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| 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.
*Originally published on August 6, 2013
Season 5, Episode 4
"Fifty-One"
*Note: This is a video edited to include the jingle from the popular Mentos commercials
"Show me a modicum of respect and maybe I'll teach you."
-Walter White (Bryan Cranston)
It has been a full year since Walter (Bryan Cranston) was diagnosed with cancer and started the reign of Heisenberg. How does he celebrate? He buys Walt Jr. (R.J. Mitte) and himself a new car and invites over Hank (Dean Norris) and Marie (Betsy Brandt) for a nice dinner. Meanwhile, things continue to go south with Skyler (Anna Gunn) as she attempts to drown herself during the dinner party. This leads Skyler and Walter to discuss keeping the children away from their house until he quits dealing drugs. Meanwhile, Jesse (Aaron Paul) is picking methylamine from Lydia (Laura Fraser), whose company was recently raided by the DEA and arrested several employees. She is paranoid and when she discovers that her methylamine is being traced by the DEA, it halts further shipment. This causes Mike (Jonathan Banks) to become curious about Lydia's reliability and threatens to kill her.
Rating: 4 out of 5
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| Anna Gunn |
MVP: Skyler
It looked early on like Walter would be the hero of this episode. From buying new cars to his actual celebration of his birthday, it was looking to be his week. However, when Skyler finally went crazy and attempted to drown herself, she stole the show and all of the build up of paranoia and inability to react to her husband's notoriety, she finally got to unleash the ultimate threat. She took the children away, which from Walter's demeanor in the final scene, gives off the impression that he is not ready to give them up.
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| Left to right: Cranston and Gunn |
Best scene: Somehow that pool keeps coming back as a bad sign throughout the seasons. In this week's episode, it comes back in one of it's strongest ways. When Skyler tries to drown herself during an uplifting speech that Walter is given, it comes across as almost poetic. Director Rian Johnson's ability to turn that scene into a haunting, yet beautifully depressing look into Skyler's soul without her saying a word is the culmination of everything the past few seasons have been building to. Her screaming "shut up" at Marie last week was only the tip of the iceberg and gives me belief that maybe Skyler is finally tired of playing second fiddle and will be having some drastic measures in an upcoming episode.
Come back tomorrow when we recap "Dead Freight"
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