The deterioration of the American patriarch facing growth and decay, and transformation. The episode is notable for delivering inevitable. Ozymandias is the best hour of television to date. After 59 episodes, Walter White’s empire finally collapses and shatters everything in its path, including his relationship to his wife and son. And then, of course the twisting of the Jane knife. Instead, not only does he first ok Jesse to be put down right then and there-he then relegates Jesse to a colder fate-indentured servitude. For an episode so focused on the maintenance of family I thought that Walt would have looked passed Jesse turning rat. A brilliantly heartbreaking performance by Walt in that moment.īut to me the most chilling moment of the episode is not the infamous White family knife fight-but just how quickly and ruthlessly Walt deals with Jesse. After Walt takes Holly, with a duct taped hand and in a antique truck that is in worse condition than he is-he lies yet again but now to truly exonerate Skyler. The kind that either elicits the vengeful, long con of the game-Or turns the pack leader stray and off into frozen solitude.īefore the white king is checkmated he makes one more bold move.full retreat. Hank's death is to Walt what Max's death was to Gus-the brutal baptism of empire. When it came to the moment of a gun to the head of his family-it was sadly satisfying that Walt offered the riches of Heisenberg in exchange for Hank's life. Like Whitman, Walt projects a horrible yawp-a harsh and barbaric one. When the king of kings fell to the ground in agony-he lets out among the silence of a family forever fractured-a loud, exhausted whimper. The fall of an empire is not a pretty thing.
Yet I've never witnessed a TV show or, I think, even a movie, that left me contemplating those very things as deeply as this did. As the brutal onslaught continued, relentlessly, through this episode, that was replaced by utter despair.īreaking Bad is never associated with notions like mercy, compassion, forgiveness, honesty, humility, etc., it's "public image", if you will, is the exact opposite of all that. Leading up to this, during To'hajiilee, I was overcome by a frantic, desperate, vague plea for mercy on all of them. Watching all the characters I'd grown to love suffering the consequences of their choices and plunging into their personal hells, I felt myself plummeting right along with them. The part of me that, in spite of my rational acknowledgement that I was witnessing one bad turn after another, did not want it to stop and clung quietly to that other irrational part of me that kept hoping things would somehow work out okay. It elicits a turmoil of emotions in me every time but one thing that really struck me from the first watch was a profound sort of personal remorse for that part of me that took visceral pleasure and vicarious thrill in all the preceding madness.
Don't get me wrong, bb is my favorite show and I loved seasons 1-4, but why does everyone love season 5 and Ozymandias?Įdit: the other thing is that in the episode before (idk how to spell it), Jesse isn't really smart enough to figure out that Walt really did poison Brock, and even then it wasn't with the risen, so it was a HUGE conclusion for Jesse to jump to.One word that always comes to my mind in regards to this episode: punishing. I'm just wondering if I'm the only one here who feels this way, and ofc I still have 2 episodes to go, but I just wanted to get your opinion on all this. Imo that would have set up more time for better suspense and more time for us to hate the Nazis. S6 (5b) would have been all about Jesse working with the DEA to catch walt, Walt's involvement with the Nazis, and the repuecussions of retiring. inscription, I feel like it would have had the same slow burn suspense as previous seasons. I understand that Vince Gilligan ended it while is was still a good show so it wouldn't get bad later on (financial reasons too?), but if they had spent more time setting everything up with the Mike/Jesse/Walt enterprise, truly growing the empire, and ended season 5A after a normal amount of episodes with Walt retiring and Hank seeing the w.w. By extension, I feel like the writing and setup has all been masterful in season 5A and 5B, but it moved way too fast to be as enjoyable as seasons 3 & 4. Hank's death at the hands of Nazis who really haven't been involved in the show extensively seems anticlimactic, and while the acting and writing of the episode was incredible, I just feel like it was unfitting for Skylar to attack Walt and then for junior to protect Skylar (when in his eyes, she's just as bad as Walt). I just finished watching Ozymandias for the first time (still have granite state and felina to go) and have had about half a day to think about it, and imo it's immensely overrated.