Better Call Saul: Waterworks

 "Anyways, this guy, any good?"

"When I knew him, he was."

Observation number one: Jimmy/Saul/Gene... let's say "Saul" because that's who he's reverted to... is no Debbie Harry. Observation number two: wow. This Vince Gilligan-written-and-directed episode is tense, thematic, and beautifully structured.

Surprisingly, the first twenty-seven minutes are spend with Kim, in her humdrum, monochrome present. Dull job selling sprinklers. Dull social life. Dull husband. Dull sex life ("Yep, Yep. Yep. Yep."). And we spend twenty-seven minutes seeing this, at a slow pace- a brave but inspired choice. The thrill of the scamming is long behind her.

Any we end up seeing her side of the conversation with Jimmy. Leading to her full confession, firstly to Howard's widow and secondly to the law. She's willing to calmly face the consequences of her actions, unlike a certain con man of our and her acquaintance.

There are some flashbacks of the moment the divorce papers are signed, with Kim, inevitably, acting with integrity. It's weird seeing her in that office... and quite the surprise to see her interacting with a very sharp and on-the-ball Jesse.

But, inevitably, we return to Saul, following him during the ill-fated burglary... and again the tension is allowed to fester and fester. We know Saul is about to face his downfall, it's just a question of how. And, when the denouement comes, it does not disappoint. All throughout, Saul has relied on his charm... and especially, in his Sandpiper days, on his ability to get old ladies to look fondly on him. So it's delicious to find all his tricks failing utterly with Marion, leaving him exposed, desperate and on the run...

Again, wow.

Better Call Saul: Carrot and Stick

 "Lalo Salamanca lives!"

We don't see Lalo in this episode at all. But his influence is seen everywhere. 

We begin with... domino rally! Mike, again, has his moral code, and is trying to protect Nacho's dependents. But for Nacho things look much bleaker. His hiding place is discovered and, in sloooow scenes, we feel the tension deeply on his behalf as he realises his likely fate. In the end, he only just survives in an incredibly tense and dramatic sequence as the Salamancas (including those terrifying twins) arrive looking for him.

It's all devilishly complex: Gus talks to Don Hector who, of course, knows that Lalo is alive... and Gus sees, from Hector's expression, that this is the case. Giancarlo Esposito is exquisite here: he communicates this through facial expression alone.

And sothe way lies open for Mike to point out, according to his principles but also correctly, to Gus that he must lookafter Nacho. Because if thre Salamancas get to him, and get him to talk as they undoubtedly would... Gus is surely finished. Mike is bravely defiant on this: if Nacho hadn't rung, and asked to speak to Gus, I'm not sure what would have happened... but I suspect, in the longer term, Mike is earning even more of Gus' respect.

The other thread of the episode, with Jimmy and Kim putting their plot against Howard into operation, is similarly complex. It not clear what's going on yet, or meant to be, but it's fun to see this unfold, much as it was with the scams of old... much as it's also fun to see the entitled and arrogant Kettlemans get their comeuppance.

But this seems to be a turning point: Kim is turning very dark here, thoroughly corrupted by Jimmy. It's subtly and brilliantly done, and very much feels earned.

Better Call Saul was already exquisite. But we seem, crazy though it sounds, to be moving to another level altogether.

Better Call Saul: Bagman

 "The alternator's shot. Literally."

Wow.

You kbow, when Vince Gilligan himself writes and directs that you're getting a treat, and probably an unusual one. And crikey, we did.

The plot is simple- Lalo gets Jimmy to be the bagman in discreetly collecting his $7,000,000 bail from a discreet desert rendezvous, but he's ambushed by ne'er-do-wells and nearly robbed and killed. But Mike, watching from afar, efficiently saves him, kills the baddies, and eventually leads a desperate, fish-out-f-water Jimmy, to safety.

But it's about the nuances. The directorial touches here are frequently magnificent. The suspense is frequently exquisite. Yet, as ever, it's all about the characters. Lalo manipulating Jimmy into doing the fateful job in the first place. Jimmy demanding a $100k fee, something he may regret. The power imbalance between Jimmy and the scarily calm Lalo.

