 |
Actors Aaron Paul (left) and Bryan Cranston (right)
|
Well everyone, the wait is finally over and we have now entered the final season of Breaking Bad. If know me then you know that I absolutely love Breaking Bad; I think that it is one of the greatest shows of all-time and personally it is my favorite show of all-time. Before the final season started I went back and re-watched every single episode and watched every single special feature and every single commentary on each season's Blu-Ray. Just like everyone else I was so pumped for the final season to begin and now that I have finally watched the first episode of the final season I can talk about it. The first episode of the final season it titled "Blood Money", written by Peter Gould and directed by Heisenberg himself, Mr. Bryan Cranston. Before I talk about this episode I want to let everyone know that I will spoil a lot of things so if you have not seen this episode go back and watch it, then come back and read my thoughts.
Ok, let's start out by talking about the teaser which was just amazing and got me so pumped for the next seven episodes. The season starts with another flash-forward and we see a group of skateboarders skateboarding in some pool, after a minute we get a wide shot of where they are. So where are they? They are in the backyard of the White house and are skateboarding in the pool which is completely drained out. We also see the roof of the house and it is completely run downed, something big has happened in the White house. Next we see the fifty-two year old Walt pull up to the house and we see the front of the house and see that there is a fence that is covering the whole house. Walt gets through the fence and walks into the run downed house, which doesn't look any better from the inside. Everything inside just looks horrible, the house is completely cleared out and everything is just rotting. Walt looks at one of the walls and "Heisenberg" is written in big letters, it's safe to say that people know who he is now. Walt continues to walk through the house and goes into his old bedroom. He walks into the bedroom and goes to the electrical outlet where he unscrews it and reveals the ricin that hasn't been used ever since it showed up in season four. He takes it with him and walks back to his car. As he's getting ready to leave he notices his neighbor Carol who is clearly shocked to see him. After staring at each other for awhile he says "Hello Carol", that startles Carol and she drops the groceries that she was holding. And that's the teaser. I thought the teaser was amazing and did a good job at setting up the rest of the season. The audience now has so many questions. What happened to the White house? Who is Walt going to use the ricin on? Why did he buy a M60 machine gun? Whose after him? Lots of people say that there's going to be a final showdown with him and Hank or him and Jesse; but, I think he could be going up against Lydia or Todd. Last season Mike said, "You don't know her (Lydia) like I do" and setup the fact that she could be a threat, maybe she has some unknown forces that we haven't seen yet. Last season we also saw that Todd has some connections, maybe Walt did something to Todd or pissed Todd off. Those are just my thoughts on what's to come. Before I stop talking about the teaser I need to say that this teaser was brilliantly light and shot by cinematographer Michael Slovis and wonderfully acted/directed by Bryan Cranston.
 |
| Bryan Cranston |
After the teaser we go right back to where we left off, Hank is now finishing up in the bathroom and he has read Gale's note to Walt on the first page of Leaves of Grass. Hank now knows that Walt is Heisenberg and is just stunned by it. He walks out of the bathroom with the book in his hand and it's just a very intense moment because you think he's going to go out there and talk to the whole family about it. Instead of confronting everyone he puts it in his or Marie's bag. The whole time he has this stunned look on his face because he is shocked that his brother in law is this drug kingpin. After he puts the book in the bag he goes back out and right when he opens the door Marie say, "Oh you are the devil" to Walt. Hank tells Marie that he's feeling well and they leave. As they are driving off Hank is putting all this together and has a panic attack and crashes into someone's lawn. After Hank and Marie go to the ER, Hank starts to investigate further by pulling out the old Gale file and looks at the writing from both his notebook and the Leaves of Grass. This whole time no one else knows what Hank knows and Hank is keeping it to himself. Let me say that Dean Norris was just magnificent this whole episode, he was incredible as he always is but in this episode he stands out because you believe him as this man who is just shocked by the fact that his brother in law is a meth cook. Betsy Brandt is also great in these scenes as Marie although her part in this episode isn't big. Bryan Cranston did a fantastic job at directing these scenes because he made everything so intense and part of that is due to Peter Gould's fantastic writing.
