Breaking Bad: Granite State

 "Just so you know, this isn't personal."

Oh my. Where to start? Suddenly everything is going horribly wrong. Walt is still dying of cancer; chemo takes place in less than ideal conditions; he's forced to live in a shack in deepest, darkest New Hampshire (still a better fate than Saul, seemingly, destined for Nebraska, which this foreigner assumes to be the most obscure state in the USA- it's always the pretty much square ones), off grid, starved of company, unable to use his money or even send it to his family. Yes, Flynn is a good lad.

Also, Skyler is doomed. As Saul points out, she knows not where she is, and so she has nothing to trade. It all promises to be, as Walt (not Heisenberg; he even grows his hair), all for nothing.

Except he plans to kill Jack and all of his Nazi mates. My God, I hope so, after the slave labour for poor, despairing Jesse; the swastika tattoos; the callous murder of Andrea in front of Jesse. I'll say this now: Jack and his gang- including dead-eyed, evil Todd- are all going to die, like Walt will. I hope that amoral, cynical bitch Lydia dies too, but I suspect she won't.

And then we get the final betrayal, just when Walt appears to be ready to give himself up, as Elliott and Gretchen insult him on telly. One episode to go. I can't believe it. It will be quite the ride. This is how you do telly as art.This is Dickens. This is Thackeray. This is genius.

Breaking Bad: Hazard Pay

 "Just because you shot Jesse James doesn't make you Jesse James."

This is, perhaps, a quiet episode, one which has time to breathe and time for character development. Hence we have Skyler's breakdown, unsurprising after recent events, and Walt's inspired explanation to Marie, a brilliant scene. We have Walt and Jesse actually having a friendly conversation about Andrea, and Jesse is shocked to see Walt treat him with absolute trust and respect in how to handle it.

What makres the episode fun and fascinating in equal measure, though, is the premise: this is how one sets up a meth lab. We see Walt, Jesse and Mike- with assistance from Saul- inspecting potential front businesses before Walt hits upon a possible solution. Yet we also have a fascinating clash of the alpha males as Mike schools Walt on the realities of "business", of the many necessary underlings who need to take a cut, of the need to buy silence, of reality.

I strongly suspect, once things get harder, that Walt will cut corners, not do things Mike's way and show honour amongst thieves, and that may be his downfall in a final season which must surely end with his death. Walt, as the quote makes clear, is not Gus, after all. But I speculate.

This is an unusual change of pace, still bloody good telly but not in the usual way.

Breaking Bad: End Times

 "There will be an appropriate response..."

The landscape in Breaking Bad, showcasing the severely expansive vistas of New Mexico, have always brought about thoughts of a Western. Well, it's high noon. This is a showdown. The tension is unbearable before we even start, as Walt allows Skyler (who is starting to realise the fuller implications of what she's got herself into), Walt Jr and the baby to escape to protective custody with Hank and Maria. But a man's got to do what a man's got to do. So Walt holes up at home with that gun from a few episodes ago. Cranston is, of course, sublime throughout.

But so are Paul and Esposito, as Gus continues to manipulate Jesse, perhaps with too much transparency by now, paralleled by Hank manipulating Steve Gomez into a raid on the laundry... that seemingly accomplishes nothing. The umpteen dimensional chess continues, even as the stakes rise.

The tension rises, helped by some extraordinary directorial technique: I see Vince Gilligan directed this himself. And then suddenly the tension implodes, as we slowly, along with Jesse, absorb the news that Brock, the son of Jesse's erstwhile girlfriend, has been poisoned with ricin. That ricin. And we're so shocked at this point that we almost forget how exquisite is the plotting here.

Things speed up. Jesse tells his girlfriend (how will he explain it?) that it's ricin. And, in a scene that oozes superlative acting and direction from every pore, he visits Walt, blaming him and about to kill him. Only with Walt's gentle coaxing does it dawn on him that it's Gus who has the motive- manipulating Jesse, the one man stopping him from killing Walt, into doing his work for him- and the form, having killed children in the past.

Walt and Jesse are united, at last, against Gus. Yet Walt's intricate assassination attempt fails. Gus seems almost supernatural in his aloof, non-macho yet alpha male invulnerability.

I can't wait until the next one. My only regret is the fear that I will never again see television as good as this.

Breaking Bad: Crawl Space

 "This man needs help!"

"This man pays my salary..."

The walls are closing in. Walt has alienated both Gus and Jesse, he's in an awkward position with Hank, and Gus is now recovered from his poisoning, getting all avuncular with Jesse and in quietly vindictive mood as we see with his cruel goading of Tio Salamanca, whose children and grandchildren are now all dead. That's what happens when you mess with Gus. Jesse may be brave in insisting Walt not be killed, and he actually has some leverage, but it's all looking pretty ominous.

