Granite State

This episode was insane, especially the ending. Its script is a real gold. The main theme of this series is played in just one scene in the whole 5 seasons, and that scene had to be one of the greatest moment of TV history, just as it is. I really don't know what to say about it, but I know that I can not forget this episode (and the last scene) for a long time. Breaking Bad should be teached at the movie schools. While most of the other shows gets worse, BB gets better with every new season until the very last second of the series.

In comparison to the masterpiece of an episode preceding this one, every positive thing I have to say about "Granite State" seems like an exaggeration, but I won't take "Ozymandias" as a threshold and instead focus on the multiple features that make the penultimate of all Breaking Bad episodes a brilliant one, just not the all-time best.

Regardless of where I start, every last scene or even shot of "Granite State" is heart-wrenching to watch and thereby continues the pall of tragedy and lack of any form of humour that is clouding the series since "Ozymandias", although this time, this is done through subtlety and (mostly) mental distress, conjuring up a reaction in me that was close to the shock I felt whilst watching the aforementioned episodic predecessor. Both major characters are imprisoned at the moment, albeit with a significant comfort distinction between these two forms of confinement, and both Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul step up to Emmy- worthy performances as they illustrate their characters' desperate situations in tremendously affecting, nearly wordless acting.

Yet the misery doesn't end there and writer/director Peter Gould makes sure that the supporting cast gets its share as well, further decreasing the cheer and increasing emotionally powerful scenes (one shot of Marie gazing into space and one of her vandalised house are all it takes to showcase that her life as well is at an absolute nadir) in an episode that really leaves you depressed as the end credits roll. As the Breaking Bad theme song is played in full length for the one and only time on the series and a paper swan on the bar felt like a Prison Break reference to me (though nobody else seemed to have interpreted it this way), "Granite State" has reached its ending and makes audiences ready for the final episode not with a cliffhanger of "To'hajiilee" or "Gliding Over All" proportions, but with what is the darkest outlook possible.

After this outstanding episode of Breaking Bad we will have friends and colleagues disputing over what will happen in the final episode. How will it end? What is Walt's purpose with the gun in the trunk of the car? Did Walt's previous partners and founders of Grey Matter push him to his tightly bound limits?

Then we will have an extensive amount of people who'll just watch with admiration and observe the fact that this series is one that sits confidently as one of, if not the finest series ever written.

From the dawning of the series to the imminent final climax I have been left astonished countless times, by elegantly cunning plots, unforeseen developments and breathtaking acting.

This episode once again delivers all. Answering many of my previous questions yet opening doors to so many more. As a build up to next weeks series finale it couldn't have been shaped better.

Whatever can be said about tonight's episode whatever words can be written, they won't do justice to this hour of television, which is without a doubt the hardest episode of TV I've ever watched.

Every time you thought things couldn't get worse, they did. Every time you thought the lowest point had been reached, it hadn't been.

There was more. It kept coming. It kept finding new ways to be mind- bendingly, soul-churningly devastating. ... So that was stomach-turning to witness, even as I could appreciate that the first third or so of Granite State was one of the most well-written, well-directed and seamlessly edited things I've ever seen.

This is, I think, my 6th review of a Breaking Bad episode. I have to say it is one of the most difficult tasks ever. There are so many thoughts racing through my head; theories, losses, intense moments. I try to keep it as vague as possible, but frankly I'm beginning to run out of ideas.

The sheer shock after every single episode of this brilliant series is close to unbearable. The shearing intensity that makes your heart race like crazy just gets me every time.

This show is not just a piece of entertainment, its a legacy, it teaches people, it educated us, but still at the same time entertains us to the point where it becomes the only thing we talk about.

I wish there was a higher rating than 10/10 for this episode, but there isn't so I guess its 100% from me.