The Lighter Side of Darkness #1: It's the Finale Countdown

What, there's just like one "e" difference between Finale and Final...I can make this pun if I want. Whatever, Arrested Development a great show too!

Time for the prattle-party. So, those unseen faces over at the AMC website have recently added a list of "10 Ways to Get Ready for the Breaking Bad Season Finale." 

The list just doesn't cut it. No serious thought. It's not supposed to cut it. But, as I say with cheese, somebody's gotta try to cut it.

So, here's my personal top ten ways in which joe-or-jane-tv-watcher can prepare themselves for the final episode. I can't guarantee this to be either "serious" or "thought." But, it's something... 

10. Climb the highest mountain you can find before Sunday. Get to the top, stare down at both the earth and heavens and say, "well, glad I got this out the way, because everything is going to pale after the Breaking Bad finale."

9. Confront the abyss within yourself. I mean, do whatever it takes to have the most scathing, symbolic, ecstatically bleak, and dark moments of existential introspection you can experience. After finally seeing the core nothingness in yourself, say, "well, glad I had this prelude, so I can ease myself into the catharsis I'll experience by watching 'Felina;' this Sunday on AMC."

8. Find Bryan Cranston and befriend him. Have him reveal his deepest darkest secret. It needs to be something really twisted, like covered up fratricide or something. Have him weep and let you know that you are the first person he's revealed that to. Look him in his water-logged eyes and say, "Thankfully we had this moment...because I'm not sure if I could ever look you in the eyes again, depending on what goes down in the last episode of Breaking Bad."

7. Stay away from Vince Gilligan.

6. Read Ulysses, Remembrance of Things Past, Gravity's Rainbow, and Infinite Jest. Even though you really only have the time to power read, make sure you digest the content and subtext. Really get the zeitgeist. Then write in the marginalia, "So glad I got these chores finished, before BrBa finalizes its ascendancy as the most thorough and exhilarating examination of the human condition ever conceived."

5. Listen to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony for the first time (make sure you have really high-end cushioned head-phones). Sit in a leather arm-chair, and close your eyes. Really go through the motions. After the last note, gayly sing, "Now it's time for Dave Porter's score to really, blow my mind!"

 4. Visit the graves of Hitchcock, Kurosawa, Leone, Ford, and Tarantino (...okay, you may have to interact with a living Tarantino). Get really nice flowers, to help pay celestial tribute to their aesthetic accomplishments. Knell next to each grave (...you know what, just stay away from Tarantino) and whisper, "Great show, and I know you gave it your all; but Michelle MacLaren might just out-do you, sorry bro."

3. Make sure to get caught up on all the recent episodes of Breaking Bad's almost entirely superfluous re-cap series "Talking Bad." Really get into them. Twitter Chris Hardwick the following question... #Why

2. Find your soul-mate, and--using skills obtained through humbled study of every available text of the Kama Sutra--make tantric love. Wait til the synchronous energy levels have gotten to a point where the sensual samsara sheds into a glimpse at nirvana. Look into each-others eyes, and climax into a state of complete wisdom/compassion intertwining. After what seems like a breathless eternity (it's like, maybe early Sunday after-noon at this point), roll over to this lover and pillow-talk, "To be honest, that was just swell; but I feel bad that I'll soon have to always compare this to whatever monumental geekgasm I have during the last 75 minutes of Breaking Bad bliss."

1. Prank Call Nick Bacon and blame him for being the one that set me loose on this show. Oh, "It could never be as good as The Shield," I say. "Naw man, craziest show ever made," he says. "Hmmmrupf...we'll see," I scoffed. How ignorant we always are.

And Don't forget to have a nice, tasty beverage. I'd recommend Schraderbrau; Wendy would recommend Root Beer. Or, just do some of that crystal blue persuasion. 

The Path I Take #1: FaceBook Buy Out

Quick and Vague Context: This is a single FaceBook message I just sent to my friend and fellow BrBa-Bro, Hady Matar, explaining how I saw the veiled Gretchen, Elliot, and Walt back-story  It then got a little (more) nuts. A copy-n-paste of the message [sic included] will follow this really awesome promo for the Breaking Bad series finale...

because we don't know the exact origin of his days back in Chile (there are enough hints to presume that he must have been a junta leader, but the specifics are vague...in line with the elusive stoicism of his character). With Gray Matter, we more or less already have every needed piece of the puzzle. Walt and Elliot were grad-school colleagues and friends. Walt dated Gretchen, who likely also took classes with the two. 

