Breaking Bad: Grilled

 "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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Breaking Bad: Crazy Handful of Nothin'

 "The faster they undergo change, the more violent the explosion."

Damn, this episode is clever.

I mean, there are all sorts of touches I could point to, from the flash forward to violence at the beginning to the way what Walt says in his chemistry lesson (see above) tends to foreshadow events. Yet ultimately this is an episode that pushes Walt's hands deeper and deeper into the blood as he commits more ad more heonous acts.

Things are out of control. Walt's chemo is leading to serious symptoms. He can no longer hide his cancer from Jesse, leading to a nuanced and extraordinary scene between the two men in which they seem to grow a little closer- and he may have to rely on Jesse for at least some of the cooking because of his ill health. This is not what he wanted: Walt makes it clear to Jesse at the start of the episode, tempting fate somewhat, that  he wants a clear division of labour. Walt cooks, while Jesse handles the sales and the "business" side. Walt thinks he can be the "silent" partner, and shield himself from all the ugliness. But we know that ain't gonna happen.

Nor are his excuses about why he comes home so late, or his lies about where the money for his treatment is coming from, at all sustainable. And he needs more money than can be gained from Jesse selling on the street- he needs to sell wholesale to a distributor. It feels natural at every stage how Walt is drawn deeper and deeper in, which is a sign of masterfu writing. It's a nice twist, too, that Hank's investigations get close to Walt but end up destroying the wrong man- the kindly caretaker who has helped Walt and whose only crime is to have smoked some weed. This is yet another tap, tap, tap on Walt's conscience.

In the context of al this, then, the conclusion is explosive in every sense.  Jesse has been hospitaised following his attempt to deal with the dangerous Tuco yet it is the badass Walt, armed with a little chemical oomph, who ends up the alpha male here- cleverly foreshadowed earlier as he bluffs Hank at cards, in turn reflecting how Hank failed to get his man. Layers upon layers. 

Walt gets what he wants, but at the cost of getting deeper and deeper in. He is slowly leaving his orderly life for one of violent chaos. "Heisenberg", as he is known to Tujo, is very much becoming a kind of uncertainty principle. This is clever, clever stuff, and bloody good telly.