes glued to the screen when the background rarely changes. “Fly” is notably aided in achieving this with the help of director Rian Johnson, the innovative indie visionary behind Brick and Looper, and the camera skills of Michael Slovis.
This is a character study in the most gripping sense possible, with the camera acting as audience member, working mostly in close-ups so as to put the full focus of one’s attention on the actions (and reactions) that are most important to the plotline.
Toward the end of the episode, the camera takes a turn into horror movie territory when it assumes the POV of the pest in question: the fly.
The episode’s single location combines with Walter’s fastidiousness and growing sense of paranoia to create a truly visceral sense of claustrophobia.
Sensing that Walter is becoming unhinged, Jesse tries to help him in what he deems a pointless mission, but is instead locked out of the lab for being unhelpful. He eventually returns, and with the kind of supplies that the average non-scientific genius would use to kill an insect (a fly swatter and a “buttload” of fly tape).
Also in Jesse’s arsenal are some sleeping pills, which he has slipped into Walter’s coffee. As the drugs begin to take effect and Walter starts to wind down, Jesse asks, “Have you ever had a wild animal trapped in your house?”
It’s an innocent query meant to let Jesse voice his concern for Walter’s well-being. He shares a story about his aunt’s obsession with Scrabble, a possum that was living under her house. Though the animal had been exterminated, she insisted it was still there; it was later determined that the cancer she had been fighting had spread to her brain. But the question could just as easily serve as a tagline for the episode, as Walter and Jesse will be forced to confront their growing discord before either one of them can leave this room.
As Walter grows weary, he begins sharing the events of the evening that Jesse’s girlfriend, Jane, died—right down to nature show about elephants that he was watching. He’s teetering on the edge of sleepiness and truthfulness, but only one will come to him tonight.
Barely able to stand, Walter can hunt no longer. So Jesse takes control, precariously placing a ladder atop a table and climbing up to take care of business.
Walter tells Jesse he is sorry about Jane. Just as you think he’s going to finally tell the whole story, Jesse tells him it’s not his fault—and it’s not Jane’s fault either. That “we are who we are.” And with that, the characters reestablish their original dynamic: teacher and student. Father and son. Equal partners. Co-workers. Friends.
Jesse climbs down from the ladder only to have the fly land right in front of him—a perfect distance with which to squish him the old-fashioned way: with a rolled up pile of papers.
The episode ends with Walter back at home, in bed, when he’s awoken by something…a fly on the ceiling.
The end. —Jennifer Wood
7."Crawl Space" (Season 4, Episode 11)
Director: Scott Winant
Writers: George Mastras, Sam Catlin
Walter White's best lines of dialogue are all cocksure. "I am the danger." "I'm the one who knocks." "Say my name." And, in response to whether or not he's the enigmatic Heisenberg, "You're goddamn right." He's great at playing the supreme badass—or at least trying to play that role as well as he can, even though we, the viewers, have always known that, deep down, he's a meek schoolteacher. To acknowledge series creator Vince Gilligan's original Breaking Bad character arc pitch, Walt's really Mr. Chips, not Scarface.
How do we know as much? Because we've seen him at his absolute lowest point. We've seen him in a state of terror that'd be foreign to Tony Montana. We've seen Walt deathly scared, his back against the wall, on the verge of certain fatality, and helpless against the cruel ironies and sick jokes delivered to him by fate. That moment occurs in "Crawl Space," the Breaking Bad episode where Walter White is figuratively lowered into a cold, lonely coffin.
Standing above that coffin is Gus Fring, the drug kingpin who, at this point in Breaking Bad's superlative fourth season, is the king piece to Walt's rook. Through a series of dangerous tests and strategic mind games, Gus has instilled in Jesse enough confidence to make him think that maybe, just maybe, he's capable of running Gus' lab on his own. Still, Jesse doesn't want to see Mr. White die, and he's willing to declare that he won't cook if Walt's harmed. "Don't kill him," Jesse pleads with his boss, eliciting Fring's response of, "That won't work." In "Crawl Space," even more so than in his previous episodes, Gus is unflinchingly heartless. There's not a chance in hell that he's going to spare Walt.
