(TV) Better Call Saul Season 1 Episode 2 “Mijo” TV Review

“Wow. You gotta mouth on you”

(Tuco)

In “Uno” we saw life handing Saul lemons but his sharp lawyer but in “Mijo” we see Saul show off his ability to, in his own words “turn a death sentence to six months’ probation”

“Mijo” started where “Uno” left off as the twins talked their way into a world of trouble after the old lady (who we find out in short order is the grandmother of Breaking Bad alumni Tuco Salamanca) informs Tuco of the accident but one of the twins makes the mistake of calling the old lady a “crazy old biznatch” which instantly hit the kill switch in Tuco who we know from Breaking Bad is not one to take insults or even perceived slights lightly.

The Tuco presented to us so far seems a far calmer and sober version than the violent lunatic we saw in Breaking Bad who took meth in just about every scene we saw him in and killed for little or no reason. However, it’s not long before we see Tuco’s violent tendencies get the best of him as after he ushers his distressed grandmother upstairs and waits till she’s out of sight, he clocks both of the twins unconscious with his grandmother’s walker after getting sick of the twins disrespectful tone and constant claims for compensation.

It’s not been a great day for Saul and it gets worse as he interrupts Tuco in the middle of scrubbing the twin’s blood out of his grandma’s carpet. We hear Saul knock on the door and as soon as the door opens he’s greeted with Tuco sticking a gun in his face ushering him into the house.

After searching Saul, Tuco offers Saul a seat while pointing his gun right at his face asking him who he is. Saul, scared out of his mind, pretty much tells Tuco the truth though leaving a couple of incriminating details. When their discussion is interrupted by Tuco grandma, Saul notices the “salsa stain” on the carpet he knows full well isn’t salsa and which instills even more fear in him.

However, despite being petrified, Saul still manages to stay in full lawyer mode as he manages to talk Tuco into releasing the twins after but the twins, desperate to find a way out, undo all of Saul’s good work and incriminate Saul which earned all three of them a trip to the New Mexico desert.

When we see Saul, the twins, Tuco and three of his goons in the desert, I instantly perked up and paid attention as in Breaking Bad trips to the desert accounted for some of the best television of the last decade as characters either, died, made deals or talked their way out of the death in the New Mexico desert and this scene in “Mijo was no different. Trips to the desert in Breaking Bad often came across as a masterclass in how talk your way out of impending death as Walt and Jesse found themselves, more often than not, begging for their lives at the end of a gun and in this episode, Saul showed us he can match Walt’s world class talent for presenting rational arguments under duress.

Tuco and his crew interrogate Saul who spills the beans on his original plan to scam his way into getting the treasurer’s business that had gone woefully wrong but Tuco and his crew don’t believe him. One of Tuco’s guys makes a trip to the van to take a toolbox which only makes Saul reiterate his line which Tuco and his crew aren’t buying. Tuco then takes out pair of sharp looking pliers and motions to cut Saul’s fingers off which makes Saul talk real fast insisting he’s not a cop.

Tuco still doesn’t believe him after taking checking his business card. After Tuco cuts slightly into his fingers and realizing that the truth just might get him killed, Saul starting singing claiming to be an undercover FBI agent and insist that Tuco lets him go. Tuco is totally sold that Saul’s a fed but one of his henchmen is not so sure as he questions “Jeffrey Steel” about the apparent “investigation” but Saul, working off his wits, is running out of story. Saul’s already proven that he has a real talent for deception but the BS story about operation “kingbreaker” runs thin as Tuco’s man borrows the pliers and coldly asks him to tell the truth. Seeing that his FBI deception isn’t working on Tuco’s savvier henchman, Saul reverts back to the truth.

Probably thinking two moves ahead of his less than strategic crew leader, Tuco henchman suggests that Tuco let’s Saul go. After short exchange where Tuco’s Henchman convinces his boss that Saul is not FBI agent, he cuts Saul loose reminding him that he knows where to find him which, as we find out later in the episode, is way sooner than Saul would like.

As one of Tuco’s other henchman escorts Saul back to his car, Tuco, undoing his shirt cuffs, bears down on the twins which prompts Saul into one of great performances of his life as he goes from creating a BS story about the twins’ mother to talking Tuco down from gutting, blinding and slitting the twins throat to breaking their legs with by giving Tuco a small lecture in justice 101: proportionality.

It was truly a great feat to watch and clearly a great feat for Saul to pull off as the whole ordeal gives Saul a major shot in arm as he realizes he’s “best lawyer ever” after saving the twins from a slow and painful death. It was the stand out scene the episode and arguably the season as it will take something great in future episodes to top it.

In the last two episodes we’ve seen Saul’s ability to think on his feet but in “Mijo” his skill to react to situations quickly made this less of a painful as we watch a signature Gillianesque montage involving Saul negotiate the daily grind his profession of taking on no hope clients, an overcharging prosecutor, poor pay and a formidable toll booth operator an awful lot better than he did in the first episode.

However towards the end of the montage, we see the daily grind of his job wear him down as the shot in arm earned from the Tuco situation wears off. In the next scene we see Saul pass through the nail salon to get to his office which is isn’t much to write about but what was notable was that the ladies in the shop were much more receptive than they were in “Uno” as he glided through the shop barely noticed.

Once we’re in his office, we once again see his hesitation in checking his messages in fear he has none and once again, his fear are realized. Just before Saul opens up takes a siesta on his bed cum office sofa, his landlord inform that he has a customer but, as it turns out, it’s not a customer he’d bargained for. Tuco savvy henchman pays Saul a visit he’s less than glad to receive and propositions him to rip off  the treasurer and his wife which Saul, surprisingly, rejects swiftly stating that he’s “a lawyer,  not a criminal”.

