Since its premiere in 2008 on the channel AMC (American Movie Classics), the TV series “Breaking Bad” has questioned morality and raised eyebrows as it follows the underachieving science-genius turned high school teacher, Walter White as he discovers that he has Stage III cancer and only two years to live. Desperate, White decides to make and sell high quality meth-amphetamines in order to support his wife and teenage son, demonstrating the consequences that terminal diseases can have on a middle-class working man and what he considers right and wrong, as well as showing how fast money and power can lead to corruption, even for those who would normally be nice, respectable people.
Season Five of AMC’s hit series “Breaking Bad” picks up where the finale of Season Four, Episode 13: Face-off, left off, shortly after the untimely death of drug kingpin Gustavo Fring, who was killed by a bomb explosion. Fring, who teamed up with protagonist, Walter White in the previous season, was a drug kingpin who distributed meth throughout the southwest, and in season four ordered a hit on Walter and Jesse. Just like every season prior, there are a number of important moments from Season Five; for example, in Episode Three, Hazard Pay, Walter moves back in with his wife Skyler and Mike Ehrmantraut joins Saul Goodman’s meth operation. Also notable, Skyler begins a torrid affair with her boss, Ted Beneke in retaliation to Walt’s dangerous and corrupt life at the beginning of the season.
Throughout Season Five, the audience watches as Walt’s relationship with his wife deteriorates. The audience also sees how White is being corrupted by the drug trade, as well as by the power he has within it. Furthermore, we see more of how Walt’s corruption takes a toll on his family. Walt’s corrupt lifestyle provides a bad influence for his children, and angers his wife, who realizes the negative effect his lifestyle is having and wants desperately to save her and her children from it. This leads to White’s children being taken into the care of Skyler’s sister, Marie and her husband Hank, with Skyler threatening to claim spousal abuse if Walter attempts to bring the children home.
As the season progresses, and White’s operation starts to take more and more heat from the authorities, cooking becomes more risky, dangerous, and difficult. And with a rising death count and the operation struggling to stay afloat, tensions within the group begin to boil. Things really start to escalate when Mike, taking heat from the DEA, wants out, and Jesse, appalled by the death of a boy for the cause of cooking meth, proceeds to bow out as well. Abandoned by his partners and hated by his unfaithful wife, Walter finally starts to realize he has left himself with nothing; which he then proceeds to hold over Jesse’s head. Filled with intense action and electric drama, the final season of “Breaking Bad” encompasses the captivating mood and signature feel of the series, as actor Bryan Cranston continues to prove himself capable, not only as a comedy star, but an enrapturing and intense character as well.
Season five continues with Walt becoming more reckless, and more spiteful, taunting those who oppose them and tormenting them into believing him and doing what he wants them to do. As he becomes more and more manipulative, his wife becomes more and more distant, constantly saying that she “wishes the cancer would come back.” The audience starts to realize that in trying to secure his family’s financial future, he has lost sight of the reasons why he started cooking meth, and now does it because it makes good money and puts him in a position of power, instead of simply a means to an end.
With the season ending in a high-powered, cliffhanger conclusion full of bittersweet moments and shocking realizations, fans are left saddened by the loss of “Breaking Bad” until the premiere of the next season in the summer of 2013; especially with the season ending with a mid-season finale, cutting season five short (with only 8 episodes). The good news is that Controversial, ingenius, and dramatically intense, “Breaking Bad” will, hopefully, remain a revered work of art in an entertainment world so riddled by mindless “reality” TV, and continue to raise questions in the minds of its viewers.
