BEST MOVIES OF 2013

Standard Disclaimer that I did not see all the movies I should’ve to make such a list.  In particular I wish I had made it to Rush, Frances Ha, The Act Of Killing, All Is Lost and Dallas Buyer’s Club, but I have a day job and all.

The ordering of these things is always fairly arbitrary (particularly in the case of my no. 10 pick, which could have just as easily been 4 or 1 for that matter), but I’m not going to do any of the little cheats and load the thing up with ties and honorable mentions or ballooning it out to 15 or 20.  It’s a Top 10 list, so here are 10 movies in list form.

10.  12 Years A Slave

      

The placement of this movie is entirely arbitrary.  I can’t compare 12 Years directly to other movies with their 3 Act structure and traditional character arcs, as it is not a conventional dramatic story.  It is an endurance test, seeking to illuminate how terrible humanity’s ability to endure can be.  I could say that it’s well acted (particularly by Chiwetel Eijiofor and Lupita Nyong’o), and that the cinematography was accomplished, or praise it in other technical ways.  But I can’t say that I liked it, even the way I like other downbeat movies.  

I shuffled home from the theater with my head hanging low, contemplating man’s inhumanity to man and my own capacity for tolerating atrocity.  Which probably means that Steve McQueen accomplished exactly what he set out to.  Whether it is a “good movie” or not, this is a towering piece of work, scarring in both a visceral and emotional sense.  Everyone should probably see it, even though I have trouble recommending it wholeheartedly, because it is definitely going to hurt.

See It For:  Putting a finer point on your white guilt

Trendspotting:  Rich White People Get Away With Everything, “True Story”, Period Piece

9.  IRON MAN 3

       Marvel films get flack for being product, churned out by a rigid studio system that drowns out the voice of any particular filmmaker.  But Shane Black’s voice is so sympatico with RDJ’s depiction of Tony Stark as a self-obssessed, fast-talking playboy with a heart of gold (well, at least gold trim) that Iron Man 3 comes out as distinctly a Black film, with all the dock shootouts, witty banter, circuitous villain plans, and arbitrary Christmas settings that entails. 

I really should be sick of RDJ’s schtick by now, since it hasn’t changed much since the 2006 original, and he’s even spread it to another franchise with the middling Sherlock Holmeses.  But Black brings out the best in that schtick, to the point when even an extended interlude with a pint-sized sidekick can’t stop IM3 from being an utter blast.  It’s funny enough to be a straight up comedy, with time for action beats for the previously-underused Don Cheadle and Gwyneth Paltrow, and possibly the best Marvel villain turn this side of Tom Hiddleston’s Loki by Ben Kingsley.

See It For:  The marvelous “barrel of monkeys” sequence.

Trendspotting:  Marvel Bitchslapping Diminishing Returns, Near Future Sci-fi

 8.  THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

      Wolf  is a tremendously energetic, angry film to be coming from a septuagenarian.  But surprise, surprise, Martin Scorcese is better than the rest of us, and his collaboration with Leo Dicaprio seems to be keeping him engaged and young in spirit.  Wolf has issues; it is a scathing comedic satire with the bloated runtime of a historical epic, it doesn’t even use that time to get very deep into what makes its primary character tick beyond being a, well, everything addict, and seems to think that the audience will be bored by the details of Jordan’s Belfort’s biggest crimes (when we eat that type of confidence scheme stuff up).

But it has even more considerable strengths, in its performances, editing, and the fact that it’s a scathing comedic satire that is really, really funny.  Dicaprio is having the time of his life playing the least inhibited douchebag who ever lived, and reveals a facility for physical comedy that I never would’ve guessed at.  A 3 hour runtime may not have been truly necessary to tell this story, but with Marty and Leo at the helm, that time flies by.

See It For:  The best Popeye reference that was or ever shall be

Trendspotting: Rich White People Get Away With Everything, “True Story”, Period Piece

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7.  INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS

      The Coen Brothers don’t know how to make a bad movie (I remain our message board’s most frequent defender of the maligned screwball Intolerable Cruelty).  Inside Llewyn Davis is not their best, or particularly eventful if I were to describe the plot.  But it is a sad, funny (OUTER….SPAAAAACE), profound meditation on loss, doubt, and the pains of falling just short of greatness. 

Llewyn Davis is recognizably Coen in nature – prickly, hard luck protagonist, underplayed humor, blustery supporting turn from John Goodman, conclusion involving retribution of questionably divine origin.  But it’s also less talky, and less overtly comedic than most of their non-crime thriller output.  It’s practically a musical, chock full of musical performances, but the last time they toed that line the bros produced O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which remains one of the best films of this millennium.  This one isn’t quite as great as all that, but it’s still one of the best films of the year, sporting a bonafide star turn from Oscar Isaacs.  Also there’s cats, and a wonderful song about space.

See It For: The amazing soundtrack performed by the actual stars and co-produced by the legendary T. Bone Burnett

Trendspotting:  Period Piece

6.  CAPTAIN PHILLIPS

           

Paul Greengrass has carved out a very particular niche for himself, as the purveyor films that have a way of making even well-executed, adult-oriented thrillers look like “movies” – lightweight, phony, and manipulative.  But the truth is that Greengrass himself is a master manipulator, walking audiences through complex scenarios and forcing them to sweat and cry and feel empathy for parties that they would much rather write off as one-dimensional villains.

Captain Phillips is built around two towering performances.  It’s no surprise that Tom Hanks is fantastic in the titular role – “fantastic” is practically his blood type.  But newcomer Barkad Abdi is a revelation as the leader of the desperadoes that take Phillips and his ship hostage.  The two men create a shaky, unexpected but real bond as the situation spirals further and further out of control, until the last-act arrival of the SEALS feels less like a fist-pumping cavalry charge than an implacable Hand Of God that you wish the “bad guys” could be spared from.  See it, but maybe double your dosage of heart medicine beforehand.

See It For:  The airless final 15 minutes.

Trendspotting:  Limited Cast, “True Story”

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5.  THOR: THE DARK WORLD

      There were plenty more important, more emotional, more “artistic” movies that came out this year, but Thor: The Dark World was easily the best time I had at the movies.  A lifelong Marvel partisan, I never cared for Thor growing up, finding him too silly and outright dumb (in both concept and personality) to fit in even with the colorful ranks of the Avengers.  But Chris Hemsworth’s insanely charismatic performance made a convert of me, finding just the right notes of sincerity and humor to make the Odinson come alive as a simple man rather than a simpleton.  The rest of the cast, talented thespians all, take their cues from him and find a way to have an absolute ball with the goofy material without winking at the camera.

Thor 2 is a big, friendly golden retriever of a movie that slobbers all over you in its eagerness to please.  You liked Loki, right?  Sure you did, and we’ll bend over backwards to give him an important supporting role!  Want to see Stringer Bell stab a spaceship to death?  Done!  Here’s some Kat Dennings comedy to go with it!  More Warriors Three?  Okay!  And Space Elves with Implosion grenades!  The action finale borders on incoherent in how hard it tries to make sure you never get bored (Wait! We also have an  Ice Monster!).  And I never did.  I just sat there with a big dumb grin on my face for 2 straight hours.

See It For:  Loki.  Duh.

Trendspotting:  Marvel bitch-slapping diminishing returns

4.  BEFORE MIDNIGHT

         We live in the age where everything is or is at least hoping to become a trilogy, but Richard Linklater (/Ethan Hawke/Julie Delpy)’s Before series is unlike any of the fantasy or young adult “epics” that have been polluting the multiplexes for several years.  It’s more akin to Michael Apted’s Seven Up documentary series, providing periodic portraits of a grand, touching, intelligent romance between young, not-so-young and middle-aged partners who love, above all else, to talk to each other.   