This would have been in the early eighties, a hay day of "the-sky-is-the-limit" excess and creativity. We seen Gretchen dating Walt in the 1X03 flashback. Anyway, there are likely clashes of ego between Elliot and Walt as they form their company, based on the group research they all did (the one that lead to something that one a noble prize, denoted in the plague in his bedroom, seen in the pilot)

So, anyway. During this time, there is likely some tree-way romantic tension between Elliot, Gretchen, and Walt (colleagues that work in close proximity tend to develop deep affections, particularly when there is immense intellectual respect and admiration). So, Walt...being a baby, just storms out. Maybe she hadn't even officially feel out of love with Walter yet, but the tensions (according to 2x06, Walt abandoned Gretchen at a fourth of july outting had at her family's place). So yeah, Walt also then burns bridges with Elliot, but in a subtle way (...bowing out of Gray Matter with the buy-out he discusses in 5x06...I doubt he went out in too big a blaze...since he and Elliot were clearly on decent terms at the party in 1x05...on the surface at least).

So yeah, likely Elliot was a bit of a dick (since even best friends tend to be)...but honestly, based on the true nature of Walter White (and, on the broader scale, of unhindered human nature in general), the bad blood he had wasn't as extreme as he plays. However, Gretchen and Elliot still represent the phony status-quo capitalism that he resisted with his outlaw beginning as a meth cook (his "rebel" against the system quest got muddled once he developed a taste for the kingpin life). 

He gets upset when he sees them on the screen at the end of the last episode. But not just because of how they "stole his son's birthright," but  because of what they say. Because of how much they remind him of the corporate bullshit he sees with people like Gus and more-fittingly Lydia (hence, there is no thematic need to mention Gretchen and Elliot ever again...since Lydia is the stand in for what they represent to Walt).

Their bullshit p.r. move is just the beginning. It's when Charlie rose asks the metaphoric question, "Is Walter White still out there," this hits Walt right at his existential core. To have Gretchen, and woman that broke his heart and reacted with maternal concern after-the-fact (in 2x06), once again make an identity claim (remember his seething "FUCK YOU!" when she told him, "I don't even know who you are anymore...this isn't you"...though that was very accurate) and say that the "sweet, kind, and brilliant" man they knew is no more....this is what makes Walt decide to bring forth the good parts of his Heisenberg persona (Cranston literally morphs from a weary old-man Walter White to a sort-of-powerful hybrid of Mr.White and Heisenberg at that very moment...it's crazy...reminded me of the face contortions he did right after Jane dies; though way less evil).

He isn't returning to Albuquerque to literally get vengeance against Gretchen and Elliot, but rather to prove them wrong. 

Those rich pricks think they're gonna solve the Southwest's drug problem through some tax-dodging rehabilitation foundation, thereby fixing all the boo-boos that their sociopathic ex-partner caused?

Seriously? Fuck them, and fuck Ken Wins, the only thing Walt may never regret from his Heisenbergian path of uncertain destruction is that time he blew up "Ken Wins."

I mean, how are Gretchen and Elliot gonna respond to the Neo-Nazi presence that now haunts every corner of Albuquerque...with feelings and highfalutin theories?

No, Heisen-Walt would likely crash the gates of their compound, make things go boom with science, and spray automatic fire indiscriminately.

How would Gretchen and Elliot's foundation fix the corporate control. Lydia hasn't even been fully spooked by the ferocious toughness of guys likes Mike.

No, Heisen-Walt grams a goblet of ricin-wine down her gullet like she was lady Hamlet, all the while dancing through Coca-Cola metaphors of corporate-capitalism deconstruction. Though, Lydia could either survive...or be done in by Todd.

Walt sees on the screen that Gretchen and Elliot think they have all the symbolic power (they're on "Charlie Rose" for christsake, that is an accomplishment). He doesn't even take the time to finish his classy drink, because, well....FUCK THEM.

So see, Walt's still pretty petty. But since he could never successful out-worth Gray Matter...he'll at least have a chance to beat them at something!

In the process, he might accidentally save his family and home-town from the ruined hellscape he caused. He brought Uncle Jack and the Gang to power; he, and not some silly neo-liberals like the Schwartz, is the only thing that could and should stop them.

It's the least he could do; his karmic checkbook is more imbalanced than the actual accounting back at Beneke Fabricators. Time for Walt to do something real. At this point, he has nothing left to do but wait around to die.... 

Unraveling 5x15 "Granite State" (i.e. "Is Walter White Still out there...")

Events set in motion long ago

 move toward a conclusion

 -The Uninspired yet Ultimately Appropriate Episode Description, as provided by TV Guide

Walt turns to stone (symbolically granite...the moniker of his state-of-exile), when "all-the-illusions-he-rationalized-his-actions-with" are gone; Walt turns to "maybe-back-into-a-shadow-of-his-decent-self"...and is comin' home

Personal subjective stuff out the way; I thought this episode was actually the best of the season so far...and I don't think many would agree.

There will be some sort of pithy, mystical analysis of this episode added some point soonish...

