You guys. Please don’t get me wrong, but I cannot wait for “Breaking Bad” to end next Sunday. I just cannot handle it anymore. It is has become too suspenseful, circumstances have become too dire and it is just too heartbreaking. “Breaking Bad” is just TOO GOOD of a show and it is emotionally draining me.
The first five minutes in the desert during last week’s “Ozymandias” had my heart steadily pounding out of my chest, but there were so many unexpected moments during “Granite State” (the state motto of New Hampshire, where Walt — aka Mr. Lambert — is exiled) that I could just as easily be in the hospital right now than writing this recap.
We finally meet Saul’s vacuum cleaner guy who has put both Saul and Walt into his exile program. Walt is out for blood — he wants to take out Jack and the Nazis — but Saul knows that it won’t happen.
“It’s over,” Saul says, as Walt doubles over from coughing up his cancerous lung and walks out. Goodbye, Saul! Probably forever, or at least until the spinoff.
Todd’s adorable little crush on Lydia helps Jesse live a little bit longer (for now), since Todd tells Uncle Jack not to kill him so that they can use him to cook more meth for Lydia. The way Jesse Plemons deftly moves from cute, lovestruck guy to murderous villain is remarkable.
The vacuum cleaner guy takes Walt to a remote cabin in New Hampshire. The tree-lined, snow-covered setting is such a stark contrast to the oranges and yellows of Albuquerque. The vacuum cleaner guy tells Walt: “If you leave this place, you WILL get caught.” Walt puts on his Heisenberg hat, goes to the end of his property and considers walking out, but reconsiders. “Tomorrow,” Walt says. “Tomorrow.”
Todd — in his weird, “Silence of the Lambs” sort of way — drops down some ice cream for Jesse in a bucket and leaves the tarp off of his cell so that Jesse can see the stars. Jesse uses this opportunity t0 get thisclose to escaping the Nazi compound, but they catch him in about 90 seconds. Jesse begs them to kill him, but what they do is far, far worse. Instead, they take him to Andrea’s house.
I screamed out loud when Todd shot Andrea in the back of the head. Not as a loud as Jesse did in the back of the black SUV, mind you, but loud enough that one of my roommates who inexplicably does not watch “Breaking Bad” popped her head downstairs and ask if everything was okay. (To answer her question, no, everything was certainly NOT okay.)
The episode then flashes forward to a few months. The vacuum cleaner guy, who Walt pays to visit him and bring him news about his family, comes to visit Walt, who asks if he will give all his money to his family once he’s dead. Since Walt can’t be certain that vacuum cleaner guy will do it, he decides to do it himself.
Walt goes to a little bar in town and makes a heartbreaking phone call to Walter Jr., who does not want to hear from his dear old dad and tells him to “just die already,” much like Marie kindly suggested that Walt kill himself a few episodes back. Walt begs his son to take his money and says, “It can’t all be for nothing.” Or can it?
Walt essentially gives up right then and there. He calls the FBI on himself, sits at the bar and orders a scotch neat, just how Hank took it. But he looks up at the TV and his two old partners in Grey Matter, tell Charlie Rose that Walt practically had nothing to do with the creation of the company, except for coming up with the name. Heisenberg is not happy about this.
During the phone call to Skyler in “Ozymandias,” Walt said that he still had things to do. And even though he is dying and his family hates him and the police are out to get him, he still has his pride, which is how he got into this whole mess anyway, isn’t it? He will not die with other people taking credit for his blue meth or Gray Matter Technologies.
“It’s over,” as Saul said, and he was almost right. Walt just has to take care of a few things first. He is out for blood, but it won’t be the Nazis’ blood.
Other notable moments:
- The scene in Holly’s bedroom was terrifying. I really thought Todd was going to kill her.
- Jesse has nothing to live for. So how is he going to escape? Will Walt save him?
- The moment when Walt’s wedding ring slipped off his finger might be one of the saddest moments in the show’s history.
- The final shot of the scotch glass and the remixed “Breaking Bad” theme song gave me chills.
- Who is the ricin for? Gretchen? Walt? We will find out next week.