"Hey, you got the C bomb, man. All right?"
Every single episode of Breaking Bad so far has been a superlatively good bit of telly. For an episode to be excellent is, so far, the norm. Yet this episode manages to stand out. It's extraordinary.
There's a lot of story arc stuff here, obviously. Life goes on for the whole supporting cast, even if everything is centred around Tujo's kidnapping of Walt and Jesse. We see Hank, first of all in a hilarious opening scene at work and as he moves in and out of his comfort zone (acting all macho, chasing criminals even if he always fails to realise Walt's involvement), a shootout in the desert, even skilfully questioning Jesse's mother) and areas there he is much less assured (talking to Skyler, anything involving emotional intelligence). We see the devastating effect on Walt's family of his disappearance. And we're left to wonder just how the hell he's going to explain all this.
But much of the episode is heavily concentrated on the experiences of Walt and Jesse, completely at the mercy of the utterly fickly and mindlessly violent Tujo, a man who could simply kill them just like that for the slightest of reasons. There are so many moments of intense danger, and the feeling of constant tension is amazing, a testament to the excellence of both the script and the direction- and I suspect the unique mood of the artily shot New Mexico location has a lot to do with it too.
The acting is universally excellent, not least from Mark Margolis as Tujo's seriously ill father, uncle or whatever he is. The ending is surprising, satisfying, relieving and another kind of intense, all at once. How is Walt going to avoid Hank? How is he going to explain himself? How is he going to deal with the inevitable trauma?
This is as good as television gets.
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