Now we return to the A1A car wash, the car wash that Walt and Skyler bought to launder Walt's drug money. Walt is now putting the car wash story first to make it believable and thinks that they should even buy another car wash because it would take decades to launder all his money with just one car wash. At this point we see that Skyler is finally lightening up to Walt again now that he's out of the business which is nice to see. After Walt and Skyler talk a familiar face comes in to get her car washed, Lydia. Lydia finds Walt at the cash register and she comes in extremely worried because the quality of the meth that is going to the Czech Republic keeps lowering. She wants Walt to come back and cook or teach people how to do it but Walt wont budge. Lydia mentions that there are "other parts in this machine" but Walt says none of her problems are of his concern. Lydia walks outside and Skyler approaches Walt, Walt says "she was a former business associate". After that Skyler walks outside and basically tells Lydia to stay the hell away from Walt and to never come back. I thought this was a great scene for so many reasons. First we see that Walt's and Skyler's relationship is starting to get better and I thought that was very nice. For so many seasons now we've their marriage decaying but we now finally see them happy again. I'm also curious about what Lydia said about "other parts" because she's basically saying that there are other people out there, maybe these other people could be who Walt is going after. I also loved the scene were Skyler goes off on Lydia, I guess you could call her Skysenberg at that moment. Overall I thought that scene was very good; Gould's writing was great, Cranston's directing and acting was terrific as always, and Laura Fraser's and Anna Gunn's performances in that scene were both very good.
 |
| Aaron Paul |
At this point we are now back with Hank and Marie. It is early in the morning and Hank tells Marie that he wont be going to work. As Marie is walking out the door, two men from the DEA show up with many boxes and take them into the garage where Hank wants them. Hank now sets up a work area in his garage and goes through everything that is related to the blue meth. He goes through Gus's stuff, the nursing home explosion, even the methylamine robbery from season one. He comes to the fact that Walt is Heisenberg and as I said earlier he is in total shock. One of the best moments in the whole scene is when Hank looks at the Heisenberg picture that the Salamanca twins always had, from that moment on you know shit is about to get real.
Everything's getting intense right? Why not lighten things up with a little bit of Skinny Pete and Badger. Skinny Pete and Badger are now hanging out at Jesse's house, smoking marijuana and eating pizza. You can see that Jesse is completely out of it but Skinny Pete and Badger go on and have a good time. At one point Badger goes off on a Star Trek idea he had and boy was it funny. After awhile Jesse takes the money Walt had given him and goes off to Saul's office. Before I leave that scene I need to say that seeing Skinny Pete and Badger again was so awesome, it was such a fun scene and Charles Baker and Matt Jones knocked it out of the park as usual. Now we go to Saul's waiting room with where Jesse is waiting. Jesse cant get in immediately he decides to start smoking a blunt to get Saul's attention. Saul allows Jesse to come in and they begin their conversation. Jesse brings the money in and decides he wants to give all his money to Drew Sharp's (the boy on the dirt bike who was shot by Todd) parents and Mike's granddaughter Kaylee. Saul seems uncomfortable with the whole situation and once Jesse leaves he calls Walt. Walt says to hold on and keep the money and that he'll "handle it". We now see that Walt is in chemotherapy and we know that the cancer is back. I thought this whole scene was great as is the rest of the episode, you see that Jesse is out of it and wants nothing to do with the business anymore and you also see that Saul is starting to get uncomfortable with everything. Aaron Paul and Bob Odenkirk were both excellent in this scene and for a little bit you get to see one of my favorite characters Huell, played excellently by Lavell Crawford.
 |
| Bob Odenkirk (left) and Aaron Paul (left) |
After Jesse leaves the money at Saul's office he's goes back home and later on Walt shows up with his money. Walt asks for an explanation and Jesse says, "It's like you said, it's blood money". Walt tells Jesse what has happened has happened and that they are both out of the business and they can live good lives. Walt understands why he would give money to the boys parents but he asks Jesse about Mike's granddaughter. Jesse starts to get teary eyed and says that she needs to have someone looking after her because he thinks Mike is dead and that Walt had something to do with it (which he did). Walt of course lies and keeps telling Jesse that he had nothing to do with it and that Mike is still out there and well, at one point he even says "son, you have to believe me". Key word is "have" because you can see that Walt cares about Jesse and he doesn't want to kill him because if Jesse came to the conclusion that Walt did kill Mike there would be some conflict. Jesse says he believes Walt but you can tell in his face that he doesn't believe him. I think this could bring up some problems along the way because Jesse and Mike were pretty close, plus Jesse still hasn't learned about what Walt did to Jane and Brock. Another great scene and both actors (Paul and Cranston) did a phenomenal job.
