"I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away." -Percy Bysshe Shelley Breaking Bad's first of its final three episodes set into motion the climactic roller-coaster-like drop of heart-stopping action that is consuming the White family and all those closely associated. This week's installment, titled after the nineteenth-century British poem "Ozymandias", certainly brought revelations and shocking surprises with it.
9. Opening Flashback
Even though Breaking Bad may have gotten the flash-forward down to a tee as a story-telling device that equally builds suspense while informing the audience - as it did this season with the flash-forward to Walt returning to his abandoned home a year from now in the face of shocked once-neighborly neighbors - series creator Vince Gilligan and company bring new detail and connecting-of-the-dots by opening with a "between-the-scene" from the first episode, where Jesse and Walt take to the desert in their RV to cook, and elaborates by showing Walt, then complete with full head-of-hair and trusty white briefs, make the first phone call to wife Skylar about being home late. This would be the first seed of a lie planted by Walt that would grow and sprout like the cancer in his own body, infecting his friends and ultimately his family as this episode bears out and brings what Walt started five-and-a-half seasons ago, home to roost.