Spoilers if you haven't watched Episode 14 ("Ozymandias") of Breaking Bad yet! Major spoilers in fact. The video below looks at some of the major scenes from this week's episode.
"Ozymandias" felt like a series of major scenes, strung together with itty-bitty pieces of filler, like Skyler telling Walt Jr. to buckle up to be safe. Of course, he's probably at a higher risk of being accidentally stabbed by a kitchen knife than he is being killed or severely injured in a car accident in this week's episode. Strangely, that knife scene was like a desperately needed emotional release after Hank's death. Hank's death. Dammit, Hank is dead! That's what I'm here to talk about right now, as we'll have a full breakdown of "Ozymandias" up by tomorrow. Tonight, we're here to mourn Hank, who went out with dignity, but went out nonetheless. And we should have seen that coming given how things ended last week.
"My name is ASAC Schrader, and you can go f--k yourself."
The above video includes Dean Norris talking about wanting his character to know he's dying before it happened, and his wish came true. Walt may not have realized it was over, but Hank knew the score. As someone whose been firmly Team Hank probably since the end of Season 4, I hated to see him go. I wanted to see Hank win. For all his efforts to track Heisenberg, it seemed only fair that he should achieve some measure of victory. Instead, he's taken down by a bunch of white supremacists. And we have Walt to blame. Oh, sure, Walt did everything he could to save Hank from being killed, but let's not forget that Walt brought these guys into the picture in the first place. He associated them. Heck, he invited them out there to kill Jesse. So, while Walt did try to save Hank's life, he's almost directly to blame for Hank being in that predicament to begin with and he knows it.
If there was any "victory" to Hank's death -- and I'd say defeat is more applicable to the whole situation from his side of things -- it was that he knew it was coming and he wasn't foolish enough to believe begging would make any difference. That didn't make that scene any less gut-wrenching. And suddenly I found myself feeling Team Walt, wanting Walt to turn the tables on these guys in a big way. Then Walt was ordering Jesse's execution and pointing the murderers in the direction of Jesse's hiding spot. To throw salt on the wound, Walt icily confessed that he watched Jane die and did nothing about it. So I think I'm Team Jesse now. For now. Though things aren't going so well for him either. Last we saw of Jesse, he was hooked up to a dog run and being forced to cook meth for creepy Todd. At least he's alive?