Skyler has her own problems, although of a much less immediate nature: Ted still won't pay off the IRS, he's in full denial mode, and Skyler is desperate in parallel with Walt, conspiring with Saul to get Ted roughed up. She's stepping, incrementally, further and further into criminality, just as her husband did. And this time, with grim comedy, she has blood on her hands as Ted is accidentally killed. Ouch.

Walt may manage to deter Hank through increasing desperation, and is lucky to arouse suspicion. But it's only a matter of time until Hank checks out the laundry. 

So finally we come to a denouement: a hooded Walt kidnapped and sent to face a visibly angry Gus in the desert. He's offered freedom and a clean break at the cost of giving up meth for good, and he could take it; with the car wash, his family is probably secure. Yet his defiant pride makes him refuse the offer, and so his family is doomed. The intricate plotting reaches a moment of true sublimity when a desperate Walt, hoping to give his family a new life, can't do so because Skyler used the money for Ted. Bryan Cranston gives a performance here which is absolutely top tier. The man is one of the greats.

The walls are closing in. Two episodes to go. This is televisual perfection.

Breaking Bad: Thirty-Eight Snub

 "They're not just zombies. They're Nazi zombies."

The opening scene with Walt/Heisenberg carefully buying a gun is fascinating, much as the boring detail reminds me of when I'm talking to a mechanic about my car, the workings of which which I know nothing. It shows, of course, that Walt realises he's in danger of being killed every time someone walks down the stairs into the lab. But his decision to buy a firearm illegally, despite the permissive laws of New Mexico, further underlines his commitment to go deeper and deeper into criminality. He can go only in the one direction.

Jesse is less pragmatic, spending with abandon and throwing over-the-top parties for his two friends and a load of strangers, horrible parties that I would hate. Yet he's a passive observer, in charge of the parties but not really part of them, the Boris Johnson of Albuquerque, trying to buy friendship with money alone. And he's passively lost his girlfriend, although not without leaving her with money he hopes she will use wisely, as he never will.

Hank isn't in a good place either, struggling with therapy. He's coldly pushing Marie away, rejecting her help as an undermining of his masculinity. He's also acquiring an interest in minerals, which is oddly nerdy for him. I'm not sure where this is going, but their marriage is looking decidedly troubled.

Walt and Skyler, meanwhile, despite superficial disagreements, seem to be getting closer as Skyler invests more and more deeply in Walt's criminal empire. Her plan to buy the car wash is aggressively (and misogynistically) rebuffed by Bogdan, still resentful of Walt, but she shows real skill as a bookkeeper.

Yet the episode hinges around the duo of Walt and Mike, two very intelligent and very ruthless men. Mike prevents Walt from making a very bad mistake in trying to kill Gus- who doesn't appear in the episode and from whose presence Walt is, apparently,banished, in an even more extreme manifestation of silence meaning power.

Yet, as Walt approaches Mike to seek a mutual understanding with Mike in one of those conversations thatare all subtext,trying to seekan ally against Gus, he gets a violent response. Yet has he truly lost in the longer term?

This is a fascinating, and masterfully crafted, episode.

Breaking Bad: Abiquiu

 "You, I thought I was gonna see some, like, vaginas."

As we often do in Breaking Bad, we begin with an obliquely symbolic sceene. It's our first flashback of Jesse and Jane- in itself significant- and it's a glimpse of that Georgia O'Keefe exhibition they visited last season. It's played for laughs, of course, with Jesse being his hilariously uncultured self, but we get a discussion of O'Keefe's many painings of doors, which are all different and each of which has its own meaning.

Because doors, of course, symbolise new beginnings. The symbolism of the door, and the fact that we get a flashback to Jane in this of all episodes, means I'm certain that Jesse is going to start a new reationship with the single mother whose name I didn't catch. The morality of this is all over the place. Jesse initially seduced her with the sole purpose of selling her meth while she's trying to kick the habit. This is not a nice thing to do but, for me, the fact the makes out with her and then tries to sell her meth is even worse. 

Then again, you can tell Jesse likes and cares about her son, so it's at once hpocritical and sincere of him to be shocked when she suggests getting high a few months before picking him up.

But there's a shock to come... her little brother is the kid on the bike with the gun from last season. Ouch.

Elsewhere, we have Hank struggling with therapy and feeling utterly defeated yet utterly determined- and hes not coming home until he's well. Dean Norris is amazing here. Of course, it's worth remembering that Hank's treatment is being funded, with delicious irony, through blue meth...

But perhaps most fascinating is the ongoing slow reconciliation between Walt and Skyler, who is dipping her hands further into the blood, meeting Saul and using her bookeeping knowledge to advise- wisely, it seems- on the money laundering. And it seems the two of them are not yet divorced. I think it's clear where this is going.

And yet we end with yet another calm yet tension-filled scene between Walt and Gus, in Gus' very nice kitchen. It's all deliciously nuanced and powerful, not because of what is said but what is left unsaid.

Wow. This is proper highbrow telly.