His insistence that he’s not criminal took me aback  as it brought out of me the same “you’re shitting me” reaction it brought of Tuco’s henchman as it seemed out of character of a man who has shown he’s prepared to break the law to get clients. This was the only misstep made so far in the series as Saul in just two episodes has shown a high level of street smarts that would make Tuco henchman’s last line about Saul figuring out he’s “in the game” redundant.

Nonetheless, “Mijo” was a great episode and another sterling performance by Bob Odenkirk who once again shows he’s a great dramatic as well as comedic actor. More episodes like this and Better Call Saul just might be as award laden as its predecessor.

(TV) Better Call Saul Season 1 Episode 1 TV Review

Rarely has there been this much anticipation for a spinoff of a successful show and what’s even rarer is the spinoff being anywhere as good as its predecessor but with Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan and Philip Gould at the helm and off the first outing of Better Call Saul, It’s already quite clear that it won’t go the way of other spinoffs.

The show doesn’t have ounce of fat on it as it focuses tightly on our protagonist who is present in just about every scene. In the first episode, we learn more about Saul Goodman A.K.A James McGill than we did in the character’s four season run as Walt and Jesse’s wisecracking “criminal lawyer”. In stark contrast to the upbeat and glib charm we come to know and love Saul for in breaking Bad, he cuts a forlorn figure before and after the events of Breaking Bad as we see him working at Cinnabons and watching over shoulder his in fear of reprisals.

His supposed fall from grace is hammered home as we follow him home to decent but eerily empty abode where pours a mix of Drambuie and Dewar White Label and watches his old cheesy commercials a picture of sorrow and regret. These short but depressing few scenes at the start of the episode reveals to us not only his fall from grace but a man stripped of purpose and on a road to self-destruction which makes for a compelling but ultimately sad spectacle especially in light of what we knew of him before.

We flashback to his life before he met Walt and Jesse and to some extent it’s kind of hard to say which part of his life was more depressing: his life before or after the events of Breaking Bad. We once again learn more in a scene than we did in his whole run in Breaking Bad as we see Saul, now going by the name James McGill, holding up a court trying to get his closing argument down pat.

This small scene is pretty great as we learn all his charm doesn’t come from natural charisma but from bloody hard work. Throughout this episode, Saul (I find it difficult to refer to Saul by his real name), is portrayed as a lonely and severely insecure man looking to prove himself and failing at every turn but in the scene in the bathroom where we find him going through his closing argument in his head to when delivers it perfectly in the courtroom, we know it’s not for a lack of trying.

There’s a great comedic moment when Saul rips through his great closing argument in defense of three teenage boys, the prosecution simply goes across the room, drags a nearby television hooked to a VCR in front of the jury and pops in a tape that shows Saul’s clients sexually molesting then cutting of the head of a dead corpse.

The video pretty much kills his case as we find Saul remonstrating with a court receptionist over his measly pay as a public defender demanding extra for representing three defendants. What this short but telling scene revealed is that Saul from the outset could care less about the guilt or innocence of his clients. It also reveals that he’s no fan of his current position as public defender as the last case showed, most of them are unwinnable. We find out later in the episode that Saul was morally corrupted back in his teens but in this short scene and in others in the episode, we see that it wasn’t going to take much to corrupt him later on.

Another short scene right after shows us Saul’s uncanny skill for deception as he impersonates an Irish assistant supposedly working for his firm on the spot. We’ve already seen Saul is a pretty good at working a crowd but his skill for on the spot deception is outright criminal genius. In that same scene we see him pull up at a tool booth and from a voice off screen we instantly realize that this is Saul’s first encounter with Mike. Jonathan Banks was excellent as the deadpan and no-nonsense hitman and it’s great to see that he’ll be playing him in future episode which already makes my anticipation for the next episode that much unbearable.

In the next scene, we find Saul at the four O’clock appointment setup by his “Irish assistant” in a diner with a couple once again showing his great ability to pitch. His ability to pitch is even more highlighted by the awkward conversation about the case which reveals the couple’s guilt and, once again, Saul’s indifference towards the guilt of his prospective clients.  

So far, we’ve seen Saul frustrated by his legal career and thanks to the treasurers’ wife, he suffers another setback as she stops her husband from signing a letter of engagement at the last minute. Gilligan and Gould make a great choice of focusing on Saul’s face watching the treasurer almost sign on the dotted line before his wife stops him as one frame on Saul’s face shows us the desperation and over-eagerness of a man looking for a break and the dejection when that break turns into a false dawn.

The time we’ve spent with Saul has been one disappointment after another as life is handing one lemon after another and they keep on coming as two twin scammers try to pull one over on Saul as one jumps upfront of Saul’s car while the other twin ramps up pressure on Saul with a camcorder that just happens to be handy when his brother is “unfortunately” run into.

However their misfortune is compounded by the fact that Saul has their number as while Saul initial reaction of blind fear is real, he relaxes when they bring up the issue of compensation. After the twins settle on $500 being the number that “make(s) things right”, Saul proceeds to cut through the act and then rips them for their poor choice of victim with a great line about his car “only being worth $500 with a $300 hooker sitting in it”.

That great line is one of the few lines that made me laugh out loud in this episode which wasn’t particularly funny. This is not bad thing as I’ve found the best comedies don’t make you laugh but when they do, it’s worth remembering. The episode wasn’t funny because Gilligan and Gould can’t write comedy (they clearly can as Breaking Bad would have been an unbearable watch if they couldn’t), it’s because Saul’s life is more tragic than it is funny.  We’ve seen Saul get poorly compensated for taking unwinnable cases, get rejected by drop dead guilty clients and chase off twin scammers for trying to get one over on him, none of which is funny to him or would be funny to us if we were in his shoes.

