Breaking Bad - Confessions

With the lovely N returned from her holiday, we returned last night to Breaking Bad.  The episode did not disappoint.


I sincerely hope they know what they're doing over their in breaking bad land.  The pacing of this show continues to astound in it's final season.  It's working in that way you hope a myth arc should work, that feeling of slowly gathering speed until you accelerate towards a climax.  It seems like since the return for this final half of the season, we're all climax.

I'm almost worried that this pace is going to be impossible to keep up, that theres no way for the show to sustain the level of drama and revelation we've had over these last three episodes.

Ironically, for an episode called Confessions, this episode was almost entirely about lies.  After taking a background role in the last episode, Walt is absolutely the focus this time.  How disgustingly manipulative he has become.  It bothers me to see him described (as he so often is in some articles) as an antihero, Walt is no more an antihero than Tony Montana or Alex DeLarge.  He is a straight up villain protagonist and if there could be any doubt, it's dashed completely and totally by this episode.

We see Walt lie by omission to his son, using the return of his cancer to keep him from Hank and Marie.  We see him lie to Jessie, pretending to be the father figure the boy never had in order to trick him into leaving.  And in what might be the most stunning moment of the series so far, we see the astounding lie he prepares in order to keep Hank from revealing his secrets.  I was at work today when a colleague referred to this moment simply as "the DVD" and it truly is such a stunning moment there can be no doubt what's being referred to.

The lie theme is set up early on when we see Todd telling the tale of the training heist, intentionally omitting the tragic ending to play the story as a fun adventure.

How ironic that the one piece of truth telling in the episode is done by that prince of falsehoods Saul.  It was such a mindblowing moment, one that we all knew was coming like an oncoming train, yet it still managed to surprise.  The astoundingly good ending as well, with Jesse's rage and the splash of gasoline leaves your heart in your throat, desperate for more.

Skyler could have been in the episode a little more admittedly, but with so much of the last episode centering around her, it's perhaps unsurprising that she's a little more in the background this time.  Still, I hope to see more of her next time.  She's an amazing role, amazingly performed and always a pleasure to have on the screen.

Overall though, this might be our best episode yet.  Considering that's a statement that previously applied to our last two episodes, one can only hope the series can continue to raise the bar till the end.

Posted in: aaron paul, breaking bad, bryan cranston, TV, TV Review