Then there's Mike's little speech about how he keeps on doing all this- for his granddaughter. And the episode's main point- Kim is now irrevocably involved in Jimmy's underground stuff. She's also the wife we don't see in Breaking Bad. She's... going to die, isn't she? I'm certain. The show isn't even trying to hide it.

Saul is getting involved in things far beyond him. And it's not just him who will be hurt in the process. This is utterly gripping, suspenseful television, even by BCS standards, but it's Kim it leaves me thinking of.

Better Call Saul: Wiedersehen

 "We should only use our powers for good..."

This is a fascinating penultimate episode. An awful lot happens, and there's so much character development... but it's still not clear how the finale is going to shape up. Well, aside from Werner escaping and trying to go home because he misses his wife. This is nicely done, and logically follows on from subtle hints that have been recently dropped. The lab is progressing, and starting to look like the lab we know from Breaking Bad.  Morale with the other Germans is high. There's a cool sequence with the demolition.

But then there's new guy, Lalo Salamanca, who we (and Nacho) first saw last episode. Suddenly he's in charge, using a clearly annoyed Nacho as an underling and throwing his weight around. He visits his "Uncle Hector, now disabled as we knew him in Breaking Bad... and, in a bizarre little mini-origin story, gives him the bell. This is a symbolic changing of the guard from one Salamanca to another. He's smarter than Hector, confident, and I love his comment that his uncle is  "Same old Hector... just wants to kill everybody".

He's going to annoy a lot of people, of course. His confrontation with Gus, two intelligent alpha males sizing each other up, is fascinating. But I rather fancy Gus' chances. Lalo isn't long, I suspect, for this world.

We start the episode with Kim and Jimmy on another scam, Kim by now absolutely a natural at the lying and all that comes with it. The two of them are on exactly the same page. Jimmy confidently expects to be reinstated as a lawyer... and he now has a new potential clientele, who know him as Saul Goodman. It looks like the future is being set up...

But he fails his reinstatement hearing.

And Jimmy doesn't take it well. The mask slips. Jimmy, a selfish, malevolent, entitled *** behind the surface charm, lashes out at Kim, who in turn tells him some home truths: she always comes running to him.

They seem to reconcile, but... what now? I don't know, but this is extraotrdinary television.

Better Call Saul: Witness

 "Perfection is the enemy of the perfectly adequate..."

Regarding the above quote, this episode is pretty much the former, with the season going in the directions I expected:

The Mike story parallels last episode with a long investigation scene vwithout dialogue, relying solely on superlative directing and facial acting, yet it's compelling. The plot is predictable, yes, but that's the point. That early reveal of Los Pollos Hermanos isn't a surprise, it's the culmination of what we've been waiting for. Then, with that scene of Mike roping in Jimmy to dstake out the restaurant, it's all about making us wait in anticipation until Gus appears... and we're thrilled when he does. Gus is no fool, as Giancarlo Esposito can imply with his facial expression alone.

Even more shocking is when, yep, it's made clear that Mike has been noticed. He's about to fall into Gus' orbit. Things are falling into place.

But the deep, clever drama here is between sweet, trusting, doomed Kim and slippery Jimmy, as Chuck schemes. We see another old/new face as Francesca is hired, a little haphazardly, with Kim being all professional while Jimmy is the folksy charmer. Francesca complains about "too much red tape" in her old job: I don't think shre'll be having that problem again.

It's when Ernesto tells Kim about the tape that things get truly fascinating. Kim does that "give me a dollar" thing from Breaking Bad(!), but she's still dipped her hand in the blood now. She can't pretend she doesn't know, yet she's still blind to the sort of man she's come to love. A con man and shyster who will drag down her professional reputation. A man who isn't violent, mean, verbally abusive or unkind, but a bad and self-centred, amoral man who ruins lives. Including, inevitably, hers. 

We end with Chuck's real trap, his clever, intended use of the tape after so much speculation. Ouch. Hook, line and sinker. This is simply sublime telly.

Better Call Saul: Mabel

 "For ten minutes today Chuck didn't hate me..."