If there’s any comedy in Better Call Saul, you’d better believe it’s down to the great lines and comic timing of Gilligan and Gould and a stand out performance from Bob Odenkirk (whose been great in everything we’ve seen him in post Breaking Bad from the Oscar nominated Nebraska to the brilliant and award laden TV reworking of the classic 1996 Coen brothers’ film Fargo) because it’s certainly not coming from the events taking place in Saul’s life.

In the next scene, we see why Saul’s “Irish assistant” set up a meeting at a diner rather than his office as his “office” is basically a spare room at the back of nail and pedicure joint.  Again we see traces of his insecurity as he hesitates to check his messages fearing he has none, his fears are realized when the answering tells him what he already knows. Saul files through his mail then opens up a letter from Hamlin, Hamlin, and McGill (HHM) with a check made to James McGill for $26,000 which Saul, after a beat, rips into pieces.     

In the next scene we get to see why as he makes a visit HHM. From his interaction with just about everybody outside the main office, he’s not exactly man of the year as while the staff there remember him, it’s palpable they don’t remember him fondly. We get an even greater sense that his presence is not welcome when he makes his entrance into a partners meeting to discuss the check in mail which he empties out of his palm onto a finely polished table.

We learn through his conversation with one of the partners that the check wasn’t for him, it was for his brother, Saul clearly thinks his brother is being shortchanged and wants HHM to buyout his share of firm but it becomes clear that Saul doesn’t have the authority to make such a demand on his brother’s behalf. Saul then threatens to take HHM to court then exits the office but not before his best impression of Ned Beatty’s performance in the classic 1976 Paddy Chayefsky satire “Network”.

All we’ve seen all episode is Saul suffer one knock back after another but the one that clearly hurt him the most was seeing the treasurer and his wife in the foyer of HMM chopping it up with the senior partner we saw earlier in the main office. As he exits the elevator we see Saul lets go of all his frustration as he wails on a nearby bin with a barrage of kicks. This is telling as lets out all the choked back anger at his situation and the cosmic joke that has become his life. We got none of this in Breaking Bad as more often than not, Saul always had some semblance of control.

In the next scene we follow Saul home and find that his house is powerless but not empty as we hear a voice off screen. After Saul lights a lantern and puts groceries in an ice bucket, we find Saul’s brother Chuck at a typewriter. The conversation between the two is the first conversation between that wasn’t purely business or outright adversarial as Saul clearly cares for his brother and vice versa.

The love between the two is palpable when Saul insists that Chuck quits HHM and his brother also determined to prove he can get back in the game but with his fear of electromagnetism (hence the powerless house), Saul’s not so sure. However, Chuck proves himself to be a great debater as he swiftly cuts through his brother’s arguments regarding his career as he rightly points out that his arguments are built on false principles but Saul counters with an argument built on a principle that’s hard to falsify: economic reality.   

    

Saul informs Chuck that he’s broke and while Chuck argues that money is “beside the point”, Saul counters that “money is the point” which reveals a sharp philosophical break between the two. From what we’ve seen so far, Chuck is clearly the more patient, intellectual, and therefore the more successful of the two while Saul, driven by his insecurity and lack of success in spite of his sharp mind, is overly concerned about the result of his actions which makes the continual cosmic setbacks harder to take on the chin.

In the scene with Chuck we find out that Saul only took public defender work because of Chuck’s insistence of its nobility and the precious experience he would gain which again brings into focus the philosophical difference between the two as Saul, less than impressed with monetary results never mind the unwinnable cases, is clearly not convinced that public defender work is either noble or the experience of doing it enlightening.

However, Saul soon found out that his impassioned argument to get his brother to cash out of HHM was to come to naught as the firm was already sending Chuck checks he was more than happy to accept due to his insistence he will resume work at the firm. Saul, flabbergasted, thinks HHM are taking advantage of his brother’s optimistic assessment of his health but is shut down by Chuck’s insistence that he will get better. Saul has spent the whole day suffering setback after setback but when Chuck hands him the matchbox he gave to the couple earlier in the episode and suggests he changes his name ”to build his own identity”, we see that this was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back as far as Saul playing by the rules.

While we know later that Saul took Chuck’s advice wholesale down the line, right now, blinded once again by his anger and insecurity about his life and now HHM taking advantage of his brother’s naivety, all he can fathom is a certain sense of betrayal and a major hard on for poking HHM in the eye.

Saul plan to poke HHM in the eye is crudely simple by potentially effective as he recruits the twin scammers to play the same hustle they tried on him on the treasurer’s wife so that he can come to her rescue and possibly steal the treasurer’s embezzlement case from HHM. Not a bad plan but, as with all plans, good or bad, they are useless when the variables they’re based on suddenly change or were faulty in the first place. The twins are on the right street and target the right car but clearly the wrong driver as instead of getting out of the vehicle to see if  their “victim” is ok, the driver speeds off. While Saul rightly tells the twins, now following the car, that the hit and run is a good thing as it gives them more leverage.

However, this makes the twins greedy as they figure they could shake down once they catch up with the driver and demand compensation. They ignore Saul’s wise advice to hang back which they ultimately pay for as they roll up on the driver, an elderly but stern looking Hispanic woman, and demand, through a cursory understanding of Spanish, compensation. However, the old lady, certainly nobody’s fool, sees right through the twins and invites them into their home and calls out for her son in Spanish which would have sent a red flag among the twins if they understood a word of Spanish beyond the terms that sound similar to their English equivalents.