For now, I'll present the not-entirely incoherent notes I typed out when I re-watched the second airing of the episode last night...:


Cold open, vacuum cleaner repair.....prisoners. Recreates the coloring of the exit gravestones. Bleached out color saturation. Surprise from robgert forester (final Tarantino nodd, also...what a good performance). Saul's bright colors stand out...he then segues into white....washing away the sins...not possible. Crystal blue background screen (the cleaner is dressed in drab).

Forster...Sort of embodying his Max Cherry character from Jackie Brown. 

"He's still here." Saul...watches him on the screen, a meta-reflection that consists throughout episode (the fourth wall breakage goes back to the pilot, and resurfaced in the climatic sequence of "Confession").

Saul gives a private look at how Walt falls apart...like in a prison cell. 

"Bunk mates"

From that point forward, the show structurally places the remaining characters in a frame that seems like a vacuum. An unnatural sterility runs throughout the episode, yet the warmth does return (the final sequence is extremely cinematic).

Marie, sealed in the car with the DEA agent (the agent is out of focus); the other is in shadow....echoes the motif of the front shot outside the car, when Marie and Hank would drive together....Marie is isolated in the frame at this point, and the camera is internalized...much like her compartmentalized emotions.

Audio j-cuts across, of Jesse's confession tape (quick economical edits...in line with the rapid catalyzation of the show's pace). 

Todd, lit with the satanic red light (as in the previous episodes).

They watch Jesse on a TV screen, another way that a characters true nature is viewed from a distance...also acts as a mirror to Todd's hidden crimes.

"We got all the money in the world" "No matter how much you got, how do you turn your back on more..." Jack and Todd. Good old boys. Once the flunkies (again...they aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer...even if they're sharp with actual blades).

Cry-baby rat (the continued animalization of Jesse). The sound and light is another vacuum. Uses the paper clip, in a move of desperation that echoes Walt's previous escape at the end of 5x06 ("Buyout").

The camera cuts down from the cleaner to Walt and Saul, paralleling the camera transitions which occurred in scenes at the laundry/superlab back in season 4 (the move was also done in the first few episodes, to move from the main floor in Jesse's house to the basement cell that held Crazy 8 (the scene of Walt's first murder...the blood he shed then spread farther than Victor's, puddling every action Walt took from then to where he is now.
Saul, without his flamboyant clothes, is brutally honest. No longer playing a game; just watching out for Walt's best interests (half-heartedly...but still). Lost the house "predates the criminal enterprise)...

"This, this changes nothing, what I do, I do for my family...." still in denial...his glasses are obscured by the reflections of the room. 

"Then...and only then, am I through."

"Change of plans."

"You're still part of this, whether you like it, or not" (there's no way he or the writers could have known, but this strikes me as meta-commentary, since Bob Odenkirk is still going to be kicking around the BrBa universe, with the seemingly misguided "Better Call Saul" spin-off.

Attempts to recreate the previous "It's not over, until I say it's over."

As he coughs, and falls to his knees, the position of the camera cuts back, showing the exposed insulation; a metaphor for the raw and pathetic vulnerability of Walter White. 

Saul, confronted with the true despair of the dethroned Ozymandias, realizes there's no real or illusory power that can hold him to Walter White anymore. And with that, he walks out, likely in the most humble move of self-preservation he's committed since taking on the "Saul Goodman" pseudonym.

Cuts to a slow zoom out from Skyler, the sound is as if inside a vacuum seal, a buzz of tinnitus (something that usually correlated with psychosis, fitting to a show that has entered a psychic rupture of its very structural narrative fabric). This is likely an unintentional association, but tinnitus is also a common side-effect of methamphetamine abuse.

Scene from the DEA car (echoes the time that Tuco's car stalked the White house back at the beginning of Season 2).

Skyler walks through a starkly lit hall-wall  Todd and crew terrorize passively (something I expected, but suddenly seeing them surrounding the crib was still a shock). Luckily Skyler got really used to successfully navigating Stockholm Syndrome, so she's able to honestly reassure Todd (who deals with her in his usual sick, Oedipally complicated bed-side manner).

Holly now has on the Breaking Bad yellow for a cap (no longer pink). Her innocence has been corrupted...decayed like the very color palette of the series. 

Todd's mug is a slightly greener yellow (turns out Lydia sent them...showing how cognitively dissonant Lyrida is, since she knows the horror of having an armed gunman violate the presumed sanctity of the domestic space (Mike in 5x02 "Madrigal").

"She seems like a nice lady, watching out for her kids" 

"I'm not like you or your Uncle; I'm not used to this kind of risk."

Lydia also isn't like Saul (then again, Todd has what Walt no longer does...the keys to the golden blue meth goose); she is unable to walk away when all the signs point to exit. 

"...I think, it's kind of, mutually good." The temptation is too high. Karmic justice seems just around the bend.

