Review: Breaking Bad ‘Ozymandias’ – But We’re Family

When Walt began cooking meth at the beginning of Breaking Bad, we saw him as a desperate, dying man doing the only thing he knew how (chemistry) to leave his family with money after his death. Over the five seasons since the pilot, that illusion’s slowly been stripped away as we learned the story of Gray Matter, and saw Walt’s increasing addiction to the two things eluding him through his entire life: power and money. For a man who purported his criminal activities as something he was doing for his family, Walter White revealed himself to be one of the most selfish, self-preserving humans on the planet, relying on a combination of brains and luck to keep himself afloat over the years.

In keeping with this half-season’s theme of coming full circle, ‘Ozymandias’ opens the same place the pilot opened and last week’s episode ended: the fateful spot of Walt’s first cook in the desert. The episode begins just as Walt is finishing his first cook, the exact moment where he went from being a chemistry teacher to the finest skante chef in the Southwest. After rambling to a still-green Jesse, Walt steps outside and (with some careful editing and great makeup) show Walt calling Skylar on the phone to tell her the first of his many lies.

Now, normally I’m not a fan of the “amended flashback” sequence – but in ‘Ozymandias’, the conversation between Walter and Skyler  is arguably the most important of the series. In it, Skylar describes the “ugly” item of Walt’s that she’s selling on eBay (remember the 50th birthday handjob scene?): it’s of the sad clown Canio from Pagliacci (and also Walt’s favorite piece). For those unfamiliar, the story of Pagliacci is simple: it’s a play about how revenge and jealousy destroys everything one loves (a fact it states in the prologue and displays over its two acts).

Simply put, Walt is the sad clown: by the time he finally gets the attention he wanted, the power and money he always thought he deserved from himself, he failed to realize that he had corrupted his very soul with the rage building in him since he lost the company he co-founded (and the woman he loved). Walt was never really a man driven to help his family: he wanted to make that money to help himself pay for cancer treatment (something he’d never tell his family). By the time he’s on the phone lying to Skylar, it’s already too late for Walt: as he tells Jesse just moments before, “the reaction has begun”.

‘Ozymandias’ then fades out the scene before going to credits: the ghosts of the van and the younger, slightly more innocent Walt and Jesse fade from the shot, leaving nothing but the desert – a reference to the final line of the poem tonight’s episode was titled for:

“…Round the decay
of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

When it returns, the final gunshots of last week’s shootout ring in the air, and we return to the heart-pounding gunfight between Hank/Gomez and Todd’s crew. Gomez is dead, Hank’s shot in the leg, and Jesse’s nowhere to be found: but Walt still insists there is a solution to the issue. He still has a family, so the illusion that it can all be fixed remains in his mind: he tries to talk to Uncle Jack (*shudder*), but Hank (along with everyone else) know that it’s all done for. Even after Walt spills the beans that all his money is out here, it’s not enough for him to save Hank… but even after he dies, Walt STILL thinks he can find a way out, to fix it and make it all better. He still can’t let go of the idea: and what does anyone do when it all goes to shit? They cling to the one thing we’re always supposed to count on in life: family.

But Walt doesn’t care about his family: sure, Hank’s death shocks him, but it’s not long before he points out Jesse to his murderous crew and stands waiting to watch his face get blown off. It’s only Todd who steps in to “save him”: and even then, Walt doesn’t try to stop anything. For seasons, I’ve been talking about how important Walt’s paternal relationship with Jesse was to his humanity: and when he sends Jesse off to a short stay of torture-flavored execution, it’s clear that the anger and hate has completely consumed Walt’s entire being, leaving only the evil sociopath at his core.

What Walt doesn’t know while he’s trying to save some of his own money (the $10-11 million he’s “allowed” to keep), is that the White family is fracturing. Marie shows up, tells Skylar that Hank caught him (Hank’s phone call turned out to be what we thought it was: his last) and demands that Walt Jr. (who Marie will only call ‘Flynn’ now) learn the truth. He can’t believe it, of course – from all we’ve seen, Walt Jr. is the one uncorrupted soul in this world (at least to this point). Marie has her kleptomaniac side, Walt and Hank are driven by their anger and desire for power, and Skylar just played along because it was easier (and lied to save Ted’s ass): everyone but Flynn have been shown to be morally corrupt in some fashion. Smartly, ‘Ozymandias’ cashes in on that emotional investment over the past five seasons, reinforcing his presence as the one consistent anchor in the White family in the climatic scene (honestly, this episode is basically a 46-minute climatic scene) in the White’s living room.

Once Walt Jr. picks up the phone and calls the police, Walt finally knows it’s over. Even with Skylar swinging a knife at him, Walt still doesn’t walk out of the house. Like when faced with the prospect of Hank’s death, Walt can’t stand to see anything happen to his “family” – even though he’s spent the last year-plus of his life undermining them, lying to them, and putting them in danger around every turn. He’s always been able to hold onto his son, even after the issues in his marriage: and once that relationship is fractured, Walter White is gone forever. From that moment, all that is left is Heisenberg – the only thing Walt has left to cling onto now that his entire world has fallen apart.

