Review - BREAKING BAD 5.08: 'Gliding Over All'

I reviewed the first episode of the season, so I feel it only seems fitting that I review what AMC is calling the mid-season finale. Though, it is just the mid-point of the season where they make us wait a year to see the rest. Like what was done with the final season of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. I envy those who will watch either of the shows in 2013 all the way through without these ridiculously long breaks.

Anyway, unto the breach, dear friends.

The season has been pretty solid and Shawn Mahone has been guest reviewing it on this blog and seemingly digging it. I haven't always agreed with his assessments but I appreciate that he has put his thoughts into words when I didn't feel like it (I am lazy).

But the show saved its season best episode for last (or mid-last) by not giving us big shocking moments, like last week, but instead by suggesting shocking moments to come at every meeting. And that's essentially what this episode was.

A series of meetings.

A series of deadly or potentially deadly meetings.

And because the show didn't play cute little games with the story points --that inevitably end up with obvious story solutions- the episode played up the tension organically, leaving the audience holding its breath at every potential bad turn.

With Mike gone and Walt having to deal with the consequences of his former business partner's goon squad squealing, things kick into action at a simmering pace. Walt meets with Lydia to get the names of Mike's crew. She worries that his intention is to get those names and kill her. At the end of the scene we learn she was right but by then she has saved her life by offering Walt a larger scale distribution for his meth operation.

Walt then meets with: Jesse to reminisce and pay him his share, with Jesse terrified that Mr. White has come to kill him; Skyler, who reveals they are rich beyond their ability to spend and that she wants him out and the family back together; and a crew of bad guys with the ability to wipe out the individuals on Lydia's list.

The episode also hints at the fact that Walt's cancer has returned.

Mike's men are assassinated in a brutal montage (the episode also has another montage of Walt's now more advanced meth network in play).

Walt quits so that he can have his family back.

And then we get the best THE USUAL SUSPECTS type ending since... that movie. The family, including Hank and Marie, enjoying each other's company, as the audience feels the charge of doom in the air. Something is going to go wrong. Someone is going to die. Walt can't possibly just get out. There will be men walking in any second now to blow them away. Or maybe a bomb. Or a sniper? Something bad is about to happen and there is no way it won't!

It reminded me of the SOPRANOS ending.

The anticipation.

And then the payoff.

Hank, accidentally discovers the truth while taking a dump. Gale's signed "Leaves of Grass" to "W.W." calls back to an earlier conversation between Walt and Hank and poof, like that, the detective puts it all together.

Walt is Heisenberg.

Genius.

Mind you, I've been saying for two seasons now that this show would end with Hank finding out and having to deal with the consequences and reality of what that means.

What does Hank do? Obviously he has to gather evidence but will he burn a family member? Hell, it will destroy his career having the mastermind behind all of this being someone that close.

I imagine he will do the right thing in the end, but that he will do what he can to not take the family down with Walt. And with Walt out of the game and dying, what is the thing that will bring him back into it? Why will he be arming himself to the teeth on his next birthday?

Many questions are left up in the air and we are a long way away from knowing the answers or even pieces. At least the show went out on a high note and earned every breathless moment of anticipation.

If I had to rate this episode, and Mike's rotting corpse says I do, then I'd give it:

98 out of 100

What did you think?

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Guest Review - BREAKING BAD 5.07: 'Say My Name'

I thought Shawn Mahone had died when he didn't send in his review yesterday but apparently he was on some fake Euro "holiday." So here is another review about the guys who knock. As always, I don't proofread his work so if he says something stupid, I am sure I can get his address so you can firebomb his house. --HGF

RIP Mike, RI Fucking P Mike! I knew deep down that Mike's fate was doomed from the season premier...Breaking Bad had to kill someone and they would never kill Jesse or Hank and I knew with every passing episode and the hints that pointed to Mike's eventual demise that he would go sooner or later. It could have been the legacy costs or the pointing of his gun to Walter so many times or just Walt saying in 5.03 that Mike was flying to close to the sun but I just knew it was coming but knowing and seeing are two different things altogether and watching Mike die hurt. It was beautifully shot and executed and his death was quiet and serene and perfect but it still fucking hurt!

Watching the making of the episode on the AMC website you can tell that this hit the cast and crew hard and Jonathan Banks who plays Mike is a big softy and he got emotional too, we are nearing end times story wise and I can only see more and more deaths occurring over the remaining 9 episodes of this show, so there is a lot more pain and heartbreak left and tension and drama and just shit hits the fan awesomeness!

