Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 7: 'Say My Name (FKA Everybody Wins)

Tweet As always, there are going to be spoilers below, do not continue reading past this until you have seen the episode.

"Shut the f*ck up and let me die in peace" - Mike's last words of the series... very fitting of such a great character.

We knew after last week's set-up episode that something drastic was going to happen in this one. Unfortunately for Mike (who probably grew to be one of the more liked characters of the show) that drastic occurrence was his death. Before we talk about it, we should see how the episode set up Walter white's latest victim.

Firstly, we picked up right where the last episode left off, with Walt delivering on his promise to pay Mike and Jesse their share (technically, only Mike got paid as Walt tried one last time to draw Jesse back in) while retaining his growing 'empire'. I have to say that this scene was really enjoyable, Walt has really mastered weaseling his way out of death to the point where you are excited to see how he does it. From standing up to Tuco all the way back in season one, to orchestrating Gale's death at the perfect time (right as Mike was about to kill him) was there a doubt that he would escape unharmed from the meeting with the guys who wanted to buy the methyl-amine? Bonus points for the "Say my name" line, it really gave a nice finishing touch to an already good scene.

From that point things slowed down a bit. We had a few more awkward exchanges between Walt and Skyler, we saw Mike and Jesse both leave the game officially, the former taking care of the legacy fund, and the latter being fed up with all of the killing. It was really nice to see Jesse stand up to Walter and flat out refuse to continue cooking with him. Jesse even turned down an offer of five million dollars and endless taunts by Walter that were aimed at drawing him back in. Jesse, as a character, has shown the most development since season one and of all the characters in the show, the only one the audience may legitimately be rooting for (other than Hank) at this point is Jesse, and I hope he wins in the end. As for Mike, after leaving (and destroying all evidence of criminal activity) he starts to live a normal, boring, old man life, enjoying spending time with his granddaughter (whose legacy fund is fully re-filled). However, Hank's instincts led him to one last attempt at catching Mike (by following his lawyer, and it was the final attempt because if that had not worked out, Mike would never have been caught) and they catch the lawyer red-handed. To make matters worse, the lawyer is absolutely ready to flip and gives up Mike right away, dragging Mike back into the thick of things (including a truly sad scene where he could not even say bye to his granddaughter).

From there, everything was set up for Mike's demise. Saul's refusal to get Mike's bag (which had his remaining money and his gun in it) followed by Mike's refusal to let Jesse get it for him left only one person who could: Heisenberg. As soon as we saw the gun inside the bag, I think we all knew what was going to happen. After an inevitable and heated confrontation, Walt shoots Mike. For a brief second after the shot, it looked as if Mike managed to get away, but tragically, that was not the case. Walt immediately realized that he could have easily got the names from Lydia, prompting Mike to utter his excellent last words. We keep waiting for the mistake that will inevitably do Walter White in, this may have been the one.

Overall score for this episode: 9.7/10 - Almost perfect, Mike's death was a bit rushed, and it feels like the writers wanted to get it out of the way to set up the half-season finale twist that inevitably looms. Also, last week's episode was not officially reviewed, but would have received a 7.8/10 if you are wondering.

Best scene: Mike dying, a not so fitting end, to a phenomenal character.

Best quote: Mike's last words, which lead off, and end this review: "Shut the F*ck up, and let me die in peace"

EPL Diaries: Matchday 2 Preview

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To everyone still missing the Olympics (If you’re like me, you weren’t ready to have Dressage pulled out of your life so abruptly) and to everyone counting down the seconds until the NFL season starts, I have a solution for you. The English Premier League (The EPL). The EPL kicked off its season last week with an exciting Matchday 1 that featured thrilling comebacks, blowouts, controversial officiating decisions, Robin Van Persie in a Manchester United jersey, Andres Villas-Boas abandoning the fashionable trench coat in order to look like a highschool gym teacher and more! In this weekly (hopefully weekly) column I will be previewing the upcoming Matchday by highlighting the key games to watch. That is until Michael Vick gets injured in week 3 and I go into a deep depression that ends in me sobbing into my retro Reggie White jersey. Until then though here are the top 5 games to look out for in Matchday 2.

