If you don't want to hear details, especially about last night's season finale of Breaking Bad, turn away from this website now. But I consider it fair game to talk in detail about TV shows once they've been televised — especially if they're doing interesting enough work to be saluted for it.
[Note: If the previous paragraph didn't convince you, maybe this will: There are many, many spoilers for Breaking Bad ahead. Proceed at your own risk.]
I was blown away by the season ender of Breaking Bad.
For its season finale, it set up a high-stakes showdown, with the cold-blooded drug kingpin Gus on one side, and the newly reconciled Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), former partners in Gus's high-tech meth lab, on the other. Each side wanted the other dead, but both sides were on guard. In last week's episode, Jesse successfully lured Gus to a local hospital, and Walter's plan was to plant and ignite a bomb under Gus's car. But Gus, intuitively, left the car in the parking lot, and found another ride home. That left Walter, in the opening minute of the season finale, to dismantle the bomb in frustration and bring it into the hospital, hidden in a knapsack. He sits next to Jesse, who's sitting in the hallway outside a pediatric intensive ward, and the two exchange words. It's absurdly funny, and intensely dramatic, all at the same time. In short, it's why I adore Breaking Bad.
For the rest of the finale, there were scenes that made me laugh, and scenes that made me drop my jaw. In order, those would be Bob Odenkirk's scenes as lawyer Saul Goodman in the first place, and the final showdown with Gus in the second. And, as always with this series, there was a final image that will linger with me until new episodes arrive again. This time, the camera slowly closed in on a flower pot in Walter's back yard, eventually identifying it as a variety of poisonous plant — which, in turn, identified Walter as the true perpetrator of the crime he had accused Gus of doing. In true Machiavellian fashion, Walter had framed Gus and risked killing a young kid, all to get Jesse back on his side and against Gus.
Series creator Vince Gilligan said from the start he wanted to take Walter White, and viewers, on a journey, following the central character as he changes from meek hero to forceful villain. In this fourth season finale, Breaking Bad delivered on that promise, brilliantly. By the end of this season, Walter isn't just breaking bad. He's broken.
Connie Britton, Dylan McDermott, and Taissa Farmiga play a family moving into a house, where the previous tenants were found dead.
Series creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, who worked together on Glee and Nip/Tuck, have a history of letting their shows go all over the place. American Horror Story starts all over the place, then slowly reveals the logic and history of it all.
The central story has Connie Britton, from Friday Night Lights, and Dylan McDermott, from The Practice, as a couple whose marriage is in trouble. She's just had a miscarriage, he's just had an affair — and they move to the West Coast, with their teen daughter in tow, to see if a new environment can spark a new start — except they can't pass up an unbelievably tempting real-estate deal, and move into a house whose previous tenants were found dead.
The house comes with its own housekeeper, played by Frances Conroy from Six Feet Under, and a creepy neighbor, played by Jessica Lange. Last week's premiere was a polarizing jumble of images, characters, scares and subplots – some people hated it, but I really, really liked it. And knowing what's to come, in the next two weeks, only has me liking it more.
It helps to know, for example, the prologue that opened the pilot episode, showing the house at a different point in its history, is a recurring theme each week, like the flashback device on Lost. And it may encourage reluctant viewers to give the show another chance if they know that, even by episode three, a few mysteries will indeed be solved. Like, for example, why the elderly housekeeper has one dead eye.
And in addition to secrets, there also are scares — as when, in this week's episode, Connie Britton's Vivien has a late-night visitor at the door while her husband is out of town.
These two shows, Breaking Bad and American Horror Story, are by no means at the same level. Breaking Bad, along with AMC's Mad Men, ranks as the best drama on TV right now. American Horror Story, like many of its characters, starts off as more of an intriguing oddity. But both shows have me thinking about them long after I've turned off the TV set — which, for me, is the mark of Must-See TV.
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