Quick Take: Breaking Bad, "Full Measure"
"I can't do it, Mr. White... Like you said I'm not a... I can't do it." - Jesse
Review: Breaking Bad, "Full Measure"
(S0313) It's hard to imagine an unbelievably good third season ending on a more tense and dramatic and emotional and searing note, right? (And when I say "unbelievably good" I'm starting to think that Breaking Bad Season Three is up there in terms of all time great TV seasons with the likes of the first few seasons of The Sopranos, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Two, or whatever great season of television you can throw out there).
But let's back things up a step or two.
In case we needed reminding, "Full Measure" tells us that Walter H. White (Bryan Cranston, in the role of a lifetime), AKA Heisenberg, is a bad bad man. And if the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then our man Walt is building himself quite a superhighway. His badness is absolutely fascinating because we've watched a journey of arguably selfless if amoral recklessness (his descent into the drug trade to help his family's finances after learning he had lung cancer) devolve into (breaking) bad decision after bad decision aimed at either self-preservation or to reclaim some small piece of the life that he's let crumble away around him. Here, in the dark end of the third season, that means taking out two drug dealers in "Half Measure" before his tragic train wreck of a partner Jesse (Aaron Paul) could kill himself in confronting them.
Again, that decision, that has a tiny core of good intent (save the f---up of a surrogate son that he did much himself to corrupt and contaminate, to use a meth and chemistry lab term), necessarily will have disastrous consequences in that Gus Frings (Giancarlo Esposito, in a cerebral and unsettling performance that brought much to the table this season) will surely have to take measures – full measures as it turns out – in retaliation.
In retrospect, I'm realizing that no one around Walter White understands the true nature of his desperation and intelligence and rationalization, and how that makes him a wildcard that cannot be planned for, or against (Gus asks him, stunned: "You medical condition… has it grown worse?"). That equation led to explosive turns of events in the episode's end run – starting with Walt's plan to rub out Gale (David Costabile) now that he's a bona fide murderer, which got interrupted when he was picked up and taken to the warehouse. This led to Walt quickly figuring out that Mike (Jonathan Banks, who slid into a more central role throughout the season, and a damned fine performance at that) was going to rub him out. Walt pleaded, blubbered (calculatingly?), quickly offered to give up Jesse, the same kid he had murdered for and in effect protected so recently. And then things got amazing and chaotic and obscenely suspenseful all at once in a way that has happened a half dozen times this season but so rarely on any other show or film I've ever seen that I can't think of another example offhand.
Walt alerts Jesse over the phone that he's been compromised, and sends him to kill Gale himself. That action and the scene that follows is wonderful and powerful and gripping and sorrowful, and a towering culmination of everything we've seen over three seasons (it's strongly implied that Jesse pulls the trigger and shoots Gale, though we don't know for certain). Walt is a bad bad man most of all because he has drained every ounce of humanity and light out of someone who was really just a troubled kid and small time drug dealer when first they met.
Now, that Breaking Bad has (thankfully) been picked up for a fourth season, we can only imagine how deep the contamination is going to seep in around Walt and his family. Hank (Dean Norris) will be at home and more able to watch the dealings of the White household, and Walt Jr. (RJ Mitte) still has no clue that his father is a monster, and Skyler (Anna Gunn) is in way over her head with her little fantasy of being the "Danny" at the car wash.
And that's to say nothing of what Gus will do now that Walt has murdered not just two of his street level dealers, but his handpicked meth cook to oversee his multi-million dollar enterprise. And oh yeah, the Mexican cartel is back.
More thoughts on "Full Measure":
Video: Breaking Bad, "Full Measure"
Head inside the episode, courtesy of AMC:
Recap: Breaking Bad, "Full Measure"
In a flashback, a real estate agent shows a younger Walt and Skyler (pregnant with Walter, Jr.) the house where they'll eventually live. Walt, then working at the prestigious Sandia Laboratory and envisioning a bright future with three children, worries they aren't setting their sights high enough with this house. "We've got nowhere to go but up," he says. More at AMC.
From Around the Web: Breaking Bad, "Full Measure"
Good write-up. I haven't been so anxious for a new season to immediately start in quite a while. I watched S1 and S2 on Blu-ray soon together before this season started so my viewing of it has been warped and uinnatural.
In interviews, Gilligan said he didn't intend any ambiguity in final shot and Gale is dead. Of course, nothing is certain until we see it, and the writers might get some great ideas, but I don't see any reason for him to go out of his way to be definitive.