10 Greatest TV Bottle Episodes

10. Breaking Bad - 4 Days Out

Breaking Bad’s more famous bottle episode is season three’s “The Fly”, in which Walt and Jesse hunt a pesky insect trapped in the drug lab. The better episode, though, is the previous season’s “4 Days Out”. The claustrophobia of the lab is replaced by the vast isolation of the New Mexico desert, but in marooning the two leads together for the duration of an episode, Breaking Bad had its greatest hour to date.

The relationship between Walt and Jesse - hotheaded, bitter genius chemist and slacker doofus - was inherently comic, but the partnership turns a corner here. The two wind each other up something fierce, but faced with their own mortality, they’re able to connect on a level deeper than a lucrative drug manufacturing business.

The actors play off each other magnificently. From here they embark on entirely different paths - Jesse becoming a better man, Walt descending into true villainy. This may be the last moment they find themselves on the same level.

“4 Days Out” was the moment the show transcended its catchy teacher-turns-dealer hook and caught up to its ambitions to become one of the best and weightiest dramas of our times.