Hawke and Delpy’s performances are so lived-in, so natural, that the effect of Before Midnight is like watching your best friends fight.  Only good.  They have all the affection, resentment, intimacy and ennui of a real marriage, and Linklater has the honesty to delve into the way that you can’t really, truly loathe someone unless you really, truly love them too.  This is the apex of one of the greatest, realest romances ever put to film, and manages to maintain the series streak of ambiguous endings while putting a different, less optimistic spin on it.

See It For: Hawke and Delpy’s incredibly real, volatile chemistry

Trendspotting:  Limited Cast

3. Spring Breakers

          I never liked Harmony Korine, finding his films to be grossly unpleasant, self-indulgent messes to be endured rather than enjoyed.  And none of them were as indulgent as Spring Breakers, a bizarre, ungodly mutant of a film, unlike anything I saw this year, or ever really.  Part crime movie, part hedonist romp, part dreamy fable, part oddball romance, part cantankerous screed about what’s wrong with “kids today”.  Wholly original and completely unpredictable.  It plays like someone, for some reason, decided to let the scumbag founder of Girls Gone Wild write a self-aggrandizing screenplay mythologizing his smut as the ultimate expression of the American Dream, then for some reason turned around and hired Michael Mann to shoot it, then for some other reason gave Terrence Malick final cut.

And then there’s Alien.  James Franco has been dancing around the line of self-parody for awhile now, but this is one of the strangest, most compelling characters and performances of the young century.  And it’s the center of an insane, beautiful work of something that feels too grubby to call genius, but too singular to call anything else.

See It For:  James Franco(‘s sheeyit)

Trendspotting:  Rich White People Get Away With Everything

2. GRAVITY

          Gravity is a truly phenomenal movie experience, one of the few times where shelling out extra $ for Imax and 3D were not just worth it, but absolutely essential.  The best roller coaster I’ve ever been on (it took an hour for my stomach to fully settle afterward), and just about the best theater experience I’ve ever had.  Clooney and Bullock are cast precisely, perfectly to type.  A barebones script with exactly what we need and nothing we don’t.  A effects thrill ride without a nuclear bomb or alien portal in sight, that scrambles your innards and gets you out in a tight 90 minutes, they don’t make them like this anymore, but then they never really did anyway.  A visceral experience unlike any I’ve ever had, Gravity makes the case for the continuing viability of the big screen in a world where bigger and bigger spectacle is increasingly ported to smaller and smaller TVs, tablets, wristwatches, etc.

See It For:  The best representation of the disorienting axis-lessness of space ever brought to the screen

Trendspotting:  Near Future Sci-fi, Limited cast

1.  HER

      Spike Jonze is one of America’s underappreciated geniuses, possibly because his early triumphs (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) are rare cases where the director is overshadowed by the writer in auteur terms, and/or maybe due to his association with the Jackass crew.  But Her should change that.  An incredible piece of low key scifi world-building, the film also boasts a small but insanely talented cast.  Joaquin Phoenix’s quietly wounded lead performance, Amy Adams topping off a simply extraordinary year with a remarkably warm and genuine performance (including doing her feisty best to save Man Of Steel from iteslf and a glammed up, scorching turn in American Hustle that is 180 degrees from her mousy, affectionate work here), and absolutely wonderful voice work from Scarlett Johansson.  It’s beggars belief to learn that she was brought in as a replacement in post-production and never actually interacted with Phoenix, but she makes an operating system into not just a fully believable, dimensional character, but one charming enough to anchor a movie romance without a face.

What is most surprising and wonderful about the movie is how conventionally that romance plays out, despite the inherent ridiculousness of the “Guy Falls In Love With His Phone” conceit.  I went in with a vague worry that the movie would turn out to be a simplistic “we all need to unplug and really talk to each other” parable.  What I loved about Her is that while it does aver the paramount importance human connection, it does so while celebrating technology as creating new ways for people to connect rather than an impediment.  The film is funny, but it never treats the central relationship as a joke.  Samantha, despite originating as lines of code, is a fully intelligent being with a personality that is much, much realer and deeper than “Siri with a sexy voice.”  What Jonze seems to intuitively understand is that for as glued to our screens as we can be these days, the most popular and important apps and sites (be it Twitter, Okcupid, or CHUD.com) are built around allowing us greater interaction and access to each other.  Looking around today’s world, it occurs that the bulk of our collective technological will seems to be aimed less at eliminating poverty or disease than loneliness.  Jonze finds that completely understandable, and even kind of beautiful.

See It For:  Scarlett Johansson.  As absurd as the premise of this movie sounds, I dare you not to fall a little in love with her disembodied voice along with Joaquin.

Trendspotting:  Near Future Sci-fi, Limited Cast

BREAKING BAD 5.16 - "FELINA"

(This piece was originally published on Chud.com)

For our final installment, I roped in site founder/sentient beard/Breaking Bad superfan Nick Nunziata to offer his few cents on the finale and series.  And it goes a little something like…

Al Schwartz: So…best finale ever?

Nick Nunziata. Yep. Pretty much.

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AS: Well, since we’re here I’ll play the curmudgeon.  So there are basically two possible criticisms I can see for the finale. The first is that it lacked some of the show’s signature shock factor, in that things went down the way people had pegged them for weeks and months (i.e. Nazis get the gun, Lydia gets the ricin) without any really wild twists.  I’m guessing you didn’t feel any disappointment on that front?

NN:  Nope.  Without adding too much hyperbole, I’d have to say it’s the best finale to the best season to the best show.  Nothing has felt this whole to me in any bit of media I’ve taken in.

AS: I wasn’t really fussed about that aspect either.  If things were a little more predictable than in prior years, it is because everything was set up so well, and it’s rare enough for a TV finale to be able to pay off all its major threads in satisfying way that I can’t deduct too many points for doing it so neatly.

We’ll just be sitting here, without comment

What you said does tie into the second critique, though.  Was this too much of a happy ending for Walt?  Yes, there’s a lot of damage that can’t be undone, but he gets a huge chunk of money to his son, getting some revenge on his former colleagues in the process, he mitigates Skyler’s legal troubles, gets a goodbye to his daughter, kills everyone left who has crossed him and saves Jesse.  T his is a guy who is directly responsible for dozens of deaths (and indirectly responsible for hundreds); did he deserve to be so triumphant in death?

NN:  I looked at is as rewarding us, the people.  Finally the smoke and mirrors were over.  They knew what our hearts needed and gave it to us on a silver platter.  This is like the pilot in that it has a different agenda.  The big moments have been plentiful all half season.  This is the graceful deflating of the balloon.  Our nerves have had enough over the past weeks that it was great to see Gilligan giving us a rich dessert.

AS: It did feel like a gift to the fans, though I’m not sure that I will look at that as such a good thing as time goes on. Watching the finale, I kept feeling something unfamiliar. It took me a while to realize it was relief. Watching BB is usually such a nerve-jangling experience, but Sunday night was like a big warm blanket after the harrowing events of “Ozymandias”. That episode feels like the true climax of the show. The most immediate comparisons to other finales are probably going to be to The Sopranos and LOST), but I think I might end up associating these last 2 episodes most strongly with the British The Office‘s Christmas special, which also jumped forward several months from the depressing endpoint of the series proper, featured the primary characters returning to the setting they had moved on from to find much happier endings.

I liked the Xmas special, by the way, as I liked “Felina”. But both do have a different feeling from what preceded them, that of a punch being slightly pulled. Or a dessert, as you say. Something sweeter and less weighty than the meal itself.

“Seriously? How do you not make some sort of Stevia reference here?”

NN: I guess, but let’s face it: Walter White’s last look at his son was the back of his head, his last conversation with his wife was harrowed and fragmented, his last touch of his daughter was while she was asleep and not knowing who he was, and he died from a painful gutshot after his son surrogate and ex-partner was happily driving away unconcerned about his fate.  This is not a cop-out.  This is a coda to a concussive, emotionally draining, and ultra-suspenseful chain of events.  It felt to my palate absolutely perfect.