And, boy, does Walt know it. "Crawl Space" finds Emmy-winning actor Bryan Cranston at his most vulnerable. Not a scene goes by where Cranston's portrayal of Walt is anything less than frantically terrified. In his stakeouts with his handicapped DEA agent brother-in-law Hank, Walt's constantly asking the same questions in regards to Hank's investigation into Gus Fring's meth operation: "Anything suspicious?" "Any cartel news these days?" "Should we go home?" His paranoia boils over once Hank informs him that the investigation is now focusing on an "industrial laundry" facility owned by a company named Madrigal, the same company that owns Gus Fring's Los Pollos Hermanos chicken chain. You can see the panic washing over Walt's rapidly aging face. It's front and center when he purposely drives right past the launderette's entrance, and it's heightened as he lets an oncoming car smash into his vehicle. The result: Hank is laid up with another injury, making him look like one of those dogs who's not allowed "to lick its own balls." Desperate times do indeed call for desperate measures.
Walt's scaredy pants get even tighter once he's back in the meth lab, where he notices that his materials have been used. "Someone cooked here?" he asks Gus' silent, no-fucks-given henchman Victor. He knows the clock is ticking. He's been made expendable. That realization prompts a visit to Jesse, leading to one of the Breaking Bad's best Aaron Paul/Bryan Cranston acting throw-downs.
"He's going to use you to replace me," Walt says to Jesse, his body language all but screaming for someone to save his life. "He's going to kill me!" But finally, after three seasons' worth of willingly letting Walt get over on him, Jesse stands up for himself: "Last time I asked for your help, you said, 'I hope you end up buried in a barrel in a Mexican desert.'" With a defiant push to Walt's chest, Jesse leaves him alone on the front lawn to process the fact that now even Jesse abandoned his corner. Before any more tears can flow down his weathered cheeks, though, there's Tyrus (Ray Campbell), jabbing a stun-gun into Walt's ribs, knocking him out.
What happens next is a scene that, if it'd played out like it very easily could have, would have one-upped the Ned Stark beheading on HBO's Game of Thrones in the holy-shit-I-can't-believe-that-just-happened department.
Walt comes to in a vast desert, on his knees, a black bag over his head, his arms tied behind his back. Out of a nearby car steps Gus Fring. "You are done. Fired.... Stay away from Pinkman," he says. Walt gives his confidence one last jolt by telling Gus that he's afraid to kill him because he knows that'd make Jesse refuse to cook. And just as Walt starts talking, the episode's director, Scott Winant, switches to an extreme long shot of the men in the desert—the hot, radiant sun is covered by a cloud, darkening the location for the short duration of Walt's last-ditch effort to save himself. As the light returns, so does Gus' upper hand. Unconvinced by what Walt's just said, Gus is going to "deal with" Hank, and if Walt tries to stop him, he's going to kill the entire White family, including "your infant daughter."
With his family's safety in jeopardy, there's only one thing for Walt to do: Better call Saul. Well, technically, he doesn't pick up a phone—rather, he bumrushes the sleazy lawyer's office as Saul's chastising his "A-team" of paid assassins for bungling a job. A job which infuses the overall oppressively bleak "Crawl Space" with a much-needed moment of hilarious dark comedy. Saul's "A-team"—talkative hitman Kudy (Bill Burr) and his silent, rotund colleague, Huell (Lavell Crawford)—show up at Skyler White's in-debt side-piece Ted Beneke's (Christopher Cousins) house, on Skyler's dime, to make him write out a $617,226.31 check to the IRS in order to pay off his debt and prevent any potential audits. After he signs the check, that poor son-of-a-bitch Ted tries to make a run for it, but trips over a rug's raised lip and smashes headfirst into a dresser. Lights out. Cue the uncomfortable laughs from the viewers at home.
6.
Laughing at Ted's misfortune is highly advised—the closing 10 minutes of "Crawl Space" bring Breaking Bad full-throttle into the depths of traumatizing psychological horror.
