Only a half season remains of this brilliant show, and I couldn't be more sad. But there is something to be said for going out on top, and Breaking Bad definitely remains at the peak of its powers. After this final season finally does wrap, I imagine that the debate between The Wire and Breaking Bad will continue for many years. I myself firmly come down on the side of The Wire in that conversation, but there is no arguing with just how damn good Breaking Bad has become.
For me, and I imagine many others, the ending of "Gliding Over All" was far from surprising. Towards the end of the episode, Walt seemingly takes himself out of the meth game, and the final scenes takes great pains to establish his contentment with both life and family. But we know that will never be the final outcome for Walter White. When Walt first announced to Skyler that he was "out", I had my doubts. After all, despite all the money he has earned (a pretty astronomical sum for less than 3 months of work), viewers of Breaking Bad know that Walter has never been driven by the money, but rather the power, and the recognition.
For that reason, I assumed that the season would end with the big reveal that Walter was only pretending to be out of the game, or with some revelation that would force Walt (in his eyes) to continue cooking meth. But during that last scene with Hank, with the time running down on the episode, I knew that Hank would discover something or have some epiphany that would lead to his suspicion of Walt. I was ready for anything, even a Usual Suspects-style montage that results in Hank dropping his coffee mug.
The actual result was far less predictable, and pretty clever. Poor, innocent harmless Gale came back to haunt Walter instead. It is rather fitting. Before that point on the show, Walter, Jesse, and their associates had done many terrible things. But the murder of Gale had been the point of no return for those two in terms of dubious acts. It's also appropriate because, although we know Walter to be immensely clever, his hubris at time leads to carelessness, and leaving a book laying around that potentially links him to the murder of Gale definitely falls into the category of "careless". This leads to the showdown that has seemed inevitable since the early stages of the show: Hank vs. Walter. Now this show loves to undo our expectations, so the final half-season could go in a completely different direction, but it certainly seems like that will be the theme of the final leg of Breaking Bad.
On to the other great stuff about this episode. As usual, there was a lot. First, the montages. Breaking Bad has long been at the top of the game in terms of montages, and I can't really say they've topped themselves, because I don't think that's even possible at this point, but this episode featured some phenomenal montages. We got another great meth cooking one (which was a little sad for some reason. As much as I want Jesse to escape from the clutches of Mr. White, it never feels right when Walter is cooking with another sidekick, in this case Todd). In addition, we got a great time elapsing
montage, as well as an absolutely brutal montage of the prison killings orchestrated by Walter. This show has always owed something to the mafia film genre, and those influences were very much on display on this episode. Walter ordering the synchronized hits was very Godfather. And the time elapsing montage was like something out of Goodfellas. Those scenes were so good they gave me goosebumps.
I don't want to end this without giving some appreciation to Aaron Paul. With Paul and Bryan Cranston crushing it performance-wise every single episode, it is always difficult to award MVP to any one person in any given episode, but for my money, Paul was the star of "Gliding Over All". The scene where he visits Walter in the garage was heart-rending, given especially what we the audience know about the contents of Walt's trunk. And the scene at his house when Walt visits him, and especially his reaction after Walt leaves, was equally as powerful. Congratulations to Mr. Paul. Now, with the last half-season of Breaking Bad seemingly light-years away, comes the most difficult part of watching this show: waiting.
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