Damn. That Bryan Cranston is impressive. Not only does he act the crap out of his character, Walter, but he directs the episode too. We get closer to a big reveal, but you know, it's only the first episode of the new season, so they're going to make us suffer. Suffer is perhaps not the best term, though some of the characters, actually everyone except Marie and Hank are suffering.
Quite an interesting twist, the way Gonzo turns out to have died. Tuco may be the bad guy in all of this, but he's not as bas as Walter and Jesse think that he is, regardless of how the episode ends.
Episode 2: Grilled
Oh they do like to drag things out for us. Things really heated up, except for the chili powder kind of heat. It's nice to see that they're keeping leit motifs running into the second season. This show is actually quite good about reminding us of things from earlier episodes, which I really like and wish more shows would do. So many American television series have throw away episodes so that they can hook new viewers mid-season, or more likely keep viewers who may have missed an episode here or there. It is kind of ridiculous to expect someone to be able to catch each and every episode of a 22 to 26 episode season that airs weekly over a seven or eight month season. But, that's just part of the problem, the audience is treated for most shows like we are incapable of following a story arc that last most of the year. Sure, some series, I am thinking mostly of procedurals here, introduce a story in the second episode which is touched on two or three times throughout the season only to be wrapped up in a season finale which has some parts that won't be wrapped up until the start of the next season. The exceptions seem to be the shows following the model of British television which airs multiple seasons thorughout the year, each series being six to ten episodes if an hour or shorter and perhaps three or four if the show is in the 90 or 120 minute format. You can cut out all of the crap and follow a show over a month or two and get a good series arc as well as an arc per episode.
They say so much in this episode without uttering a word. The Theo character who can only communicate by ringing the bell is pure brilliant. When Tuco figures out that something is going on, and by asking not necessarily the right questions but still going on the right track, you wonder how Walter is going to get himself out of this one. Hank being just smart enough and just competent enough to track down the lowjacked car, only to end up in a shoot out is a brilliant outcome in this comedy of errors that is Breaking Bad.
Episode 3: Bit by a Dead Bee
Naked in the super market? I didn't see that one coming. And neither did anyone else. Walter is like scary smart and I don't think anyone realizes it. It really gets brought home when he asks the psychiatrist about doctor-patient confidentiality. Layers upon layers of stories and lies, all of which Walter remembers perfectly. He makes a comment about being surpassed by all of his peers, and it was clear he didn't mean the other teachers at the high school, to wit he had said that he was greatly overqualified. We know that his former grad school buddy is super rich based on work that they both did. I am wondering if there is more to that story, and I hope that they show it.
They finally brought us back up from the depths of despair, just so they can drive us back down as Walter and Jesse are each more estranged from their perspective families than they ever have been before. They bring us up, so they can take us down, so they can bring us up. You get the idea.
I was a little creeped out by the DEA agents in Hank's office giving him the grill of Tuco as a souvenir of his kill.
Episode 4: Down
Somehow, it seems that Walter and Jesse's lives were better when they were cooking meth and running from drug dealers who wanted to kill them than it is with their own families. Walter and Skylar's relationship has reached a new low, but I predict with Skylar's secret, well at least one of them, revealed at the end, there is some more down to go. I wonder how Walter and Skylar hooked up to begin with? There was the flashback sequence during an episode in season one where we see Walter working on equations in what looked to be a university setting, and a young woman looks on. Was that Skylar? Just the young her represented by a different actor? I had assumed this until right now, but there was the partner who had made all the money and the woman he was with had very close ties to Walter, too. I bet she was the young woman. Oh snap! Now I don't know anything about how Walter and Skylar got together. She has go to know that he's a major league brainiac, right? I know that she and her sister seem pretty self-absorbed, but she would have noticed something like that, wouldn't she.
Walter's life is great compared to Jesse's life, discounting the whole terminal cancer thing. Mr. and Mrs. Pinkman evict Jesse from his own house which they actually own and not without due cause. Jesse then ends up realizing he doesn't have any friends, and then his motorcycle and the last of his possessions gets stolen. He then descends even further when he falls into a chemical toilet and gets stained blue.
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