(TV) The Walking Dead 5x15 Promo "Try" Season 5 Episode 15

Check out this intense trailer for next week’s installment (entitled “Try”) of AMC’s smash hit series, “The Walking Dead”.  

(TV) The Walking Dead Season 5 Episode 14 Promo

Watch the trailer for the next edition of AMC’s smash hit, “The Walking Dead”.

(TV) The Walking Dead Season 5 Episode 12 Promo "Remember" | The Walking Dead...

Check out this short sneak peek into next week’s episode of the AMC smash hit drama “The Walking Dead”.

(TV) The Walking Dead Season 5 Episode 11 “The Distance” TV Review

“The Distance” was great episode where we got to see the depths of Rick’s paranoia and someone, finally, get in his face and question his authority which instantly brought an end to the “Ricktatorship.”

While Rick officially brought an end his dictatorial reign at the back end of season three and part of season four, Rick still has made just about every major call since then without little or no push back. As per usual, not all his decisions we’re great including the dangerous 100 mile hike to Washington. But in “The Distance”,  Michonne makes herself heard and makes Rick see sense.

While we’ve seen Michonne grow leaps and bounds from when we first saw her and in this week’s episode we see her browbeat Rick into giving new character Aaron a chance. However, for all that we’ve seen in the last five seasons of The Walking Dead we can’t fault Rick from looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Just about every time the group has placed trust in strangers they’ve paid the price from the Governor to the Terminus residents and now a polite, well dressed and clean shaven man comes along promising salvation is sure to cause suspicion. Rick paranoia pops up front and center the moment Maggie and Sasha introduce Aaron to the group as Rick quizzes him wearing his “I’m going to kill you and wear your face” look. Despite the understandable skepticism, hostility and caution among Rick and most of the group, Aaron manages to keep his composure selling his community to a tough crowd.

From the first few minutes we can tell that Aaron has perfected his pitch and is a skill salesman but trust is hard enough to establish in the world we live in but so just imagine how much harder it is to do in a zombie apocalypse where the only humans left are more dangerous than the flesh eating monsters aimlessly walking around looking for lunch. This point is punctuated as Rick gets sick of his well-polished sales patter and nails him  with a right cross that put Aaron out cold.

And with that begun the episode long clash between Rick and Michonne as she gets in Rick’s face for attacking Aaron but Rick is too busy preparing for an ambush from Aaron’s group. Aaron come back from right cross induced stupor and still manages to keep his cool despite being decked and interrogated by a dead eyed Rick. In this scene Aaron makes a great point about trust when he questions Rick skeptical mindset about as points out to Rick that no matter how many of his people he says is out there, Rick won’t believe him anyway because he’s skeptical from the outset.

However his well-reasoned and argued point goes way over Rick’s head as he continues to wear his paranoia on his sleeve. You can’t really blame him as for all that he’s lost since the zombie apocalypse began; he still has the most to lose out of the group which makes the safety and well-being of Karl and Judith his number one priority.    

So for all the well-reasoned and argued points Aaron can come up with under serious interrogation from Rick and the group’s more skeptical members, he’s not making any hay on getting them to join his community. However Aaron does kind of shoot himself in the foot when making a point about what would happen if he had foul intentions by describing how he would ambush a group. This was a whopper of a mistake given all Rick and the group has shown him is hostility and suspicion. However I don’t really think this the fault of the show’s new character but of the writers of TWD looking for ways to introduce tension where it doesn’t exists.

The writers are well aware that TWD suffers from a serious lack of dramatic tension in light of the show having no real antagonist with The Governor gone and the Walker now a palpable but ultimately manageable threat. So far Aaron has maintained his polite demeanor and has given the group no reason to trust him but with the writers looking to introduce tension where there isn’t reveals the writers eagerness to fix a problem they can’t fix anytime soon.

After Aaron makes another attempt to get the group to trust him by revealing that another member of his community is up the road with a camper, Rick and Michonne clash again as Rick thinks it’s a trick but Michonne, notably desperate for sanctuary in the second half of this season, is willing to give Aaron the benefit of the doubt as is Maggie.

