Was there any doubt? As stated 2000 words ago, great television shows produce more great episodes. That's why they're great, and it's why there are three Breaking Bad episodes here (with a case for as many as four more, really) and a couple of Mad Men. They just know how to do it right. "Ozymandias" was a beautiful piece of television, the best piece of American production brought to the small screen this year. The cinematography, the direction, the editing it was all perfect. Placed in the hands of Rian Johnson, the best director the show had for slow-burning episodes, it was among the best the series ever gave us. We spent 59 hours getting to the point where Walter White had everything to lose, and it took only a few minutes for him to lose it. He watched his brother-in-law slain in the sand, his millions of dollars taken from him, and his surrogate son carted off by Nazis (not that he didn't have a hand in that part). He ended up in a knife fight with his wife before kidnapping his own daughter, after which he decided to embrace his life as a fugitive and go on the lam. We rode with Walt for five seasons across six years, and this was where we saw it all truly end. The rest was academic, "Ozymandias" showed us the fall of a king. Why It's On The List: It's the payoff that every viewer knew was coming. As much as we cheered when it seemed like Walt was cooking for the right reasons, it wasn't hard to jeer once he went overboard. While there were times that it looked cool or served to be oddly inspiring, at the end of the day Breaking Bad was a 62-hour opus on why crime doesn't pay. Seeing our, uh, "hero" lose everything in the blink of an eye showed us as much.
Freelance writer situated on the east coast of Canada. Ten years writing pop culture, sports, news, and anything else that people will read. Follow me on Twitter @matthewjryder!