Using Rian Johnson’s trademark zooming and panning techniques, ‘Ozymandias’ is a relentlessly paced episode, enhancing the idea of small moments becoming big images as the camera pulls back from an fixed point (say, Walt’s ragged face in the reflection of a sideview mirror) to reveal the aftermath of that emotion (he’s driving away from Albuquerque, taking the ride that Jesse could’ve taken to end this all peacefully). It also speaks to how little details color an entire image, the small picture/big picture problem Walt’s always struggled with. And the camera doesn’t stand idly by as the entire world of Breaking Bad falls apart at the seams, pausing only to reflect on quiet moments in the desert after Hank’s death. It watches like Walt does as the cars drive away from the desert, the dust settling around him to reveal a vast stretch of nothing, an emptiness colored by past lives and worlds these characters once occupied.

We all had our reservations with how Breaking Bad would reach its conclusion, but ‘Ozymandias’ brings years of building tension to a head with devastating consequences (Hank gets a nice ‘Fuck you’ moment to go out on, but still… guy dies in a fucking desert surrounded by strangers and his evil brother-in-law), huge character moments for every member of the White family (Walt abducting Holly and Skylar’s reaction was particularly harrowing), and of course, the long-awaited destruction of Walt’s empire. And what makes it so damn good? How awful it all feels: it takes a very Sopranos tone reminding us of how awful Walt is, bringing out long-held cards like Walt telling Jane about her death and Walt Jr’s knowledge of who his father was (notice how Walt condemns one son and tries to save the other) to make the audience’s stomach turn in knots.

It’s an hour of horrific images, from Hank laying defeated on the ground, to Marie and Skylar’s reaction to Hank’s death, and Walt standing by (literally handcuffed in a number of scenes), unable to change the fate he’d laid out for himself years back. Like the sad clown from the opening sequence, Walt’s packed up and on his way out of Albuquerque, alone and wanted by every drug enforcement officer in the southwest, an ugly artifact without a name or a home.

Grade: A+

Other thoughts/observations:

– traditionally, my grading scale stops at A – but ‘Ozymandias’ is not only a heartbreaking, balls-to-the-wall episode of Breaking Bad, but it managed to exceed my expectations for the show’s final culmination of its biggest story lines. It may not be a perfect episode of television, but it’s the closest thing I’ve seen in a long time.

– Hank: “You’re the smartest guy I’ve ever met, but you’re too stupid to realize… he made up his mind ten minutes ago.”

– “What’s with all the greed here? It’s unattractive.”

– Todd, to Walt: “Sorry for your loss.”

– Holly’s sad face in the fire engine broke my heart into a tiny million little pieces.

– “You have got to prepare yourself” says a black-adorned Marie to Skylar, unaware that Hank didn’t make it back into town with Walt in custody… or back into town at all.

– WALT KIDNAPS HIS OWN DAUGHTER. He gives her back, but it’s way too late for him to try and make “the right choice”.

– Walt can’t even look at himself in the mirror anymore: he sees his reflection in the rear view mirror, and yanks it to a different angle.

– Flynn kills it in this episode: after Skylar tells him to put on a seatbelt because it’s not safe, he looks at her and says “You’re shitting me, right?”

– “Take My Love By The Hand” plays as Walt pushes his wheelbarrow of cash through the desert: “Say goodbye to everyone.”

– Walt: “We’re a family… we’re a family.”

– still considering what the black and white dogs that crosses the road at the end symbolizes: the black/white of Marie/Skylar? the idea that Walt has left the good (white) and bad (black) behind, crossing from the ‘good’ side of the road to the ‘evil’, never to return? Is it a reminder of the rabid dog (Jesse) put back on his leash, or the one still off of it (Walt)? Too many thoughts on something that probably doesn’t matter all that much?

– Walt’s phone call at the end of the episode is such a powerful moment: he channels all his anger and desperation into doing the only “right” thing he has left to do. He finally speaks his mind blaming everything on someone else (“you stupid bitch”) and getting angry like he always does, but we can all see its breaking his heart to end it all like that, a facade for the police recording than an actual threat. But as always on Breaking Bad, even when we lie, we still tell the truth: “family or no… you let that sink in.” He’s enjoying being Heisenberg, and realizing what that all means to him at the same time (as he did in the opening, enjoying and feeling bad for lying to his wife at the same time). Amazing stuff.

– does Walt want the ricin for himself? It seems the most logical decision: Walt will never die at the hands of another. He has just enough luck for that to happen – and the first time he tried to kill himself with a gun (back in the pilot), he failed, the gun jamming at the last second. He’ll have to kill himself with chemistry to save the people he loves (add the saddest “Bitch!” you’ve ever heard to the end of that sentence).

– “I’ve still got things left to do.”