Todd picks off a thing of lint from her back...a signifier both of their primal "back-scratching" relationship, but also a reminder of Todd's sick ulterior motives.

Walt gets ridden to New Hampshire inside a truck, when he is first shown, it looks like he is inside a giant barrel (...some reviewer astutely pointed out that during the last episode, the barrel that Walt rolls symbolizes the barrel meant for his own decomposition...the same type of container used to dispose of Victor and Drew Sharpe [and while others pulled the trigger, or yanked the blade, those deaths are ultimately on Walt's shoulders]).

Bright red of the hand-truck is the only vibrant color. Granite state, "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium...two copies." Limbo, a nowhere place, for a nowhere man.

"Normally, you and I would go our separate ways, but...you're you" a meta-reflection the cleaner wouldn't fully know about.

"Business to conduct." "Your business is your business." "Face is all over TV, you are the hottest client I have ever have, by far. It stands to reason, you have got to stay out of sight."

"What's to keep me from walking out of that gate." White.

"If you leave this place, you will get caught....left the reservation." A pun, since Walt has clearly already checked out and left the reservation a long time ago.

Crystal blue truck.... "Rest up...think on things...if you look around, it's kind of beautiful." another meta-reflection on life. 

Leitmotif...vacuous soundtrack...even the hat has seemingly been depressurized. Walt needs to pop it out (masculinity, impotence). Yet, he can't get through the gate, because of how dependent and alone he now is. The hat is meaningless, he is a coward like before (when he does leave later, he's wearing an innocuous and multi-blue-hued cap).

"Tomorrow...tomorrow." he unconvincingly reassures himself, as he crunches back.

He then lights the fire....not an obvious hellfire metaphor. Rather, it speaks to the original symbols of the show, transformative flames...yet, is change too late? The reaction has already begun, but maybe the final solution can be diluted...

This juxtaposes distinctly with the next scene of Jesse's escape attempt. Walt can't even cross a symbolic threshold, on the off chance he finds himself powerless or has to continue to own up to the real consequences of the life he left behind in ruins. Whereas Jesse's drive to survive and protect his "family" is so strong that he heedlessly does whatever it takes. 

Elliptical editing racks up the tension, as Jesse recreates what it took to get him out of the chains. He balances on the barrel (which parallels the sequence from "Fly," in which he precariously balances on the ladder...both positions he was forced into my the megalomania of Mr. W). 

Deep down, I know that he won't make it, but I really didn't think the show would go where it goes (in hindsight, it all seems unavoidably fated, though).

He climbs the fence, which reminded me of the time he snuck into the junkyard in 2x04 "Down" (oh, back when the worst shit they could throw at Jesse was having him fall into a porta-potty...."those were the days"). 

"You psycho-fucks" the writers are usually allowed to give characters in each season one fuck (even though it's bleeped, there are still limits, apparently). Hank got the first fuck; but I guess the writers could give two fucks for Jesse.

Quiet, crickets  then cuts to Jesse's muffled screams.

"Just so you know, this isn't personal". Oh, betwixt you and Jesse, it was always personal Todd...now it's really, really, really, really personal. 

Jesse has seemingly stumbled into the most unnerving genre-medley the show has tossed up yet: the torture porn film. Though, scenes of his earlier torture would probably be less painful to watch than having to see him watch as Andrea is flippantly executed. 

All for the sake of purity.

Blurred background of Walt moving toward fence...not for another "escape" attempt, but to desperately wave in his source of continued and meaningless survival. Brings him cases of ensure, Walt also needs reading glasses (there are many signifers this episode that portray Walt as an old man with time ticking).

"Are you ready..." the cleaner says, in preparation for Walt's mock chemo-therapy (echoes what he says to Declan during the apotheosis of Heisenberg in the cold open of "Say My Name..." Walt pauses at this....subconsciously realizing how fall he has fallen).

Walt's complexion is at its most pallid and sickly (the color that his face does have, the bright red around his mouth, still contributes to a death-mask of depleted energy).

Pays him to be his friend. They play cards (reminding the audience, and likely Walt himself, about the gambling story Skyler had made up in "I See You." Fire crackling is the only salient background noise ( a king...two kings).

Cuts to an external shot. Dusk...the tableau of a dying man.

Walt wears a yellow sweater (again, a color synonymous with cancer). His ring barely stays on his finger. The articles he has up on the wall echo his John-Nash like structuring of "facts" that he did after the plane crash. 

Like his investigation of Donald Margolis, it seems like Walt is more concerned with organizing information in ways that can assuage his guilty conscience...as opposed to being a realistic source of planning out strategic action.

With the obvious metaphor of the ways his moral decay let his family slip right through his fingers, and having the reminder of  his ruined marriage hang like an albatross around his neck (this also brings up an oblique reference to Lord of the Rings).  he makes a desperate walk to try to buy back his soul..  