So was Mike's death contrived? yes! I have to believe (although I have not read any comments online) that some fans will accept that Mike would not want to get Jesse caught and could not risk Saul but Walter White! He would accept the help from Walter fucking White? I suppose maybe Mike did get too close to the sun but still Mike was a pro and one who made very few mistakes and I just do not know if this was a fitting end for him. I am not saying that the way the show allowed for him to have a quiet and respectful death (I was waiting for Walt to shoot him again so kudos for Walt for letting him go without plugging him with another bullet) was not beautiful and incredibly poignant I just felt the machinations of it all and the plot logic and character logic seemed faulty. I mean simply put why not just have Jesse not in Saul's office when he calls? Urgh....

Walt, Walter, Heisenberg....what is there left to say for a man who has sunk so low and knows that he is going to hell and gleefully accepts it? The opening of the episode was pure macho bullshit ("Say my name!") but I loved it because that is some serious ass payoff to watching this character devolve. Basically the Phoenix crew is now his bitch and now he is going to up production to 100 lbs every cook and he is going to attempt to take over the drug world in the south. Good luck with that! But will he do it with Jesse or not? Jesse is now fully onto the bullshit that is Walter White, that there is no end, that Walt does not give a shit about the kids that die or the people they hurt or the wife who hates him or the fact that he has lost his kids or that he is just a ticking time bomb who is pure evil at this point. Jesse finally sees it, he finally sees the truth and confronts Walt and actually gives up his money...if it means his way out of Walt's life then so be it but we shall see because I think these two have a few makeup's and breakups before the series end. I have a feeling that they will band together over these 9 guys issue or something I am not sure about. I mean will Jesse stop Walt from having them killed? he has to right? I mean after all his epiphanies lately about Walt would he let him just kill another 9 guys for his own selfish needs? is Jesse finally going to say no we do not do this we take the rap for the bullshit we have pulled...is this the moment where Jesse finally teams up with Skyler and tries to take Walt out? hmmmmm.

Hank got in shit for having a hard on for Mike...I wonder if all that confiscated 5 million dollars will shut his boss up...they talk about funding and cash and budgets and man hours and all that shit well now they have a ton of fat stacks to put away from a big score and Hank was proven right so we shall see how that pans out.

A great episode that had wonderful moments and was wonderfully shot, I do not think Walt turned up to meet Mike to kill him, I think he took his gun to threaten him but not kill him. I think his pride and ego killed Mike and you could tell the look on his face when he shit mike and the looks on his face when Mike died. They were regretful and sad and he knows that he has fucked up and that this is another secret that Jesse and him will have between them. Mike had to go sadly and so does Skyler and I just do not know where this all goes but I am looking forward to the finale where Walt goes to Lydia and tries to off Mike's guys via Todd's uncles prison connections? I think.

Todd learning the process.....yeah that is going to fuck up sooner or later. Saul!!!!! I so needed your comic relief buddy! He was right though about the other lawyer...as Jesse said in season 2, in this business you do not want a criminal lawyer you want a criminal lawyer yo! I hope Saul makes it to the end, I think he will.

Episode rating 98 out of 100

See you guys for the finale I look forward to it and hope they can pull it together even through all these seasonal bumpy plot points that have been rushed or not well executed. I think they have done ok but more time would have helped smoothed stuff out but that is all cool....we are getting 16 more episodes more that the ratings deserve so I hold hope.

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Guest Review - BREAKING BAD 5.05: 'Dead Freight'

Shawn Mahone refuses to stop watching this show and even worse, he won't stop writing about it! I didn't write anything this week but his rating for the episode is one I almost agree with (though, I'd give it 2 points lower). So, enjoy this review. -- HGF

After HGF posted my last review I added some thoughts on how Jesse is no longer the one in this business for the fat stacks and the honey's and that Walt is the one who has become reckless and that it makes me laugh to think how far these two yahoos have come over the course of the series and in the shows time over the course of the year, that is until now.....that last 30 seconds are going to haunt me for a long, long, long time.