This opening episode of the season was written and directed by Vince Gilligan himself. That certainly explains the quality of the writing, and the direction, upon which Mike's subplot depends to a huge extent. That this is a superb piece of television hardly needs mentioning.

Let us begin with Mike. His arc is extraordinarily based on visuals, montage, facial reactions, superb direction, Jonathan Banks being an actor of the very first rank. The upshot seems to be that this season will follow Mike's pursuit of who lies behind Hector Salamanca, whom we know to be Gus. Is this episode a statement of intent from Gilligan himself to that effect? Or am I entirely wrong?

Then there's Jimmy. Oh, Jimmy. We start with a flash forward to the monochrome life of "Gene" in Nebraska, deeply frustrated and unfulfilled, in a deeply revealing scene. Gene, Saul, Jimmy: all are very different personas.

We have the fascinating contrast, as a marker in the season opener, between Kim and Jimmy. Kim is professional, agonising over a bit of puntuation while taking on some of Jimmy's tiresome old clients while Jimmy just... well, does his thing. And receives a visit from an aitr force captain that harbinges that monochrome future. 

Then there's Chuck. There's the brothers bonding over childhood stuff... but Chuck has the recording. And a plan. Is this brother versus brother, step vs, counterstep, to define this season? Is this episode a statement of intent from Gilligan himself to that effect? Or am I entirely wrong?

Be that so or be it not, this is a triumph of the televisual art.

Better Call Saul: Klick

 "You finally got me where you want me..."

Wow. I thought this episode was going a certain way, with Cbhuck dying because of Jimmy's acts and decisions while he keeps up the nice guy act, thus cementing how morally awful he is. Certainly, this is all his fault. And the scenes of Chuck undergoing medical examination with bright lights and much electricity are shot superbly, reminding me of certain scenes from Trainspotting.

Yet the episode takes an unexpected turn.Chuck suffers, the MRI scan leaves him in a catatonic trance for twenty hours... yet he survives unharmed, returns home... and traps Jimmy into a recorded confession. Yes, I saw it coming. But it's a bombshdell of a moment, and elegantly earned.

This is a clever bait and switch. The opening flashback deceived me, perhaps... Jimmy clearly not having such deep feelings for their dying mother than Chuck, yet her dying words are "Jimmy! Jimmy!", to Chuck's heartbreak. Naturally, Jimmy is not told. Moments like these make us see Jimmy through Chuck's eyes. Yes, Chuck is an arrogant snob. But he has integrity. Jimmy, to put it mildly, doesn't. Poor Kim.

Then there's Mike, put off from his attempted assassination by Nacho and... someone else, perhaps? Mike looks scared, in a superb bit of facial acting from Jonathan Banks. Could it be an early sign of Gus? I know not, butr this is fascinating.

This isan't an explosive, dramatic finale. It's a quietly devastating one. And it works. This is exquisite stuff.

Better Call Saul: Mijo

 "I'm not a criminal! I'm a lawyer."

Yeah, Jimmy. You go on thinking that. But you've already started rolling down the slippery slope to criminality, which has its huge price. It's fascinating that this programme is more than just a prequel to Breaking Bad: it's a parallel. Saul, here back in 2002, is on the same trajectory as Walt, only without the psycopathy.

The episode is full of Easter eggs, especially regarding Tuco and his gang, all of whom survive at this point. But the way Jimmy uses the gift of his gab to not only survive his moment of extreme peril in the highly visually effective New Mexico desert is magnificent. He even manages to earn Tuco's respect. He's very fortunate that Tuco is so bleeding thick.

We move straight from extreme peril to a long, hilarios montage of day in, day out lawyering to petty criminals for a pittance, with Mike again being a strangely appropriate jobsworth.

We also get clues about Chuck. He's mentally rather than physically ill?

This is absolutely superb telly from Vince Gilligan. There are, of course, so many continuities in visua and thematic style from Breaking Bad. Yet Jimmy as the central character, and the profoundly amazing Bob Odenkirk as the star, is what makes this. The show, and Odenkirk's performance, is based on the grammar of comedy withoit necessarily being comedy. And it works so very well.

