In the series finale of Breaking Bad, Walter White dies. I say that without revealing spoilers because we all knew from the first episode that's how the story would end. The character has lung cancer, and even the two years he's made it in this episode is a lot longer than he was originally expected to survive. Plus, he's involved in a dangerous ( Read more... )

I recently finished watching the series Breaking Bad, the final two episodes, after taking a break from watching for  a few weeks. Why a break? For one, the holidays were coming up, with travel and stuff. And two, the events of the previous two episodes, 5.13-5.14, marked a shift in tone of the series. We saw the climax where Walt's empire crumbles ( Read more... )

It's been a few months since I've tallied statistics about blogging, plus now it's the end of the year- time for retrospective.

I posted 70 journal entries in December. At an average of nearly 2.3 posts/day that's well over my stretch goal of 2/day. It was one of my bloggiest months since January 2024. Blogging about the trip my wife and I took to ( Read more... )

I'm treating season 5 episodes 13-14 of Breaking Bad as one long episode. The break between the two episodes as aired is in the middle of a big gunfight. What a frustrating spot to have to wait another week to see what happens! I'm so glad I'm streaming it after the series is finished so I can just keep watching. That said, ep. 5.14 is widely ( Read more... )

Now that I've vented my frustration about the slow pace of several of the episodes in Breaking Bad season 5 I'll write about what's actually happened. This is a summary across eps. 9-12, the first half of season 5 "B".

Hank is onto Walt. Hank's "OMFG" moment came at the end of S5E8 when he discovered a book of poetry in Walt's house with a note ( Read more... )

It's been a while since I've blogged about Breaking Bad. ...Well, not a long time. My last journal entry about it posting yesterday! But since writing "How Much is Enough?" regarding episode S5E8 I've now watched four more episodes before wanting to write again.

Why go four episodes before writing? Frankly it's because the episodes are slow. It's ( Read more... )

Breaking Bad S5E8 is an episode where Walt hits his stride. His stride as a drug lord, that is. After the deal he negotiated with a rival gang lord from Phoenix (previous episode) he's free from the having to find or manage a distribution operation and can focus on what he does best: the chemistry. He just has to rub out 9 witnesses in prison first ( Read more... )

After a lot of talky scenes in the previous episode, where Walt explains at (almost painful) length why he won't take a $5 million exit strategy, Season 5 episode 7 of Breaking Bad returns the standard of action, tension, drama, and tragedy from two episodes earlier, the one about robbing a freight train. In this episode Walt strikes a deal to move ( Read more... )

Throughout the series of Breaking Bad, Walt has told himself (and his wife) he's doing all the evil things he's doing as a rising drug lord for his family. His family would be bankrupted by his medical bills for cancer treatment. The drug money takes care of that. His family would be unable to afford basic living expenses once he dies. The drug ( Read more... )

The fifth episode in season 5 of Breaking Bad is a great one. It has 3 extended scenes with great action and tension. And a tragedy at the end. In these scenes we see Walt at his manipulative and coldly calculating worst (or best, if you think of it that way), Jesse as the conscience of the outfit, and Mike as an eye-rolling aging criminal who ( Read more... )