 |
| Left to right: Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston |
Are you tired of long, tedious accounts of Breaking Bad episode recaps? Then look no further than Breaking Half: a weekly column that takes the good and bad from each week's episode of Breaking Bad and dilutes it down to the core necessities. Each Monday, Breaking Half will attempt to take a few key moments from the episode and boil it down to one juicy paragraph.
Season 3, Episode 1
"No Mas"
*NOTE: This is a video version of the Breaking Bad Insider Podcast in which creator Vince Gilligan and editor Kelley Dixon talk to composer Dave Porter and actors Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston.
"I accept who I am... I'm the bad guy."
-Jesse (Aaron Paul)
After the plane crash gets Jane's dad (John de Lancie) fired, the town is grieving with the incident. It just so happens that Walter (Bryan Cranston) is heading back to work at the school around the same time. Skyler (Anna Gunn) has also kicked him out and it is causing Walt Jr. (R.J. Mitte) to become all emotional. When confronted with talk of divorce, Skyler and Walter begin talking about his past. Skyler figures out that it is a drug dealer scenario, which Walter sort of admits, though only considers himself a distributor. Skyler's offer is to not tell Hank (Dean Norris) about this if she grants her a divorce. Meanwhile, Jesse (Aaron Paul) has gone through rehab and is clean now. He also comes to terms with being the bad guy. With all of the disasters going down, Walter talks to Gus (Giancarlo Esposito) about quitting, but is taken aback when Gus offers Walter a chance to make $3 million for three months. Also, unbeknownst to everyone, two violent men referred to as the Cousins (Luis and Daniel Moncada) are heading to town. The episode ends with them blowing up a truck full of immigrants that they rode into Texas with.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
MVP: Walter (Bryan Cranston)
While not necessarily a snooze of an episode, this is one that deals more with exposition than the big bangs that built up over the past season. It is a chance to meditate and hopefully see Walter get his life back in order. Of course, this is redundant to season one and the whole "just one more deal" scenario. Still, Cranston manages to sell the performance with some big twists and a lot of brooding. The episode as a whole didn't have a lot of stand alone moments, but it did manage to give promise to another great season. Also, what is going to happen now that Skyler knows about Walter's drug dealing?
 |
| Left to right: Anna Gunn and Bryan Cranston |
Best scene: If this episode had any redeeming factor for its existence, it is the realization that Walter is coming to his end. He has been kicked out of his house and has nobody's respect. The only thing that he can do now is hopefully be honest with his wife. While it isn't expected that she is a dummy, it is shocking to hear that she came to the conclusion of drug dealer on her own. In fact, leaving Walter naked in order to reveal that he has indeed been distributing meth was an aspect of the show that needed to be done eventually, but now that it is out there, what is going to happen? Will Skyler just dump him, or will things just get more interesting between the two? This scene alone promises for interesting conversations to develop over the rest of the series and hopefully give us less stilted conversations about cell phones and mysteriously disappearing.
Come back tomorrow when we recap "Caballo Sin Nombre"
Comments
Post a Comment