Breaking Bad Season 5 Thread

1. Face Off
2. One Minute
3. Full Measure
4. Salud
5. Crawl Space

Off the top of my head.

 

Salud was so great. I really wished the show had more time to explore Gus' background and his dealings past and present with Don Eladio. The pool scene just scratched the surface of all the dynamics working there.

 

1. "One Minute"
2. "Face Off"
3. "Fly"
4. "Half Measures"
5. "Salud"
6. "4 Days Out"
7. "Full Measure"
8. "Kafkaesque"
9. "... And the Bag's in the River"
10. "Hermanos"

The final five episodes of Season 3 compose one of the finest runs any TV show has ever had, in my opinion.

 

Nice story:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/breaking-bads-touching-tribute-a-604923

 

Aaron Paul did a Reddit AMA: http://bit.ly/17pCiil

In it, I learned that he was the guy from this Juicy Fruit commercial: http://bit.ly/17pCkqF

 

Season 3 is the best. Also includes the great Negro y Azul.

 

Actually, that was Season 2. And that one was preceded by "Peekaboo," which might be Jesse's best episode. Those two were close calls, alongside "Abiquiu," "Dead Freight," "Crawl Space," "I.F.T." and "Crazy Handful of Nothing."

For the record, I didn't think "Blood Money" was that great, with respect to the show itself. The scenes with Walter lying through his teeth to Jesse about Mike and Walter and Hank squaring off were awesome, but there was more filler than I'd expect.

 

Random thought: The episode titles from the seven-episode Season 1 total 25 words. The episode titles from the 16-episode Season 5 total 29.

I wonder if there's any causation behind that. Maybe shorter episode titles are part of a show gaining confidence and steam?

 

I'd agree. I think people were so starved for Breaking Bad that they're overrating the episode.

I did a full-season catch-up with Season 5 this week. Like many others have mentioned, it's not on-par with Seasons 2-4. Still good, still worth watching, but not as good. I think AMC does its shows a disservice with its idiotic half-seasons. I think Breaking Bad is best-served, from a writing standpoint, for having the pressure of putting together its entire season at once. This is particularly problematic for Season 5, where you can tell the writers were struggling with some of the characters, but had time to meander around it.

Jesse, effectively, has very little left to do. This has happened before in the series (he was never intended to be a long-term character) and they've pulled him out of the fire and made him interesting. I hope that pattern continues as Season 5 plays out.

 

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Dead Freight was cool, but seems a bit off the Breaking Bad canon to me. Too action-adventurish, even for this show. (And how did they KNOW the tanker car was going to conveniently stop on that bridge for them? Seems a bit of a reach.)

For movie buffs, it seemed to be a tribute to the train heist in The Wild Bunch. Setting even looked similar. I approve as The Wild Bunch rules.

 

See, I thought it was an homage to Firefly, specifically "The Train Job" (which was originally aired as the series premiere because Fox sucks). But I'm more of a TV buff. And I love Firefly.

I liked it in a way was out of the normal for Breaking Bad. As you saw on my list, I also love "4 Days Out" and "Fly" and "Hermanos" and "... And the Bag's in the River," which all broke the Breaking Bad formula a little. The episodes I have the most distaste for are the ones where nothing really happens but they still stick to the formula of making Walter get panicky or Jesse call someone a bitch or whatever. This show has consistently struggled with early-season episodes for that reason.

 

Not sure about that, but the titles of episodes 1, 4, 10 and 13 of Season 2 (the four episodes that open with the Teddy Bear in the pool) spell out "737 Down Over ABQ."