Wednesday 18 May 2022

Breaking Bad: Dead Freight

 "Everyone sounds like Meryl Street with a gun to their head..."

This is a heist episode, obviously. The heist is splendidly tense, magnificently helmed and hugely entertaining, as every heist should be, Yet that ending, with the hired help killing a kid who witnessed it, having been told earlier by Walt that there had to be no witnesses... ouch. Last season Walt was accusing Gus of killing children, which he would never do. He's really crossed a line here, one from which there can be no redemption.

So Skyler is right to stick to her guns in using what power she has to resist him, keeping the kids safe and away (at what cost?) as a quid pro quo for tolerating him- in a way that implied cold eyed, meaningless sex. And Hank, going all David Brent after his promotion, is naive to trust the man who bugged his office- just as Walt and Jesse are, perhaps, also wrong to trust the devious Lydia as Mike postpones her execution yet again. She's a fascinating character- scheming, moral, yet she'd do anything for her daughter. I love how eager Mike is to kill her.

It's a paranoid episode, full of bugs, mistrust and unexpected problems, much like organised crime itself. And it's an episode in which Heisenberg get what they want and solve their little problem. But in doing so they pass the point of no return into real darkness.

This is dark, dark, brilliant telly.

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