Walt begs Saul to call the guy who can "disappear" he and his family, even if it costs half-a-million dollars in cash. "You're a high-risk client," says Saul. "You're gonna need the deluxe service!" As far as Walt's concerned, money doesn't matter—keeping his family does. He rushes back home to collect that $500,000 from the stashes of bills kept in his basement, accessible through, that's right, a crawl space. The sequence's soundtrack, composed by Dave Porter, ratchets up the tension to unbearable levels—the tribal heartbeat-like bass gets the pulse raising, right before the sweeping, early-'80s-John-Carpenter-on-speed score turns equal parts mesmerizing and chilling. The viewer's face no doubt mirrors that of Skyler, whose reaction to what's about to happen to Walt makes a deer in headlights resemble a horse approaching a haystack.
5.
"Crawl Space" ends with Bryan Cranston playing the creepiest looney-tune imaginable. He's just learned that the bulk of his meth earnings have been given to Ted Beneke, courtesy of Skyler. Meaning, yes, he's screwed. Saul's "disappear" man is now unaffordable. Mr. Fate is happy. And all Walt can do is run the gamut of scared-shitless emotions in a matter of seconds. First, the loud, primal scream. Next, the sobbing. Lastly, and most incredibly, a fit of maniacal, batshit-crazy laughter that sounds like a mental patient's reaction to the world's most demented "knock, knock" joke.
"Crawl Space" director Scott Winant ends the episode on just that: Walt's uncontrollable laughter, a surge of mirth so powerful that his face turns bright red, as if it's one blood vessel away from popping. The camera slowly pans upward and away from the crawl space, framing Walt inside an already tiny box that only grows smaller as the camera moves further away—just as the hole Walt's dug for himself and his family members keeps getting deeper and deeper.
It's a mean-spirited but totally justifiable visual punchline. One that—as delivered by Scott Winant, episode writers George Mastras and Sam Catlin, and Breaking Bad mastermind Vince Gilligan—brilliantly concludes the altogether nerve-shaking "Crawl Space." Mr. Fate would approve. —Matt Barone
4."Phoenix" (Season 2, Episode 12)
Director: Colin Bucksey
Writer: John Shiban
Especially in the early seasons, when the cancer was real and the classroom still a space where Walt held court, this was Breaking Bad in a single scene: Out of breath, you get the phone call about how beautiful your newborn daughter is while on the phone in the blasted courtyard of a decrepit motel where you make your meth drop-off.
That's the opening of "Phoenix," the penultimate episode of the second season. One of the most effective aspects of Breaking Bad is the show's slow corruption of domestic spaces. This is realized fully in the fifth season episode "Hazard Pay," with the cooking montage in the suburban McMansion. But the way the domestic is tainted in "Phoenix" hurts the most.
After visiting with Skyler and Holly at the hospital, Walt heads home with the spoils of his first deal with Gus. He stacks the money on the washing machine, just one of many images capturing the way Walt’s criminal life is warping his regular-type life. Later in the episode, he lets Skyler rest after the baby wakes in night in order to show his infant daughter all that he’s done for her. In the garage he presents the bundled and stacked money hidden behind the valentine-pink insulation. “Look what Daddy did for you,” he says to Holly as much as to himself. His isn’t the pride of a new father, though. No, Walt has more in common with Odysseus and other figures from mythology. His flaw is tragic. It will undo everything.
For now, Skyler swallows Walt’s lies. He tells her he’s staring at brake lights on the highway, stuck in traffic, when he’s really delivering meth. He has his parallel in Jane, Jesse’s girlfriend and neighbor. Early in the episode she lies to her father about why she’s late to her NA meeting. She was in the shower, not just waking up from a heroin stupor. She paints a picture of normalcy with her words. You imagine her dad picturing her damp hair dripping onto the floor as she tugs on her shoes, the phone tucked snug between her tilted head and raised shoulder. But it’s not true. The paraphernalia on the nightstand and her tired eyes tell the tale. She’s using again.
