Breaking Bad- Going Half Way

I can definitely see why some people think that Breaking Bad is the best series currently on tv. I completely disagree with them, but it makes sense. It is extremely well written, directed and acted. But there is something to be said for pure entertainment value, and sometimes Breaking Bad just doesn't have it. That was not the case this week during the penultimate episode of the third season, which was awesome.

Breaking Bad has become the king of leaving episodes with a bang. Earlier in the season it was the ridiculousness that was 'One Minute' and this week it was a fantastic finish for Walter White, Sr. There really is something to be said for this strategy. Even though a lot of Breaking Bad can be really slow, finishing eps with such energy makes people think the episode was better than it actually was. Even now I'm thinking that this entire 45 minutes was fantastic, when maybe it was just that the final three were so good.

When Walt finds out about the kid getting killed by Gus's trusted employees he leaves his family immediately so that he can go help out his buddy, Jesse. As we watch Jesse get out of his car and creep closer and closer to the two gangsters the tension was crazy high. I had no idea what was going to happen but I was not ruling out Jesse getting killed and him being off the show. What I was not expecting was for Walt to pull his best Hugo Reyes impression and drive in out of nowhere and run over the bad guys in his Aztec. One was straight up dead and Walt straight up shot the other in the head before telling Jesse to run.

I guess Mike the Cleaner's speech to Walter earlier in the episode paid off. He definitely didn't use a half measure when he mirked those two dudes. Going halfway, in putting Jesse in jail, would have been a mistake by Walter. But so was the halfway move by Gus in just telling his employees to stop using kids to sell their drugs. All that accomplished was the employees capping the 11 year old kid in the middle of the street. And kudos to Jesse for sticking up for both the kid and his own opinion when he went toe to toe with big Gus Chiggins.

Only one more episode in the season and I heard it got extended by some minutes. Always an exciting factor.