The show returns in a tracking shot that calls back to the very first season. Flynn is actually in his father's old classroom, and gets called out of it by Carmen (haven't seen her since that awkward move Walt made on her back in season three's "Green light."),

Flynn shown through window slats, imprisoned temporarily by his father's words. He stutters. Jr. still wears the orange color he's been associated with. He can't be corrupted.

Walt shown in close-up, seen in between the narrow wood planks that surround him (the framing of a coffin, which become a common trope of the cinematography after the ending of "Crawl Space")

"It can't all be for nothing...please."

"Just leave us alone, why are you still alive, why don't you just die already...just die." Walt Jr. This likely is the wake-up call Walt has desperately needed for two years. A question that was marked strongly in that paper-towel dispenser he pummeled back in 2x09 "4 Days Out." Why is he still alive? What is his purpose? He'll give his damnedest to find it, I think.

The war, composition lighting is similar to the confines of his mountain shack. Light shines right above him, as he finally prepares to turn himself in. Filmed less in closer-ups. Moves to a bar (we've seen him at them with Donald in season 2, Jesse in Season 3, and Mike in Season 4; by season 5...he thinks and drinks alone like George Thoroughgood). 

His attention is drawn to the T.V., as the lighting of the scene becomes vibrant and hyperreal. Camera does a slow zoom in. Gretchen and Elliot. Grant is a publicity maneuver. Charlie Rose, very meta... "to cleanse yourself, so to speak..." Charlie, like in reality, knows the deal.

"Is Walter White Still out there..." Charlie Rose

Gretchen...."Whatever he became...the sweet kind, brilliant man that we once knew...he's gone..." His face hardens....

The music begins, and its clear where it's heading..... 

"What would you do, if it all came back to you..." "...step back from the line of fire."

Taos: 

Walter White is the table in the foreground, before the police enter the bar....a cold layer of indifferent frost coated the foundation. There may be no turning back the clock, but somewhere, underneath all that decay and ruin, there may still be remnants of that "sweet, kind brilliant man." 

Something I've learned in the rough and tumble avenues of my own life...the human soul can never be fully snuffed out by malice and mistake. Until it's fully extinguished, the flame still burns, and can burst again (though, it may have to be through self-immolation...remember all the "Phoenix" jazz the show gets all implicit about?). If there's water on Mars, then there can still be decency in Walter Hartwell White.

...And yeah, the impetus for Walt's potential quest at redemption was the thing that enabled his malice, petty spite at not getting his proper due. However, Gretchen and Elliot do represent the illusory world that Mr. White and friends had been resisting (again, the show is extremely existential; and I'm speaking about a parable, not endorsing a Leopold and Lobe type violent revolt against the status quo).

Lydia's purse has the same black and white patterns of the cleaners, and also of the graveyard-esque stones that Jesse and Walter waited by...methinks this forebodes badly (...what else is new).

The atmosphere is sterile, hard, and artificial, despite the introduction of the natural snowscapes of New Hampshire.

Unraveling 5x14 "Ozymandias" (i.e. "...and despair")

I mean, no matter how well I explain it these days, she just has this This I mean, I truly believe there exists some combination of words.

There must exist certain words in a certain specific order that would explain all of this, but with her, I just I just can't ever seem to find them.

-Walter White, 3x10 "Fly"

*Brandishes Knife* Don't say another word.

-Skylar White, 5x14 "Ozymandias"

...

...

...
"I'm Just Kidding!" More to come...

Whatever can be said about tonight's 'Breaking Bad,' whatever words can be written, they won't do justice to this hour of television, which is without a doubt the hardest episode of TV I've ever watched. Every time you thought things couldn't get worse, they did. Every time you thought the lowest point had been reached, it hadn't been. There was more. It kept coming. It kept finding new ways to be mind-bendingly, soul-churningly devastating. ... So that was stomach-turning to witness, even as I could appreciate that the first third or so of 'Ozymandias' was one of the most well-written, well-directed and seamlessly edited things I've ever seen
                   -Maureen Ryan, Huffington Post

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all

-Hamlet, Hamlet, Act III, Scene i

I want to investigate the Cousins. 

Wait...after all that just exploded into dust....I'm gonna start out with...the Cousins....? Maybe I'm nuts, but I never (

When Hank crawled toward the shotgun, in the post-cold-open cold open (one o my friend's theories was that the lack of opening intertitles during the first post-credit sequence was to not have words distract from the intensity of the moment...while likely true, Rian Johnson is a saavy enough stylistic, and writer Moira Beckett enough of a brilliant dramtist, that I think there's more going on here...I may get back to this...), it intentionally echoes the moment at the end of "One Minute" (3x07) when Hank gets the death bullet in, just in the nick of time.

