Walter white ozymandias1/5/2024 What man wouldn't do anything to protect his family? But Walt has protected nothing. At times, Breaking Bad made you sympathize with Walt's motives. That idea corrupted the suburban ideal of masculinity-a man provides for his family-into a justification for awful things. Remember, Walt defended everything he did with a simple idea: His family needed a nest egg. Rather than dissect each one of these tragedies-and that is exactly what they are-I can't stop thinking about how this episode works as a condemnation of Walt, even as he sacrificed his money and his family. Skyler telling Flynn the truth about Walt. Walter White is an evil man, driven by a veiled devotion to his own magnificence. But where you see shreds of redemption, I see proof of what the show has suggested all along. That was the best hour of television I've never wanted to see. Heller: We agree about one thing: "Ozymandias" is Breaking Bad's apotheosis of stress and pain. So here might be the true shock of the night: Hidden in this draining hour of TV, with two episodes remaining, we saw hints of Walter's redemption. When he likely ensured Holly's return to Skyler by surrendering the baby at the fire station-god, that "mama" scene!-it was a sign that there's some humanity left in him. Tears fell from his eyes as he snarled at his wife, and only after the episode finished did I realize that Walter had been putting on a show for Skyler's sake-going full-Heisenberg to make it seem like she'd been intimidated into keeping quiet. Of course the cops would be listening in. That conversation displayed both a level of monstrousness we'd yet to see from Walter, and a stupidity that seemed out of character. The one moment that rang false tonight was Walter calling Skyler and ranting at her over the phone. Here might be the true shock of the night: Hidden in this draining hour of TV, with two episodes remaining, we saw hints of Walter's redemption.īut. These seem like the transgressions of a vengeful man who's now, truly, only in it for himself. has called the cops, once Jesse's turned out to be a rat, Walter White seems to undergo what may be his final, darkest transformation. So once Hank's dead, once Skyler's slashed at him, once Walter Jr. And we know it pains him: His priorities are still such that he offers up the full $80 million for Hank's life, and his aspirations are such that he still insists to Skyler that all would be OK if she and Walter Jr. Now, he's lost nearly everything and crossed nearly every line. That's probably intentional-the entire run of Breaking Bad has, essentially, been Walt rolling that barrel of money up a hill only to have it come thundering back down. The one spot of comedy in the episode, when Walt rolls his barrel of cash through the desert to an incongruous soundtrack, reminded me the myth of Sisyphus. It's the painful, necessary process of the world being set right. These things are shattering in the context of the show, yes, but they also come with an air of inevitability. The Nazis hold Jesse hostage to cook for them. The hypothetical scenarios spun out in comments sections and in recaps over the past few weeks included most of the big plot points in this episode. Given how powerfully each development landed, it's extraordinary-and, again, to the show's credit-that nearly everything that happened in this hour we could have seen coming. watches and Holly wails? For Skyler falling to her knees as Walt drives away with their infant daughter? For Jesse learning the truth about Jane, and then being enslaved? For Marie learning of Hank's fate? But who could have prepared for the various and profound kinds of agony the rest of the characters went through in this episode? For seeing Skyler and Walt wrestle each other for a carving knife while Walter Jr. Ever since last week's cliffhanger, we've had time to adjust to the fact that, to paraphrase Uncle Jack, there was no feasible way ASAC Schrader was getting out alive. After all, Hank's death, awful as it was, wasn't even the most emotional moment here. That's basically right.īut it's to Breaking Bad's enormous credit that it didn't achieve this feat merely by blood, or surprises, or loss of life. Tonight on Twitter, TV Guide's Oriana Schwindt described "Ozymandias" as the Red Wedding stretched out for an hour. Last week, I suggested Game of Thrones' "Red Wedding" scene beat anything Breaking Bad had done in terms of stressful TV-watching experiences. "That," the friend said, "was next-level harrowing."Īs of now, we are many levels past next-level harrowing. Kornhaber: There's this phrase I've used to describe Breaking Bad ever since chatting with a friend a while back about the scene where Jesse watched a junkie squash another junkie's head with an ATM. Why Kids Should Use Their Fingers in Math Class Jo Boaler and Lang Chen
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