The whole of de Lancie’s performance is gathered in his eyes; his face betrays his own lies to himself about his only child. Jane has been clean for 18 months, but that’s no reason to trust her. She’s silent during the meeting. She’s sullen during lunch afterward. There’s something so sad about the plastic number and dingy cafe where these wounded people are supposed to help each other.
He gives her the benefit of the doubt just this once. The next time she’s late, he’s at her place, catching her coming out of the front door of Jesse’s apartment. Still, because they’re family, she gets over on him. He’s on the phone with police, trying to report her and Jesse when Jane puts the right quiver in her voice and becomes his little girl again. Reminding him about how he let her houseplants die the last time she went to rehab, her tone is high and pouty. He backslides just as she has. He gives her the night to sort out her business before promising to take her to rehab in the morning.
Shrewd and ruthless, she blackmails Walt into giving Jesse his portion of the money from the buy. Her thinking is that if she and Jesse can have enough money, they can get clean and live their lives free of any parental interference. Really, the thinking isn’t so different from Walt’s when the show begins. All he needs is just enough to take care of his family, and then he can die in peace. Except there is no such thing as enough. Unless you mean just enough to ruin everything.
Bleary-eyed watching a nature doc about elephant families while listening to Skyler sing to their daughter through the baby monitor, Walt decides to pay up. He can’t help but act superior during the exchange, chiding Jesse for not wearing the pants. It’s a sexist retort from a hurt man too troubled to go home. Instead, Walt heads to a bar—the same bar where Jane’s dad is drinking. They converse as strangers, unaware of their connection. They talk about family. “What else is there?” her dad says. Family is the most sacred tie on Breaking Bad, and it’s at this moment that Walt decides to treat Jesse like a son.
What comes next has been painfully foreshadowed the entire episode. The corruption of the domestic, it gets no crueler than this. You first see it when Walt shows Marie how to tuck the baby in for a nap. “In case of spit-up,” he tells her, rolling up a towel and wedging it between the infant’s back and the crib's mattress. It’s the kind of thing any parent would do.
The second time you see this is when Jane packs a pillow against Jesse’s back after he shoots up. In case he throws up, she says. She calls him baby.
When Jane needs support, no one helps. Her father isn’t there. Unlucky for her, Walt is. He tries to rouse Jesse, presumably to tell him to rethink his decision. Walt does care for Jesse, and this is his demonstration of that care. But Jane is the one who needs help. While Walt tries to shake Jesse awake, Jane rolls onto her back, begins to vomit. Supine as she is, the vomit collects in her mouth and blocks her breath. Walt leans in to move her, the camera cuts in to a close-up of his face right before he puts a hand on her shoulder, and then he recoils as she continues to sputter and shake. She dies and he lets it happen. You lose everything by degrees, and here Walt loses too much.
Nothing was the same. —Ross Scarano
3."Half Measures" (Season 3, Episode 12)
Director: Adam Bernstein
Writers: Sam Catlin, Peter Gould
No one could have seen the importance or the total holy-shit thrills of "Half Measures" coming.
For one thing, it's not the final episode of the season, when major plot pivots typically take place. For another, it has an auspicious and funny cold open, following a day in the life of Wendy the Prostitute (Julia Minesci) as the bass of The Association's breezy '60s pop single "Windy" plucks away. This is an episode that begins with Skyler looking up money laundering on Wikipedia and Junior trying to get away with driving while using both feet: real criminal shit.
It's an episode that's full of resolution. We see Skyler's lie about Walter having a gambling problem working during a card game with Marie, Hank, and Junior. Marie manages to get Hank home from the hospital via the power of one extraordinary handjob. Even Jesse's thirst for revenge against the rival dealers who killed Combo—the first thing we've seen him truly passionate about since Jane's death—is eventually put on ice, not by Walter's plan to have Jesse collared and sentenced with community service ("Moronic," as graded by Mike), but by a Gus Fring-negotiated truce. As Walter explained to Jesse earlier in the episode over a post-meth-brewing beer, "Murder is not part of your 12-step program. You are not a murderer. I'm not, and you're not. It's as simple as that."
But on Breaking Bad, as in life, nothing is ever that simple.