Their greed also drags Saul into the same quagmire as he spots the twin’s skateboards and headgear on the old lady’s lawn which should have sent a massive red flag but with Saul working on his pitch to reel in the treasurer’s wife, he’s too focused on cashing in to register any danger. However, Saul inability to register danger is soon addressed as he gets a 45 Magnum Revolver stuck in his face by none other than Tuco Salamanca who drags Saul into his house.

In Tuco we see another face we recognize from Breaking Bad and s sure to feature heavily in the show and probably might explain how Saul got connected with Gus Fring and in the New Mexico underworld in general. In any case, I trust Gilligan and Gould’s ability to tell a story as if the first episode is anything to go by, it might just match its original inspiration for greatness.   

In sum, “Uno” was a great episode as it was brilliantly written, directed, shot and acted and if Gilligan, Gould and Odenkirk keep giving us episodes and performances like this, all three are shoe in for Emmy consideration not only from the good will garnered from their magnum opus but from the quality from their current work of art.  

(TV) Why Do We Hate Powerless Characters?

Walter White was a bastard beyond repute. From watching someone die have could have saved to poisoning a child and worst of all, being able to justify it all with a straight face. Walt's pride and ego destroyed just about everybody he came across, friend and foe alike however, many fans of the show were able to root for him till the very end while harboring a deep hate for his compromised wife Skylar which points to a central problem in modern television and increasingly in wider society.

The hate was so virulent for Walt's better half that Anna Gunn (who played Sklyar White) wrote an article in the New York Times addressing it.  There are a number of reasons you could point to as why she was so hated from her being the most consistent obstacle throughout the run of Breaking Bad in Walt's way realizing his inner badass or the criminal lack of character development of Skylar arguably up until the last two seasons to offset the more unlikable traits of her character but the real reason is that if there one thing a modern TV watcher can't stand is characters who are powerless.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about a pathological hate for characters on the lower rungs of the social ladder or an institution otherwise large chunks of The Wire would be unwatchable but a real disdain for a character who fails again and again, even in a favorable position to do so, to exercise moral agency. People have many reasons why they love a character but what is consistent among them is a character ability to exercise moral agency and Skylar, throughout the run of Breaking Bad, failed spectacularly to exercise hers. 

Even when she had the whip hand over Walt when she cornered Walt into admitting his meth cooking activities, she failed, even under advisement, to take control of the situation as Walt, a character with real moral agency, was able to circumvent every measure Skylar laid in his path to the point that Skylar gave up and became even more complicit in his crimes. Walt, as we were to find out, didn't have a moral bone in his body but he was always able to exercise moral agency even if he did err on the side monstrous evil nine times of out ten.   

Another example of audiences reacting badly to characters with little or no moral agency is Sansa in Game of Thrones which is made worse by the fact that many of the young and female characters in the piece have no problem exercising their moral agency. For example, Sansa's younger sister Arya, who is arguably in a more perilous position than her older sister, is perfectly capable of exercising moral agency arguably better than some of the older characters in GOT universe which only serves to amplify Sansa's perennial victimhood as she encounters one tormentor to the next.

Even in this season's run of the show when we see Sansa show her capacity to knowingly lie to authority figures when testifying in Peter Baelish's trail in front of the high lords of The Vale, it was act of loyalty or allegiance to Peter Baelish , once again another person with true moral agency, who so far has proven himself as a man not to be trusted on numerous occasions.

The Show is littered with psychopaths cold blooded killers, manipulative and cold blooded political operators and just genuinely unlikable people you thank the gods that you'll never met in person yet, somehow, a young innocent girl who watched her father lose his head, suffered sustained abuse and humiliation at the hands of her hosts/captors who also devised the wholesale murder of her mother, older brother and sister in law is the object of much hate and derision by many fans of the show shows either how important moral agency is in character development or serious deficiency in empathy in postmodern TV viewership.

Sure it can and will argued that Skylar and Sansa are both works of fiction and whether we love or hate them is inconsequential or that we watch TV to be entertained and characters who do not service this need are likely to feel the audiences' wrath but the almost pathological hate for powerless characters is telling and often spills over into in the real world The most poignant examples of this strange dichotomy are found in  rape cases such as the Steubenville rape case where the moral agency of the victim, instead of the perpetrators, become the subject of debate.   

However, getting your capacity for moral agency questioned in the public is much better than being rendered invisible like most us are as real life human beings are often out in positions where our moral agency is compromised on a daily basis. Perhaps this is why we hate powerless characters as they reflect a certain truth about ourselves we don't like and like even less when made to confront it in our fiction, the one place we can escape it. 

In sum, whether it's the lack of moral agency or an unthinking dislike for human weakness, powerless characters are going nowhere in fiction as they are in society and indeed many of us who make up the numbers in the real world are more powerless than we'll like to admit. The Skyar's and Sansa's of modern fiction may have their moral agency tested but it's the real world where we must be careful of  imitating our ambivalence towards powerless as that's when things get complicated.   

(TV) Vince Gilligan Interview: An Interview with Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan

(TV) Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 15 "Granite State" Sneak Peek

(TV) Breaking Bad season 5 episode 14 "Ozymandias" TV review

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away”.

Much like the rest of season five of Breaking Bad as well as the series as a whole, episode 14 "Ozymandias" was another hour of television at its best. For someone who has a low suspension of disbelief and is rarely, if ever, affected by what transpires on the small screen, I was transfixed by the events of episode 14 leaving me somewhat morose yet firm in the knowledge that for all the hours of TV that I will watch for the rest of the year, I'll be lucky if anything was this good as we see Walt's world crumble around him as he loses the one thing he craved and coveted the most, control.