Better Call Saul: Uno

 "You work for people who have sex with chopped off head?"

Straight into this prequel to Breaking Bad- you knew this was coming- and crikey, this is already good indeed, even if we do already know the central character and are looking for Easter Eggs (hello, Mike as tollboth man).

But this is divinely crafted by Mr Vince Gilligan himself. We start, fasciinatingly, with a moustachioed Saul running that bakery in Nebraska he casually mentioned at the end of Breaking Bad... and his life is safe, if paranoid; decent, materially ok... and symbolically in monochrome. No wonder he drinks cheap whisky and watched videotapes of his glory days.

The, we flash back... so abruptly I thought my telly was on the blink- to Albuquerque... and the good old days are not as the rose tinted glasses see the, Jimmy McGill is a struggling public defender, talented yet offered no hope by the system, despite the urgings of his very interesting brother Chuck- intelligent, principled, cultured and (we assume) dying by some disease, probably cancer, which is a ****.

The argument between the two men is pivotal- Chuck was a partner in a law film who got ill, and has been shafted, to his brother's extreme chagrin, yet he refuses to sue the firm (Did it cause his condition? I admire how we are not just being spoonfed.) out of loyalty to the staff. He and  Jimmy disagree, yet here are two good, decent men disagreeing on points of conscience. Jimmy may have been guilty of ice-based naughtiness in his youth, butbhe;s a good man... whom we know will become a deeply cynical, criminal-adjacent lawyer in a trajectory which we cannot but parallel with that of Walter White.

And his first attempt at such cynicism in practice- with two young, naive, pathetic conmen- leads us to... Tuco, whom we know of old.

Oh dear.

I'm hooked already,

Incidentally, I'll be blogging this weekly. The Marvel series (currently Hawkeye) will continue as scheduled. I'll keep on with The Rings of Power, next episode (I hope) tomorrow. I have one more episode of Sandman. Then I really ought to start Andor, as I note three episodes have dropped.

I'll start a neew series, probably something vintage, when the constant stream of new telly alllows!

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019)

 "Dude, you're on fire!"

This film is, perhaps, a little slow at first. But it's slow for a reason and, as with anything written and shot by Vince Gilligan, it has real depths. For this is a characyer study of one Jesse Pjnkman, a man who has been enslaved and caged for months, and who is suffering intense PTSD at the start of the film. We have various flashbacks, all meaningful, all riffing on what's happening in the present day, one at the end featuring a welcome cameo for Bryan Cranston as Walter White.

But this is a film about how Jesse overcomes his PTSD to become a badass, and to have the chance to start a new life. We see the highly disturbing flashbacks of his life in captivity, and get to know at closequarters just how disturbing Todd is. It goes without saying that Jesse Plemons and, especially, Aaron Paul are magnificent.

It's a slow burn. This, crucially, is not an action film, and won't be enjoyed by those looking for one. But I'm watching it a mere couple of weeks after marathoning all of Breaking Bad. I know what it means to show such guts with those two fake cops; with that very particular vacuum cleaner salesman who can make one disappear; and that Wild West shootout.

Jesse grows so much as a character, if one sees this film as a continuation of Breaking Bad. Those two fake cops waste their money on girls and drugs in a way Jesse once did. But no more. He wants a new start, a new life in, er, Alaska. And he gets it.

This is a philosophical film, not an action thriller. Watch it with that in mind, and it's the perfect coda.

Breaking Bad: Felina

 "I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And... I was really... I was alive."

We start with Walt, miserable and freezing in New Hampshire. Alone, isolated, off grid, trying to get a car to start and getting a police scare to remind him he's hunted. Oh, and he's dying. He's in a grim situation.

Yet, from this downbeat teaser, we get Walt visiting Albuquerque one late time like an avenging demon. The plan to eventually provide for his family is inspired, even if, like everything else, it's Heisenberg. It's Heisenberg who tells the truth to Skyler. It's even Heisenberg who touches his baby daughter for one last time, as even monsters love their children. But monsters can be terrible, and Heisenberg more than most.