Rick, not willing to take the risk, retorts that Michonne’s plan to check Aaron’s claims out are dangerous but Michonne rightly points out that living hand to mouth in a barn in the middle of nowhere isn’t exactly safe either. Then what happens next is pretty much one of the highlights of the episode as Michonne rallies the group into following her plan and sternly insists that Rick plays ball. We’ve seen Rick for the most part get his way without much resistance right or wrong but in “The Distance”, Rick is forced to follow the lead of one of the group members.

This a good development as the “what Rick says goes” regime the group has pretty much cosigned from the outset clearly needs tweaking. Most of the group has been fine with merely surviving but Michonne has been pushing for a place to settle and realizes that it may take a risk like trusting a stranger to get it no matter how much what they have to say or offer is hard to believe due to the group’s bad experiences with other groups willing to take them in.

The group then splits in two with some of group following Michonne while other hanging back looking out for threats. Michonne’s plan was the smart play but leaving Rick with Aaron wasn't due to his paranoia clearly getting the best of him. We find that out pretty quickly as Rick threatens to put a knife in the base Aaron’s skull if  Michonne and co weren’t back in an hour.

In between the couple of scenes where we see that Aaron’s story checked out, we see the depths of Rick’s Paranoia after Aaron offers Rick apple sauce to feed Judith to stop her crying because she might attract walkers. Rick then makes Aaron taste the apple sauce before he gives it to Judith which is understandable but telling given the fact that if Aaron did poison the apple sauce, it would be an automatic death sentence for him given his job means he has to encounter groups with every reason to distrust him.

When Michonne, Maggie, Glenn, Rosita and Abraham return to the barn with a bevy of canned food, Michonne once again campaigns for the group to leave the barn, most of the group is onboard given Aaron story checked out and even Daryl, who’s been a Rick loyalist for the longest, joins Michonne in her insistence to leave the barn and join Aaron’s community.

Seeing that Michonne has pretty much has the whole group on her side, Rick reluctantly agrees. Once again Ricks mistrust puts him and others in danger as Aaron tells him and the group which road to take back his group but thanks his paranoia, Rick decided to split group with him, Michonne, Glen and Aaron take another route and the rest of the clan take the route Aaron suggested.

The plan pretty much went Pete Tong for Rick, Michonne, Aaron and Glen as Aaron was correct when he suggested that Rick’s plan to go down a route his group hadn’t cleared of walkers was a bad idea as Glen mows down a herd of walkers. The group get out of the car when  Aaron gets out of the car after seeing a flare light the sky. If the plan hadn’t already gone awry it’s about worse as the group end up having to shoot and chop their through a herd that nearly gets them killed before they make it back on to the main road and walk the rest of the trip.

As the group meet up again we follow Aaron into as he meets up with his partner Eric and find out Maggie and Glenn aren’t the only hope for relationships in the zombie apocalypse. The few seconds we spent with Aaron and Eric revealed a relationship that’s tender and loving which makes one of the bleakest and cynical shows on television today a more bearable watch considering the emotionally draining episodes over the last two weeks.

In the next scene we see that Aaron has some steel to go with his politeness as he stands up to Rick when tries to tell him where to sleep. This scene was particularly telling because Aaron was prepared to take on Rick before Glenn stepped in to talk sense into him. His steel is even more impressive as while he must have figured out by now that while Rick is good man willing to do what it takes to protect the ones he loves, he is also a stone cold killer with a serious case of paranoia made worse by the burden of leadership.

The real highlight of the whole episode was in the last three minutes of “The Distance” as get a close up on Rick’s eyes and in them we see a man looking for hope while waiting for other shoe to drop until the hears the sound of children playing which allows him relax as we see the life rush back into his dead green eyes. For all faults the show has, the performances from its cast are almost always on point with Andrew Lincoln acting his boots off in this episode.

Ross Marquand, who plays Aaron, was also pretty good in his first full episode as we, through his performance, learned much about his character. Now that Rick and co are now part of another group, we get to see how they deal with a group of real human beings that don’t want to kill them and keep their walker remains or eat them alive.

The show has needed an instance where the group joins a community where they’re not in control and now we get to see whether they can really play nice with others or has the being out in the world hardened them beyond repair.

We may get some answers on that front next week.

