Growth, Decay, and Transformation. Words spoken in the first ten minutes of the Breaking Bad final season premiere, foreshadow the journey that Walter White is about to take.
The AMC drama, now in its fifth season, follows Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a chemistry teacher diagnosed with cancer. White begins to cook meth in order to pay his medical bills. He enlists his former student, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) to help him. As the series goes on, Walt’s sense of morality diminishes and he drags his wife and son down with him. He takes to murder, detonating a bomb in a nursing home to kill an enemy, and even poisoning a young boy to get what he wants. Walter starts off as an underachiever and becomes a corrupted drug lord, or as he likes to be called, Heisenberg.
[Warning: Spoilers Ahead]
At the end of last season we saw Walt’s brother-in-law and DEA, Hank, find out who Heisenberg really is. In the season premiere, we see Hank confronting Walter about it with Walter responding “Maybe your best course would be to tread lightly.” After telling Hank his cancer returned, Walter realizes Hank isn’t going to go easy on him. At this point, we are led to believe that there will be a showdown between Hank and Walt with Hank trying to prove that Walt is Heisenberg and Walt either running away or trying to kill Hank. Either way, this show won’t get its happy ending.
Jesse Pinkman, on the other hand, deteriorates as the show goes on. He starts off as a simple drug dealer but when he meets Walt, his whole life changes. He kills men and finds the love of his life dead, murdered by Walt. At this point, he is racked with guilt and depression while Walt seems unaffected and in fact, enjoying the destruction. In this episode, we see Jesse unhappy with the money that he gets and with Walt. We can only hope this season is his redemption season because he deserves to get out of this alive.
This episode is setting up for the big finale. In the beginning of the episode, we see a glimpse into the future with Walt standing in front of his dilapidated and empty house, looking for the tiny tube of poison he hid there. Heisenberg is spray painted onto the house. He says hello to his neighbor and his neighbor startles, dropping her groceries. Walt has become the man he was striving to be. So now that we know that Walt doesn’t die, not just yet, we are left wondering what exactly happened.
This episode was everything we love about Breaking Bad. It was scary, funny, haunting and thrilling. Dean Norris and Bryan Cranston (playing Hank and Walt respectively) give gripping performances, drawing us into their game of cat and mouse and Aaron Paul makes our hearts break. From the writing to the cinematography, this episode was more than I could dream of. All we can do now is sit back and wait to see how far this show is willing to go.
Be sure to check out the final season on AMC, Sundays at 9pm.