Later that night Walt and his family are having dinner. Skyler says that Hank and Marie wont be doing any activities with them because Hank still isn't feeling well. After that Skyler and Walt Jr. have a small conversation while Walt dismisses himself to go to the bathroom. Once Walt gets into the bathroom and turns on the sink and goes straight to the toilet and pukes. While he's puking he looks up to where the books and magazines are and notices Leaves of Grass is gone and then goes right back to puking. As Skyler and Walt are getting ready for bed, Walt continues to look for the book but cant find it. Walt gives up and gets in bed with Skyler, eventually he asks what's wrong with Hank. Skyler says he doesn't feel well and hasn't been to work all week. Walt is curious about Hank now so he goes outside and checks the bottom of his car. What does he find? A tracking device, which will lead to something big.
 |
| Dean Norris (left) and Bryan Cranston (right) |
We now go back to Jesse, who is sleeping in his car in front of some hot dog joint (forgot the name). A homeless man walks up to Jesse's car and knock on his window. The man asks for spare change but Jesse doesn't respond. The homeless man starts to walk away but Jesse call him back and offers him a stack of bills. Jesse is now holding the bills out to him but the homeless man is shocked, eventually he takes it. Jesse takes off and goes to a very bad neighborhood and just starts to chuck all his money into these lawns. Now the audience is really starting to see how much Jesse has changed and I like that. He has changed so much from the pilot, he changed from being a druggie punk to a kinder person who can't handle the drug business anymore. One thing I can see going wrong with Jesse doing this is it causing problems. People will start asking questions and Walt will most likely not care for it. Could this lead to problems? I guess we'll have to keep watching.
Time for the best scene of the entire episode. We start out by seeing the two agents who dropped off all the files to Hank drop some more stuff off. As they leave Walt pulls up to Hank's driveway and goes into Hank's garage to talk to Hank. At this point both of them know something the other one doesn't. They start some small talk and play it dumb. Walt asks how Hank's feeling and if there is anything he needs he could help out. Walt starts to walk off but he soon turns around and asks about the tracking device that was on his car. For a moment there's nothing but silence. Hanks grabs the garage remote and close the garage door. Walt asks if something is wrong and says that he doesn't like the way Hank is looking at him. Hank doesn't hold back and just punches Walt. He picks him back up and slams him against the garage door and starts to scream "It was you!". Walt keeps acting dumb but Hanks is through with his bullshit and says that everything that's gone wrong is because of him. At this point Walt says that his cancer is back and Hanks says "good". Hank says that he's finally going to put him in a jail cell but Walt responds by saying he wont make it to a jail cell because he'd be dead by that time. This whole time Walt never reveals that he's Heisenberg, at this point I'd say Walter White is a better actor than Bryan Cranston. At one point Hank tells Walt to brings Skyler and the kids over and Walt says that wont be necessary. Hank releases him and says he doesn't even know who he's talking to. Walt responds by saying "if you truly don't know who your talking to, then your best course would to tread lightly". Cut to black. SAY WHAT?! Let me say that I was on the edge of my seat during this entire scene. This scene was flawlessly written, directed, and acted. I was so happy that this confrontation happened on the first episode of the final season and that the writers didn't push it back. This finale got me so pumped for next weeks episode and makes me wonder what will happen next.
So in the end, "Blood Money" was a terrific way to start off the final season and got pretty much everyone pumped for the rest of the season. Peter Gould's writing was magnificent, Bryan Cranston's directing was great, and all the actors gave spectacular performances. Usually I give letter grades for my ratings but for individual episodes I'll go on a 0 to 5 scale. Without a second thought I'd give "Blood Money" a 5/5. So, those are my thoughts on this weeks episode. Make sure to come back next week so you could read my thoughts on the next episode. Until next time, peace out bitches!
I do not own the pictures that are used in this post.