AS: I don’t want to sound churlish, because this was, all in all, a very satisfying finale.  So much so that I’m reduced to complaining that it was a little TOO awesome. It gave me everything I wanted (minus maybe contriving a way for Walt to die in his underwear), and if it was a tad manipulative in how it provided the happiest endings still possible (very relative measures, obviously) for the main characters while giving the baddies their comeuppance, so what? Manipulation is a storyteller’s job, after all. The important thing is I never felt insulted.

Hey guys

NN:  Maybe lost in the accolades and surprising surge in the ratings and profile of the series is how it became such a fertile source of directorial majesty.  Vince Gilligan absolutely killed it here and as I rewatch the finale I can’t help but wonder if Breaking Bad brings out the best in people or if it was just the groundwork being laid by Johnson and McClaren and their ilk.  Regardless, the episode leaves me with a warm post-Thanksgiving dinner high.

AS:  The look of the show is something I’ve praised consistently throughout the reviews I’ve done for the site, though I lack the film vocabulary to really do it justice. Regardless, Johnson always killed it when he would “slum” away from his feature career to direct an episode, but Gilligan and folks like Michael Slovis and especially Michelle McClaren really elevated this on a week to week basis far beyond what we expect visually from a television show, even a prestige cable production.  I’m very pleased that McClaren will be continuing to work regularly on Game Of Thrones, which officially became my favorite ongoing TV show as of 9:13 pm CST last Sunday.

Looking back on the whole package, I’d say that BB‘s position as the best-looking show ever is secure for at least a little while. How about the most consistent? 62 episodes is not a long run (it’s less than 3 full order network seasons), but can you remember any total duds?  I may skip “Madrigal” or “Open House” upon a rewatch, but I don’t think I ever finished an episode and went “eh, that wasn’t very good.”  Has any other show pulled that off?  The Wire, I suppose.  But that show was so carefully constructed on a seasonal level, with the story so methodically meted out to make every episode contain something essential that would not pay off until the season was over, that I find BB‘s batting average even more impressive given how frequently it was swinging for the narrative fences.  It may not have knocked them all out of the park, but I think it got each and every one of them all out the infield.

 

NN: Call it rose-colored glassed or just the fading high of having redigested the entire series again in recent weeks, but no episodes stick out as duds. There are subplots and characters that are less fun and engaging the second time around but that’s mostly due to how strong the dynamic grew over the years. Especially once truly formidable adversaries joined the mix. Aside from the last eight episodes of the show I feel my favorite is still “Problem Dog”, but you simply cannot go wrong with any moments with Walt and Jessie together, Gus or Mike doing their thing, or Saul being Saul.  So many good characters and perfect casting decisions make it a gift that continues to give.

Some say gifts, I say treasures

AS: I never would’ve guessed “Problem Dog” as anyone’s favorite, as terrific as it is – and goddamn is Aaron Paul great in the titular scene.  I think I’d have to give my nod to a more eventful hour like “One Minute” or “Ozymandias”.  But we’re parsing between great and transcendentally fantastic here, so I’m not going to argue very hard against any choice.

You say there are so many great characters, but it’s sort of the same as with the episodes, and I think the two are closely related. It feels like there’s a ton of great characters because there are essentially no duds, but compared to its peers the show actually maintained a very small cast. At any given point in the series, there are maybe a half dozen major characters; Walt, Jesse, Skyler, Hank, and then depending on the given episode, one or two of Marie, Saul, Gus, Mike, Jane, etc. Most shows, including the really great ones, have to sprawl out their ensembles to dozens of characters to fill multiple seasons of runtime. You’d have to include every bit player in BB from Gale to Badger to Gomez to Beneke to Huell and to make a cast list that would match Boardwalk Empire‘s opening credits.

Which I think worked to the finale’s benefit. The focus has always been so narrowed in on Walt himself that “Felina” does not have to contort itself to wrap up numerous subplots and long-running mysteries, or contrive a resolution for people whose character arcs fell by the wayside two seasons back but were still under contract as regulars. No one but Walt gets more than 2 scenes in the entire 75 minute episode, as far as I can recall. Would you agree that the laser focus was an asset to the finale, or the series as a whole? Did it ever make Albuquerque feel underpopulated?

NN:  It totally benefited from laser focus, and part of what makes it all seem so right is that show was always insular and small at its core. I think it lucked into a lot of its grace, especially if even half of what Vince Gilligan says about them painting themselves into corners is true.  There was a weird recklessness at play which makes how tongue in groove the show ended up seem even more phenomenal.  I don’t understand people complaining about coincidences or luck that enabled Walt to get from New Hampshire to his wife’s new apartment.  I don’t understand why him refusing to park the way the Nazi’s wanted him to was such a deal. Everyone’s ego and pride gets them hurt on this series and though it’s easy to nitpick, it’s impossible not to be kept afloat knowing that this last year-plus of this show has been a once-in-a-lifetime event. Nothing got leaked.  Nothing got spoiled.  Everything came home hard.

The short (by comparison) run of the show also makes it an easy get for new viewers, which should reap rewards as time goes on.  It also makes it easy to revisit, which is something I plan to do once that collector’s set arrives in the fall.

AS: Ah yes, that box set looks mighty tempting. It would have to be in a barrel, wouldn’t it?
It is rather remarkable that there were no significant leaks this entire last season. It hasn’t stopped the primary complaint about the finale being that it was predictable, but then I think we’re in agreement that this is not a terrible thing when it indicates that the conclusion is logical and set up properly by what came before.  Chud message board luminary The Dark Shape said in the aftermath “sometimes being unpredictable damns you to silliness,” which I think hits it square.  If you’re going to focus on “outsmarting” the combined wiles of millions of people on the internet who have spent a year-plus trying to anticipate every angle of your story, chances are you will end up with a story that is convoluted and nonsensical.  I said before that the great thing about the finale is that it never felt insulting, despite walking right up to the line of pandering, but you can also insult the audience with arbitrariness.

“Isn’t it awesome how we never had any black or Hispanic friends that would’ve wanted to be here?”

Breaking Bad was terrifically surprising, but it never let that become its primary reason for being. It’s legacy is going to loom heavy over every show and every creator who is tasked to bring their story to a complete and satisfying close, when conventional wisdom has generally held that TV was never designed for such things, that it’s more like improv than literature, you’re never going to please everyone anyway…

NN: This is the only time in this age where expectations were met, exceeded, and obliterated. I cherish this now dead era. It makes up for the prequels. It makes up for my height. It makes up for mistakes I’ve made on the web. It makes up for that time I hit the squirrel with my car…

MR. SQUIBBLES!! OH MY GOD IT WAS YOU YOU MONSTER!!!!!

 

Spin off is still possible. All’s I’m sayin’.