After the Gus Fring Meth Dealers Peace Accord, Jesse goes home to Andrea, and in a post-coital embrace, is just beginning to sigh off his shitty day when Andrea gets some bad news: Her brother's been killed, and her brother happened to be Tomas, the boy dealer formerly under the employ of the Rival Dealers. Which makes Jesse indirectly responsible for not only the death of Combo (Rodney Rush), but of Combo's 11-year-old killer, and thus, a full-cycle agent of death.
After leaving Jesse a voicemail explaining his actions and his lack of apology, Walt gets Jesse's absence from work that day explained to him via TV, as Tomas's murder plays over the evening news. Sitting down to dinner with Skyler and Junior, it doesn't take Walter twenty seconds to think about it, and he's out the door. Jesse's in his car, in the dark, breaking his aforementioned 12-step program with a bump of meth to the dome, and ready to murder. Seeing the dealers, he gets out of the car, gun in his jacket pocket, cocked and loaded. Close-up smash cuts on Jesse's face, as he walks towards the rival dealers' car. They get out of the car. The streetlight leaks into the frame. They cock their guns. Jesse pulls his. They, theirs. All three guns go up. And then, the sound of tires screeching, followed by a THUMP, THUMP. In the blink of an eye, one dealer goes flying through the air, the other under Walter's car. Walt runs out of the car, looks at the dealers, and sensing that one is still alive, sprints towards him, picks up his gun, and shoots the dealer in the head as Jesse watches, mouth agape, in complete shock. Walt instructs him: "Run." And the episode cuts to black.
The death of the Rival Dealers is one of the most shocking set-pieces of Breaking Bad, not only for how surprising the killings are, but how grounded in reality and mundane their deaths are: Taken out by a Pontiac Aztek, and then shot in the head. It's an extreme, breathtaking two minutes of television, and nothing quite like anything we've ever seen.
But that's not the best part.
Midway through the episode comes the scene that would become a gospel-as-kinetic-undercurrent to the entire ethos of Breaking Bad, when Mike shows up unannounced at Walter White's home, as he babysits his newborn daughter, and explains his way through the door: "This isn't a phone talk." Mike coos over Walt's daughter, and then, prompted by Walter to get talking, tells him to sit, and proceeds to explain this—Mike's visit—is a professional courtesy, that nobody knows he's here, representing a massive break in protocol for Mike. And that this is long overdue.
"What is?" asks Walter.
Mark this as the major turning point in the series, the apple of knowledge Walter White receives that—for better or worse—will soon begin to inform every action he proceeds to take, either directly or indirectly, in compliance or defiance of Mike's mandate, and one that begins with a story of a beat cop and the one piece of shit he'll never forget. The camera angle, on the floor, captures Mike from below, giving the impression of a monolith of sage criminal wisdom, a wise man speaking from the kind of experience on both sides of the law in ways neither we, the viwers, nor Walter White could even begin to comprehend. And the retelling of the story of the perp that got away exasperates Mike, his upper lip trembling with rage, as the camera goes tight on Walter, listening, processing all of this, not missing a beat. Mike finishes his story on a moment of resignation, his lip no longer trembling, describing the blood of the woman whose murderer he could've-and should've-killed earlier.
"Moral of the story is, I chose a half measure, when I should have gone all the way. I'll never make that mistake again." Mike gets up. "No more half measures, Walter." He leaves the room in darkness, closes the door, and we cut to commercial, the world of Walter White forever changed. —Foster Kamer
2."One Minute" (Season 3, Episode 7)
Director: Michelle MacLaren
Writer: Thomas Schnauz
As per usual on Breaking Bad, there's an overpowering sense of dread throughout "One Minute," but, for a change, the dark cloud isn't hovering above Walter White and/or Jesse Pinkman—it's positioned right above Hank Schrader.