We saw in the last episode that Walt’s plotting had come back to bite him as Uncle Jack and his crew disobeyed Walt’s orders to stand down and decided show up armed to the teeth with guns trained on Hank and Gomez. After the shortest and most pointless negotiation in TV history, Uncle Jack and Co decided to throw a hail of bullets at Hank and Gomez and the rotten but brilliant bastards who created this masterpiece decided to leave the aftermath of what transpired to next week.

While I was not so pleased that last week ended at that precise point, in hindsight, it was a great move as it would have been hard to stomach what was going to take place notably before the opening credits. Episode 14 started with a flashback to Walt’s and Jesse’s first cook in the run down RV turned meth lab which lends an opportunity to see how far Walt and Jesse have since that first cook to the point where they find themselves.

We also see in this opening scene get to see the extent of Walt’s moral corruption as we see Walt prepping himself to lie to Skyler over the phone which was quite a shock for me as over the seasons, we all have gotten used to him lying effortlessly to the people he loves but in this short scene, we realize that Walt wasn’t always the world class liar he is now, it took practice.

After the opening credits, we hear a hail of bullet over a black screen, the gunfire stops then we flash-forward to the present day to find Uncle Jack and his crew had ceased gunfire. After a beat of silence, as if after the onslaught they were expecting return fire, Uncle Jack and his crew wait, guns still drawn at Hank’s bullet ridden SUV.

In the next shot, we’re with Hank slumped against the SUV holding his bleeding thigh, all out of bullets and with Gomez dead, all out of back up. Despite this, Hank bravely tries to crawl his way towards Gomez’s shot gun but is beaten to the punch by Uncle Jack who takes the shot gun before Hank can get his hands on it. Walt, still handcuffed in the SUV, pops his head up seeing the coast is clear after Uncle Jack and Co lit it up only to see Jack about plant a hollow point between Hank’s eyes which sends Walt into a panic, as he implores Jack not to shoot his brother in law.

After being let out the car, Walt tries to do what he does best, beg and negotiate his way out of a situation. Over the series, Walt has had to beg for his life and others particularly during his encounters with Gus Fring where begging and negotiation were the only two strategies available to him against ‘big bad’ characters like Tuco and Gus.

The constant theme in Breaking Bad has been Walt’s attempt to exert control over his life and others leading to him ruining the lives of others and eventually the destruction of his own. Views of Walt have hardened with every heinous and reprehensible act he has committed throughout the series from watching Jane die to poisoning a child he went some way to redeeming himself as he begs and negotiates for Hank’s life.  

With Uncle Jack holding a gun to Hank’s head, Walt see that his begging and pleading won’t work on Uncle Jack and decides to in essence pay Uncle Jack not to kill Hank as he offers his meth cash and offers a world of possibilities or as Walt phrased it “any future you want” as Walt lays out his case against killing Hank.

However, for all Walt’s begging, pleading and negotiating, Hank was as resolute in not begging for his life (as Walt had that market cornered)  as he realized that if Jack as prepared to shoot him when he was armed, he would shoot him on the ground, injured and unarmed no matter what Walt had to say.

Fatefully enough, Uncle Jack considers Walt offer to give up his meth cash to let Hank loose then asks him what he thought and Hank, defiant and cocksure as ever, tells Jack to “go fuck yourself”. Walt tries to plead with Hank to comply and play ball but Hank tells Walt “you’re the smartest men I’ve ever met but too stupid to see he made his mind up ten minutes ago” and with that, Jack shoots Hank in the head after Hank accepts his fate.

In truth, we all knew that there was no way in hell that episode 14 was going to end with Hank still breathing as the odds were against him and Gomez making out the desert alive but for Walt to reveal where his meth cash was buried was a poor decision as there was nothing Walt could have said to stop it from happening. After five long but brilliant seasons, Walt’s actions have come back smack him right between the eyes and the force of this fact literally flattens him as Jack and his crew dig up and load Walt’s meth cash on their trucks.

Feeling charitable, Jack decides to let Walt have one of his eight barrels of meth cash out of respect for the admiration his nephew Todd has for him and makes a clearly reluctant Walt shake his hand still reeling from him murdering his brother in law. Walt may be one of the most morally depraved characters in the history of TV fiction but in this scene, it showed that he actually did care about his family despite the horrible things he has done he purports to have done on their behalf.

With hate and anger still burning in his eyes (needless to say Bryan Cranston and Dean Norris were fantastic this episode) Walt reminds Jack of their deal to kill Jesse, Jack tell Walt if he finds Jesse, he’ll kill them and then out of nowhere, Walt informs Jack that he found him as wee Jesse burrowed under Walt’s car hoping that he wouldn’t be spotted Jack’s henchmen.

Soon enough, Jack’s men drag Jesse out from under Walt’s car struggling and screaming as looks like he’s going to suffer the same fate as Gomez and Hank as Jack has Jesse on his knees with his gun aimed at the back of Jesse’s head. I got to admit I had my heart in my mouth when in between a beat of silence the scene, we see two birds flying in unison in complete silence which has me expecting Jesse to be dead by the next frame as Jack takes the safety off his gun.

Jack asks Walt if he’s ready, Walt slowly nods yes but before Jack could do the deed, Todd interjects and sells what I thought was a cock and bull story about Jesse having information about they could get out of him that he might have told the DEA which saves Jesse from impending doom as he convinces Jack to take him captive. While Todd may have saved Jesse, it was strange as while he has been pleasant, he is clearly is a sociopath so him sparing Jesse a quick death in the desert definitely had an ulterior move as we find out later in the episode.