Now, let’s look at the final tallies:

Total Profits – $9,200,000

Murders – Emilio, Krazy 8, Jane, two of Gus’s dealers, Gale Boetticher, Gustavo Fring, Tyrus, Hector “Tio” Salamanca, two other Fring goons, 14 year-old arachnophile Drew Sharp, Mike Ehrmantraut, Dennis the Laundry Manager, Dan the lawyer, 8 more of Mike’s guys, Steve Gomez, Hank Schrader, Lydia Rodart-Quayle, Jack Welker, a half dozen neo-nazi flunkies

Lesser Included Offenses – Extortion, possession of illegal automatic weapons

Collateral Damage – One innocent janitor loses his job and goes to jail on a bullshit marijuana charge. Hank had to kill a guy, even if he was an insane, degenerate piece of filth who deserved to die, giving him fairly severe PTSD. Combo was killed dealing for Walt. Jane’s father’s life is utterly ruined. 167 passengers on two planes are dead. Skyler is forced to become an accessory after the fact (or take down her son, sister and brother-in-law with Walt). 3 broken Pontiac Aztek windshields. Jesse’s RV is destroyed. On their mission to kill Heisenberg, the Cousins kill 9 illegal immigrants and their coyote, an old woman with a handicap-accessible van, a grocery-shopping bystander, an Indian woman and the Reservation sheriff that investigates. Also they shoot Hank multiple times, forcing him through a long, painful physical therapy process. Andrea’s kid brother is murdered by Gus’s dealers due to trouble Jesse and Walt stirred up. Jesse murders Gale, crushing him with guilt and destroying his hard-fought sobriety. Gus murders Victor to send a message to Walt and Jesse. Three Honduran workers get deported (or maybe worse). Walt purposefully wrecks a car, straining an already-injured Hank’s neck in an unspecified fashion. Ted Beneke breaks his neck fleeing from Heisenpire goons. Brock is poisoned and nearly dies. Tio blows himself up, but no one’s weeping for that vicious old fucker. The staff of an industrial laundry is out of their jobs. Dozens (hundreds?) of criminal prosecutions are compromised when the guys wreck the APD evidence locker. Hank’s boss gets pushed out of his job for his failure to apprehend Fring or Heisenberg. Herr Schuler, Chau and a low rent hitman get offed as Lydia scrambles to cover up Madrigal’s connection to Fring’s drug empire in the wake of his death. Walt manipulates Jesse into breaking up with Andrea. Mike’s lawyer is arrested, depriving his favorite banker of sweets. Hank has that last great pleasure of a middle-aged man, a quiet, leisurely excretion, ruined by one of history’s greatest monsters. Walt’s tutelage of Todd and enabling of Lydia lead to their murder of Declan and a half dozen of his guys. Jesse beats Saul for his role in Brock’s poisoning. Walt’s living room carpet and car upholstery are ruined via soaking in gasoline. Marie is widowed, and Flynn is going to have need about $11 million just for therapy bills. Jesse is brutally beaten by the Nazis and forced into meth cooking slavery for approximately 8 months. Saul is forced to flee to Nebraska, abandoning all but his 3 very best pairs of Dockers in the process. Skyler is put on trial and loses the house for her complicity in Walt’s crimes. Andrea is murdered by the Nazis to keep Jesse motivated to reproducing Walt’s formula. Gretchen and Elliot Schwartz, in fear for their lives, are forced to launder Walt’s drug money.

Heisenberg Certainty Principle – “Elliot, if it’s going to go that way, you’ll need a bigger knife.”

Best Lie – A couple laser pointers make Badger and Skinny Pete into the two best hitmen west of the Mississippi.

The Erlennmeyer Flask Is Mightier – Walt finally finds a home for his homemade ricin, and Macguyver’s a remote-operated machine gun turret from what I assume was an automated skeet thrower (but have subsequently learned is a garage door opener motor)

Official Walter Jr. Breakfast Count: 15

We Are Done, Professionally – Jesse refuses to put Walt out of his misery for him. Walt ends Lydia and the Nazis’ partnership in fairly definitive fashion.

It’s The Little Things – Badger and Skinny Pete just now realizing that doing errands for Heisenberg is maybe a little shady, like, morality-wise? The way Lydia compulsively straightens the sugar packets before grabbing her ricin-ed Stevia (is Stevia a real product? They really got the short end of the product placement stick if so). The blocking of the scene in Skyler’s apartment to reveal Walt after she hangs up, and then to keep the large wooden post separating them throughout. The turret and barcalounger both continuing to run after the shooting stopped. Jack’s death mirroring Hank’s in staging, and the immensely satisfying splatter of his brains of the lens. Todd’s last, posthumous, ridiculous ringtone. That it was his own creation that delivered the killshot to Heisenberg.

So that’s all, folks.

BREAKING BAD 5.15 - "GRANITE STATE"

As “Granite State” opened, I was sort of disappointed that we were going to meet the Vacuum Cleaner Man. I liked him as just an anonymous minivan. But he is Robert Forster, because of course he is, this is Breaking Bad, and they only cast the absolute best person ever for every single part.  And he gets off a decent in-joke, after Saul asks “Nebraska, what’s in Nebraska?” and he replies “You.”  (Odenkirk is in Nebraska, Alexander Payne’s most recent yuckfest).  Between the cold open and first act, we get our series wrap on Saul Goodman, one of my favorite supporting characters of all time (you can expect a lot of similarly hyperbolic proclamations between this recap and next week’s series retrospective, true believers).  He ends his run, surprisingly, as the voice not only of reason, but conscience.  On a show that is based so much around the poisonous nature of lies, he has always been perversely honest about his own amorality, with others and most importantly with himself.  I think Saul genuinely does not wish harm upon any other person, he’s just willing to let any manner of harm befall them as long as he is able to stay at one level of remove from the act.  In a season so dominated by Walter White and Nazi scumbags, that’s almost enough to read as noble.

Anyway, Saul declines to help Walt recruit his own A-Team for the purposes of wiping out Jack’s crew, and then proceeds to drop some (carefully couched) truth bombs.  Skyler is still plenty screwed, even if the phone call saves her from jail time, which is not by any means certain.  She is still firmly trapped by her husband’s crimes, barely able to get out of her own head while being grilled by prosecutors, a prisoner in her own home even before Todd decides to make a grand romantic gesture by invading her child’s bedroom in the dead of night.  If there hadn’t been a couple bored cops sitting on the front of the house, I imagine he would’ve brought a boombox blasting Peter Gabriel in with him.  But I’m sure this will work for him; after all, nothing makes panties drop like slipping on a ski mask and oh god this whole thing has really gotten away from me sorry sorry.

Sir, step away from the ill-conceived joke

Sooo, let’s talk about Todd a minute.  I was not on board with his being an utter psycho when he was first introduced, as not knowing where they were going to go with the Nazi angle, I thought there was more potential in a relatively normal kid getting corrupted by association with the Heisenpire than to have them stumble across a ready-made Dahmer.  And it’s been easy to undervalue Jesse Plemmons’ performance when it’s defined by such a flat, affectless manner, but that emptiness overlaid with unfailing courtesy has become increasingly disturbing as time has gone on.  Tonight brought home what a hiss-worthy villain he’s become, the rare sort of sicko who will bring you 2 flavors of Ben and Jerry’s the same night he’ll execute your girlfriend in cold blood.  Andrea has obviously never been nearly as important to the series as Hank was, but her death was in some ways sadder, as she never had any idea that she was a part of the conflict that claimed her life, and didn’t have any opportunity to face it on her terms.

But Todd is a bit more than just someone we can cheer getting the acid bath (though my money is on Jesse recreating Walt’s flashbang trick from the pilot and literally blinding him with science…it’s Chekov’s ringtone, bitch!).  He’s also, as Emily Nussbaum pointed out recently, a representation of the “Bad Fan” of BB, who identifies with and reveres Walt exclusively and would see anyone who presents and obstacle for him removed.  What those fans don’t seem to understand (beyond the general sexism that permeates most of the conversation about Skyler and all the other awful bitches that every middle aged cable antihero, without fail, happens to be married to) is that BB would be a much different, more boring show if those characters weren’t there to provide a counterpoint.  If it was all Heisenberg, all the time, then we would quickly cease to be so interested in and impressed with Heisenberg; it’s the contrast between the crazy crime stuff and the grounded domestic angles that make the craziness so electrifying when it rears its head.