"One Minute" holds up as Dean Norris' finest hour as an actor. Considering his now-infamous toilet bowl revelation at the end of "Gliding Over All," Hank's about to take center-stage for the remainder of the show's duration. Still, "One Minute" is a towering achievement from one of television's most underrated performers, a guy who's been unfairly ignored by Emmy nominators. Granted, he's been covered by the shadows of Best Supporting Actor nominees Aaron Paul and Giancarlo Esposito. Take a look at "One Minute," though, and you'll see the power of Mr. Dean Norris.
After a brilliant cold, pre-title-card open (which we'll get to in more detail shortly), the episode begins with Hank, pulling up to Jesse's house, ready to unleash the fury. And, boy, does he. The Tyson-like punch that he serves to Jesse sends the young meth cook flying back into his living room, where Hank—seeing red over a crank call that made him think his wife, Marie, had been hospitalized after a terrible car accident—pummels Pinkman's face into the floor. That momentary lapse of reason, fueled by blind rage, is quickly usurped by a heavy depression, which settles in once Hank realizes that whooping Jesse's ass is about to cost him his job as a DEA agent.
And that's where Norris truly shines in "One Minute," nailing Hank's internalized sadness and believably crumbling into a scared, remorseful shell of a man in Marie's arms. Hank's world is falling apart. Breaking Bad's resident jokester, so confident and hard-nosed in previous episodes, turns into a petrified man who's helplessly watching his life deteriorate. "I'm supposed to be better than that," he says to Marie. "What I did to Pinkman…That's not who I'm supposed to be. That's not me." The pain is visible in Norris' eyes, his performance made all the more devastating by actress Betsy Brandt's wordless reactions—there's nothing Marie can do other than hold him, but she knows that's not enough. Hank's "been unraveling" ever since "that Salamanca thing" (meaning, when he shot and killed Tuco). And in her own ways, Marie's been doing the same.
On any other show, watching a character like Hank go through such a harsh self-evaluation would be somber and heart-wrenching. On Breaking Bad, it's both of those things, but it's also funereal. Whether he realizes it or not, Hank's life isn't just on the verge of a premature ending figuratively—there are, literally, two agents of death on his trail. During that aforementioned cold open, the Salamanca twins, Leonel and Marco, were seen placing a photo of Hank next to their candle-ridden shrine. Heisenberg's no longer their primary target. Hank's now got the bulls-eye on his bald head.
Other characters are featured in "One Minute," of course. There's the battered Jesse, stricken to a hospital bed and delivering a ferocious and, finally, defiant tirade against Walt, first telling him that he's ready to "own" Walt's brother-in-law, Hank, and then switching his anger toward Mr. White himself: "If the cops catch me, I give them what they want the most: you." Even colder, "You're my free pass…bitch." In the same scene, there's the always funny Saul, telling Walt that, thanks to Jesse's current beaten-down state, "You're now officially the cute one in the group. Ringo, meet Paul. Paul, meet Ringo." As for "the cute one," Walt reaches his breaking point with current cook-partner Gale, who screws up a batch by setting it at the wrong temperature (which, yes, is saboteur Walt's doing), and coaxes the livid Jesse into becoming his 50/50 partner under Gus Fring with an alluring sum of $1.5 million. That's a lot of scratch, bitch.
Those moments and character developments are all well-done, and also crucial for where Breaking Bad's narrative heads following "One Minute," but let's keep it real here: The episode belongs to Hank and the Salamanca twins. The opening sequence shows Leonel and Marco as kids, fighting over an action figure—the toy is Leonel's, and the youngster isn't happy with the fact that Marco just ripped its head off. They're playing close to Grandpa Hector, or "Tio," who's discussing some (illegal) business concurring "The Chicken Man," a.k.a. one Gustavo Fring.
What follows is episode writer Thomas Schanuz's shrewd method of explaining the twins' adulthood motivations without overtly spelling out anything. After Leonel cries to his grandfather, hoping the elder will chastise Marco for decapitating his figurine, Tio dunks Marco's head into a bucket full of icy water and cold beer. Marco's struggling to breathe. "How much does he have left?" Tio asks Leonel. "One minute?" Leonel slugs his grandfather, saving Marco and prompting Tio to give his grandchildren three words that will make them want to terminate their cousin Tuco's killer, Hank, by any means necessary: "Family is all." It's one of the biggest thematic statements on the show, making plain what's at the heart of Breaking Bad.
