Breaking Bad, Breaking Fans, and Breaking Binge Watching

I'm well aware of the fact that I've written about Breaking Bad in nearly every one of my blog posts this semester, but let's ignore that for a second and focus on what really matters here; last Sunday's blisteringly painful (and antepenultimate) episode of the series. The buildup for this particular entry of the show had been approaching astronomical levels. Amid rumors of creator Vince Gilligan calling it his favorite episode ever and the extreme, cut-to-black cliffhanger ending of the previous episode, Twitter and Facebook users alike were collectively - excuse my language - losing their shit. The title of the episode alone is an homage to, appropriately enough, Percy Bysshe Shelley's Poem "Ozymandias," about a former "king of kings" that has since fallen from grace and disappeared forever in the sands. I'm no poetry major, but the similarities are enough for any fan of Breaking Bad to see.

I'll try and keep this summation/rant/love letter to Vince Gilligan as spoiler free as possible, but there are some events I'll just have to mention, so be warned. I've spent the past three days trying - and failing - to explain as eloquently as possible my opinion of the new developments on the show (If you want a truly great recap of the episode, check out Grantland's Andy Greenwald's take on things) but I think I'm finally ready to get my thoughts out there. At the very least, this may be a bit therapeutic for me: God knows I need something to dig me out of the funk I've been in.

To be blunt, "Ozymandias" made me feel things that I didn't know a TV show was capable of making me feel. My emotions ran the gamut of terrified to devastated to hopeful and then back to terrified. I was watching this show in a room full of 4-5 generally rowdy college guys, and each time the show cut to a commercial break there was dead silence. What started out five seasons ago as a fun (if very dark and gritty) "TV" show now felt extremely real. Too real. All Breaking Bad fans knew that everything was always pointing in this direction, but the sudden realization that it was all happening at the same damn time was too much to handle. Just thinking about it now has my adrenaline pumping.

From one of the first shots of a younger, oblivious Skyler talking on the phone to Walter, I knew things weren't going to end well (that knife rack anyone? Breaking Bad never foreshadows a weapon that it'll never use). And I was right. Any hope left for Hank - excuse me, ASAC Schrader - was gone within the first 15 minutes of the episode. And things just went downhill from there.

So much can be said about the decline of Walter White; how, no matter what, he failed to take responsibility for the hole he dug himself into or how the family that he sacrificed everything to protect no longer recognizes him as one of their own. How he rats on Jesse (poor Jesse, who ended up being the wisest, yet most tragic character on the show) and then almost kills his wife and son with a knife. "WE ARE A FAMILY," he screams, as his crippled son stands between him and his trembling wife, who is currently being held at knife point.

Let me repeat that. Walter is holding his wife and son at knife point. 

The acting was as top notch as ever (Bryan Cranston absolutely nailed the telephone call scene, filling his voice with loathing to throw the police off the scent of Skyler - thereby taking all the blame - while simultaneously breaking down in tears at the thought that he was about to lose his entire family forever. Seriously, I've never seen a better piece of acting.) but so much credit needs to go to Gilligan, writer Moira Walley-Beckett, and director Rian Johnshon. Kudos to Johnson for letting the characters tell the story - including the town of ABQ, which has become a character in and of itself - and for just

Heisenberg and Ozymandias

absolutely killing it cinematically.

And of course, Mr. Gilligan. I'm not sure whether to love him or loathe him right now. This episode of television was so devasting, so hard to endure, so - as Greenwald puts it -  "designed to counter our cultural turn toward binge-watching," that it almost seems inhumane to say that one enjoyed it. And yet it was perfect. It made an entire audience stop and think about what had just happened. And I don't mean the kind of thinking that you do while you wait for the new episode of Low Winter Sun to start; I mean the kind of thinking that immediately makes you turn off the TV and then proceeds to keep you up at night. We'd been through 60 episodes of rising action, building building building, until finally, we reach this climax. Because this was indeed the climax of our story; the next two episodes, whatever they have in store, will be the show's Shakespearean denouement. Our "hero" has fled, and now all that's left is the cleaning up of loose ends, the products of some sloppy half measures. And we know what Breaking Bad thinks about half measures.

I feel as if I haven't touched on anything, and yet I also feel that no more can be said. Yes, this was just an episode of TV, and yes, I know that you're sick of reading my endless tweets about Breaking Bad. But as a TVR major...hell, as a human being, I know that this show is the most important thing happening in the entertainment industry right now, and "Ozymandias" will likely go down as one of the best episodes of television ever. Heisenberg may have gone the way of the King of Kings, but Breaking Bad will live forever.