5. West Ham United at Swansea City (Saturday August 25, 2012 – 7:45 AM ET)

Why wake up at 7:45 in the morning on a Saturday now that Fox Kids is long gone (why wouldn’t they bring back good Saturday morning cartoons? Never understood this) you ask? Because this is (somehow) a battle of two teams coming off of week 1 wins. Newly promoted West Ham started the campaign with a victory that came off of Kevin Nolan’s boot as The Hammers beat Aston Villa 1-0 at Upton Park while the surprise of last year Swansea demolished QPR 5-0 on the road no less with 2 goals coming from new signing Michu (no idea how to pronounce this and based on last week, neither do the announcers). Swansea appears to be the favorite as they seem to not have missed a step despite switching managers in the off-season (Brendan Rodgers out, Michael Laudrup in) and will look to play their fluid “tiki-taka” (Is there really no better phrase to describe this brand of football than this? I mean really?) style in front of their home support. I expect West Ham to stay back and look for chances via the counter-attack and whatever set piece they manage to get. If you manage to wake up this early on Saturday, this game will be fun to watch.

Prediction: Draw

Drinking Game: Drink each time Michael Laudrup gets referred to as “The Great Dane” or every time they cut to a shot of Michu adjusting his hair. (I Don’t actually suggest drinking alcohol this early in the morning…unless you haven’t stopped from the night before, if that’s the case then cheers!)

4. Arsenal FC at Stoke City (Sunday August 26, 2012 – 8:30 AM ET)

Ah what better way to cure your Saturday hangover than watching one team try and play the game of football the “right way” with crisp passes and fluid movements face off against a team who takes the “beautiful game” behind the toolshed and beats it mercilessly with long balls, rugby tackles and long throw-ins. I can’t wait. In all seriousness Arsenal will look to get their first win and goal of the season as they take on Stoke City, another team who could only manage a draw in the first week. Arsenal fans were in a panic after the first game calling for Wenger’s head and all other sorts of over-exaggerations that fans typically exhibit. However, new signing Santi Cazorla looked lively and the Arsenal attack looked decent against a Sunderland side that parked the bus effectively for 90 minutes. And yes, Olivier Giroud missed a pretty easy chance but these things happen and it’s no time to panic especially with the talent this team possesses. Stoke City will look like the same side we’ve seen over the last few years, dull but stubborn and very difficult to beat at home.

Prediction: An Arsenal victory (no real reason here, just a gut feeling. Should let people know though that my “gut feelings” on gambling on soccer have given me a Krusty-esque track record.)

Drinking Game: Drink each time Stoke City throws the ball directly into the Arsenal box off a throw-in. Drink each time you’re confused about Gervinho’s hairline (take very very small sips).

3. Fulham at Manchester United (Saturday August 25, 2012 – 10:00 AM ET)

One of these teams is coming off a 5-0 thrashing of Norwich City and the other is Man U. Fulham began their campaign with a demolition of an admittedly bad Norwich side at Craven Cottage. Norwich’s problems aside, five goals is nothing to scoff at with one coming from Damien Duff (yes, he is still alive) and two from new signing Mladen Petric could be signs that Fulham will be more dangerous this season than in years past. United on the other hand, RVP signing and all could do nothing but watch as Marouane Fellaini and his Sideshow Bob-like hair weaved in and out of their defense leading Everton to a 1-0 victory. It will be very interesting to see how Ferguson will use Van Persie from now on as I expect him to get the start this week but for who is the real question. Kagawa looked impressive in his debut being the lone piece of good news for United fans.  Another question that will be answered on Saturday is who gets the start alongside Vidic and his regrown hair at centerback. In my opinion, Michael Carrick didn’t do a bad job against Everton all things considered and should have an easier time at it playing against the Fulham attack than he did against Fellaini and Jelavic. Panicking after one game makes no sense but seeing 1 or maybe 0 points out of a possible 6 for United will be a cause for concern meaning that the Red Devils should be in attack mode from the get go on Saturday. That being said Fulham is no pushover so this should be a good one to watch.

Prediction: Manchester United victory

Drinking Game: Drink each time the words “little boy” and Van Persie are mentioned together. Drink for every minute of “Fergie Time” (stay away from the hard liquor for this one).

2012-2013 English Premier League: Liverpool

Tweet The new EPL season is finally here! It feels like Sergio Aguero's last minute goal that won the premiere league title for Manchester City happened only yesterday (sorry United fans, had to mention it). It was the first instance since 2003 that the premiere league was won by a team not named Chelsea or Manchester United. It showed us that with enough patience (and more money than everybody else) anyone could win the league. Manchester City is set to return the same team from last year and looks poised to capture their second title in a row. Of course Roberto Mancini, Manchester City's coach has already tried to claim that United are the favorites to win the title (maybe they even are with the Van Persie signing, but at least act like you are defending champions Roberto!), kicking off one of the more amusing things about soccer: managers trying to deflect pressure away from their teams. In my opinion, Arsene Wenger is the king of this, nobody complains more than that guy. But enough about teams I dislike heavily, let's talk my favorite team: Liverpool.

