Greetings, reader!
Just a few days ago, beloved Breaking Bad (2008-2013) spin-off Better Call Saul (2015-2022) aired its series finale. I'm almost done with my list of the Top 10 Better Call Saul episodes, but the final episodes called for such processing that I couldn't quite get it done by this Thursday. Therefore, today's post begins the milestone-celebrations as I rank my 10 favorite episodes of the original series Breaking Bad, and next Thursday's post will continue the hype with my Top 10 Better Call Saul episodes!
SPOILER ALERT: I will be discussing specific plot points, character deaths, twists et cetera freely, as the list is aimed at people who have watched the series. You've been warned!
Here are my honorable mentions: Pilot (Season 1 Episode 1), 4 Days Out (Season 2 Episode 9), Mandala (Season 2 Episode 11), Dead Freight (Season 5 Episode 5), Say My Name (Season 5 Episode 7).
10. Live Free or Die (Season 5 Episode 1)
"Yeah, bitch! Magnets!"
The biggest strength of Breaking Bad is how well-planned it was from the start, thus allowing a perfect crescendo towards the story's culmination. Most TV shows are more or less planned one season at a time by multiple writers with differing visions, which hurts the long-term storytelling options to a degree. Breaking Bad was envisioned from the beginning as a five-season story arch from the mind of Vince Gilligan, who had a crystal-clear (heh) vision on how the story would evolve from beginning to end, which makes it very satisfying as the stakes get gradually higher and the pace quicker, leading up to the explosive and climactic final season - one of the best seasons in television history.
And that season begins with Live Free or Die, one of the more memorable season openers in modern TV. We start off with a chills-down-your-spine flash-forward to the events of the eventual series finale, which immediately sets a serious and high-stakes tone for all that will go down. For the rest of the episode, we follow the intense aftermath of Gus Fring's (Giancarlo Esposito) game-changing death in the season 4 finale, and the board is set for the final season's first half, as the entertaining story arch of Walt (Bryan Cranston), Jesse (Aaron Paul) and Mike (Jonathan Banks) working as a trio begins. It's all very exciting.
9. Sunset (Season 3 Episode 6)
"Did you not plan for this contingency? I mean, the Starship Enterprise had a self-destruct button, I'm just saying"
One thing that Breaking Bad has in common with its fellow antihero-driven critically-acclaimed secret-double-life crime drama Dexter (2006-2013) is that they're at their very best when creating suspenseful and nerve-wracking moments of pure panic. No other series does panic as well as these two, as they've found a magnificent recipe for scenarios where the main characters are in a dire situation, hanging by a thread, forcing the viewer to sweat on the edge of their seat as the situation escalates. A prime example of this is season 3's episode Sunset, where Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) closes in on Walt & Jesse's RV.
The storyline of Hank working for the DEA and trying to track down the mysterious meth kingpin Heisenberg, all the while his brother-in-law Walter White moonlights as Heisenberg, is constantly one of the show's most compelling and thrilling plotlines. It's at its best at moments like this, when Hank comes so close to figuring out the truth that the intensity can hardly be described with words. Following Walt and Jesse inside the RV trying to figure out their game plan, while Hank stakes it out from the outside, is extremely suspenseful to follow.
8. To'hajiilee (Season 5 Episode 13)
"Don't drink and drive! But if you do, call me!"
The aforementioned panic-atmosphere that the series does best enters a whole new level whenever it rears its head at the very ending of an episode. Cliffhangers in TV are nothing new, but hardly any other show does high-stakes cliffhangers as well as Breaking Bad - they feel less "Uh oh, this is quite pickle, how are our characters gonna get out of this jam?", and more "JESUS CHRIST, THE WHOLE WORLD IS FALLING APART, THIS SERIES IS GONNA GIVE ME A HEART ATTACK SOME DAY". To'Hajiilee, the fourth-last episode of the entire series, isn't a regular episode that ends in a cliffhanger, but rather feels like a 47-minute-long cliffhanger sequence, as things get more and more chaotic in an exhilarating build-up to the show's final three episodes.
After five seasons of gradual build-up and escalation, the stage is set for the grand finale: Hank has teamed up with Jesse to take down Walt, who in turn has reached new levels of evil and has hired neo-nazi criminal Jack and his crew. The mind games get more and more intense, as two exceptionally smart sides are doing everything in their power to take the other side down, and the viewer can hardly keep up with all the trickery, backstabbings and traps being set. It all leads up to a chaotic shootout in the middle of the desert, during which we cut off into the end credits, as all the groundwork has been laid for the iconic final three episodes.
7. Half Measures (Season 3 Episode 12)
"Run."
Did I mention something about Breaking Bad being great at intense, panic-inducing cliffhangers? The second-last episode of season 3 simmers in suspense, until its final minutes explode into action and leave things deliciously open for the upcoming season finale. Throughout the episode, tensions between Jesse and Gus's drug empire get worse and worse, with Walt stuck trying to mediate between the two. The episode's title comes from a very memorable conversation where Mike opens up to Walt about a mistake from his past, that resonates with the present situation in a poignant fashion.
