Photograph: Ursula Coyote/AMCAfter almost a year of waiting, the beginning of the end has finally arrived for AMC’s Breaking Bad with the airing of Season 5: Episode 9, ‘Blood Money‘. Directed by Walter White himself, the episode is every bit as brilliant as you’d expect from Bryan Cranston, beginning strongly and also ending with an absolute bang. With the end of the episode came the depressing realisation that there are now only seven more episodes of the series left until it’s brought to an end; things escalate very quickly from where we left off before the mid-season break, as there’s not long to go now, however, this is something that’s absolutely essential in order to fit in everything that needs to occur before the big season finale at the end of September.
Bryan Cranston is as excellent as ever as the despicable Walter White, Aaron Paul plays his part to absolute perfection in the role of a Jesse Pinkman who finally seems to be realising the sheer evil of his former high school chemistry teacher, and Charles Baker and Matt Jones return for a much needed element of comic relief with their superb double act of Skinny Pete and Badger. Although the end of the show is now almost here this is definitely not a drama that appears to show any signs of winding down slowly or having a happy ever after; there is that aspect of comedy with the aforementioned double act, at its core this episode is incredibly dark though, setting the tone for how things are likely to unfold in the remaining seven episodes of the series.
Walt’s cancer is back and he has also built up a lot of enemies; one way or another the end is surely very close for Walter White, and as Season 5 comes to a close it definitely feels like it’s building up to something extremely big. Walt and Jesse may have left their meth production days behind them, their past is far too dark not to come back and haunt them now though, and as Jesse deals with his own personal battles and feelings of self-loathing, Walter White would pray for the luxury of being his own worst enemy as he is now on the wrong side of many people that he has encountered and worked with throughout his time manufacturing methamphetamine.
‘Blood Money‘ is a Breaking Bad episode every bit as big and bold as we could have hoped for from the series; it sets things up strongly for the final seven episodes of the series, and over the course of the next seven weeks we’ll be getting gradually closer to the end of Breaking Bad and discovering everyone’s ultimate fate. It’s not going to be pretty as the drama draws to a close, it’s definitely likely to provide some absolutely incredible television though with the final frontier finally here for Walt, Skyler, Jesse, Hank et al.
UK based film graduate with a huge passion for music, sports and video games.
