10 best Breaking Bad episodes

In honor of my having just completely caught up with Breaking Bad, here are my picks for the ten best episodes, in countdown style...

10.) "Four Days Out" 2.09

This episode is simple, heartfelt, funny... really just wonderful.

Walt and Jesse's extremely dysfunctional relationship almost works for a while in this episode, and the interactions they have here are the kind of thing we get nostalgic for toward the end.

9.) "Pilot" 1.01

No matter how far this show has come (and gone) the fact remains that the pilot episode is one of the best pilots ever and, well, one of the best episodes of the series.

A goal in film is to create something iconic. And the pilot introduces  so many now iconic images. The R.V. Walt in his tighty-whities, wielding a gun. The first cool "cook" montage of many to come. Not to mention, this episode kicks off with the best cold open of all time. I've watched this episode three times and each time I've enjoyed it, and each time I've noticed little things that continue to be relevant all the way to the end. That's the sign of a good pilot.

8.) "Fly" 3.10

This episode is hugely controversial. You either love it or you hate it. Guess what. I love it.

The fly has a ton of possible interpretations and meanings -- maybe I'll make a separate blog post about that. But moving beyond the artsy-fartsy aspects of this episode (how 'bout that cold open, eh?), it's just really enjoyable. Walt and Jesse. Together. In the lab. Trying to kill a fly. For forty-five minutes. And it's only Walt and Jesse (and the fly) -- no one else makes an appearance. It's plenty funny, but this episode is so important. Walt almost tells Jesse he let Jane die. If he had, it would've been a very different moment from the one in Ozymandias. At this point, Walt still regrets it. In Ozymandias, not so much... But Walt doesn't tell Jesse this. However, he does tell him that he wished he would have died the night Jane died -- which is hugely important to our understanding of Walt in season three and beyond. 

7.) "Gliding Over All" 5.08

If you think you've seen good video editing but you haven't seen this episode... I'm sorry to break it to you, but you don't even really know what a montage is. Of course there's the famous, fantastically edited, if hard to watch, prison/shank montage. But the four minute long Crystal Blue Persuasion montage is even better. Click the link. Click it.

The scene Skyler shows Walt his huge stack of money was actually the first scene of Breaking Bad I ever saw. Of course when my dad showed me this scene a year or two ago, it had no meaning to me. With context, however, a second viewing made an impact. When she asks him how much is enough, she's missing the point: this has never been about the money for Walt. If it had been, he would've stopped long ago -- or, rather, would've taken the money from Elliot. That stack can get twice as big and it won't be enough.

It's sort of infuriating though that everything could have been pretty much okay if Hank had just waited until he got home. But justice has to be served and let's be honest -- it's a fantastic cliffhanger.

6.) "...And the Bag's in the River" 1.03

This is the first Great episode of Breaking Bad, with a capital G. It's got one of my favorite cold opens: shots of Jesse and Walt scrubbing Emilio's chunky, gooey remains from the carpet interspersed with a flashback of Walt and Gretchen, discussing the elements that make up a human body. Once they list all the elements and their percentages, there is still a portion of a percent unaccounted for. Hmm. What are they missing? What are they forgetting? "A soul?" Gretchen proposes wistfully. No, Walt says firmly. "There's just chemistry here." But what are they missing? "There's got to be more to a human being than that," flashback Walt concludes, as current day Walt pours a bucket of liquefied Emilio down the toilet. 

It's immensely powerful.

This is the episode when we realize that this is a show that makes no excuses. Walt talks to the captured Krazy 8, all the while knowing its his job to "take care of him" (based on a coin flip -- Jesse gets the other job: disposing of Emilio). Yet Walt allows himself to connect with Krazy 8, claiming that he's looking for a reason not to kill him. In a revealing moment, Walt makes a pros and cons list -- kill him verses let him live. The let him live column basically reiterates the same point over and over: it's the moral thing to do. But the kill him column has one point: if I don't, he will kill my entire family. That is the repeated conflict of the show.

However, we get to know Krazy 8 a bit. We like him, actually. But in a sequence that still gives me the chills, Walt digs the shattered remains of the plate out of the trash to find a huge, dagger-like chunk missing. "Why are you doing this?" Walt implores, knowing now that he has no choice. So he goes back to the basement, allowing Krazy 8 to think he's going to get away until... he chokes him to death with the bike lock.

This episode sets the stage and the tone for the rest of the series in a way that the first two episodes didn't.

5.) "Grilled" 2.02

I always say, if the first season doesn't hook you, this episode will. I think this episode was supposed to be the Season 1 finale but got pushed to the unceremonious slot of second episode of the second season because of the writers' strike that cut the first season short. But watch this episode knowing that it's of season finale caliber. 

This episode is chewing-on-your-fingernails, edge-of-your-seat intense, as Tuco plays around with a machete while Walt and Jesse quietly try to poison him. But Hector Salamanca, everyone's favorite senile ex-cartel boss, is sharper than he looks. The bell is genius. Honestly. I think it's easy to take for granted how genius the bell is, but trust me. It's genius. Just the way it starts dinging after Hank kills Tuco and continues into the end credits. 