I correctly predicted before the start exactly who would die in this finale. That doesn't matter. Poetically, Jack and his whole gang, Lydia and Walt all HAD to die. It was just a matter of how, and it was all realised with such brilliance, from the machine gun contraption in the boot to the dispatching of both Todd and Jack.

Best of all, of course, is Walt's phone chat with Lydia, casually and cruelly telling her that the reason she probably feels under the weather is the ricin (at last!) that he slipped her.

Walt and Jesse's final parting is meaningful, as is Jesse's joyful freedom. For Walt, though, there can be only one ending.

A perfect finale to a perfect television series. This is literally sublime.

Breaking Bad: Madrigal

 "You are a time bomb. Tick, tick, ticking. And I have no intention of being around for the bomb."

I have the distinct impression that Mike may well be right about the above. Perhaps literally. I've no doubt Walt will not survive the season.

However, this is brilliantly executed telly drama. Mike, perhaps, after a few episodes of neglect, is the main character here. He's interrogated by Hank (now the golden boy again) and Steve Gomez, ho know that he, and eleven colleagues, hold the key to what Gus was up to, and if one should squeal...

We meet Lydia, whois nervous about this. She sets off to start killing all eleven but, as Mike confronts her and is about to kill her, she impresses him with her dignity,so she lives. I'm sure she's a chgaracter of which we'll learn more.

Walt and Jesse are certainly bonded closer than ever before. After a  clever little searching montage, Walt has Jesse find the poiuson cigarette... and has him as putty in his hands. For Walt is now mostly Heisenberg, Skyler is suffering depression after what she did to Ted, but Walt hugs her and consoles her that evil gets easier over time,

Shiver...

The theme here- Mike; Walt and Skyler;  Lydia... os that evil is often done for the sake of the children, a horrible truth.

This is, as if it needed saying, top telly.

Breaking Bad: Live Free or Die

 "What about that stuff you young guys wear on the end of your pricks? Speak now or forever speak soprano."

This is an interesting opener. On the surface, it's a matter of tying up loose ends following the eventful finale. Yet there's a sombre mood throughout, while Walt is very, very Heisenberg indeed. Could this final season see Walt become a true kingpin... but not ultimalely survive?

Fundanenttally, the main thrust of this is a heist. As a heist, it's fun, with the use of the magnets reminding us of Walt's cleverness and big science brain. The urgent mutual need to destroy the recordings from Gus' six quadrillion cameras is a suble way of getting Mike (he's back!) together with Walt and Jesse. Will he stay with them?

It's interesting that Skyler starts out being distant with Walt. She's now seen he's capable of killing, and he scares her. Yet, when she hears that Ted has woken up, and she visits him, appalled at the sight before her, he's clearly scared of her, and as much as begs for his life. Skyler, too, has dipped her hands in the blood, and this is a dramatic reminder. Unsurprisingly, this brings her and Walt together.

As for the opening scene, with Walt turning fifty-two and engaging in spy type stuff... I have no idea. But this is enthralling stuff.

Breaking Bad: Face Off

 "All I can say is... if I ever get anal polyps, I'll know what to name them."

Wow. That's how you do a finale. This is the perfect showdown- tense, clever, beautifully shot (with Vince Gilligan himself writing and directing)- and with a magnificent climax.

This whole season has been Walt vs Gus, life or death. Here we reach resolution, helped my absolutely superlative performances from Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Giancarlo Esposito and Mark Margolis, who utters not a word, as ever, but conveys so much.

The various twists and turns of the plot are a delight, but ultimately Walt succeeds in having Gus killed... and the scene of his calm, collected, horrific death is extraordinary. So, of course, is the final revelation that little Brock was poisoned, not with ricin, but by Walt. Like Gus, Walt is now not above risking the life of a child. How far he has fallen.

This is not a Skyler episode, but her hands, too, are dipped inexorably in the blood. At the end, on hearing of Gus' death, she asks "Was it you?" and is told that "I won". She gets the rather obvious subtext loud and clear.

Ultimately, though, this is a big step, but one that makes sense, in the extraordinary evolution of Walt from mild-mannered, dorky chemistry teacher to a kind of drug Corleone. Simply sublime.