Todd spotted Jesse in Walt’s car before the gunfight got started but acted like Jesse had got away and is also in the knowledge that Jesse is just as good a meth cook as Walt thanks to Walt’s tutelage making what happens later in the episode not only common sense but smart thinking on Todd’s part.

Jack agrees with Todd reasoning and gets his men to snatch Jesse and take him with them but just as Jack men drag Jesse kicking and screaming, Walt asks them to wait and finally tells Jesse about watching Jane die. Walt watching Jane die was one of the many acts that has made Walt over seasons one of the most reprehensible characters in modern TV fiction and he has held on to this secret for so long with him only once coming close to telling Jesse.

While you could make a sophist argument that Walt wanted Jesse to know before Jesse met his impending doom, you would still be making a sophist argument as he told Jesse about his role in Jane’s death out of pure spite as he blames Jesse for Hank’s death. For most of season five, we have seen Walt in complete control of others and most of all over his emotions but in this episode and last week’s installment  Walt has shown he still has an emotional life as for some time now he has been the program’s chief antagonist making one cold and inhumane decision after another.

Every action Walt took in this episode was based on his emotions and it has been some time as Walt, at least in terms of his ability to feel, makes a return to humanity, even if his emotions are some of the nastier traits of the human psyche.

All in all, what has just been described up to this point was again some of the best television you will see this year and any year after it. Everyone in involved from director Rian Johnson to the actors, Bryan Cranston and Dean Norris in particular, were top notch this episode as they have been throughout this great TV show. After what has been described so far, you would have thought there would have been a let up in the tension and heartbreak for Walt and all involved in the drama but that’s not how Breaking Bad does business as the moving parts Walt was once able to control with cold and calculating ease have now spun out of orbit.

Marie, poor Marie, bolstered by Hank’s phone call at the end of episode 13, decided to pay a visit to A1 Car Wash and after an awkward hello with Walt Jr, tell Skyler in her office after a small beat that Walt is under arrest and offer here support on the proviso that Skyler tells Walt Jr. who and what his dad really is. Throughout all Marie’s demands, Skyler is silenced by her shame and culpability in everything that has transpired to this point and all she can do is agree until Marie insists on her  telling Walt Jr. about his father still trying to protect her son from the awful truth about his father

Throughout the run of Breaking Bad, every character, and I mean every character, has either grown to hate or fear Walt or do both at the same time except Walt Jr. and we get the sense that the only thing that would break Walt down would be for his son to know what he has done and disown him as throughout the series, Walt Jr. has been the only person who doesn’t look at Walt and see the devil in beige slacks.

In this episode, Walt Jr. finally learns the truth about his beloved dad and refuses to take it in after Marie and Skyler sit him down convinced that what he had just heard was “bullshit” and directs his anger at his mother calling her out on her complicity in Walt’s crimes and when he asks Skyler why she stuck with Walt, she give a telling answer: “I’ll be asking myself that for the rest of my life”.

In a short but telling scene, we see the reason why Todd was looking out for Jesse in the desert as he retrieves a scared and beaten Jesse from a makeshift holding cell, still chained, to the meth lab we saw last episode and we see that Todd had got the cook the new operation was looking for as he chained Jesse to the ceiling and stapled a picture of Andrea and Brock to the wall to keep Jesse from doing anything silly like refusing to cook or try to escape.

We all know that Todd isn’t going to win any humanitarian awards anytime soon but his move to save Jesse and use his meth cooking skills was indeed smart, yet in a weird way, merciful at same time. Walt has spent the whole episode to get some semblance of control and in the next scene between him, Skyler and Walt Jr finally shows how Walt’s actions would, as we all expected, lead to him losing his family.

The White family fallout that has been on the cards from the moment Walt decided to get into the meth cooking business with Jesse and his moral descent coupled with his pride has only made his fall from grace that bit more terrible yet brilliant to watch.  

After an uncomfortable car ride home, Skyler and Walt Jr, pull up to Walt packing his things and dumping them in the old banger trucker he bought from a native Indian in the desert. As Skyler and Walt look in shock as what they are seeing, Walt, dirtied by the events that took place in the desert and in full panic mode urging them to come inside as Walt Jr badgers his father for answers.

As they go inside, Walt Jr. continues his search for answers but gets nothing back but orders to calm down listen and tells both Skyler and Walt Jr. to get packing totally ignoring their need for an explanation as even in the midst of his self-created chaos, control is still his first priority.

While Walt Jr needs answers to make sense of what his mother and aunt had just told him, Skyler ask the pressing questions of why he is out of cuffs and where exactly is Hank. Walt is excellent at lying everybody except to Skyler as while she knows when he is lying, she has rarely called him on it or as much she should have. However, after Walt uncharacteristically dithers his way through another one of his countless lies only this time, Skyler’s in the mood for truth as Walt powers of persuasion wanes tenfold every moment he tries to sell Skyler his “you can have any future you want” pitch.

Tired out by his lies and knowing that thee no way Hank would let Walt loose, she comes to the only conclusion that can be made, Walt killed Hank and he’s now on the run. Walt protests his innocence and tells Skyler and Walt Jr. of his that he tried to save Hank from his demise (leaving out the fact he was responsible for his death even if he didn’t pull the trigger) while, incredibly, still trying to take control of the situation instructing both his Walt Jr and Skyler to come with him.

If there was anything that hasn’t rung true about Breaking Bad was that all of Walt’s heinous acts hadn’t brought any harm to members of Walt’s family except for Hank  as they have been largely shielded by the consequences of his actions leaving Jesse, Mike and a litany of other characters to bear the brunt of suffering caused by one man destructive quest for self-actualization. In this scene, his actions finally hit home and Walt is too blind to see the wreckage.

