Is it fair to designate a television series as the best of its kind simply because of a single sequence of unparalleled brilliance – one that catches the viewer completely off-guard and broadens his or her understanding of what a dramatic television program can deliver? AMC's Breaking Bad of late has given me reason to believe so, though it helps that Bad was already one of the medium's best even before it hit recent new highs.
Now in its third season of electrifying and utterly fearless storytelling, Bad spins the feverish saga of terminally ill Walter White, a flawed family man and chemistry teacher with a gift for cooking top-grade meth who descends into one fresh hell after another in an effort to provide for his loved ones before he passes. Bad is equal parts domestic drama and crime story, and it continues to simultaneously redefine both of those time-worn genres even as it evolves into something totally unique. I can't think of another series like it – one that so devastatingly captures and comments on the ugly realities of life with such unapologetic gusto. (Remember, the oppression of the working class and the financial hardships of modern medical care drop-kicked a quietly frantic Walt into his world of bad choices.) It was pervasive in the Seventies, but we rarely get that kind of reflective entertainment in television (or in movies) anymore.
We rarely get the thrills and chills Bad delivered at the end of last week's episode, either, in the sequence to which I alluded above. Following a typical series of unexpected and interconnected plot turns the likes of which have always shaped this show, Walt's brother-in-law Hank, an agent of the Drug Enforcement Agency who had just been relieved of his badge and gun, found himself targeted in a sun-splashed shopping center parking lot by the murderous Cousins, lethal emissaries of a drug kingpin who wanted Walt eliminated. The brutal ultra-violence that went down, during which Hank took four bullets while crushing one Cousin between his SUV and another vehicle and blowing the other's brains out was masterfully rendered in a thrilling set piece of cinematic power that challenged just about any action sequence I can recall in any television series ever, including The Sopranos.
By the way, the shocking and scary scene this week in which we learn the full extent of the surviving Cousin's injuries and witness his subsequent rage is also unlike anything I have ever seen on television. Bad never lets up, and series creator Vince Gilligan doesn't know when to quit, thank God.
Its brute power aside, I think the reason the harrowing attack on Hank had me sitting on the edge of my couch as if I were caught up in the madness myself is because, like millions of other people, I am often in the same position as Hank was when the attack began – seated in my car in a sprawling suburban parking lot, certainly without a gun and generally without any specific fear for my own safety, preparing to drive home after completing whatever errands brought me to that location. What could happen, out in the open, in the middle of a sunny day with dozens of people around? Okay, all sorts of nasty stuff is possible, but who thinks that way? Hank had a lot on his mind – he had just beaten young punk Jesse Pinkman into a mound of raw hamburger and been suspended from his job without pay. But still, who saw this one coming?
This sequence alone made for a standout episode (and the best of Bad to date), but there was another one earlier on that was also a work of scary genius, completely different yet as uniquely powerful in its own way. In it, Jesse, his battered face a swollen, cringe-inducing canvas of blood and bruises, leaned forward in his hospital bed and venomously expressed his hatred of Hank as Walt and their opportunistic snake of a lawyer Saul Goodman listened. Aaron Paul has since the start of this series been a revelation as Jesse, but nothing he had done before prepared me for the menacing power of his performance here.
WhileBryan Cranston remains consistently fine as the hazardously misguided Walt (a performance that has brought him two consecutive Emmy Awards), this season I get the feeling that he is doing that thing actors do to help their co-stars achieve greatness. Not that there had been anything lacking in the work of Aaron Paul, Dean Norris (as Hank) and Anna Gunn (as Walt's wife Skyler, who gets a killer scene all her own near the end of next week's episode), but they are all doing kick-ass, award-worthy work this season. I'm also impressed with Giancarlo Esposito as Gustavo Frings, a cold-blooded meth kingpin operating behind the friendly façade of a very successful community minded fast-food entrepreneur. Along with RJ Mitte as Walt Jr., Bob Odenkirk as lawyer Saul Goodman, Marie Schrader as Hank's wife Betsy and real-life brothers Daniel and Luis Moncada as the Cousins, they comprise one of the best dramatic television ensembles of this or any other season.