This is the point of no return. There's no turning back once you've seen this episode.

4.) "Half Measures" and "Full Measure" 3.12 & 3.13

Yeah, I know, I cheated by lumping these two together. But they are really two parts of a whole. Half Measures is, to me, all about Mike's speech: "No more half measures, Walter." Brilliant. And of course Walt saving Jesse's life. Always appreciated. But mostly these two episodes are Mike, Mike, Mike. Love that guy. I want to be Mike Ehrmantraut when I grow up. I'd argue that in the context of this show Mike is actually a really moral character, and his speech in Half Measures is a lot of my basis for that argument.

MIKE!

Full Measure has a killer cliff hanger (literally) and raises really important moral questions, because we all love Jesse, but Gale was such a good person... I think we can all agree, though, that's Walt's awful.

Seriously, I need therapy now because of Jesse Pinkman.

3.) "Face Off" 4.13

Heh. Heh.

Yeah, so this episode happened. I legitimately wish I could erase my memory of this episode's plot and watch it completely fresh (along with End Times) not knowing what Walt did. Because that must've been the shocker of all shockers. This is how you freaking wrap a season, guys. Oh, and Gus died, but that gets dwarfed by the reveal in the last few seconds. And that takes some doing because Gus freaking died. In a really iconic, memorable way. And the name of the episode, well -- you get the joke.

2.) "Crawl Space" 4.11

This episode is spot-on with the dark humor the show's known for. I love the exchange between Walt and Saul: "Gus is going to kill my entire family!" "Christ..." Saul's just like, damn it, Gus, not this again... And of course Huell. Just... Huell. This episode is basically a record bad day for Walt. And it allows us to be okay with Gus's impending death. Gustavo "I-will-kill-your-infant-daughter" Fringe is a complete psychopath.

From the moment Walt burst into Saul's office, talking a mile a minute, I let his anxiety spread to me, and I was basically hyperventilating for the last 10 minutes of this episode. It's really such a perfect tragedy, that all Walt can do at the end is laugh. Laugh like a madman, as Skyler backs away and moves slowly down the hallway, toward the phone where Marie is leaving a message --"it's happening again" -- all while Walt's crazed laughter echoes in the background.

Enjoy the last 2 and a half minutes. The build up at Saul's office is really important, but this scene standing alone still gives me chills like nothing else. Plus the final shot of this episode is so much like the final shot of the final episode that I think it can't be a coincidence.

See what I mean? Totally not a coincidence. 

AND I JUST FIGURED OUT WHAT IT MEANS. Okay, in Crawl Space whatever is left of Walter White dies. Gone. I mean, he poisons a child in the next episode. Walter White is dead. In Felina, of course, Heisenberg dies. This is a character who has died twice, and here we have his two selves dying in strikingly similar fashions. Walter White's death is a tragedy. Heisenberg's death is a relief. 

1.) "Ozymandias" 5.14

This episode begins with a flashback. Walt and Jesse cooking in the RV, Walt lying to Skyler, Jesse being dumb -- you know, the good old days. That is the moment when I knew -- this episode is going to be really painful. They're giving us this, something light, and then they're going to destroy us. And they did. This episode is gut punch after gut punch. This episode, as I've said before, is the lowest of the low for Walt. The full extent of his evil transformation. For those of us who just wanted the show to turn "Mr. Chips into Scarface," we could have viewed this as the series finale. The last two episodes bring us back from the edge a bit, but the damage has been done. There's no undoing Hank's death (or Gomie's, let's not forget Gomie!). There's no undoing Jesse's awful fate. And Walt -- Walt loses everything. Absolutely everything.

You want to hear something that makes Hank's death even sadder? Okay, remember in Buried (5.10) when Walt buried his eight barrels of cash in the desert, spending all day and all night digging the hole? The entire time he was digging, he was unwittingly digging Hank's grave. In Walt's greed and desperation, he literally (and figuratively) dug Hank's grave. This is almost unbearably depressing.

The climax undoubtedly comes in the form of a verbal and physical confrontation Walt has with his wife and son. And this is the moment when all of Walt's pretenses fall away and he has to face the truth of what he's done to his family in the name of saving his family. It's tough stuff and the acting is, well, the best I've ever seen if I can be so bold.

Although I love Felina as a series finale and think it did everything it should have done, I'm not ranking it as one of the top ten best episodes over all. This show sets a very high bar for itself, and an internal ranking such as this one is very hard to do. Breaking Bad fans are known for being very self-righteous and confident that they alone understand the show -- hence the new tag: imho -- a.k.a.: don't kill me. These are, in my humble opinion, the best ten episodes (well, eleven) according to my understanding of the show. There are many runner-ups, like the pilot, End Times, Salud and let's just throw in the whole of Season Four while we're at it, but these ten (well, eleven) affected me the most and also represent a variety of seasons and styles.

I can't say it enough, and this time I'll quote one of my favorite YouTubers: "If you haven't watched Breaking Bad, honest to God go watch it."