Walt Jr. continues to badger and follow his dad around for answers as he gets his luggage, Skyler, sick of the sight of Walt, goes to kitchen counter where a rack of knives and the home telephone are and after a small beat of thought, opts for the knife as she realizes it going to take more than the cops to rid herself of this monster. As Walt and Walt Jr return to the living room, Skyler steps in in front of Walt Jr. with a knife in her hand and orders Walt to get out. Walt, still not realizing his family is in tatters, still tries to talk to Skyler down but Skyler clearly is not trying to hear anything Walt has to say as she cuts him off when tries to reassure her everything will be fine.

While Walt’s fatal flaw has been his pride, another major flaw of Walt’s, maybe as a direct by-product of his pride, is his ability to underestimate others which has been at the heart of the most of the chaos that has made this show a pleasure to watch. He has consistently underestimated just about everybody else that has come within his orbit especially Jesse and Hank, which led to the that excellent but fateful but excellent scene in the desert that ended last week’s episode and took up a large chunk of this week’s installment.  

Once again, Walt continued his five season trait of underestimating others by underestimating Skyler’s resolve to get him out of her and Walt Jr lives for good as Walt stupidly tries to approach Skyler to calm her down leading to Skyler taking a wild swing at Walt slicing his outstretched hand. In a mixture of shock and anger, Walt survival instinct kicks in and he reaches for the knife as he tries to wrestle the knife out of Skyler’s hand.

They eventually end up on the ground, little Holly crying in the background, Walt Jr. screaming for them stop in what looks like a fight to the death. Walt manages to wrestle the knife from Skyler and get on top of her, knife in hand, as he looks ready to commit his most heinous act yet but Walt Jr heroically jumps to his mother’s rescue and pulls his dad off her shielding Skyler as Walt gets up, with the knife still in his hand, looking for all the world like the monster we all know him to be.

On his feet and his adrenaline still up but waning, it’s only then Walt realizes he has lost his family for good as he sees the fear in the eyes of his wife and son beaming back at him while shouting “what’s wrong with you? We’re a family”. The moment is crowned by Walt Jr, the only person who still had faith in Walt, called the cops on him which finally breaks the spell over the Walt as he drops the kitchen knife with his face sunken with sadness and disbelief.

Looking over the past five seasons, Walt has made very few of the decisions that  purely emotional as the vast majority of his decisions have been icy and inhuman calculations as a result of the business he chose to make his money. However in this episode, his decisions were based purely on his emotions from bargaining for Hank’s life to spitefully informing Jesse of his role (or lack of it) in Jane’s death.

So it wasn’t much of a shock when Walt snatched Holly out of her playpen and ran for his truck. Skyler, only realizing what Walt had done when he was out the door, ran after Walt, now in the beat down truck starting the engine with Holly in his lap and reversing straight into the family car behind to get away from a frantic Skyler banging against the window and chasing the truck down the street as Walt sped away down the street.

In the next scene we find Walt changing Holly with his hand still bruised giving the sense that Walt, untypical of him, hadn’t though this through. This fact hits home as little Holly calls out for her mother in what was the most heart-breaking moment of this episode as Walt holds her close. Back at the White residence, we see a dejected Skyler has called cops on her husband on the lookout for Holly with Walt Jr. and Marie (poor Marie!!) for company, still wondering how Walt got free. Then the phone rings till answering machine picks up, it’s Walt.

Skyler Waits until the cops get ready to trace the call then picks up for Walt to give her the most hate filled and threat heavy phone bashing you ever see on television for years to come as Walt spills his blackened guts. Skyler asks where Holly is, Walt asks if cops are listening in, Skyler says no then asks him again about her daughter’s whereabouts then Walt lets rip about his frustrations with Skyler from her tendency not to listen to him about his threats not to cross him and that he took Holly to “teach her a lesson”.

He then reveals his feelings about the lack of faith Skyler had in him, her badgering of him when she found out his meth cooking business and her general lack of gratitude for what he feels he’s done for the family. The last straw for him was for her to tell Walt Jr about his meth cooking despite telling her to “keep her mouth shut”.

He then threatens Skyler to “toe the line” or meet the same fate as Hank. Skyler ask Walt what happened to Hank and Walt informs her that she’ll never see Hank again implicating himself in Hank’s murder which Marie overhears and finally get the new that her husband is dead. Telling from Walt’s emotion throughout the phone call, he knew Skyler called the cops and were listening in and in implicating himself in Hank’s murder, took all the weight off Skyler and put it on himself which represents another instance in this episode were his decisions were based on his emotions rather than his intellect.

Walt makes one more decision based on his emotions when he leaves Holly in a fire truck realizing wherever he plans to do next, he can’t do it with his baby daughter in tow. In the final scene, Walt waits at the side of the road waiting for the same red van that was going to take Jesse to Alaska and gets in as we watch the van drive away.

If you got to the end of this review, congratulations. I know this review is quite an epic at 122 words of 4000 but this was an epic episode of Breaking Bad so it deserved a review that matched its scale. In sum, when the discussions about the greatest TV shows come up and you have Breaking Bad at the top of the heap,”Ozymandias” episode 14 will be enough to justify your claim.

Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 14 "Ozymandias" Sneak Peek

(TV) Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 13 “To Hajjee” TV Review

They did it again !! god damn it !! they did it again !!!!. 90% of the shows on modern television can’t go an episode or two without dropping the ball yet Breaking Bad since the opening of the second half of season five hasn’t let up in quality constantly displaying why there is talk as to whether TV is beginning to surpass film.