Last season, Liverpool's captain Steven Gerrard missed roughly half the season with injuries, in addition to Gerrard, Liverpool's best player (Lucas) tore his ACL and Liverpool fell into a slump of mediocrity without him. To add insult to injury, expensive signings Andy Carrol, Charlie Adam, and Stewart Downing not only failed to perform; but they played so poorly that I openly questioned how good professional soccer players actually are. Liverpool's lone quality signing, Luis Suarez, was suspended eight games for using a racial slur, and this was backed up by video evidence... wait, no it wasn't I'm thinking of John Terry, who got a two game suspension despite the fact that the case against him actually had evidence to support it. Suarez was guilty of not being English. To add on top of all that, Liverpool astonishingly managed to hit the post or crossbar roughly 35 times over the course of the season, and compounded that by missing 6 penalties. Then coach, Kenny Dalglish (club legend, best player to ever wear a Liverpool shirt) still guided the club to two cup finals (winning one) but was unceremoniously dismissed at the end of the year for failing to finish in a Champion's league position, a task that was border-line impossible given all of the above things I mentioned. Needless to say, last season was not a very fun one.

This year brings new hope to Liverpool (mostly in the form of, it can't possibly be worse than last year). Unlike last year, Steven Gerrard will be healthy to start the season along with Lucas. New coach Brendan Rodgers is bringing an attacking, fun style that the club sorely needs (so hey, if they suck again at least it will be fun to watch), and management seems to have finally put some quality signings together (which I will talk about in future posts). In all honesty, despite the crap pile that was last year, I am excited that soccer is back on and that I can watch my favorite team play again. For now I will leave it at that.

Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 5: 'Dead Freight' Review

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Blonde guy kind of resembles Matt Damon, am I the only one?

As always, this review will contain spoilers so if you have not seen the episode and don't want anything ruined, stop reading now.

Well, we were waiting for this season to give us our first '10' episode. The episode that would just make you think about it (not even about specific things, but just... think) long after it ended, that would shock you with a surprise twist, and leave you wanting to see the next episode tomorrow. 'Dead Freight' is absolutely that episode.

From the very opening scene, where a young boy is just riding his dirt bike out in the desert (and collecting tarantulas, which is something I would rate right behind commuting to school on my 'least favorite hobbies' list) we knew something was up. As I have said in the past: breaking bad does not waste scenes, as soon as I saw this one, I began trying to figure out what it could mean, or where it was going. The answer to that question would not come until the final scene of the episode, a point at which I long forgot about the boy because the rest of the episode was just that good. I will talk briefly about what happened, then get into that last scene.

Firstly, we have our new trio of meth lords bugging Hank's new office (he accepted his promotion) through some diabolical fake crying by Walter. The purpose of the bug was to check whether or not Lydia was telling the truth about the GPS trackers on the barrels. You wont believe this, but she actually was! I was really surprised at this, it was a really nice curve-ball that threw me completely off. Lydia (now a lot more safe from danger) then offers a tip on 'an ocean' of methyl-amine that the crew pretty much has to take up because a) they can't go back to Germany for it b) the legacy fund needs to be re-filled and c) Walter's ego needs to be fueled, and a spectacular heist is just the way to do it. From that point, the episode became a really fun 'Ocean's Eleven' type of story. A ridiculous plan, a hastily put-together team, with each person being responsible for a different job, something going wrong, and then a spectacular finish that came out of left field.

I mean, every part of the heist; from not taking everything, but just diluting the methyl-amine with water so no one would really notice, to the execution (the truck was a really nice touch, but a flat tire might have been an even better idea) was spot on. Even Todd, the henchman Walt took notice of earlier in the season (and who looks a lot like Matt Damon), said "You guys planned for everything". The actual heist was well-filmed and intense, giving us some nice angles on the action and providing legitimate drama. Would Walt risk everything just to fill the barrel up a bit more? Was someone going to die if the plan went awry?  As it turns out the heist  was completed with no major consequences and everyone started to celebrate wildly. Wildly that is, until they noticed the boy from the first scene watching them. Here is where I thought they would end the episode, a nice twist, a truly innocent by-stander, with a variety of ways they could have gone in the following episode, had they done that, this would have gotten a 9.5. However, they chose to go 'full measure' on us with Todd giving the kid a wave, then killing him in cold blood.