And the title? Nice pun, but my God, that's dark.

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: Box Cutter

 "Well? Get back to work."

This is, of course, a superlative episode of television in its own right as well as being, although I say this unspoiled, the perfect season opening to set us up for a season based on competition between Heisenberg and Gus.

Yet it all boils down to one long scene, which I'll turn to immediately. Because we may start with a nice little flashback with Gale, ironiclly sowing the seeds of his own destruction, in flashback, as he encourages Gus to hire the creator of the mysterious blue meth. And we may then move on to the moment of the fateful shot- the camera focusing, as it should, on Jesse's horrified face as he does something he can never undo. But ultimately it's Jesse and Heisenberg (not Walt; only Heisenberg appears in this episode. That's a first.) who have to face the music as they wait for Gus.

As Gus enters, the tension is electric. Heisenberg is immediately out-alpha maled as he tries to justify his actions and emphasise his value- intrerestingly, taking a risk to protect Jesse. It seems what Jesse has just done has made Walt even more loyal to his friend. It's an extraordinary scene, which works due to the power of Bryan Cranston's delivery and the sheer menacing presence of Giancarlo Esposito. It's truly shocking when Gus, calm and silent up until this point-silence, in this case, means power- slashes Victor's neck and kills him. Walt and Jesse are too valuable, for the moment, but someone has to die.

It's an extraordinary and haunting few moments of television. The status quo is restored, on the surface, but it's kill or be killed.

Elsewhere, Skyler goes deeper into acceptance of her new criminal lifestyle- how far will she go? And Hank is not in a good place. He'd be in an even worse place if he knew what was funding his recovery. The direction is sublime, with objects used as reference points- that teddy bear eye again, and the knife used to kill Victor is seen earlier, like Chekhov's Gun. But this superlative episode is, ultimately, based around that one scene.

Breaking Bad: Full Measure

 "That's like Thomas Magnum threatening that, like, prissy guy with the moustache."

This is a big, important finale: we know, as Vince Gilligan is writing and directing himself. 

It's all really a big chess game between Walt and Gus. Yet it's all done with such humanity, reminding us that these are all people with lives and loved ones; even Mike is shown as a doting father immediately before he goes and kills some people in a rather cool little mission.

The start, a flashback with an incredibly young-looking Walt and Skyler, is a curiosity, certainly, and reminds uswhat a perfect couple they once were, in an empty house so full of infinite possibility, Skyler pregnant with Walt Jr and Walt both ambitious and irrepressibly confident. Yet it also serves to remind us how far Walt has come to be such a cold blooded killer, as we see this episode.

Walt talks his way out of immediately being killed on the orders of a superbly menacing Gus, but we all know it's just a temporary reprieve. As soon as we see his assistant- Gale- it's clear that a successor is being groomed for after his death. And the conversation between Gus and valuable pawn Gale is a triumph of scripting and acting, one of those conversations that are 100% subtext.

There's so much tension in this episode, as Walt knows he's to be killed very soon. The solution- to kill Gale and thus render himself irreplaceable- is brillant but desperate, and that final scene, as Walt is about to be killed, is an amazing bit of television, ending with a moment of high drama.

Where now...? Things are looking very much like Walt vs Gus, with Walt about to move upwards against the odds. We shall see...

Breaking Bad: No Mas

 "I'm the bad guy..."

This is, as I knew it would be, a magnificent season opener. It points forward, of course, as season openers do. The opening, yellow-tinted, scene introduces us to a pair of baddies and some surreal imagery of the sort we've come to expect.

Also Skyler is definitely divorcing Walt... and, in an extraordinary scene, she gets him to confess the truth and blackmails him into staying away from his two children forever. Ouch. Not sure if prison is actually worse than that, but this certainly looks as though the family stuff is going to recede into the background. And this, of course, is going to mean more Heisenberg and less Walt. Of which more later.

There are some neat scenes here. Hank unknowingly handling the drug money. The sheer awfulness of Jesse's rehab. But most of the emphasis here is on the duality between Walt and Heisenberg. So Walt sets fire to the drug money, and Heisenberg stops him. There's a big event at school to talk through the enormity of the plane crash, and what Walt says is pure, sociopathic Heisenberg, awkward and tone deaf as well as self-serving in its denial of the incomprehensible enormity of it all. Then he does the same thing later with Jesse, trying to minimise his guilt.