When Gilligan and others discussed that sequence with the Counsin Confrontation, he admitted that the writers saw both Hank and the Cousins as expendable at that point, so the intensity of the sequence comes from not knowing who will come out on top. Hank squeaked out a heroic last minute victory against his opponents before, but there is no more room for extreme nobility in the hellscape which the final acts have conjured.

Both the audience and the characters know that there is no escape for Hank, but false hope still persists. The show has no interest in coddling its viewers, this will not be a happy ending, even if artistically it is a euphoric masterpiece of hopeful beauty.

I actually didn't think they would give Hank the awesome last words they did (how opposite is Hank's stoic and ballsy approach to the face of death, compared to the type of cornered-animal behaviors we've seen from Walt over the seasons; especially the desperate play we saw him make when Mike had him dead-to-rights at the end of "Full Measure" (3x13)). 

It seemed like Jack didn't want to waste any time. Similar to the echo-framing that occured when he executes Declan in the end of "Buried," Uncle Neo-Nazi walks up to Hank like )a moment that had, until the 4th and 5th season, been the show's most iconic moment of "take-your-breath-away What-The-Fuck!!!-ary"

Since Walt furiously reminded Jesse of this "...Run" moment during their phone conversation at the tail end of the previous episode, so the audience has been primed to have that moment in the back-of-their-head as they watch this breathless sequence play out (

Have to give this episode's "Unraveling" a rest for now. Before I start raving about the nuances of Breaking Bad's finest hour...some contemplation and a rewatch (...or two...or five) these coming weeks will likely clear out the creative juices. 

Todd's twisted and cruel twists of Jesse's cruel fates was pretty insane and one of the episodes many moments of overwhelming bleak dark sublimity. To tie things back into the Cousins, keep in mind that the fate Jesse is living/dying through echoes waaaaay . Even the house of the Native American (...I'll definitely get back to this, whenever I rouse myself to write a post which lasers in on Breaking Bad's abundant influences from the Western genre...or something).  

Oh, I have a feeling the worst is yet to come; though I can see the potential for black vaudevillian gold between Mr. White's surrogate sons, based on how these two interact in the bigot's bizarro "Superlab".

The Elders Speaketh #3: "The World Is A Stage"

I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself, and falls on the other 

-Macbeth (Act I, Scene VII)

I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none 

-(I.vii)

Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red -(II.ii)

Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it; he died as one that had been studied in his death to throw away the dearest thing he owed, as 't were a careless trifle -(I.iv)

I am so glad I don't have to take on the Herculean task of initially solidifying the over-arching Shakespearean threads that go through the show (there've been some rhetorical snippets; but not complete justice).

Check out this stellar article "How Shakespeare would End Breaking Bad"

I will definitely post a separate attempt at my own idiosyncratic spin on the Shakespeare stuff down the train line, but only after all the allusions (and bodies) are more fully accounted.

For now, here's a representation of a Shakespearean notion that I can say is at complete odds with my attempted "project"

Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. 
-(V.v)

The quote may relate to the grand cosmic indifference in which the dust of Walter White' meth empire is being blown to oblivion; but it absolutely is removed from the meaning of the show itself.

I mean, it's looking like it signifies everything...right?

Bringing Ol' Yeller Back From the Dead: "Better Call the Witch Doctor"

Say it isn't so...

Well, the spin-off about Saul Goodman has been on everyone's minds for years now, but the announcement still unsettles me. I thought it would turn out to be a bait'n'switch, but...alas...

Better Call Saul

Can't the corporate interests that I'm sure pressured Vince to get on board with this understand that what is seen cannot be unseen? Saul has already decayed into such a ghoulish representation of himself. Do you notice how his presence as of 5x13 brought very little comic relief. Lately, he brings nothing but doom and gloom (trips to Belize, and Ol' Yeller metaphors). Even his face, with the damage that Jesse caused, is a death mask (and also an allusion to Jack Nicholson's character in Chinatown). And there are three episodes left in which he will likely be intertwined with absolute terror. Even the prospect of rewatching comic gems like "Better Call Saul" (2x08) seems like it will be devoid of laughter now that I know where Saul has headed...

Yeah, so likely flop. Rating wise, it's gonna kill it, but it could likely be the kind of artistic compromise that contaminates the overall merit of the "Breaking Bad" universe. Didn't Vince learn, after witnessing the consequences of the Lone Gunman spinoff? Let's hope this news ends up being one elaborately twisted red herring.

Unraveling 5x13 To'hajiilee (i.e. "it's Bound to Get Better...Right")

In which I live out the paradox of having a work of art leave you both speechless and driven to a state of ecstatic glossolalia.

Breaking Bad has a Wilder Bunch, I think...

