I must say, it’s much more rewarding watching Breaking Bad after Dexter. If you read our Dexter reviews, you know the disdain felt towards the current season. Thus, going from the awesomeness of Breaking Bad to the shallowness of Dexter was quite tiresome. Now I get Dexter out of the way first, making me compare it less to Breaking Bad and, as always, delaying gratification is oh so sweet. We are now officially over halfway done with the last set of Breaking Bad episodes. Gilligan and company have hit another episode out of the park with “To’hajiilee”. If that title makes no sense to you, it’s the Indian reservation where Walt buried his money. It’s also the setting for one of the most exciting endings in the show’s history.
The episode starts off with Todd completing his first cook. It’s a stronger purity but lacks the trademark blue color that Lydia has come to expect. Todd knows he can do better, and I love seeing actor Jesse Plemons bring a bit more confidence to the character each week. Seeing him confront Lydia about doing better and getting the color right was a beautiful scene for both characters. This business relationship seems to be fairly shaky, but moments like this give you reassurance why characters tend to do business together. This scene concludes with Walt making the call to Todd from the end of last episode. As always, Breaking Bad does a beautiful job of pulling its episodes together in a neat stitching. Overlapping time frames can often be tiresome, but when used this sparsely it actually works incredibly well.
Walt goes to meet up with Todd and his Uncle Jack in order to strike a deal about Jesse’s hit. This time, however, Uncle Jack isn’t looking for a cash payment. He wants Walt to show Todd how to cook one more time. Walt reluctantly agrees, and this is probably our best clue towards the end of the series, and those flash forwards. Uncle Jack is quite obviously a serious business man, despite his often comical dialogue. It’s more then possible that Jack will end up holding Walt for more then a single cook. Remember when we saw Walt picking up a heavy machine gun? We may have found out who his target is.
Meanwhile, you have Jesse, Hank and Gomez trying to find evidence for the case against Walt. They come up with an ingenious little plan to lure Walt out. I won’t spoil this part for you exactly, because it’s an incredibly exciting sequence. Once all the men inevitably end up in the desert, however, things get incredibly hairy. Most people probably assumed the episode would end once Hank finally puts the cuffs on Walt. In fact, that would have been a perfectly acceptable ending. Instead, and again I won’t detail it for you, we got one of the single best Breaking Bad endings ever. You sort of see the ending coming, especially once Walt makes the phone call, but I didn’t expect them to show as much as they did during this episode. This, along with the ambiguous, quick cut ending, are making me beyond excited for next week’s episode. The ending is clearly coming into view, but with Breaking Bad, you never really know what’s coming next!
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