Yet it's Walt, not Heisenberg, who refuses Gus' offer for a big job. We know this won't last. But this looks like a season in which Heisenberg takes over more and more. Extraordinary telly, as ever.

Breaking Bad: ABQ

 "He's just decent. And he always does the right thing."

Here we go, then: the finale. There's tension throughout, a sense of foreboding. It's not necessatily because of what's happening, but the fact that the storytelling, in terms both of script and framing of shots, is full of awkward juxtapositions between the domesticity of Walt, decent family man, and the death and misery caused by Walt, drug lord. Scenes of Jane's dad being quietly devastated by something which is ultimately Walt's fault are juxtaposed with Walt holding his baby girl. Scenes of Jesse being "fixed" by a new character who reminds me of Harvey Keitel's character from Pulp Fiction are juxtaposed with a cosy breakfast scene chez White. The very structure of the episode is foregrounding how Walt's double life is not sustainable. It can't continue.

And it doesn't.

Walt is no longer a decent man. As Hank has worked out, his blue meth is now spreading well beyond New Mexico, causing exponential misery. He's killed Jane, and destroyed her father. He's ruined Jesse's life, however much he may now be cared for. And the ultimate expression of this, the huge metaphor, is how Jane's grieving dad, an air traffic controller, causes two planes to crash into each other right above Walt.This is the meaning of those arty monochrome openings- the pool, the eye, the teddy bear. Destroyed innocence. Hundreds dead before their time. All cleverly foreshadowed.

Walt has one and truly crossed the moral threshold. Heisenberg is now the real Walt. Jekyll has become Hyde. And Heisenberg does not deserve his family. Walt's lies were never sustainable, and so just two words "Which one?" cause the whole thread to unravel. Suddenly, Skyler (with some superb acting from both Anna Gunn and Bryan Cranston) is dangerously close to knowing all. And Walt is alone, and separated from his baby. Take it from a father; being separated from your baby for more than a few days does not leave yiou in a good place.

This is a magnificent bit of telly. 

What next?

Breaking Bad: Cancer Man

 "I'm thinking Albuqerque may have a new kingpin..."

The above line from Hank, near the beginning, is immediatley juxtaposed with a shot of Walt brushing his teeth and looking every bit the middle aged nerdish square. This sort of nice little touch- of which this episode has many- is key to what the episode is about, but we shall come to that.

The episode is about how Hank is, unwittingly, proceeding on Walter's trail. It's about the deepening of Jesse's character by showing us his parents and his privileged upbringing. It's about the reaction of Walt's family to finally being told about his cancer- from Skyler's irrational yet necessary optimism to the dickish yet understandable behaviour of Walter Jr, whose teenage mind proves incapable of processing this unacceptable news. It's about how school swots who play the piccolo can nevertheless smoke weed.

It's also about the grim reality of Walter's treatment, and the sheer expense of it all, with no guarantee of success and the certainly of massive debts either way. It can hardly, of course, avoid being a commentary of how unspeakable it is for a first world country to have no free-at-the-point-of-use health system. Yes, the wealthy can pay for quicker treatment elsewhere, but most Europeans have never known a time where being treated decently for cancer depended on one's ability to pay.

Yet this is Walter's dilemma. To die pointlessly, to bankrupt his family. Or...

At one level, Walter seemd to suppose that he can return to his old life as though the things he's done lately had never happened, as though there will be no consequences and he can leave all that behind. He certainly sends Jesse away with a flea in his ear when he offers to resume the partnership... for now. Yet it's clear he needs money, if only to save his family from crippling debt.

But the episode is, more even than this, about more than this: it's about what it is to be an alpha male, and how Walter needs to change and become one if he is to survive in this world. From Hank offering to support his family after Walter dies, to that yuppie wanker who gets his just desserts at the end, Walter's masculinity is under challenge. 

He has a decision to make.

And this remains superlatively good television.