The means the twins use in their attempt to finish Hank are what ultimately made "One Minute" one of Breaking Bad's most exciting episodes. The final eight minutes contain one of TV's all-time greatest sequences of sustained tension, brutal violence, and masterful direction (courtesy of Michelle MacLaren, a veteran small-screen director of considerable talents and singular distinction). It's a dizzying explosion of cinema that puts MacLaren on par with filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Michael Mann. For the characters involved, it's a waking nightmare. And, ironically enough, it all begins with such optimism.
Unbeknownst to Hank, Walt has convinced Jesse to drop the pending lawsuit against him, sparing Hank of any certain professional termination. Stepping into the precinct's elevator, having just been told this amazing news, Hank's relieved. His shell-shocked smile is the first time in "One Minute" that he's not looking down the barrel of the proverbial gun. Leaving a supermarket, flowers in hand, he tells Marie: "I think we may be OK." Who can blame him for thinking so? Moments beforehand, his DEA superior Merkert said to him, "Maybe you have a guardian angel."
Nope. A different sort of angel will be visiting with Hank. Presented in real-time, starting at 3:07 p.m., the episode's grand finale pits Hank against the Salamanca twins, whose arrival in the supermarket's parking lot is signaled by a cryptic, distorted call to Hank's cellular, warning him, "Two men are coming to kill you. They are approaching your car. You have one minute." At 3:08, the carnage begins.
Let's not completely spoil Breaking Bad's apex of gruesome action here, though. For those who've yet to see it, it's a visceral knockout worth experiencing as blindly as possible; for those who've already witnessed its excellence, it warrants another viewing—or three. Bullets are fired, brains are blown out, innocent bystanders get killed, and there's an ax, just for good measure. The words "No…muy fácil" (translation, "No…too easy") become a chilling preamble for gory homicide. And it's all sonically punctuated by the spellbinding, haunting sound of a car alarm.
That hypnotic horn continues blaring as the corpses lie stiffly, as Hank writhes in near-death agony, and as the viewer's heart fights to start beating again. Then, the almighty credit of "Executive Producer: Vince Gilligan" flashes on the screen. It's always a surprise that the credits don't continue: "Powerhouse Actor: Dean Norris," "Badass Director: Michelle MacLaren," and "Dark Teleplay Master: Thomas Schnauz." It's always a surprise when your heart begins to beat again. —Matt Barone
1."Ozymandias" (Season 5, Episode 14)
Director: Rian Johnson
Writer: Moira Walley-Beckett
Final seasons are precarious. The finale itself is important but, if the whole year is premeditated as the end, then truly, every episode counts. You're cashing out moments and confrontations the series has, ostensibly, spent years and dozens of episodes banking. And every group of fans has a different expectation of how they expect it to explode. "Ozymandias" (taken in part with the last 15 minutes or so of the previous episode, "To'hajiiilee") is the sum of just about every plot and character act Breaking Bad spent five seasons inoculating and the fireworks are somehow meet the expectations, then fly right past them. It's not the series finale, but it damn sure feels like and could have served as one, reducing the two (very good) episodes that follow it to the stuff of epilogue.
The thing about Breaking Bad, and really, all heavily serialized dramas, is that they're essentially Greek tragedies. If the writer's room has done their job, surprises are paramount yes, but in a macro sense (even if it's retrospectively), everything should feel more or less inevitable. It's a masterclass in series conclusion (that real TV heads know The Shield arguably wrote the textbook for) where it's simply letting the chips fall not where they may, but where they must. Truly, the only place they ever could have fallen. And it's why this episode doesn't depend on a suspense-filled first viewing to still feel so potent. "Ozymandias," named for Percy Bysshe Shelly's fallen king, is a trainwreck we can't take our eyes off. The particulars change, but all trainwrecks have the same conclusion. Walt boarded his family on against their will in the pilot—the destination was written then. But what a beautiful crash. —Frazier Tharpe