Spoilers below as always!
Finally the stage is set for the conclusion of Breaking Bad. Its just a shame that we will have to wait more than half a year to see it. I already complained about AMC splitting this season into two parts (way back in the first review of this season), but now having seen where they left us, and where things stand, can you blame me for bitching about it again? Thank God that the NFL kicks off this Thursday, otherwise this would have been a really depressing stretch of television. But anyways, on to my thoughts about the episode.
'Gliding All Over' really felt like a simple episode to me. Not that this is a necessarily bad thing, but I can't help but feel a bit disappointed by it. The gem of this episode; the prison killings were really well done. We got to see each and every one of Mike's "nine guys" plus the lawyer become the latest victims of W.W.'s reign of terror. From the music, to Walter's indifference at the very end of the scene, it was easily the best 3 minutes of the episode. The rest of the episode? Underwhelming to say the least. In the past, Breaking Bad would have methodically showed us the expansion of Walt's new-found empire into European territory, here we got to see it all in roughly five minutes, with a little montage to guide us through it. I don't know about you, but I expected more from an episode that will be the last one we see for a while.
In no particular order, here are my thoughts on where the episode failed to live up to other great ones from this season. Firstly, Todd's connections. We learn absolutely nothing about these guys (how dangerous they are, how influential they are, how much Walt is paying them, their names! and even their opinion of Walt etc.) but they are conveniently placed to move the plot forward. Put it this way: more time was spent planning the magnet-laptop destruction operation. The sole purpose of these guys (at least for this episode) was to get Walt to say "I'm out" with some time left in the episode to set up the next twist, it all felt a bit rushed and I don't think anyone would have complained about an extra episode to polish off the details here. Secondly, Skyler accepts Walt back just like that?! If those awkward exchanges taught us anything, its that their relationship would have taken a while to fix, but we need everything to be calm before the storm of the last 8 episodes, so half a scene is all we need! Thirdly, Once Mike's guys agreed to flip, why was security around them not enhanced? Lastly, how exactly is Walt out? What about Todd and his connects? What about the empire? A lot of questions still remain, but hopefully they will be resolved eventually.
I really hate to nit pick at things like this, but this is twice in a row now that Breaking Bad has had a very weak finale. The one thing I will say though is that they found a nice way to end the episode with Hank finally (FINALLY) connecting the dots. Or so it seems, I am expecting at least three episodes of Hank trying to talk himself out of investigating Walt, before finally following his instincts. The wait for next season will be very excruciating.
Overall score for this episode: 8/10 not the best episode ever, but certainly not the worst either, had some very nice scenes that saved it, despite poor execution of everything else
Best scene: I will just call it: 'The prison cleanse'
In the meantime, look for NFL thoughts which will commence this week! Cheers!
I can finally read your review of Breaking Bad... I just watched this last episode today.
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