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, all represented separately; but also all the same sides of the same face (the actors on the show can actually emote that kind of Buddhist theory)

Battle lines being drawn, nobody's right, if everybody's wrong...Paranoia Strikes Deep, Into Your Life It Will Creep

I want to use the ol' kitchen sink, damn the torpedoes approach to this one (a night's rest and rewatching will certainly stimulate some sort of furhter extra-sensory babble and maybe a "return to form"). Expect the most earnest and pure wacko-paranoid abstractions I stumble through.

So, first off, and to me, most pressing...why is the folllowing song Todd's Ring tone? I have several theories, I'll be back...maybe...

Pretty decent movie, really bad television show
-It's poetry in motion
She turned her tender eyes to me
As deep as any ocean
As sweet as any harmony
Mmm - but she blinded me with science
"She blinded me with science!"
And failed me in biology

• Barest meaning, Todd's ring tone is silly. It fits the strange 80s-Kitsch aesthetic of the cold open. This strange, surreal sequence, in which the audience sort of gets to experience the awkward backwardness of the Jack Klan (which sort of puts us in Lydia's shoes...I mean, high-heels-with-red-bottoms [same color red as the superlab scheme]), sets a tone that is in complete disjunct with the absolute stark intensity of the final desert showdown.
• The ringtone also shows Todd's simpleness, and jibes with the strange erotic tension between him and Lydia earlier. Lydia is blinding us. Mr. White may also be the one who "hit me with technology."
• However, I think a more intriguing interpretation of this song is a meta reason. The "she" in this is Michelle MacLaren, one of the great visionaries of Breaking Bad's creative team. Honestly, I think that her opposing "perspective" (she's similar to Kathyrn Bigelow, a female director whose craft maintains the emotional sensitivity of the maternal, but still captures the authentic visceral brutality that is often associated with hyper-machismo dude directors) is essential, and that she deserves as high praise as the other heavy hitters...Gilligan, Slovis, Schnauz, Dixon, MacDonald, Cranston, and Paul.
• Therefore, maybe someone on the creative team snuck this song in as a subtle tribute to her. I think I and other reviewers have even used the exact phrase "poetry in motion" when describing the episode's MacLaren has helmed.   

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Smatterings of My Feverishly Dysgraphic Notes

I will stay true to the foundation, and will be a dick and not order them chronologically. Pure laziness, really

• Echoes down the halls
• "Don't you touch MY MONEY"
• "...that's the price"
• "...How to flush him out"
• "Blinded me with science..."
• "No suffering, no fear..."
• "...too many savages out there"
• Andrea...accidentally well played...right into his hand. White would have made an exceptional poker player (Huell..."not so much").

• Shit, Hank does too..

• Hank has already been represented going full bore Vic Mackey, now...with the gory manipulation of Huell...the writers and visionaries are telling us that is also going full bore McNulty.

• Huell's last name reminds me of Bonobo, or baboon. He is a racial burlesque. Maybe the show is racist, but with the intentional skinhead stuff...a grander order must be at work..
• Don't be cruel to Huell!
• Wait, how the funk did this episode make Huell a source of earnest sympathy and brief pathos...why do I even still bothering questioning its powers.

• Fiery final line is said in the middle of episode, "Well..that's it. Game over."

• Lies..."...Walt doesn't know that. Smug and alienating. The plot thickens as it expands and contracts into itself

• Walt Jr. "reinforces the brand." Godfather subversions and visual motifs abound. 

• Further expansion on Todd and Walt Jr.'s (and Jesse, later on and as previous) twisted parallelism narrows the focus of the why?

• "Booger-Powder"...heh heh

• "Circus Clown of a boss..." Saul, boss of Clown Town. The true "Kingpin" of the BBiverse

• Hmmm, pretty funny interludes, cut short, though...signs of the coming apocalypse.

• Doing what Mr. White taught you Todd? It's bound deeper into the hell mouth, better stopped being an option time out of Walt's mind.

• Perverse style to the cold open

• Imprisoned frames

• Lydia and Todd have a dark and perverted romantic scene. Sort of reminded me of Top Gun as envisioned by Gus Van Sant.
• I'm very a Freud, with these forebodings...

• Episode cuts to quick of one of the show's numerous deconstructed dualities...competence versus incompetence. Masculine displays of bravado, versus the earnest and vulnerable courage needed to really BE a Man. So, also a impotence versus potence thing (just like the purity of White's meth, that's why Jack is pissed...he knows Heisenberg packs a bigger "one")

• For instance, Todd and the Jack Off Flunkie Bigot Brigade are stupid, but they are better equipped for the dark avenues of life, because of it. Walt choose to do the right thing...but, like every monomaniacal and misguided thing he needed to do, it was far too late.