And also, obviously, Huell’s weird head

Todd is also a dark mirror version of Jesse.  As a pupil to Walt, he is the complete opposite.  He is courteous, respectful, and applies himself fully, but lacks the natural intelligence that Jesse wasted in high school and through much of the early part of the series, that allowed him to cook the blue to a point where it was indistinguishable from his mentor’s.  What Jesse has not been able to learn from Mr. White, but comes so naturally to Todd, is the callousness to the true cost of their business creates.  Jesse is a criminal, a murderer, a drug kingpin in his own right, but Aaron Paul has given him an enormous soul as each passing episode flays it more and more brutally.  If there is one word for Todd, “soulless” would be it (even his infatuation with Lydia is made creepier by how passionless it appears), and his nonchalant violence against women and children could not stand in starker contrast to Jesse’s soft-hearted approach to criminality.  When Jesse is the one who knocks, his eyes are filled with tears and his gun wavers (to the point that a chunk of viewers desperate to outguess the show’s next twist convinced themselves that the camera focusing on the important character meant a crazy soap opera development where he fired over Gale’s shoulder or something), Todd is exceedingly polite and serene when he does the same.  If Jesse isn’t the one to kill Todd next week, I’ll eat my porkpie hat.

But for now, he is stuck in a hellish existence as the Nazi’s meth monkey.  His impressive attempts to Macguyver his way out of were obviously doomed to fail, but I thought that failure would mean a vicious beating, instead of…Jesus, fucking Todd.  Jesse’s confinement is more literal than Skyler’s, and since the Nazis actually make good on their threat against his loved ones, I’d say he wins the “My Life Is Fucked Beyond Belief” award for this week. But as I said, I’m fairly confident that he will get a chance at some visceral revenge in the finale, whilst Skyler is less likely to find a way to elude jail and keep any of the money Walt is desperate to get to her and the kids.

That money, as Walt has continually opined to Jesse and Skyler and Jack, was supposed to represent freedom. But what wears Walt down to the point that he is willing to turn himself in to the DEA at the end of the episode is how useless it becomes to free him from the prison he has built for himself.  Walt spends the entire episode confined; underground with Saul, in an empty tanker truck, a claustrophobic one-room cabin, or the 2 acre sprawl with a gate that primarily serves to keep him in rather than trespassers out.  It costs him $50,000 for a trip to Costco, but the numbers have gotten so meaningless that he’s willing to drop another 10 for an hour of human interaction, even if it’s with a man who won’t tolerate his company for longer at any price. Also, I like to think that in that hour, Forster takes another couple grand off Walt in their game of stud.

Pro Gambling Tip No. 4:  Never play poker with any man cool enough to romance Pam Grier

But this is not Goodfellas, and even if wasting away his last few months in a New Hampshire winter (which makes for a striking visual counterpoint to the New Mexico desert vistas we’ve become so accustomed to) were a fittingly ignoble end for the Great Heisenberg, we know that is not going to be the case here.  Walt still has breakfasts to buy, ricin to collect, and machines to gun back in Albuquerque.  So something has to awaken the beast.  And nothing, but nothing in this American Moment, angries up the blood like that fuckstick Charlie Rose.

Fucking seriously, fuck this fucking fuck

But Walt is also irritated with Rose’s guests, his former business partners doing their best to whitewash (PUUUUUUUUNS!!!!) Ozymethdias’s contributions to the formation of their totes legit company for the sake of “the investing public.”  There’s a mention in passing of the blue still being in circulation, but Walt looks to have already made up his mind at that point.  I still have a hard time imagining the M60 is for shooting up GM Technologies, but then after the Denny’s scene first aired, I poo-pooed the idea that his return would have to do with them at all, thinking that thread had not been well enough developed to play a crucial role in the series’ endgame.  I was obviously wrong (and kudos to those on the message boards who were beating that drum a year back), but still feel that whatever his motivations while leaving the bar in New Hampshire, once back in ABQ his plan will eventually culminate in a rescue of Jesse, and a small bit of redemption, even if it’s too little too late for him to earn actual forgiveness.

Can’t wait to see how wrong I can be, one last time.

Last prediction: if Walt does not fire a machine gun in his tighty-whiteys

 at some point, I’ll move to Nebraska with only 2 pairs of Dockers

Murders – Emilio, Krazy 8, Jane, two of Gus’s dealers, Gale Boetticher, Gustavo Fring, Tyrus, Hector “Tio” Salamanca, two other Fring goons, 14 year-old arachnophile Drew Sharp, Mike Ehrmantraut, Dennis the Laundry Manager, Dan the lawyer, 8 more of Mike’s guys, Steve Gomez, Hank Schrader

Collateral Damage – One innocent janitor loses his job and goes to jail on a bullshit marijuana charge.  Hank had to kill a guy, even if he was an insane, degenerate piece of filth who deserved to die, giving him fairly severe PTSD.  Combo was killed dealing for Walt. Jane’s father’s life is utterly ruined.  167 passengers on two planes are dead.  Skyler is forced to become an accessory after the fact (or take down her son, sister and brother-in-law with Walt).  3 broken Pontiac Aztek windshields. Jesse’s RV is destroyed.  On their mission to kill Heisenberg, the Cousins kill 9 illegal immigrants and their coyote, an old woman with a handicap-accessible van, a grocery-shopping bystander, an Indian woman and the Reservation sheriff that investigates.  Also they shoot Hank multiple times, forcing him through a long, painful physical therapy process. Andrea’s kid brother is murdered by Gus’s dealers due to trouble Jesse and Walt stirred up.  Jesse murders Gale, crushing him with guilt and destroying his hard-fought sobriety.  Gus murders Victor to send a message to Walt and Jesse.  Three Honduran workers get deported (or maybe worse).  Walt purposefully wrecks a car, straining an already-injured Hank’s neck in an unspecified fashion.  Ted Beneke breaks his neck fleeing from Heisenpire goons.  Brock is poisoned and nearly dies.  Tio blows himself up, but no one’s weeping for that vicious old fucker.  The staff of an industrial laundry is out of their jobs.  Dozens (hundreds?) of criminal prosecutions are compromised when the guys wreck the APD evidence locker.  Hank’s boss gets pushed out of his job for his failure to apprehend Fring or Heisenberg.  Herr Schuler, Chau and a low rent hitman get offed as Lydia scrambles to cover up Madrigal’s connection to Fring’s drug empire in the wake of his death.  Walt manipulates Jesse into breaking up with Andrea.  Mike’s lawyer is arrested, depriving his favorite banker of sweets.  Hank has that last great pleasure of a middle-aged man, a quiet, leisurely excretion, ruined by one of history’s greatest monsters.  Walt’s tutelage of Todd and enabling of Lydia lead to their murder of Declan and a half dozen of his guys.  Jesse beats Saul for his role in Brock’s poisoning.  Walt’s living room carpet and car upholstery are ruined via soaking in gasoline.  Marie is widowed, and Flynn is going to have need about $11 million just for therapy bills.  Jesse is brutally beaten by the Nazis and forced into meth cooking slavery for approximately 8 months.  Saul is forced to flee to Nebraska, abandoning all but his 3 very best pairs of Dockers in the process.  Skyler is put on trial and loses the house for her complicity in Walt’s crimes. Andrea is murdered by the Nazis to keep Jesse motivated to reproducing Walt’s formula.

Heisenberg Certainty Principle – Walt chokes on his attempts to repeat his threat to Saul from the S5 premiere. Heisenberg may make a return appearance in the series finale, but for this week he is nowhere in sight.

Best Lie – Walt pays a barfly to impersonate Marie and call Flynn’s school, which gets him a private conversation, albeit not the one he hoped to have.

Official Walter Jr. Breakfast Count - 15.  I’ve never been a booster for RJ Mitte’s performance, but between last week and his exploding at his father on the phone tonight, he’s really ending on the strongest notes he’s had the opportunity to play for the whole series.  Not coincidentally, the OWJBC has remained stalled at 15.

We Are Done, Professionally – Saul gives Walt one last piece of advice. Lydia tries to cut ties with her Nazi production team, but then Todd tells her that he’s got a batch that’s 92% pure, and…I believe the term is sploosh.

It’s The Little Things – Vacuum Cleaner Man discussing shop while Walt and Saul go over their legal and mercenary options. Skyler’s thousand yard stare in the meeting with the prosecutors mirroring Walt’s reaction to his muffled cancer diagnosis in the pilot. The second copy of Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. Wood burning furnace cam! Todd’s pick up lines (“I think we work together good. It’s a good thing. I think, it’s kind of…mutually good.”)  Walt declines to cut the cards after realizing that if this man wants to cheat him, he is powerless to do anything about it.

