With Breaking Bad, viewers should know by now that nothing stays good for long.  As I mentioned last week, the gut punch may not be in how things may eventually end up, but the way they get there.  In prior seasons we’ve been teased, often week to week, with cryptic scenes or images without context whose significance, once revealed, is almost nothing like what we could have imagined.  The pink, one-eyed bear in the pool and the body bags in the driveway from Season Two are great examples, but it’s those twists and turns and layers that make the show so engaging and addictive.  The tease that kicked off this season with Walt celebrating his 52nd birthday alone, in another state, with an alias has not yet been solved, though we’ve gotten pieces of how he got there (Mike’s documents, for example), and a glimpse at a few hints (the cough). What we do know for sure is that the ride from Point A (the mid-season finale) to Point B (that diner scene) is going to be wild.  Hit the jump for why you may need to stock up on anxiety meds for 2013.

One of the occasional perks of this gig is getting to see episodes in advance, but this week no such luck as, clearly, the spontaneous head combustion of critics across the country would have tipped somebody off.  One of the things that makes Breaking Bad such a phenomenal show (and the list is long) is its ability to elicit strong, visceral reactions from viewers.  There aren’t many shows I shout at, talk to, coax, cover my face and have to pick my jaw up from the floor and remember to take deep breaths because of.  Breaking Bad knows just when and how to punch us in the gut.  Sometimes the trick is half an element of surprise (as in two episodes ago), but perhaps even worse is the dread of watching the slow march towards the inevitable.  And no matter how it plays out for viewers, the terrible consequences are never glossed over.  Hit the jump for more of the specifics of this incredible episode.

“Buyout” is one way to describe action that took place this week on Breaking Bad, but there was also an immense amount of payoff as well.  To start, last week’s shock ending set up not only an immediate game-changing arc for Jesse, but longer-term questions about the nature of the business, the payoff from which we were immediately thrown into this week (narratively it paid off but specifically … wow, that was a difficult cold open to get through).  Then there was the fantastically unexpected series of events heightened by the volatile and uneasy alliance among Walt, Jesse and Mike that lead to the more literal payoffs.  It’s difficult being so exceptionally vague about such a packed episode, so for more on the specifics of the night, hit the jump.

It’s quite difficult to write a spoiler-free opening paragraph here after being so amped up by the hour’s finale.  As the rest of “Dead Freight” ambled on I took it as a middling episode.  Walt continues to hone, with exceptionally creepy precision, his ability to lie and manipulate those closest to him.  Mike, Walt and Jesse talk business, Jesse remains the moral compass and the greatest out of the box thinker of the trio, and screen time spent with Marie saturated us in purple.  Normal Breaking Bad stuff – and it was great, but not exceptional (I’m being a purposefully harsh judge – when a show sets a standard this high, I think it deserves a sharper critical eye).  And then that last thing happened, and my mouth just hung agape for several minutes afterwards.  For more on The Moment and why “it’s all about the weight, yo,” hit the jump.

First of all, you folks were right.  At least, all of you who pointed out that the cold open from the season opener showing Walt’s 52nd birthday was not his upcoming one but rather in a year’s time.  It was just unfathomable to me that merely a year had passed over the course of the last four seasons of the show – something Walt seemed to have trouble believing as well when he gave his “thank goodness for family” speech at his awkward birthday dinner.  One year ago Walt was diagnosed with cancer and got together with Jesse.  One year ago there was no Gus, no Mike, no Jane, no Tio, no baby Holly, no Heisenberg.  The sheer timeline of this show has been astounding; then again, it’s always been a series that was about the race against time.  But the driving factor was always money, and money it remains (even though Walt’s cancer is gone – or is it?).  For more on the worst birthday ever, hit the jump.

When things work out as well as they did in Breaking Bad’s “Hazard Pay” for almost all parties involved (minus Skyler), it’s Vince Gilligan mercifully throwing us a bone.  The violence and intensity takes a break, briefly, and we get a comic interlude that features Badger (Matt Jones) and Skinny Pete (Charles Baker).  Badger and Skinny Pete may be the most underrated performers on the show, actually, and often get some of the funniest lines (the only funny lines?).  Introducing Skinny Pete in “Hazard Pay” with him artfully and flawlessly dancing through a piano melody on a keyboard in the music store was funny, but also deeply sad.  How did this talented and sweet young man turn into the drug-addled and often brainless wisp?  That moment was as good of a “Meth: Not Even Once” campaign as any I’ve seen.  You can imagine Badger always having been a little educationally subnormal, but Skinny Pete?  What a waste.  Hit the jump for the specifics of the episode, and what will make tortillas smell like cat piss.

Breaking Bad has done well this year, even in only two episodes, to hold on to some of the conceits of its prior (fantastic) season, and to reward viewers with additional information we didn’t even know we craved.  Though the cold open with Madrigal left me confused at first that I was on the right channel, it turned out to be a mini-movie that served a plethora of purposes.  For one, we learned more about the German company that was tied up with Gus’ assets, which provided the lab equipment.  We saw the far-reaching effects – just like with the plane crash in an earlier season – of Walt’s decisions.  We established that “Mike’s men” were willing to take the fall, even a strange and drastic one in a corporate bathroom.  And finally, we saw the Los Pollos Hermanos sign being taken down – one of the final signs that the King Is Dead.  All of this lead us to Hank, who is rapidly gaining ground on Walt.  As his boss said of Gus, “he was right there in front of me, leading two lives. And I didn’t see it.” Hank, are you listening, Hank?  Hit the jump for more.