• All the shows previous heroes are bristling with unseemly anti-matter, but they become upended by the moral compromising of the men they claim to be (and the women and children (or Jesse and Todd, two lost children...they suffer the sins of the fathers, and help them commit it, too...)
• ...pretty twisted deconstruction of the nuclear family ideology-mythology...pretty crazy vision you have here, show. 
• It's like the show is somehow holding every possible Ace in the world...or at least, their final Aces in the Hole are so immaculate that everything else is retroactively made all the purer
• ...yep, likely that last part

• Walt and Jesse somehow became friends again (...wait for it, I swear it actually happened)
• I am still not sure about the exact science, but Michelle McLaren out did that minute of furious and hyperreal spectatorship she had previously crafted with the final confrontation of 3x10 "One Minute" and created the most rich and aesthetically dense scenes I can recall (and I am cursed with vividly remembering most of 'em).
• The show knows every possible permutations of how the final stand-off (which starts once Walt gets on the phone with Jesse...in a scene ripped straight from the X-File's episode Drive...the thing that brought Vince and Bryan into each others lovingly gnarled artistic arms.
• At that point, every possibility is likely. My primary instinct was that Walt and Jesse would posse up, just because every other party there is their anathama, and I think the show does this thing that, once Jesse realizes the history behind the spot (it's the impossible to pronounce title of the episode, so I mean, it means a lot...), he actually understands fully how Mr. White is, and that he actually isn't completely lost.
• This deep down gives Jesse hope for his own desperate redemption.
• In a lawless world with no hope and the writing on the walls, drifting buddies all aspire to go out like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid...but then again, anything goes, really
• "Just because you shot Jesse James...don't make you Jesse James"

• "Do not come"
• Not a rat, "he just won't listen to reason." White, in a rare occurence, is awkward and lost for words. HE KNOWS WHO HE IS ALREADY
• That's why, when Hank repeatedly says "Walt, come out"...it's likely a signifier of some performative speech act.
• Heisenberg sort of wants to either A. Let Jack kill all the threats to the "White Empire" or
• B. Do the job himself.
• Yet, he realizes what the tableau actually means (McLaren definitely cranks up the Leone to make a point via disjunct).
• But Mr. White won't let him, mainly because of Jesse (he probably would be okay with Hank's accidental demise, honestly, in the dark of his heart; if Jesse dies, then Walt would likely kill himself
• Yup, these two have an increasingly Badder Bromance
• Instead, Walt comes back (...for a bit). The scene gets silent, and the camera does that painstakingly slow zoom it did with Gus...before he has his "face taken off" (...a ha!). I actually expected the song "Goodbye" to be faintly playing
• McLaren and the writers likely know this association, so the silence makes it more epic and unnervingly enigmatic (the close up shot of White's bald mug is my favorite reoccuring motif...it can instantly let the viewer know where Walt's head is at, even when he is in the throes of complete denial
• During the slow walk, we all expect the tables to turn. Heisenberg must have planted a bomb (there are enough subtle cues to reveal how painstakingly crafted the cerebrally visceral tension becomes.
• Walt has sort of resigned himself to sacrifice (I mean, when he holds up his arms, likely sparking recognition in Jesse's own self-image (at least, between the iconography the show provides the audience)
• Of course, when Jack actually fucking shows up, whatever benign or malign allignment is still happening is fully aborted
• Walt sees the impending doom (christ, like every scene of this episode was dripping with impending doom and eerie lighting...I think most will have to watch the last scene alone about 10 times to pick up on every little nugget of cathartic artsy gold!
• He doesn't want the twisted realities of his dark dream to actual happen at that point.
• The mind fuck is that, and its real obvious, that earlier, he kind of did want it to go down like that; his inner evil logician (then again, aren't they all...) probably just couldn't see any way to clean up the aftermath (maybe he'll have it figured out soon...or be in permanent exile from the hell-on-earth he has reigned done...that lucky unlucky bastard.
• I think, after seeing the next episode, more will be known.
• A part of me thought I knew what was (the consequences, they are coming, Walt from 4x12) coming, then I thought I didn't, then I felt like I saw it, then the show ripped it away from me. They know this
• Because right when the audience, and Nazi players, wishes for everyone to die just so the stylistically unsexy (PoMo Peckinpah mixed with Michael Bay kind of gross) unrelenting gunfire will end. Right when any denouement, even if everyone was viciously killed (...as Walt knows all too well by now, there are fates worse than death).
• So like right when you just want that resolution, need to know how and if the house of cards will ever be rebuilt, the shows does that thing that it knows its audiences hated about the Sopranos final;
• It has to audacity to not even finish the

Well, the next episode is probably gonna jump the shark. Yep, it's all an elaborate prank. Who the hell is directing this likely clunker anyhow....Rian Johnson...hmmm. "Fly" me to the Fucking "Moon." Hey, once Walt goes from "Fifty-One" to "Fifty-Two," his numerology symbology will denote a full deck!

OMGSHITFANBOYITSGONNABEEVENBETTERTHANITHASBEENBEING!!!!!....

More Epic than even the following pictures...but in the same spirit...