Just a pivotal moment. We know Walt is unafraid to put children in danger (see risen, Brock) but this is the first instance where a child legitimately died because of Walt's actions. There is no way that Jesse takes this lightly, and there is no excuse for Walt to have. I cannot wait for next week's episode.


Overall score for this episode: 10/10 just one of those episodes that makes you think for about 2 hours after you've finished watching it.

Best scene: Basically the entire train heist, but the best moment is definitely the poor boy getting caught in Walter White's path of destruction.

Best Quote: "There are two types of heists. Those that succeed, and those that leave witnesses" -Mike A perfect quote for this episode.

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Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 4: 'Fifty-One' Review

Tweet One of the really good things about writing reviews about shows you love, is that you get to watch some episodes multiple times. In the case of breaking bad, second (and sometimes even third) viewings of the same episode will often enable the viewer to spot something that he or she may have missed initially. 'Fifty-One' was definitely one of those episodes you had to watch multiple times in order to catch all the details. The episode itself was significantly slower and less explosive than the ones preceding it, making it easily the worst episode of this season so far. However, being the worst episode in this season is not a bad thing at all. In fact, the episode was actually really good, its only 'flaw' is that it was not as good as the three that came before it. One of the reasons that breaking bad is such a good show is that it is remarkably consistent. Yes, some episodes like 'Problem Dog', or 'One Minute' leave us in shock and awe at how brilliant they are, but the set up leading to those episodes is just as good. Breaking bad rarely has bad episodes, just ones that are not spectacular.

So what were the aspects of 'Fifty-One' that made the episode good? For one, it gave us a nice reference point to the show in general. It has been exactly a year since all of this began, as we have come full-circle to Walt's fifty first birthday. Unlike his fiftieth birthday however, things are very different for Walt. His only present came from his meth-cooking partner, his relationship with his wife has deteriorated to a point that is beyond repair, and most disturbingly of all: Walt is doing nothing to change these facts. He is healthy enough to continue his teaching career, he and Skyler own a car-wash that he could manage, and his son is about to graduate high school and go to college. Given the fact that Walter was only given a short time to live the year prior, you would think that he would jump on the chance to be able to lead a normal life again. Breaking bad however, is a show where you slowly deteriorate to the point that you may never be good again, and it looks like Walter White has reached that point. Everything from the arrogance of selling his car for $50 to his chilling conversation with Skyler (where he shot down every single idea she had to stop him) is both a testament to Bryan Cranston's acting (seriously... this was the dad in Malcolm in the middle!) and the fall from grace of Walter White. At this point, everyone who watches this show expects him to die, we are just waiting to see how it will happen.

I also just realized that I am more than halfway through this review and have not even touched on other things about this episode. Lydia planting the GPS tracker on the barrel (and Mike figuring it out in the time it takes you to read this sentence) was a nice twist, although I wish we could have seen what Walt's suggestion was at the end of the episode. It looks like Lydia will be spared (and honestly, Mike broke through with his 'half measure's' speech in season 3, and since then he has done nothing but half measures, he needs to step things up) and with each episode that she stays alive, the more likely it is that she will be the one that eventually leads to Walt's demise. I don't really have much more to add other than to share some theories that I heard while discussing the show with colleagues. The ticking clock at the end of the episode stops at exactly '52', you may remember that the first images of the season was a flash-forward to Walt's fifty-second birthday. Is this the day he will die? Seems like a cool way for the writers to set us up: "We know that you know Walt will die, but do you know how?". Another interesting theory I heard is that Skyler took up smoking again to try and get Walters cancer to return (I love this theory and will discuss it more in the future).

That will be it for this week, next week there will be a more in-depth review. Enjoy your week everybody!

Overall score for this episode: 8/10
Best scene: Walter asking Skyler how she intends to stop him

Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 3: 'Hazard Pay' Review

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As always, this review will contain spoilers, you have been warned.


Another solid episode in what is shaping up to be an excellent start to Breaking Bad's final season. This episode featured less action than the ones preceding it, but it more than made up for it with superior storytelling. The other two episodes showed how Walt was covering his tracks, in this one we got to see how Mike would go about covering his now that he is back in the game. What we got was an interesting scene of Mike talking to one of "his guys" about "making him whole" (this episode featured so many great quotes it was hard to count) with hazard pay; hazard pay is basically money provided in return for keeping one's mouth shut about an illegal operation. As far as characters go, you have to appreciate Mike, he is fiercely loyal, intelligent, and careful. You get the sense that, if he wanted to, Mike could be the kingpin of his own empire. What started off as a minor character (at best) has evolved into one of the main figures of the story.