BREAKING BAD 5.14 - "OZYMANDIAS"

I met a traveller 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

- “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

“Ozymandias” is a poem about the ashes of an empire, washed away by the inexorable, indifferent passage of time.  The Heisenpire did not need the march of ages to lay it low, but once ASAC Schrader takes a bullet to the head and the Nazis are digging up Walt’s barrels of cash, we do see the half sunk, shattered visage of its former king lying in the sand, stripped of the sneer of cold command he wore for much of the final season.  “That colossal wreck” hardly does justice to the ruin Walt leaves behind as he heads for New Hampshire.

But before we get there, we revisit better (it’s a relative term) days.  On their very first cook, Walt tells Jesse that “the reaction has begun.” This reaction, he explains, is exothermic, which means it gives off heat to the surrounding area (see: Collateral Damage section below).  And we’ve seen it play out across the streets and skies of Albuquerque until it circles back to Tohajiilee and the one-sided gunfight that closed last week’s episode.

There were a lot of theories going around the last week as to how the various players (except Gomez, nobody even entertained the possibility he might live) could walk away from this.  These theories mostly seemed to arise from the sensible observation that shows don’t leave major characters in jeopardy at the end of an episode just to kill them in the opening of the next.  That’s just not how TV works.  Except this time it did.  Gomez is already dead when the vehicles fade in after the credits.  Hank is killed after one more excruciating bout of Walt wheedling that he defiantly refuses to participate in.  Then, as if it needed underlining just how completely Walt’s best laid schemes have crumbled, he has to watch the Nazis dumping the body of the family he couldn’t protect into the hole from which they just seized his precious money, the only benefit this soul-destroying road has produced for anyone.  For some reason that bit gave me a sharper pang than the gunshot.  “Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair.”  Well, we certainly have the despair part of the equation covered by the end of Act One.

Though I suppose Marie’s collection of unopened Schraderbrau is now a collector’s item

 Even Jesse’s seeming escape is revoked before the sequence ends, in a twist of the knife that feels about half a step removed from the remote control scene in Funny Games.  And then Walt sets about revoking the sympathy that offering up his money in a hopeless attempt to bargain for Hank’s life might’ve bought back from me by first exposing Jesse and insisting that the Nazi’s make good on the deal to kill him, then also signing off on Todd torturing him (in exceedingly polite fashion, no doubt) beforehand, then also revealing the truth about Jane’s death purely for spite.  The last time that shoe looked like it was going to drop, it was back in “Fly”, Rian Johnson’s (Brick, Looper) first time guest-directing for BB. I doubt that was as much of a factor as basic scheduling concerns in deciding which of these episode he’d do, but a neat bit of symmetry nonetheless.

Jesse ends up not only brutalized physically and mentally, but enslaved to cook meth for the Nazis.  Many of us were expecting this, as the machine gun and ricin have to be for something, and not centering the finale around the most developed relationship on the show would be ludicrous.  But seeing his shattered face, chained to a dog run, with the chilling photo of Brock and Andrea to keep him in line…that hurt, especially on the heels of the vicious scenes in the desert.

Gus’s tactics are starting to look cuddly in hindsight

So let’s count the Emmys that got locked up here, shall we?  The only reason I don’t think this will be Dean Norris’s submission episode is that he has a handful of other to pick from where he has more than one scene.  I’d still hazard a guess that he takes home Supporting Actor at the end of the day, though Paul has 2 more episodes to wrestle it back. This has to be Cranston’s submission as well, as he has multiple powerhouse sequences where he takes us through a wild spectrum of emotions with expert precision.  Forget the desert, where he goes from desperation to despair to coldly vengeful to hollowed, and even forget the confrontation where he ends up knife-fighting his family in the living room (and it’s not even Thanksgiving!) before leaving them for good, he would have it sewed up just for the phone call where he channels every idiot who ever liked the Skyler White Is A **** facebook page.  A performance that only gradually reveals, through expression and brief, loaded moments where he gathers himself up to press on, that whatever real anger and resentment he is venting, the primary purpose is to reiterate for the eavesdropping authorities that he had threatened Skyler to keep quiet about his criminal empire, and that by the way I built that up all by myself, me and only me, me, me.  Breaking Bad has never been a show with heavy meta elements, but this worked entirely in context while also slyly demonstrating that the narrative that Skyler has been nothing but a “stupid bitch” who held Walt back is a false one.

Speaking of Skyler, Anna Gunn also probably won her Emmy last night, between finally coming clean to Walter Jr. (Mitte also did best ever work last night, but remains thoroughly, if understandably, outclassed by the rest of the cast) and fighting off Walt with the knife.  The phone call is another instantly-iconic moment, like the ending of “Crawl Space”, where she has almost no lines but is integral to selling the power of the scene with just her shell-shocked expression, one that she has honed to the finest point in the business this deep in the run.

And even avoided her periodic bouts of Jokerface while she did it

You don’t really walk away from “Ozymandias” thinking “wow, what a great Marie episode” but Betsy Brandt is also fantastic as she whiplashes from relief and triumph to the depths of despair over the course of 3 scenes.  But if there’s one star that can compete with Cranston for thoroughly owning this episode, it’s Rian Johnson.  I’m sure Mad Men and Game Of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire will wow us with some immaculately-composed episodes throughout the next year, but there is just no way Johnson doesn’t take home the Direction award, particularly given how much the Emmy’s love to recognize movie people for “slumming it” on TV.  Johnson’s feature work has shown diminishing returns for me – Brick is an A++ masterwork, followed by the A- Brothers Bloom and solid B for Looper – but he embraces the showy style of BB with gusto, and delivers episodes that have a little more flair than average without breaking completely out of it. This was filled with flourishes like the fade in and out of vehicles at Tohajiilee, or the signature darkly comic music montage, or the speed-ramping when Skyler’s knife makes the blood on Walt’s hands literal.  But what kept me so off balance and consistently gasping in shock and horror was how he filmed things that didn’t happen. This is obviously a combination of the scripting and direction, but for simplicity’s sake I’m giving Johnson the credit.

It seems like the guiding principle was to ask “how would we construct this is X was going to happen, even though it’s not?”  So for those of us hoping against hope that Hank would live, they pause to give us a full scene of Walt begging and squirming for his life, just as he’s been able to squirm off the hook so many times before when it was him and Jesse on the chopping block.  We get several lines throughout the opening establishing that Jesse has slipped the Nazi net, before Walt exposes his hiding spot.  And we get that horrifically tense knife-fight, rife with close ups of its tip quivering dangerously in the air before various characters go diving and rolling over it.  I was moving so quickly back and forth between expecting Skyler and Walter Jr. to suddenly gasp and reveal it buried in their ribs, that I was still trying to process how it was possible no one had been killed when Walt snatched baby Holly and bolted.

“I love the name Holly. I love it so much I want to grab it and drive it off 

into a short, desperate life on the run likely to end in a police raid or shootout.”

 And all of that misdirection with things that I felt like should have happened also served to block me from seeing what I never thought would happen coming.  Of all the predictions that have been thrown out over the course of the last season, “Walt kidnaps baby Holly” is one I had never seen anywhere.  And I thought that in our 5,000+ post message board thread and 14 episodic reviews we had covered about every possible set of circumstances at some point.  Well played, Breaking Bad, you managed to stay a step ahead of us after all this time and all this obsessiveness.

