Starring Bryan Cranston as the stone-cold Walter White, Breaking Bad‘s final eight episodes begin with a Sunday night premiere at 9 p.m. on AMC. Show creator and lead writer VInce Gilligan said about the last few episodes: “I am satisfied by the ending. I hope you will be, too. My writers and I, and everyone in front of the lens and behind it I think is feeling pretty good about it.”
The Emmy Award-winning series has given fans a buffet of superbly-acted scenes, thanks to co-stars Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn and Dean Norris. You won’t find a better ensemble on television today, and the past five seasons have let the writers and actor show their chops.
To recap (no spoilers in this paragraph, don’t worry): Walter White is struck my cancer, and to save money for his family to give his wife and kids a nest egg, he turns to dealing crystal meth. He links up with street dealers like Jesse (Aaron Paul) and begins to build an empire, so much so he doesn’t know how to deal with his new-found success…and increasingly dangerous challenges.
Below are the YouTube videos of my favourite scenes from Breaking Bad. In the comment section, share your own top scenes and let us know why you chose them:
“I am the danger!”
In Episode 6, Season 4, Walt’s wife Skyler confronts him about leaving the drug-dealing business, but his reply soon becomes the classic monologue most BB fans reference when they want to prove the show’s dramatic peak (I’m guilty of this, I’ll admit). Watch for Cranston’s face contorting to rage when Skyler asks him if the family is in danger. Often, a Cranston sneer can say more than five lines of dialogue:
“You’re nothing to me but customers”
When Aaron Paul owns the camera, he is unstoppable. In this powerful scene, he speaks up in a Narcotics Anonymous group to find some healing after he killed a man. But all that he can spew are harsh words attacking himself for the guilt racking his mind. Some of Paul’s best acting on display here:
“Can you walk?”
A season four episode features one of the longer fight scenes in the series: Walt and Jesse finally tear into each other when anger quickly turns to violence. They scrap and punch and wrestle for a solid two-plus minutes, and some of their movements feel so real, you could be watching a brutal brawl on your street corner. But in the end, a tender moment creeps in as an ellipsis to the fight: “Can you walk?” Jesse asks Walt.
“These are great green beans Mrs. White”
As any multimillionaire meth dealer will tell you, slinging illegal drugs could start to tear at marital harmony. Unfortunately for Jesse, he had to be in the middle of an awkward Walt-Skyler dinner party, and the hilarious lines Jesse slips out makes this scene one of the most comically memorable scenes of the series:
The cliffhanger
Credit the camera work for this cliffhanger scene from the last episode we saw from Season Five. SPOILER ALERT: Walt will be in the crosshairs of his DEA agent brother-in-law Hank on Sunday night, and this scene tells us why. I really admire how the flashback lets us peek into Hank’s first potential clue into Walt’s criminal behaviour, when a murdered meth dealer’s book turns up with a dedication page to Walt. It’s tasteful without being overdone. Dean Norris’s face when his eyes rise up from the book is beyond priceless. This was the toilet scene Breaking Bad fans couldn’t stop watching repeatedly: