"Breaking Bad" Season 5 Premiere -- "Live Free or Die" Rambling Recap

After months of anticipation, our beloved “Breaking Bad” is back for its fifth and final season, and Sunday’s premiere lacked no luster.  Kicking things off with a typically cryptic opening scene, we find Walt in a Denny’s, donning what is either a dowdy disguise or the result of a pretty rough couple of months (equally likely and non-exclusive).  He looks despondent but anxious over an untouched breakfast and accidentally engages in conversation with the all too cheery waitress, whose can of happy worms is opened when he tells her it’s his birthday.  She’ll have him know his breakfast is FREE then--I said FREE--so long as he proves with his ID that he’s not committing Free Birthday Shit fraud (a rising problem in American society).  He doesn’t give a damn, but she basically insists: “free is good, free is always good!”  He acquiesces and shows her his license, an obvious fake from New Hampshire, which starts her to prattling on about something or other.  He slips away from the counter when he notices a certain man entering the restroom, but not before leaving a whopping C-note under his plate.  Since securing his status as the Meth King of the Southwest, he will never again be mistaken as the kind of guy who accepts a free Denny’s breakfast.  He meets the man in the restroom--someone familiar, though I can’t quite place him--and Walt slips him a cash-stuffed envelope in exchange for a set of car keys.  He asks if there is an instruction manual, to which the man replies that there’s something in there “off the Internet.”  With a done deal and a flimsy good luck, the man departs.  We don’t know exactly what they’re talking about, but we are intrigued!  In the parking lot, Walt locates the car left for him and provocatively opens the trunk to find some sort of automatic weapon that ain't nuttin' to fuck with (we then remember the man as the under-the-table arms dealer from whom Walt bought his first gun; aw, how fast they grow).  Cue opening credits.  Hi.  We’ve missed you.

Back to the present moment, which picks up where we left off with season 4.  Walt is on the phone with Skyler, who’s still holed up at Hank’s house due to that clusterfuck of death threats, and she’s frighteningly sure her husband is responsible for Gus Fring’s sudden demise.  He simply tells her it’s over and that they’re safe, which freaks her out even more.  Once off the phone, he rushes home to take care of the bomb-making mess he left in the kitchen (a good cook always cleans up); to be a fly on the wall if Skyler came home to that!  Just as he’s pouring himself a drink he remembers one more thing and rushes out back to dispose of what we see is the Lily-of-the-Valley plant, proof that Walter did actually poison young Brock in order to motivate Jesse to go along with his plan to assassinate Gus.  The kid’s okay and the plan worked, but this just secures the ever-present theme that Walt will do anything to survive and thrive.  Of course this is the concept around which the show revolves, but it’s reaching new heights and plundering new depths, as this is no longer just about providing a financial future for his family.  This is about straight up winning. Everything.

With impeccable timing, Skyler and the kids come home, Walt Jr. spraying his shorts over the thrill of it all.  Gus Fring a major drug dealer, his uncle Hank a major hero--if the kid could act cool for even a nanosecond he could probably even majorly get laid.  But that’s clearly not going to happen.  Though visibly irked at the idea of Hank getting the credit, like usual, for once Walt has more pressing matters than his ego and follows Sky to the bedroom where she coldly unpacks.  She finally admits she’s just plain scared of him, and we all know this turns Walt on.  Content to settle down and finally have that damn drink, one last crucial thing dawns on him.  And this one’s a doozy.

Back at the superlab, now destroyed since we last saw it in flames, Hank and the boys are looking fly in Hazmat suits (and a cane!  Very bold accessory), picking through the gnarly remains.  When Hank points out some mangled object above them, silly, useless Gomez supposes it’s “lab equipment,” but Hank’s got a hunch it’s a “camera.”  Of course we know this is the camera that documented the direct participation of our nearest and dearest in the largest methamphetamine production organization ever, that which Gus jerked it to back in his Pollos Hermanos office. Shhhiiiit.

All-Business Mike is for some reason still down in Mexico, healing from the gunshot wound he sustained during the recent, stylishly poolside cartel shootout.  When he learns Gus is dead, he’s suddenly A-OK, driving angrily through the desert, presumably to give the man he knows is responsible a piece of his mind (still not sure why he cares much).  But Walt and Jesse are on a mission as well and conveniently cross paths with him--in a great camera shot, all expansive and dusty and yellow--for a tense but necessary reunion.  They explain the current situation and need him to tell them where Gus kept his video surveillance footage, though they soon learn that the police already have custody of Gus’ laptop and other office equipment.  Mike is sure they’re toast and is hell bent on disappearing, but Walt and Jesse reel him back in with the promise of a plan to destroy the brutally incriminating evidence without even entering the building in which it’s kept.  Committed frenemies Walt and Mike get nowhere squawking back and forth until Jesse can interject his own idea which looks to be pretty brilliant: magnets.  *Chirp chirp*

*Chirp chirp*

SHIT YEAH!  MAGNETS!

Meanwhile, Saul Goodman pays Skyler an unsolicited visit at the carwash, to inform her that whilst in negotiations to write that hefty check to the IRS which she organized, Ted Beneke had a bit of a mishap (remember that scene?  The oranges and all?  LOL).  He’s alive, which is rather inconvenient considering what he knows.  Skyler goes to see him in the hospital, and we see the once smug Ted looking wrecked in every imaginable way.  She feels bad for him, I feel bad for him, but at the end of his “I’ll never breathe a word” spiel Skyler puts on her super stone cold face and coolly replies, “Good.”  Yikes!

With the help of their friend at the junkyard (who totally saved their asses with the whole RV-ditching debacle), the three amigos concoct a pretty simple plan to take care of their vexing little problem.  They’ve essentially rigged a giant magnet that they can control from outside the police station, which will not only erase the computer but for kicks will slam everything made of metal into the evidence room wall.  Stay in school, kids!  Science is fun!  In the getaway car, Mike is still skeptical and wonders why he should believe the plan even worked.  In that way that he does, Walt responds, “because I say so.”  Rrrruff.

Sometime either before or immediately after that, Walt visits Saul, who explains to him what happened to a rather sizable chunk of his money (you know, he gave it to Skyler to give to Ted to give to the IRS.  Ugh!).  Saul proclaims that all this is too much for even him, a little rant Walt tolerates.  He then stands, the subject of a great camera angle from below which makes him look quite large and authoritative. And he is just that as he approaches the weak-kneed Saul behind his desk and creepily cautions him that they’re not done until he says so. When he returns home, undoubtedly on a bit of a power trip, he corners Skyler in an uneasy embrace and whispers "I forgive you." Why is this chilling and creepy? We know Walt loves his family and would never hurt them (?), but will he take advantage of his wife's declared fear of him? Yeah, probably so.

With the conclusion of this episode, we realize Walt’s ballooning ego seems to have no limits, which has mostly worked for him since he’s just so damn good at what he does. Considering where he started as a doormat of a cancer-ridden high school chemistry teacher, the progression is logical and classic.  But science teaches us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction; in its final hours, will the king fall from his throne?


Other questions: did the magnet trick really work?  What was the information the cop discovered behind the framed photo of Gus?  Methinks this will be an even bigger problem for the boys.

See ya next week (maybe)!