(TV) Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 13 "To'hajiilee" Sneak Peek

(TV) Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 11 “Confessions” Review

“Confessions” was another excellent addition to the two equally brilliant opening season episodes that has started at a pace faster than the speed of light. This edition is slightly slower than the last two episodes but there was lay up in the intensity and tension that has enter this show in the conservation as one of the great shows ever to grace television.

We start off with Todd and his Aryan colleagues in a restaurant recounting the train robbery of last season where conspicuously left out the small minor detail involving him murdering a little boy. This introduction into the episode may seem to be inconsequential but it is clearly going to lead to Todd dragging Walt back into the meth business as the events of last episode made clear that the operation wasn’t prepared to accept any drop in the quality of its product.

If there was any episode as a testament as to why both Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul have been winning Emmys for fun over the last few years, “Confessions” would definitely suffice as both excelled this excellent episode. We start with Jesse and Hank having a tense conversation with Hank laying down his cards flat  revealing that he knows Walt is Heisenberg which brings a small reaction from Jesse who despite Hank’s offer to hang Walt out to dry, tells Hank to ‘eat me’ as he still clearly hates Hank’s breathing guts.

Saul comes to save the day and rescue Jesse again trying to talk sense into his less than compliant client with Jesse clearly not caring about much of what is coming out of his mouth as he clearly knows that Saul is less his lawyer than he is Walt’s. Almost all Jesse’s actions as a result of his guilt have got back to Walt through Saul so for Jesse when Saul opens his mouth to speak, he hears Walt’s words come out.

Sure enough Saul calls Walt and informs him of Jesse’s flirtation with philanthropy with Walt sounding more boss like with every phone call so far this season. However, Walt has other problem to deal with as the White-Schrader split widens even further when Marie sneakily tries to invite Walt Jr. over only stopped by Walt Sr. ruthlessly using his Cancer to keep his son close and more importantly, away from Hank and Marie.

This scene sets up another excellent restaurant scene this half of season 5 between the Whites and Schrader’s that was jam-packed with tension a Ginsu Knife couldn’t cut through with Walt demanding that his kids should not be brought into their dispute with Hank and Marie more than resolute in their disgust and anger at Walt and Skyler with Hank offering jail time and Marie offering suicide, forcing Walt and Skyler to leave only leaving behind a CD of a tape they made earlier.

This scene made for great television but we are reminded by the small but hilarious interruptions by a chipper waiter how palpable the tension between the Whites and Schrader really is.

Walt has largely denied his meth cooking exploits to both Hank and Marie since Hank smacked him right between the eyes at the end of episode 9 and if you had taped his and Skyler’s dialogue up until the tense restaurant scenes, they haven’t really said anything worth taking to court.

However, any further use of the tactic playing defence and saying nothing crazy to incriminate themselves by the Whites was surely ended when the Schrader’s decided to play the CD left by Walt at the restaurant clearly expecting a contrite mea culpa  but instead got a smack right between the eyes as they witnessed a Oscar winning tour de force by probably the best fictional actor in modern television.

Walt (and Bryan Cranston’s) performance effectively painted himself as a victim while painting Hank as a uber-corrupt DEA drug boss and implicating him in a number of Walt’s own crimes at the same time. While it doesn’t really condemn Hank as he can still present a convincing case against Walt, it certainly does paint Hank and Marie in a corner as Walt’s faux mea culpa was chilling in its utter believability which I am sure had many at home (or me at least) muttering “son of a bitch!!”.

The next scene between Walt and Jesse was great and epic in a sense reminding me of that great scene between Robert De Neiro and Joe Pesci in Martin Scorsese’s   Casino when they meet in the Las Vegas desert with Nick Santoro (Pesci) less than pleased with Sam Rothstein’s (De Neiro) Nattering to the bosses back home.

We, from Episode 9 see the effect Walt had over Jesse for the lion share of this great TV series has waned as he clearly see through Walt technically excellent but emotionally retarded act as Walt effectively tells Jesse to get out of town through an offer of giving Jesse a brand new start to “reset” which had me worried that he may send Jesse to “Belize”.  Jesse finally decides to call Walt out his fake concern and demands that he stop “working him” and ask him to leave without using his neat little trick of selling his own self-interest as a “everybody wins” type of deal.

I got to admit I didn’t know what going to happen as Jesse ends his tirade and Walt starts to walk toward Jesse, stops a for a beat staring Jesse in the eye then hugs him as Jesse grudgingly accepts as he breaks down in Walt’s arms which show there is at least a semblance of the bond they once had. However, any rehabilitation of Jesse’s relationship with Walt turned to pulp as while he waited for the Saul arranged trip to anywhere but New Mexico, the penny many a Breaking Bad viewer have been waiting to drop in Jesse’s head finally did and it served as a catalyst that will finally turn Jesse against Walt for the rest of the season.

Jesse had realized that it was Walt who poisoned Brock with ricin cigarette with a little help from Huell and Saul. With the Penny still ringing in his head, Jesse storms into Saul’s office, assaults him and gets to a gun in his desk drawer and sticks it in the seedy lawyers’ face looking for answers.

Saul, Beaten bloody and out of options, spills the beans to Jesse while assuring him that he didn’t know what the ricin cigarette was going to be used for and who it was going to be used on before Jesse steals his keys and bolts. After his ordeal, Saul calls Walt to warn him that Jesse knows which leads to short scene where Walt rushes to the car wash to pick up a revolver hidden inside a Coke vendor then leaves. We return back with Jesse “parking” on Walt’s driveway getting out of Saul’s car to pop the trunk and take out a full can gasoline which use uses after kicking down the door

In sum, “confessions”, just like the two episodes before it, was an excellent hour of television and another example of why this show is great and why TV will be poorer when it last episodes play out.