“Ozymandias” plays out like the best of classical tragedy.  These rapidly unspooling disasters feel, as discussed last week, both surprising and inevitable.  And as horrible as these events are, and as much as they are all Walt’s chickens coming home to roost, what keeps me feeling a shred of sympathy for the man is that I think he is smart enough to recognize that.  Not so much that he offers up his barrels of cash to save Hank from the doom he brought down on him, or calls to try to exonerate Skyler from the doom he brought down on her.  Those are the very least he can do in those circumstances.  But that when he pauses to regard Hank and Gomez’s unmarked grave in the desert, I think he sees the bitter irony that he literally dug it himself to protect his ill-gotten fortune.  And that when he desperately tells Jr. and Skyler “I need both of you to trust me,” he understands all the reasons they can’t possibly do that are of his own making.  At least at the end, he is beginning to understand why no one ever seemed to believe his earnest contentions that a giant pile of money represented a clean slate, and freedom from the consequences of the things you’ve done in its pursuit.  Jesse wasn’t buying what he was selling back in “Problem Dog”.  Jack isn’t buying it when he’s standing over the bodies of shot-up DEA agents.  Skyler didn’t buy it when he begged her to pack a bag.  And when Saul’s Disappearer is driving him away from New Mexico and both his born and criminal identities, it doesn’t look like Walter H. White is buying it anymore.

Oh, and there is still 2 hr+ to go before things actually end for good. It’s hard to imagine things getting any worse than they do in “Ozymandias”, but then the king of kings in the poem didn’t seem to see the drop coming ahead of him either.

“WALT, COME BACK!! YOU FORGOT YOUR RICIN!!!!”

 Murders – Emilio, Krazy 8, Jane, two of Gus’s dealers, Gale Boetticher, Gustavo Fring, Tyrus, Hector “Tio” Salamanca, two other Fring goons, 14 year-old arachnophile Drew Sharp, Mike Ehrmantraut, Dennis the Laundry Manager, Dan the lawyer, 8 more of Mike’s guys, Steve Gomez, Hank Schrader (Walt didn’t want the Nazis to do it, but it was a foreseeable outcome of his engaging them to commit another capital murder, so he could be charged)

Collateral Damage – One innocent janitor loses his job and goes to jail on a bullshit marijuana charge. Hank had to kill a guy, even if he was an insane, degenerate piece of filth who deserved to die, giving him fairly severe PTSD. Combo was killed dealing for Walt. Jane’s father’s life is utterly ruined. 167 passengers on two planes are dead. Skyler is forced to become an accessory after the fact (or take down her son, sister and brother-in-law with Walt). 3 broken Pontiac Aztek windshields. Jesse’s RV is destroyed. On their mission to kill Heisenberg, the Cousins kill 9 illegal immigrants and their coyote, an old woman with a handicap-accessible van, a grocery-shopping bystander, an Indian woman and the Reservation sheriff that investigates. Also they shoot Hank multiple times, forcing him through a long, painful physical therapy process. Andrea’s kid brother is murdered by Gus’s dealers due to trouble Jesse and Walt stirred up. Jesse murders Gale, crushing him with guilt and destroying his hard-fought sobriety. Gus murders Victor to send a message to Walt and Jesse. Three Honduran workers get deported (or maybe worse). Walt purposefully wrecks a car, straining an already-injured Hank’s neck in an unspecified fashion. Ted Beneke breaks his neck fleeing from Heisenpire goons. Brock is poisoned and nearly dies. Tio blows himself up, but no one’s weeping for that vicious old fucker. The staff of an industrial laundry is out of their jobs. Dozens (hundreds?) of criminal prosecutions are compromised when the guys wreck the APD evidence locker. Hank’s boss gets pushed out of his job for his failure to apprehend Fring or Heisenberg. Herr Schuler, Chau and a low rent hitman get offed as Lydia scrambles to cover up Madrigal’s connection to Fring’s drug empire in the wake of his death. Walt manipulates Jesse into breaking up with Andrea. Mike’s lawyer is arrested, depriving his favorite banker of sweets. Hank has that last great pleasure of a middle-aged man, a quiet, leisurely excretion, ruined by one of history’s greatest monsters. Walt’s tutelage of Todd and enabling of Lydia lead to their murder of Declan and a half dozen of his guys. Jesse beats Saul for his role in Brock’s poisoning. Walt’s living room carpet and car upholstery are ruined via soaking in gasoline. Marie is widowed, and Flynn is going to have need about $11 million just for therapy bills. Jesse is brutally beaten by the Nazis and forced into meth cooking slavery for approximately 8 months.

Heisenberg Certainty Principle – “The name is ASAC Schrader. And you can go fuck yourself.” Heisenberg can’t compete in his own category this week.

Best Lie – Walt finally uses his skills at deceit for something relatively, positive, staging a vitriolic call to Skyler to remove as much of the abetting stink from her as possible.

Official Walter Jr. Breakfast Count: 15. Kid is unlikely to have an appetite for some time now.

We Are Done, Professionally – Walt not only gives the go ahead to execute Jesse in the desert, but discloses the truth about Jane out of spite. Bridges=burned, Earth=salted. I still think Walt is returning to free Jesse from captivity, but I don’t think that will buy him forgiveness.

It’s The Little Things – Jesse doing a Star Wars Kid routine in the background of Walt’s call to Skyler. The way that conversation foreshadowed the knives and telephone with which Skyler will attack Walt and take another carefully-scripted call from him by the episode’s end.  Or the way she crows about her $9 profit on the crying clown while he is embarking down the road to Hell to secure their financial future.  “Jesus, what’s with all the greed? It’s unattractive.”  The way everyone without prompting starts calling Walter Jr. “Flynn” once it’s time to tell him the truth.  That we never saw the Disappearer as anything but an anonymous minivan.

BREAKING BAD 5.13 - "TOHAJILEE"

Normally I start out these reviews with a look at the cold open, and progress in a more or less linear fashion from there.  But “Tohajiilee” is so defined by its climactic confrontation that I am going to skip over the bulk of the episode and skip right to the showdown we’ve been building towards for years.

I speak, of course, of Saul and Flynn finally coming face to face. These are the type of fireworks we’ve been waiting to see in the final season!

Okay, there was another showdown that was some time in the making, so I’m not going to spend time talking about Huell’s big showcase or how Lydia and Skyler and even Saul, who makes sure to remind Flynn that he takes teenage DUI cases, are all concerned about their branding throughout the early portions of the episode.  The episode takes a hard, clutch-less shift into a higher gear once Walt gets the photo of the money barrel and takes off for the titular Navajo reservation, and the remaining 20 minutes are heart-attack inducing.

Though I will say, never tell a man in a kevlar vest to 

have an A-1 day. He’s definitely not going to.

On the one hand, there is nothing wildly unpredictable about any of this. That Jesse and Hank would try to trap Walt by fucking with his money is a sensible approach, though quite clever in the details, and it was immediately apparent that the Nazis were going to show up anyway despite Walt cancelling his order. But Breaking Bad and titanic director Michelle MacLaren (the last time she directed an episode that was ostensibly building up to Hank’s death, she gave us “One Minute”, which climaxed with one of the most suspenseful sequences ever filmed and is for my money the single best episode of the series thus far) manage to put little twists on things to make them feel different and leave me off-balance. Seriously, someone get this woman on a feature stat – at the very least she could kick the shit out of whatever Bourne re-side-quel we’re on now.

There’s a quote about drama, apocryphally attributed to just about every major writer going back to Aristotle, that says that great drama should be both surprising and inevitable.  For my dollar, there’s no show that threads that needle as well as Breaking Bad.  It’s impossible for me to guess the next plot twist on Mad Men, but that’s because that series values digressiveness over plot momentum at every turn. It certainly doesn’t feel inevitable that [spoiler, I guess] someone would get run over by a lawn mower at a party.  Conversely, The Wire made “all the pieces matter” it’s motto, such that the tragedy at the end of each season felt wholly appropriate, as if it could not have gone down any other way, such that later in the run you could recognize the blueprint of how things were going to go down in advance.  Not that this was a flaw, as the larger point of that show was to demonstrate how the same patterns repeat themselves across different strata of society.

