Fanboys Anonymous

"I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'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."

I now fully understand why this episode of Breaking Bad was named after that Percy Shelley poem. And I wish I didn't. This is going to be a short review because I'm both physically and emotionally drained and have so much other stuff to do tonight, but here it is.

That was, without a doubt, one of the best episodes of any television show I've ever seen. It completely shattered all of my expectations, and the fact that I'm still devastated an hour later really says a lot.

R.I.P. Hank and Gomez

I can say that the transition from the flashback that opened the episode to the aftermath of the shootout was beautifully done and definitely one of my favorites in the entire series. Seeing Gomez dead, though expected like I said last week, was still rough, and the matter-of-fact way that Hank was killed was a brutal moment that was very difficult to recover from. I expected Hank to die in this episode, but not like that. I thought- no, HOPED- that Hank would make it out of the shootout alive, but it's actually a much better story point that he didn't. And it was still in the first few minutes of the episode! Then seeing Jesse's ultimate fate, being chained up to be a slave after suffering a (thankfully unseen) brutal beating, was almost worse than it would've been for Jesse to die right there in the desert. But the episode pressed on.

Once Junior found out about everything, it was obvious nothing good could happen anymore. Sure enough, one of the most shocking scenes in the episode was the confrontation between Walt and his family. What really surprised me was how physical it all was, and then Skyler actually made contact with the knife. Walt realizing that he had completely lost his family was actually an upsetting moment, but at this point he really did get what he deserved. I should probably see a therapist if I can still feel any sympathy for Walter White at all, but this is not about any of my possible mental problems.

Walter White truly has nothing left. Like the poem says and like Vince Gilligan promised in last week's Talking Bad, we definitely looked upon Walt's ("Ozymandias's") works and despaired. His empire has truly crumbled now, and that final phone conversation between Walt and Skyler was astonishing. Walt said the worst things he's ever said to anyone to his wife of all people, and as awful as they were, I maintain that Walt didn't truly mean a word of what he was saying. He most likely didn't believe Skyler when she said that no cops were involved, and he said the things he did because he knew he had to go for broke and cut all ties with his family while helping to save Skyler by making her seem far more blameless and ignorant than she actually was. We saw how upset he got by the end of that conversation, so of course he still loves them more than anything, but he did what was best for them by making himself seem like even more of a monster than he actually is, and it seemed to me like Skyler picked up on what he was doing too. Finally, Walt riding off with the "disappearer" was a pretty chilling end to one hell of a rough episode, and since Walt's fake identity is from New Hampshire, the Granite State, and next week's episode is called "Granite State," it seems like we'll finally catch up to those cryptic flash forwards.

Random Thoughts

• The only thing that disappointed me actually had nothing to do with the episode itself. Like I said last week, IMDB had lots of dead characters listed in the cast, which was very intriguing, so it was pretty disappointing to see that IMDB was misinformed and none of those characters actually appeared. Oh well, that's what I get for believing something I saw on the internet.
• I also thought it was interesting that for the first time in the history of the series, the cast and crew credits were actually placed in act 2, almost halfway through the episode, instead of in act 1 after the teaser scene. Good choice there because seeing random names would've taken away from the intensity of act 1.
• Huge moment I decided to save for this: Jesse finally found out the truth about Jane! Anyone who has heard me talk about this show knows that I've hoped Jesse would find out about her somehow, but I did NOT see this one coming. Walt and Jesse's relationship was basically beyond repair, but if there was anything left at all, that revelation shattered it. So cold and cruel on Walt's part, and as stunned as Jesse was, he knows what Walter White is capable of, so of course he believed it. Also, poor Jesse. He's a slave who's had the shit beaten out him and has been forced to cook for Todd and Uncle Jack, and he has to look at that picture of Brock and Andrea so Todd and Uncle Jack can keep him in his place. I can only hope that when we catch up to the flash forward scenes, Walt uses that gun on Uncle Jack's crew and frees Jesse, but considering I'm sure Walt blames Jesse for Hank's death, I'm sure it won't be that easy.
• What the hell was up with that dog at the very end that jumped off the side of the road? Is it symbolizing Walt being on his own now? Or maybe the dog was just as devastated as we were and couldn't take it anymore, so it wanted out. Clearly the latter is more likely.