(TV) The Walking Dead Season 5 Episode10 "Them" Promo

Check out the trailer for next week’s episode of the AMC smash hit series “The Walking Dead”

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(TV) Boardwalk Empire: Season 5: St. James Tease (HBO)

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(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.

(TV) Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 10 “Buried” Review

For a program that has been criticized for its lack of real and rounded female characters, in Breaking Bad episode 10, Skyler and Maria clearly took center stage. In episode 9, we saw Hank confront Walt about his lies and this episode clearly made Skyler confront her complicity with regard to Walt crimes and this episode confronted Skyler with a clear choice between right (Hank and Maria) and wrong (Walt) and made a solid choice in favor of the latter.

The nature of morality, human choice and its consequences has been at the heart of this show and was for all to see this episode both Skyler and Hank were faced with choices which ended the former siding with the devil and the latter choosing one last shot at redemption risking his career and even his freedom in the process. The motivations for Skyler’s choice are less than clear as she meets up with Hank in a coffee shop after Hank and Walt battle to see whose speed dial is quicker but, just like Walt in his epic confrontation with Hank, doesn’t really say anything that would incriminate her in a court of law despite Hank’s less than subtle prodding.

She could have easily given Hank the opportunity to hang Walt out to dry and still maintain an undeserved veil of innocence but twice she sided with Walt even when Walt, drained by the exhaustion of shifting then burying his meth cash, offered to turn his self in and in that exchange she informed Walt of his ‘best course’ as Walt did so chillingly in episode 9 to Hank which reveals why Skyler and Walt are such a perfect match, they both like control and can’t stand being out of it.

One of the highlights of the episode was the confrontation between Maria and Skyler where Skyler is forced to face her complicity in Walt’s numerous crimes with Maria asking if Hank’s suspicions about Walt are true and Skyler, though showing guilt through her emotion, said little to nothing accept offering a very guilty apology which Maria reacted with a right hand slap across her face as her tears were a by-product of her shame and the consequences of the truth getting out rather than heartfelt guilt or contrition.

We see the extent to how much the White-Schrader clan has split into two camps as Maria, in a full blown state of rage, attempts to take Holly and Skyler demanding that her sister handed over her daughter with both at the top of their lungs until Hank intervenes and encourages Maria to stand down leaving only a look of disdain for Skyler as she clutches her baby tight on his way out.

  

  

In-between the White-Schrader family turmoil, Lydia sought to ’deal’ with the purity problem that was only getting worse with a meeting in desert land Albuquerque, New Mexico with the meth cookers who replaced Walt and telling from their boss combative attitude towards Lydia and the state of the underground lab, the drop in quality was no shock given to the conditions we got used to in seasons 3 and 4.

What was to happen next was quite predictable as very few problems within drug operations are rarely solved by rational debate but the scene was still excellent as while we didn’t bear witness to the massacre the meth cookers, the soundscape was enough to tell the story as we stayed with Lydia in the underground meth lab, sending the signal for the hit, crouching with her hands over her ears.

In this episode we also had the reintroduction of Todd, the calm, pleasant yet clearly sociopathic young man is everything Jesse is not and what Walt quietly wishes he was. Last season we saw how cold he could be with his split second decision to murder Drew Sharp in cold blood and in this episode we are reminded that cold blooded murder is the family business.

Episode 10 is another episode we find Jesse still ridden with guilt as he is tracked by one of his random recipients of his unwanted meth cash after literally following the money to Jesse on a merry go round swinging himself and staring into space. Jesse doesn’t really figure much in this episode as most of the episode was lent on the dramatic dissolution of the White-Schrader family.

However at the end of the hour, we find that Jesse may just be given a golden opportunity to redeem himself as well as Hank as he ends up being picked up by the cops and questioned by detectives with Hank talking his way into the interview room.

In sum, Episode was just as drama filled as the first installment of   the second half of the final season of Breaking Bad. While tension were high we were treated by a small but telling scene where Saul’s Henchmen Huell and Kuby pick up Walt’s meth cash as both take a load off on the bed of cash with Huell pondering running away with Walt’s money and Kuby reminding his partner of Walt’s hit on mike’s guys in the can, arguably his most villainous and unforgivable act yet. Finally, episode 11 looks to be a barn-burner with scenes between Jesse and Hank set to impress. Till next Week!!!