We can say that all the people that have died on screen in front of us by either Walt or Jesse pulling the trigger have not been innocent, in some way they have been complicit in their own downfall and we could accept their demise and move on. The plane crash victims we never saw and the show made a point of never detailing exactly who was on board at the time (men ? women? children?) so we could kinda put that aside and move on. We could move on from the drug dealers who killed Thomas because we never saw it or saw Brock ill from being poisoned or being poisoned or any other death like Gale or the drug dealers or the cartel or the cousins, etc....but fuck me if we cannot put aside a kid getting gunned down in the manner it went down. Fuck logic that says if I were a drug kingpin I would do the same because the kid has to go, fuck that it is only a show and reality does not matter, fuck that it allows Walt, Mike and Jesse and more specifically Walt to live and fight another day...fuck all that because that moment or more importantly how the characters respond to that moment will determine just how low Walt and Jesse will go and how much darkness these 2 infuse around the New Mexico area and I am worried that they will forge forward...heartbreaking, just heartbreaking. Walt and Jesse can no longer deny that they are different from Gus if they just put down the loss of a child due to cost of business and I can no longer think back and laugh or smile at any of this series anymore because I can no longer accept the price that people on this show have to pay so that Walt and Jesse can become more and more powerful. Shit! Mother Fucker! shit!!!!!!!

Serial killers who are nuts would be proud to claim the amount of deaths these two proactively or inactively contributed over the year, the amount of death on their shoulders must be running near the 1000 mark when you consider all the gang violence, plane crash, death of the cartel, death by Walt and Jesse, death by product....these two are no longer yahoos but Americas most wanted...they sit at the top of the fictional pile of Breaking Bad world of scumbags!

But putting aside my personal feelings (and my overall love for children and hate to see any pain or misery come to them) maybe that is the point, maybe that has been the whole point throughout the series. Walt has been building to this moment from season 1. He killed bad guys, then got Jesse to do it, then he did it without even flinching, then he poisoned kids, then he watched and said nothing when Todd did it. Breaking Bad has been telling us for 5 seasons now that this moment was going to come and they prepared us and warned us and it is only our own fault if we cannot accept where this series is heading. Walt will survive to the last episode and most likely last scene because Bryan Cranston is the lead and thus it is his show and it is his story. Whatever happens now it is only going to get darker and that has me worried for everyone. I do not think Skyler is going to make it to season 6 or 5.1....she is smoking way too much and Walt oddly ceded to her demands very quickly and that makes me think that he knows he cannot reason with her and that it is time for her to go....Rican cigarette anyone? so I think she is gone. Mike is gonna be gone and I do not think he will make it to the end of the season based on the conversation Walt had with Lydia. Jesse will survive because Aaron Paul is too good an actor to be left out of the series and Hank will survive because he will be the man who ends Walt's crimes and looks after his kids. Even Walt Jr is defying his parents way too much...one wonders if he moves back home and hides and hears the truth? hmmmm.

The train caper was excellently shot, directed, acted and edited. It was tense, intense, suspenseful and brilliantly executed and I enjoyed all involved having fun while doing this great heist. Walt again pushed it to the limit and they eked out every last drop of drama they could get and I loved every moment of that sequence.

Walt and Hanks conversation was a little weird and odd and I kinda do not buy Walt being that risky but since Jesse has come up with the best ideas this season because Walt has lost his mind I can to a degree buy his recklessness of leaving his finger prints all over Hanks office.

Walt and Skylers conversation.....BORING.....SNOOZEFEST.....Whatever, just kill her already Walt...Hank and Marie can look after your kids and considering how Bitchy and cunty your wife is that maybe the better option! Speaking of which....

The mention of the movie Heat was very après pro for this particular episode...a Heist that went wrong because of the new guy....lol...good stuff and very subtle.

I know I came down hard initially, I really loved this episode once I calmed down and thought more rationally....the shot to the gut at the end of the episode really got to me and it threw me off because of my feelings for children overall...never hurt a child...but this show has earned that moment and it has earned everything that comes its way and so as I watch this unfold I know it is going to be insane. I do not recognize Walt or Jesse anymore, I cannot even believe a single word that is coming out of Walt's mouth, all season he has been mixing truths with lies to everyone....I do not know what to believe...fuck...I do not even know what he fucking believes anymore. Ever since he has taken over from Gus he has not been himself at all, he does not think things out, he is reacting irrationally, he is talking down to people like Mike and Skyler, he is enjoying the thrill of being the man in charge...he has lost his mind....he is now Scarface...

But the sad thing is that Scarface refused to hurt children...Scarface has a way to go to catch Walter White or is it Heisenberg? I just do not know anymore....Brilliant.

Episode Rating 99 out of 100

Rian Johnson saved last episode ass in a big way and so did Cranston....this shitted all over the last one by a country fucking mile! Vince Gilligan brother...fuck the family concentrate on the drug business...come on!

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