The pace picks up towards the chaotic sequence of events in the episode's tail end: after Jesse has refused to make peace with two of Gus's drug dealers who killed his friend Combo, the dealers retaliate by brutally murdering the young brother of Jesse's love interest Andrea. When Walt sees coverage of the murder on TV, he realizes what is about happen and rushes away. In the extremely tense final scene, a stand-off between Jesse and the two dealers is interrupted by Walt, who arrives just in the nick of time and runs the dealers over with his car, ordering Jesse to flee the scene. This leaves massive implications for the season finale, and is one of the very best cliffhangers in a series filled with remarkable cliffhangers.
6. Gliding Over All (Season 5 Episode 8)
"Walt, I want my kids back. I want my life back. Please tell me, how much is enough? How big does this pile have to be?"
What was that about Breaking Bad having great cliffhangers? The ending of the final season's midseason finale is the sort of cliffhanger that most TV writers can only dream of accomplishing. For most of the episode, Gliding Over All feels so climactic that it could be a series finale - loose ends are tied up, as Walt and Jesse make their way out of the drug scene so that they can sail off into the sunset with all their money, while Walt's modern-day-Macbeth story of going from good to pure evil seems completed. Knowing that there is still an eight-episode run left, the viewer might be confused about what story there will be left to tell...until the episode's final moment turns your whole world upside down.
As I mentioned earlier, the storyline of Walt's DEA agent brother-in-law tracking down Heisenberg is a consistently fantastic storyline in the series. And this is the point where Hank finally comes to the conclusion that has been built up for five seasons - while taking a dump, he puts two and two together, and makes the heart-stopping realization that his brother-in-law has been the drug kingpin he's been looking for this whole time. It's the mother of all game-changing moments, and leaves the viewer very anxious for the final eight episodes.
5. Felina (Season 5 Episode 16)
"I want this"
"Then do it yourself"
As the things Breaking Bad has gotten the most praise for include the well-planned full story arch and the insanely climactic final season, it checks out that the series finale is one of the show's finest hours. Don't even get me started on how clever the episode's title is, as Felina is an anagram of "Finale", but also the syllables Fe, Li and Na are the shorthand names for elements found on the periodic table - iron, lithium and sodium (which in turn is a reference to the phrase "Blood, sweat and tears" by implying that the episode's themes include elements found in blood, meth and tears).
But, yeah. One didn't know quite what to expect, as the show had reach its highest point of climax in the third-last episode Ozymandias (more on that masterwork later), and the penultimate episode had largely followed Ozymandias' aftermath while taking the main characters into an epilogue-like setting. But there was still the exact right amount of loose ends to be tied up, and they all come to their long-awaited conclusion in Felina.
Walt's money finds its way to his family, his character arch is completed, Jesse finds his way to freedom and the Heisenberg crime empire's lifespan comes to an end. Walt walking around his meth lab moments before succumbing to his injuries, having won everything from a ruthless criminal mastermind's perspective but having lost everything from a father's (and human's) perspective, as Badfinger's Baby Blue rocks the soundtrack, is quite the cathartic note to end the series on.
4. Crawl Space (Season 4 Episode 11)
"Let Mr. White go. Pay him off or fire him. Don't kill him"
"You know that won't work"
"Then you've got a problem"
If I made a list of the most likely TV episodes to make you stand up and scream in hopeless terror, this episode from the tail end of season 4 might just make the top spot. The show's ability to induce panic and despair comes to an unforeseen high, as Crawl Space really tests the limits of how intense and chaotic a TV show can feel. Season 4 in itself is a ticking time bomb by nature, as the sharp adversity between Walt and Gus is clear from the start, and becomes more and more pressing until their dynamic implodes in the last few episodes, and this is the exact point where it all gets out of hand.
Hank asking Walt to drive him to a possible lead, which Walt knows to be the meth lab's location, and must find a way out of the situation? Thrilling stuff. Gus taking Walt into the middle of the desert, where he threatens to kill his wife, son and infant daughter if he steps out of line again? Unbearable. Walt contacting Saul (Bob Odenkirk) about the mysterious and often-referenced guy who can make people disappear, as he considers going on the run for good, only to discover that much of his money is missing? Heart-stopping non-stop adrenalizing exhilaration.
3. Face Off (Season 4 Episode 13)
"What happened?"
"I won"
In most cases of television shows that are exceptionally good at upping the intensity with build-up, escalation and cliffhangers, the actual moments of climax can be a bit anticlimactic - for example in Homeland (2011-2020), the second-last episode of a season is almost always better than the last one, as the payoff often doesn't quite match the built anticipation. It's very respectable if a series like this can make their finales 100% worth the wait, and such is the case with Breaking Bad - as much as I just praised season four's game-changing chaos-escalating set-up episode Crawl Space, I must say that the season 4 finale that brings those storylines to their payoff is even better.
