Monday 1 August 2022

Breaking Bad: To'hajilee

 "Don't drink and drive. But, if you do, call me."

Wow. This is one of the most intricately plotted episodes of television I've ever seen, with all the interlocking pieces of the elegantly structured plot balanced out perfectly as we see the intertwining of two intertwining yet opposing plans- one from Walt, the other from Hank and Jesse- in a zero sum game in which they try and destroy each other...

Yet we end with a chaotic shootout which neither side wanted and neither side can control, ending in the ultimate cliffhanger. Will Hank survive? His emotional last phone call to Marie is ominous. There's no status quo now. No one is safe. Walt is dying, it's just a question of how soon, and desperate. And the acting is, of course, as superlative as the writing (and directing, much artier this week), with Cranston, Paul and Norris worthy of particularly high praise.

Yet there are also signs of things breaking down for poor Lydia without Walt, whose absence is crashing the quality of meth with uneducated criminals taking the place of a first class chemist. Things fall apart everywhere. No centre, it seems, can hold. The last fifteen minutes, certainly, show is that we are now approaching the end, and anything can happen.

Breaking Bad is better than ever. Also, it's very nearly over...

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