'Breaking Bad' Final Episodes Recap - Blood Money

Wow.

Hey Dexter, that is how you do a premiere for a final season (though your end should have come about four years ago).

What is there to say about Breaking Bad that hasn't been said already?  It is the greatest drama in the history of television, period.  Yes, I've heard all about The Wire, but no show has ever been so concise in it's storytelling that there is never a loose-end or poor plot point; everything is exactly where it should be, encompassed over five, breathtaking seasons.

Here we are though, Part 2 of Season 5 which will serve us the final 8 episodes of the finite journey of Walter White.

In typical Breaking Bad fashion, we open this episode unsure of why we are seeing teenage kids skateboarding around a park.  We realize soon enough though that this park isn't a park, rather an empty pool, Walter White's pool!  We've jump forward yet again to the future to find the White home completely abandoned and left for vandalism (that Heisenberg sign, perfect).

The Walt we saw the beginning of last year on his 52nd birthday, we find back at his old home to retrieve something he left behind... resin!  That little pellet he's been hiding in the outlet is still there.  The question though is who's he after...or is it, who's after him?

Flash back to the present, after Hank nearly has a heart attack once realizing the truth about Walter in the bombshell dropped in the closing of moments of last year, the man gets to work in going over each and every detail of the Heisenberg case, culminating with the episode's explosive final scene.

Before getting to that though, let's catch up on a few other important characters.

Jessie is bottled up inside and wants nothing to do with the money Walt left him.  He tries bringing it to Saul to give to the parents of that kid who was shot last year on the motorbike and Mike's granddaughter, only to be told by Saul - in a pretty rational perspective - it's a bad idea.

Walt visits Jessie to console him, though at this point, Jessie now knows what type of man Walt is, who can't be trusted.  He knows Walt killed Mike, and Jessie isn't going to buy into his BS anymore.

Skyler seems to be getting by with the fact that Walt is 'out' of the business, though we see another side of her completely after Rita shows up at the car wash to try and get Walt back due to a drop in product quality, only to be threatened by Skyler to never come back again.

Finally, we get Walt, realizing Hank is on to him and needing to pay his good ol' brother-in-law a visit to his garage where he's been putting the pieces together.

Just when you think Walter's about to walk out of that garage after tiptoeing around Hank and what he's up to, making us believe we're going to have to wait to see Hank and Walt finally square off, we get it.  That moment when Hank closes the garage door said all you needed to know, "It's on!"

You have to love how Walt is able to go from denying the accusations, to accepting them, to preaching for sympathy now that we know his cancer's back, to ultimately threatening Hank that if he has no idea who he's talking to, he better tread lightly.

Notes:

• The one thing that bugged me about Jessie in this premiere was that, once again, he's back to being his depressed, sad self.  Honestly, we've seen this song and dance before.  Do something!  Take action!  10 bucks says he ends up teaming up with Hank to take down Walt (though I bet somewhere in the process he bangs that Rita...just a hunch).

• Interesting how Walt is trying to revert back to his pre-Heisenberg days, dressing in plain white and tan colors.  We all know that evil son-of-a-bitch is still there though, and he hasn't left, at all.

• Skyler seems OK with her lifestyle now in owning the car wash and taking comfort Walt is 'out', though I anticipate something is still brewing there where she's either going to turn on Walt or, as she stated last year, wait for him to die.

• How great was Badger's Star Trek story?  I mean honestly, I would pay money to see that short scene (which sure enough, someone's already taken the liberty to put an animated segment together).  Gotta love the popularity of Breaking Bad.

Grade: A