BREAKING BAD: LIVE FREE OR DIE REVIEW

By Sean Smyth

Breaking Bad is back and it's as magnetic as ever.

Breaking Bad has picked back up (FINALLY) for it's fifth and final season to a record breaking viewing of 2.9 million viewers, says a press release from AMC.  So as you can see Breaking Bad is back in a big way. 

When I first started watching Breaking Bad, and I admit I was not a fan from the beginning, but when I sat down and watched it, I could not help but get into the characters. The show is just so real and ominous. It has a real sense of life and story unlike any other show on TV, that's probably why it's the number one show out there. 

The ability to become so cerebral with the characters and giving scenes a sense of time and space allowing for these long hanging silences and pauses, or just plain old dead air. Yes sound is a major contributor that makes Breaking Bad what it is. But the biggest thing it has going for it is the one and only Bryan Cranston. He is a force to be reckoned with in this show both as an actor and as Walter White, the cancer stricken science teacher turned Meth cooking drug lord. However the only reason he is who he is, is because of the people around him. His co-stars carry their own weight and provide him with the ability to just do his thing and it makes for some of the most tension filed, dramatic, murderous, hilarious moments on TV. 

Now Live Free or Die kicks off, not with the bang most TV shows do. No. In fact, I don't think Breaking Bad has ever really started big. It likes to have that slow burn story telling that really makes you think, and this episode is no different from the rest except it's doing something the show has not utilized yet. Flash forwards. 

Breaking Bad is known for using it's cold opens as backstory pieces or moments in characters lives that really show who they are and what they want. They had several with Jesse and Walt, and even one with Danny Trejo's character before he ended up with his head attached to a turtles back. 

This cold open starts us off a little ways down the road with a scruffy bearded and short haired Walt, looking worse for wear as he meets with a strange man in the bathroom at a Denny's (Jim Beaver who is awesome) to buy something on the DL. 

The sequence is great, seeing Walt on his own and still living this life that he's come accustomed too. Having a polite and normal conversation with the waitress claiming after claiming it was his 52 birthday coupled with his uneasiness in meeting with this guy. I can only wonder if they are going to continue these flash forward cold opens until the events of the linear show coincide but seeing into the future is always cool. And makes us wonder why our anti-hero is alone and haired and seemingly sick. 

Walt looking like a Vietnam Vet. 

The show picks up right where last season left off (minus the cold open) as Walt and Company are dealing with the fall out of what has happened to our favorite Drug King, Gus, after a bomb from Walt left him missing half his face and dead. 

Now the question is this. With the big bad drug dealer out of the way, what's next? Well, hide the evidence of course. And that is pretty much what this entire episode is about. Walt, Jesse, and Mike (Old Man Assassin Bad Ass and Gus' former right hand man) are reluctantly thrown together to try and retrieve evidence from the bombed out Meth Lab at the Laundry Mat before the Po-Po can look at it. 

However it isn't Walt or Mike that comes up with the plan this time. It's Jesse on the deck and delivering a solid idea to which Walter follows up with. That leads in to some time consuming scenes that I don't mind personally because I love long scenes. I believe you can see the actors truly being their characters in the longer scenes, and that makes all the difference. But the biggest thing is that these scenes lead into us actually being able to see the plan play out in both an ingenious and hilarious turn of events. And it was nice seeing Jesse and Walt back on the same side and working together. 

"Doesn't if seem like we've done this dance before?"

Meanwhile Skyler and Saul are meeting up to discuss the incident that occurred last season involving Ted. And for anyone who saw it, you know I'm talking about the whole tripping over the rug they set up kinda obviously. Turns out Ted is in a bad way and Skyler feels she is to blame. 

Skyler is also dealing with the knowledge that her husband and father of there children has become a murder. And a good one at that. She is utterly terrified of the man. So much that she doesn't really acknowledge him. It's him being forced to talk to her. Maybe this new found terror will rein Skyler's sassiness back in and maybe I can start feeling more for her because lets face it, over the years her personality has been, for the lack of a better word, annoying. She's with Walter, she's against him, she's being responsible, she's trying to hard and becomes irresponsible. 

That is pretty much the episode in a nutshell. It was very Walt centered with Mike and Jesse tagging along for the ride. While Skyler did her Skyler thing. Other than that, Hank takes a visit to the after math of the Meth lab and hints at a future problem that the gang will  more than likely have to deal with down the road. 

Overall the episode was long and cerebral with tons of dead air and tension that really built on the characters new relationships and Walt's new frame of mind after blowing Gus to hell. The sound and the centric visuals on mundane things are always a treat especially when they are a big part of the characters. More then anything though, Live Free or Die really laid the ground work of what is to come in final season of this masterpiece. And I Can't wait to see more. 

I got next

It's to bad they are splitting it up with such a mid sea on gap. I guess AMC wants to savor the show as much as they can. But I'm greedy so... I want it now!

Pros/Cons

Pros:

Great open.

Wonderful slow burn story telling that allows for the building to tension

A great sequence that makes you laugh and say damn that's new at the same time.

Cons: 

Skyler's story doesn't go to many places. 

Hank is a bit under utilized.

I don't consider this a con but you may: The scenes can go on a bit long if your not into that kind of thing, 

I give this beauty a 4.5 out of 5! Blame Skyler for not letting it be a 5 out of 5. 

Anyway, there you have it. What did you think of the episode? Let me here it in the comments below. As always thank you for reading.