The Wire is basically the best acted, saddest thesis paper ever written

Likewise, The Sopranos or Game Of Thrones may have surprised me more with wild plot twists, but that’s because those were frequently designed to feel more raw and organic.  Breaking Bad wants to keep you off guard, but the basic contours of this journey have been clear from the beginning.  The title tells you that Walt is not going to redeem himself in a blaze of glory at the end, and Vince Gilligan has not been shy about telling everyone the “Mr. Chips to Scarface” progression that has driven the series from Day One.  And this final season particularly has further been designed with the flashforwards to the Bearded Future at the beginning, underlining the inevitability of Walt’s upcoming fall. The question has been: how will things fall apart, and who will the collapse take down with it?

The “how” is, as always, with every last drop of tension squeezed out of foregone conclusions. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a sequence exactly like the race out to Tohajiilee with Jesse taunting and Walt snarling back all the way.  It isn’t actually a chase, and we know at that point that there’s no direct threat to anyone’s safety, but it’s shot with the energy of an action sequence.  The way Cranston oscillates between anger, bewilderment, resignation, and desperation on that ride, then all over again once he gets there and the dominoes start falling that he was tricked, the DEA is coming, and the Nazis too…if anyone had any objection to his picking up another victory lap Emmy on his way out the door, just watch those 20 minutes again.  There’s a short list of performances where the actor inhabits the character so fully that they can clearly process such a tidal wave of conflicting emotions so clearly in such a tight window.  I will shock no one by saying this, but Cranston’s Walter White is one of those all-timers.

But it’s once Walt gets there, realizes he’s been played, that things really slow down, and get painful.  Honestly, if everything ended out there in the desert, with Jesse and Hank working together to bring down the man that has done so much to ruin both their lives at his very first cook site, that would have been a perfectly good ending for the entire series. Maybe not enough to be up there with the very best TV endings like say The Shield, but certainly not something I would complain about. But we know it doesn’t end here. We all know that the Nazis are still coming. And so we get that interminable sequence where Hank, Jesse and Gomie are luxuriating in their victory, and starting to finally exhale at what we know to be the exact wrong moment to unclench…

Of course, the last time Hank tried to unclench things also took a turn…

This is such a perfectly cruel moment to go to real time.  From the final commercial break, where Walt is giving himself up, to the shootout, there is just over 10 minutes of screentime. That is just enough time for the Nazis to semi-plausibly make it there, since they appear to be on alert and outside of town already, but it also allows for any feelings of triumph for Hank and Jesse to curdle into ever-mounting dread as the minutes tick away and Hank makes a horrifically poignant call to Marie instead of alerting federal or Reservation authorities that they are there.  And it is a bit of sadistic genius to cut out where it does.  Again, I’m struggling to think of another example of a show doing a cliffhanger like this (feel free to correct me), cutting out in media-action scene, not with the Nazis pulling up (as I was briefly convinced it would), or with the first shots ringing out (as I was subsequently convinced), but right in the middle of the firefight, before any casualties are confirmed.   Jack’s guys may have suddenly been afflicted with Stormtrooper-Aim, but I really don’t think that’s going to last when we come back next week and we find out the “who” part of the question posed a few paragraphs up.

Now, 99 times out of 100, if a show ends on a cliffhanger about whether a character lives or dies (generally right after a main character is shot), it’s a given that the answer is “lives”.  But that phone call (wherein Marie found a wad of “brains” in her kitchen!)  makes me think that this is not going to be one of them.  Well, also that the show doesn’t mind mucking with convention and only has 3 more episodes left, regardless of how this shakes out.  There’s really no plausible way that Hank or Gomie could triumph here, as they are thoroughly outgunned and outnumbered by opponents in body armor, with nowhere to run.  But I suppose we can hope against hope that Jesse manages to start up Walt’s sports car and ram through the little roadblock they have set up, giving them time to…

A fool’s hope, no doubt, but in any case we should find out in a week. Now if I could just shake the terrible suspicion that the cold open next week will just show the shootout site, with a smoking SUV and spent shells everywhere and pair of feet in a pool of blood, then skip way ahead in time, possibly to the Bearded Future…

Not even Breaking Bad could be that cruel.  Right?

Of course not, silly! And I’m going to live for ever!!!

Murders – Emilio, Krazy 8, Jane, two of Gus’s dealers, Gale Boetticher, Gustavo Fring, Tyrus, Hector “Tio” Salamanca, two other Fring goons, 14 year-old arachnophile Drew Sharp, Mike Ehrmantraut, Dennis the Laundry Manager, Dan the lawyer, 8 more of Mike’s guys

Collateral Damage – One innocent janitor loses his job and goes to jail on a bullshit marijuana charge. Hank had to kill a guy, even if he was an insane, degenerate piece of filth who deserved to die, giving him fairly severe PTSD. Combo was killed dealing for Walt. Jane’s father’s life is utterly ruined. 167 passengers on two planes are dead. Skyler is forced to become an accessory after the fact (or take down her son, sister and brother-in-law with Walt). 3 broken Pontiac Aztek windshields. Jesse’s RV is destroyed. On their mission to kill Heisenberg, the Cousins kill 9 illegal immigrants and their coyote, an old woman with a handicap-accessible van, a grocery-shopping bystander, an Indian woman and the Reservation sheriff that investigates. Also they shoot Hank multiple times, forcing him through a long, painful physical therapy process. Andrea’s kid brother is murdered by Gus’s dealers due to trouble Jesse and Walt stirred up. Jesse murders Gale, crushing him with guilt and destroying his hard-fought sobriety. Gus murders Victor to send a message to Walt and Jesse. Three Honduran workers get deported (or maybe worse). Walt purposefully wrecks a car, straining an already-injured Hank’s neck in an unspecified fashion. Ted Beneke breaks his neck fleeing from Heisenpire goons. Brock is poisoned and nearly dies. Tio blows himself up, but no one’s weeping for that vicious old fucker. The staff of an industrial laundry is out of their jobs. Dozens (hundreds?) of criminal prosecutions are compromised when the guys wreck the APD evidence locker. Hank’s boss gets pushed out of his job for his failure to apprehend Fring or Heisenberg. Herr Schuler, Chau and a low rent hitman get offed as Lydia scrambles to cover up Madrigal’s connection to Fring’s drug empire in the wake of his death. Walt manipulates Jesse into breaking up with Andrea. Mike’s lawyer is arrested, depriving his favorite banker of sweets. Hank has that last great pleasure of a middle-aged man, a quiet, leisurely excretion, ruined by one of history’s greatest monsters. Walt’s tutelage of Todd and enabling of Lydia lead to their murder of Declan and a half dozen of his guys. Jesse beats Saul for his role in Brock’s poisoning. Walt’s living room carpet and car upholstery are ruined via soaking in gasoline. Hank and Gomie are (presumably) gunned down in the desert by Jack and the Nazis.

Best Lie – Walt telling Andrea that Jesse is back on drugs to #flushhimout was one of his better performances. But it’s gotta go to Jesse and Hank’s elaborate ruse (complete with a fake picture of a money barrel and the former’s homemade “corpse” that would make Tom Savini proud) to get Walt to incriminate and isolate himself somewhere they can slap the cuffs on him

Official Walter Jr. Breakfast Count: 15.

We Are Done, Professionally – Huell is, it would appear, no longer in the employ of one Saul Goodman, Esq.

It’s The Little Things – Todd’s “She Blinded Me With Science” ringtone. “Fire in the hole, bitch.” Lydia sipping tea from a “These Colors Don’t Run” mug while fretting over the blue (“Aquamarine!”) coloring.  Todd’s Freddy Krueger shirt visible over Walt’s shoulder as he meets with the Nazis, underlining that he is consorting with monsters.  The ridiculous old-timey moustache on the nazi driver waiting outside Andrea’s.  Huell’s poker face.