The long-built cat-and-mouse dynamic between protagonist-villain Walter White and villain-villain Gus Fring comes to a head, and the payoff is one of television's finest. I remember watching the episode with my Dad, whose television-watching experience is so vast that he is often able to spoil scenes that he hasn't even seen before, as he simply guesses what is going to happen. Thus, when watching the notorious scene where Gus meets with Tio Salamanca (Mark Margolis), he shouted out "There's a bomb in the wheelchair!" about five seconds before the bomb in the wheelchair is revealed, which somehow made the reveal even better in my viewing experience. Gus's demise is an insanely creative, memorable and climactic death scene, and its blows the rest of the show's narratives wide open leading up to the final season.
2. Ozymandias (Season 5 Episode 14)
"That's a hell of an offer. What do you think, fed? Would you take that deal?"
"It's Hank. His name is Hank"
"How about it, Hank? Should I let you go?"
"My name is ASAC Schrader and you can go fuck yourself"
"Hank...listen to me...you gotta tell him...you gotta tell him now that we can work this out. Please. Please!"
"What, you want me to beg? You're the smartest guy I ever met...and you're too stupid to see, he made up his mind ten minutes ago"
I had to include that whole conversation, because no other character in television history has gone out with final lines quite as badass as Hank Schrader (although one certainly comes close, but more on that in next week's post). Rest in peace, man.
Fellow Breaking Bad fans might be surprised that Ozymandias, the only episode of a major series to ever score a full 10.0 on IMDB, is not placed first on my list. This is mostly a case of me liking one truly magnificent and understated episode even more, but also a case of me considering Ozymandias to be just slightly overrated. Now, before the TV critic community comes after me with torches and pitchforks, let me state that Ozymandias is a truly remarkable episode, and in fact the second-best one of the entire series in my opinion. It's just not the unequivocally all-time greatest television episode, the Michael Jordan of TV episodes as it were, that it is often seen as. But it is pretty damn breathtaking.
After five seasons of character-building and steadily escalating well-thought-out plotlines, it all comes to a point of no return in this unforgettable game-changer. After five seasons of doing good policework and getting closer to the truth, Hank's story comes to a heartbreaking end with his death. After five season after living amidst lies, Walter Jr. (RJ Mitte) learns about his father's double life. After five seasons of balancing his civilian family life with his criminal enterprise, Walt goes on the run.
And, most importantly and most devastatingly: after five seasons of corrupting his soul and becoming a worse and worse person like the modern-day Macbeth that he is, Walt reaches his most evil and monster-like point as he sells his partner Jesse out to neo-nazi criminals who take him captive (yes, I'm clenching my fists while writing about this, and so should you). Ozymandias is the point where everything falls apart majestically, just in the way that Vince Gilligan always intended.
1. Granite State (Season 5 Episode 15)
"I can't speak to this Heisenberg that people refer to, but whatever...whatever he became, the...the kind, sweet, brilliant man we once knew, long ago, is gone"
I know that this is a major unpopular opinion. People like the show's penultimate episode, but pretty much everyone seems to think that it is dwarfed by the more eventful episode before it, and the culminative finale that it is followed by. But, after careful consideration, I see the middle part of the trilogy of final episodes to be the very best of the bunch.
Granite State has an incredibly hard job to do: not just because it's following up such a spectacularly good episode, but because it must work as an adequate aftermath to Ozymandias while also working as a build-up to Felina, while having a slower pace and very different vibe. But this works magically, as Granite State feels like a well-constructed bridge that really brings the climactic events of Ozymandias and the epilogue-like closure of Felina together. The final season works as well as it does because this slow-paced yet insanely important episode ties the narratives together, allowing for the show's biggest individual twists and turns take place in an episode before the finale but for the two final episodes to also make sense as the show's full-circle ending.
Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul give their very best performances, as we follow their characters in new dramatic surroundings over a long period of time (Bob Odenkirk also gives his best performance as Saul Goodman in this show, although he would reach new heights in Better Call Saul). The aftermath to Ozymandias is as cathartic and large-scale as the events themselves were thrilling and shocking. Having a moment to breathe like this is quite untypical for a show's second-last episode, but here it just really completes and perfects the story that Gilligan set out to tell.
And the biggest individual reason for Granite State being my #1 favorite? The episode's final scene is the show's greatest moment, and the best cliffhanger in a series filled with memorable cliffhangers. I've re-watched the moment many, many times on YouTube, and every single time it sends chills down my spine. Dave Porter's slower and more dramatic arrangement of the show's main theme, playing as the police start to arrive at the pub where Walt was, only for the camera to pan to a glass of whiskey and an empty seat to signify that he has left to settle the score, is cold-blooded, high-stakes build-up at its best.
Thank you for reading! Tune in next week for my thoughts on Better Call Saul's greatest episodes.
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