Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 2: Madrigal (2023)

This review contains spoilers.

5.2 Madrigal

A noisy laptop comes to life on a hot day in Scotch-Bonnet. As the media player comes to life, a glance at a window offers an instant snapshot of overexposed bright blues, oranges and greens, one that's good enough to be relegated to the jaded critic's self-pity folder for the foreseeable future. However, he knows this: tired, scruffy and disoriented at the end of a ten-minute coffee break, there's nothing for him. Still, he can't help but let a fleeting flash of longing cross his blurry, cross-eyed face, even as the sunlit scene makes it look like he's about to get a metaphorical slap in the face: here's finally a concession of climactic forgiveness after two months pass, he was sentenced to relentless immersion without trial, and he has an episode ofBreaking Badto check.

That's what happens when I try to open my reviews as gracefully as possible.Breaking Badhe does. I look like a pompous idiot.How do you do it?

Seriously, how do they do it? Why are these "cold starts" always so incredibly satisfying? Time and time again, and just this past week,Breaking Badit will show opening credits so distorted and strong that the final splash of the end credits is a relief so you can finally get back to yours.BED & BREAKFASTmate and breathless what to say. The hell.

Many other programs have done this.LostThey used to do this all the time, but they would so openly say "dun-dun-THERRRRR!" in its run, that effect lessened somewhat as the show progressed, plus there was never any guarantee that it would go anywhere. WithBreaking BadThey just seem to keep getting better. Playing with your head and standing on your toes is certainly a good way to keep the show fresh. Then again, it might be a matter of trust: Vince Gilligan and company have proven so adept at maneuvering their way out of seemingly narrative dead ends and delivering on their promises that most of us viewers would follow them anywhere at this point. .

Even to Germany, where we are at the beginningMadrigal. In the bowels of the established company, a dead-eyed suit dips anonymous nuggets into a selection of spices, while a lab technician enthusiastically broadcasts every wacky name he can think of for the American market. Said process is told that the police are visiting him, when they see the Los Pollos Hermanos logo being dropped, and that the police are examining photos of him snuggling up with Gus and of him going to the bathroom and committing suicide with a defibrillator.

It's a trademark sexy little indie filmBreaking BadContrast between the mundane and the grotesque, deftly mined so as not to be black humor, while the scene's lazy pace serves to squeeze as much suspense and suspense out of its idiosyncratic setting.

Kudos to director Michelle McLaren, who regularly makes TV episodes that look better than most movies - herBreaking BadYthe undeadthey are among the medium's most visually striking examples.

After this bright start, the rest of the episode revolves around the inveterate hero with a heart of gold: Mike. To confirm what I suggested in last week's summary, Mike has no interest in dealing with a volatile element like Walt.Madrigalit's about Mike being forced back into the fold - he's too good a character to leave out.

One of the brilliant things aboutMadrigalMike's plan is that Mike's reinstatement will not be the result of any of Walt's increasingly complex and Machiavellian schemes: when Mike rejects Walt, Walt gets up, shakes his hand, and leaves. While it's obvious that Walt isn't going to give up the world's biggest drug lord that easily, Walt seems to know, consciously or subconsciously, that he doesn't need to do anything to coerce him: on the one hand, Walt is in a ridiculous position. paper. . now, and his confidence is such that he believes things will gravitate towards him; hence the claim that the missing ingredient in the meth puzzle, methylene, will appear if they just have faith, which, of course, it does.

Also, Walt knows that in this game you don't just "fail" when you've had enough: loose ends can get tangled up in a web that prevents anyone from really getting out.

And he proves it in this wonderful showcase of Jonathan Banks' Mike, a very cool anti-hero assassin in the mold of Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson. Mike is the definition of old school: while he is a terribly violent man by any measure, he also has a strict code of ethics and a no-nonsense attitude.

That's why we love him as a character, and here he allows for some sensational noir scenes, including his wonderful interrogation duel with his old schoolmate Hank, where they exchange persistent and ferocious barbs (we also get some delightful teasing from a possible Mike - backstory episode here - please make it happen); and Mike's weary, resigned execution of a comrade who betrayed him.

There are also some wonderfully difficult lines from Mike, worthy of a Dashiell Hammett or James M. Cain novel ("You're a ticking time bomb and I have no intention of being around during the boom" "I don't know what movies you've seen, but in the real world we don't kill 11 people as some kind of prophylactic measure").

However, Mike's commitment to the old school could be his undoing. His decision to spare the annoying middleman Lydia can be interpreted as a "half measure": by not killing her and going back to bed with Walt, he certainly goes against her principles and instincts. Probably not as much as if he had killed her. We've seen throughout the series that Mike has a potential blind spot when it comes to young women (his own granddaughter and the woman in the memorable monologue he delivers).half things), and it looks like he doesn't have what it takes to effectively destroy the lives of two women with a single bullet.

But you may also have noticed that the trust in your men, the ones you personally chose for their steadfastness, isn't as strong as you thought, and ultimately they aren't as committed to the same values ​​of loyalty and stoicism. This is the.

Or maybe you just want some of that $2 million back. There are enough ambiguous undertones in Banks' brilliant performance to suggest it could be a combination of all three; Either way, there's no doubt that Mike knows he's just made a decision that's going to get him into a lot of trouble personally, and he may have to become more ruthless than ever: surely his old-school values ​​won't mean anything at all in the future. Walt's world, where poisoning a child is totally justifiable.

Walt is grossly creepy and perhaps the least likable in this episode. Her scene with poor Jesse showed early on just how dysfunctional and predatory their dynamic had become - Jesse's horrified reaction to discovering the ricin cigarette and subsequent bout of self-loathing and guilt was a good reminder of why she was. in one shot. different moral is like Walt. (as well as a reminder of the great actor Aaron Paul).

Meanwhile, Walt literally stands behind his shoulder and whispers sweet nothings in his ear about loyalty and friendship without flinching. While Walt's heart has undeniably collapsed into an anemic husk by this point, his testicles are now big enough to be seen from space, which I think is more the result of back-to-back successful master plans than an effect. .

The final scene was also chilling, though it ended at essentially the same pace as last week's episode. The sight of Walt trying to assuage Skylar's guilt while obviously trying to initiate sex is something I won't erase from my mind for long, and Skylar's stare of frozen horror was well deserved (you saw how she remembers her balls ).

Walt's downfall, if and when it happens, will be so deserved that I'm starting to wish all the main characters were lining up to get into the trunk, like in that scene.Plane!But one character seems to draw Walt more than any other: when Hank's former boss tells him a scathing story about how Gus acted like his friend but was clearly "a different person," the camera stayed on Hank's face and the story ended. with an enigmatic and thoughtful look. So many questions... will this information drop? Will Hank be able to put the last piece of the puzzle together? And Walt Jr. will you make a meal other than breakfast?

Read from PaulSummary of last week's episode, here.

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hang tags:Breaking Bad