It’s been accepted at this point that Breaking Bad seasons start off slowly and build to an incredible, anxiety-inducing fever pitch.  But last night’s premiere episode already shows how dire Walt’s world is now, and apparently even more so in the future.  There’s no way, after last season’s explosive finale, that things could ever be casual again.  Even the first scene after the cold open, 90 seconds of which was released prior to the season beginning, shows what would appear, out of context, as a calm family setting.  But the implications of what Walt, Jr is talking about, and the coursing undercurrent of fear (from Skyler) coupled with uncertainty and tension (from Walt) was suffocating.  There is no ambiguity to Walt himself, now.  He completely and totally broke bad last season, and for many reasons, his current trajectory portends a future enveloped in darkness, fueled by his uncontrollable ego.  Hit the jump for more, and why I love fucking MAGNETS, bitch!!

For the past three months or so, AMC’s Breaking Bad has taken us on quite the journey, hasn’t it?  From that jaw-dropping season premiere to the jaw-destroying season finale (my jaw didn’t just hit the floor this evening:  it broke through my floorboards and burrowed into the foundation of my house), Vince Gilligan and company have delivered a slow-burn that’s kept us wondering how things would turn out for Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, and the rest of our beloved Breaking Bad characters.  Headed into tonight’s season finale, we were relatively sure that at least one character would die…but opinions were mixed on who it’d be.  So, after all that speculation, who survived to see Breaking Bad’s fifth—and final—season?  Find out after the jump, folks.

On last week’s Breaking Bad, we watched as—in the episode’s final moments—former chemistry teacher and current stressed-out meth-cook Walter White appeared to snap (Killing Joke-style) in the crawl space underneath his house.  After painting himself into yet another corner, it finally appeared that Walter was ready to skip town for good:  he got the number of a guy that could “disappear” him and his family, he sped home, and upon looking for the million-dollar nest egg he’d been building over the past year or so, he discovered that his wife had given the money away (to her former boss, no less).  As the credits rolled, Walt’s unhinged laughter echoed underneath an ominous, droning buzz on the soundtrack.  Where did the things go from there?  Read on for tonight’s Breaking Bad recap, my fellow junkies.

The opening paragraph of any Breaking Bad recap is supposed to be used to set up everything that follows:  a brief catcher-upper on what happened over the past few weeks, perhaps, or maybe a smarty-pants observation about the underlying message of the episode-in-question.  This is how one normally introduces a Breaking Bad recap, but after tonight’s episode, there’s simply no other way to start things off besides a simple, direct, and entirely appropriate “Holy. Shit.”  Find out why we’re swearing in the intro after the jump, my fellow Breaking Bad junkies…

When we learned that tonight’s installment of Breaking Bad was titled “Bug”, we might have suspected that tonight’s episode would be similar to last season’s gloriously sparse bottle episode, “Fly”.  In that episode, series creator Vince Gilligan dialed down the shenanigans until it was just two dudes in a room, and though the decision to set “Fly” almost entirely within a single set was almost certainly a decision made to help smooth out the season’s budget (that’s what “bottle episodes” are for, people), it also turned out to be a smart move dramatically:  “Fly” ranks among the very best Breaking Bad episodes ever produced.  So, did “Bug” follow in its footsteps, or was it something else entirely?  Find out after the jump, my precious snowflakes….

We’re getting into the tail-end of AMC’s Breaking Bad, and last week, things were really starting to heat up.  We learned that Hank had this whole Gus-Gale-Heisenberg connection pretty much nailed down (in the bravura monologue that closed last week’s episode).  We discovered that Jesse was immediately willing to take out Gus (with a little vial of poison) the first chance gets.  We learned that Walter’s journey over to the dark side is far from over (see also:  Walt blowing up a Mustang just ’cause).  And so, headed into this week’s episode, we were ready for the simmer to become a boil.  Did it?  Find out after the jump, my fellow Breaking Bad enthusiasts…

After a handful of episodes that– if we’re being frank– sometimes felt like Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan and company treading water, AMC’s best series has delivered two straight weeks of high-tension episodes.  Last week’s installment started turning up the heat on Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, Gus Fring, and Hank the DEA Agent, but this week’s episode turned it up until things were sitting at a nice simmer.  Be forewarned that spoilers for tonight’s episode abound after the jump, my fellow Breaking Bad enthusiasts…

AMC’s Breaking Bad is about half a dozen episodes into its fourth season, and with this week’s episode (“Cornered”) and last week’s entry, it appears that creator Vince Gilligan and his outstanding team of writers and directors are moving Breaking Bad back out of “overtly depressing and overwhelmingly dark” territory:  “Cornered” might be the most darkly comic episode we’ve seen so far this year.  And– while tonight’s installment didn’t really provide any shocking twists or unforeseen developments– it might have set the stage for some unfortunate developments in the weeks ahead.  Read on for tonight’s Breaking Bad recap, my fellow Breaking Bad enthusiasts…