Breaking Bad: One Minute

 "Stop a bullet like a soft wang against a Quaker girl..."

Ok, that was bloody clever, bloody good, and I suspect once the shape of the season is all known this episode will end up looking pretty damn pivotal. It begins with a rash act from Hank and ends with, well, the events that give rise to the title. But it's so very much more.

Both Hank and Jesse reach rock bottom here. Hank's momentary act of anger seems about to costy him his career and perhaps even his liberty. The alpha male has gone; instead we have a Hank- played sublimely by Dean Norris, who shows us sides of Hank never previously seen but believably so-who finally admits in an extraordinary momologue that he's not been the same since his brush with mortality in El Paso. In parallel, Jesse gets two angry and despairing monologues of his own. The common thread is that both these men have potentoially had their lives utterly ruined by Walt.

We see Walt showing a certain superficial conscience here, yet it's Heisenberg who resolves the situation. Jesse, despite the advice of an alarmed Saul, plans to Sue Hank and use him as a "get out of jail free" card, selling out Jesse if he's caught. Heusenberg cannot allow this, yet his solution is cold, calculating and utterly ruthless- he throws his talented new lab mate overboard to be replaced with Jesse, something which makes absolutely no sense except, of course, to remove this danger. Jesse eventually accepts, but the relationshop between them has surely changed.

There's so much else, from the flashback opening scene with the twins and their uncle to the notormouth gunseller, but it's all about Jesse and Hank, all superbly scripted, shot and performed. And those last few minutes of tension as Hank is attacked by the brothers are simply amazing. This is a standout episode of a standout series. Extraordinary.