I am often surprised that conditions in New Mexico exist that would enable one to produce breath that makes steam. I always think of dry, unbearable heat, even in the early mornings. Do you think that’s enough filler to hide any clue to my thoughts on this episode from any previews? Then let us proceed.
I am an empathetic viewer. To a fault. No one will stay in the same room with me if I am watching “The Fox and the Hound.” Every Christmas Eve I watch an episode of LOST called “The Constant” and have a good, cathartic cry. I openly wept during the Buffy series finale. And the “ER” episode called “Love’s Labor Lost” makes me cry so hard my eyes will stay red for several days. Consequently, I cannot watch any shows that require auditions because, aside from the fact that I hate reality shows, I can’t handle the empathetic anxiety and embarrassment. I bring this up because tonight – and keep in mind I’ve seen the M*A*S*H* finale – was the first time a telelvision show has made me feel like I might throw up.
Have you ever been there? So overwhelmed with awfulness that the only way you might feel better is to physically rid yourself of it? I’m speaking of the times when someone I love above all others dies, or when I have said or done something that fills me so deeply with regret, and the grief or guilt becomes a virus that is destroying me from the inside. I say to you with complete lack of exaggeration that that is how I felt tonight. Everything I presumed, from the interpretation of tonight’s episode title to the outcome of last week’s cliffhanger, came to fruition, but I feel no gloaty pride. I have never seen “Full Metal Jacket” all the way through because every time I get to the seen where Pyle … you know …. I scream through my sobs “I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHY I TRIED WATCHING THIS STUPID MOVIE.”* Right now I am experiencing a type of negative of that emotion. There are no tears, and I will see this through, but there is a part of me that never wishes I invested in this story. It’s 10:28 and I am still numb, but I know I have to watch Robot Chicken or some shit before I go to bed because I can’t shake it, I can’t stop replaying one scene in my head, and I can’t handle this. The readers (and maybe even my fellow ‘bots) probably think I am a lunatic for getting this emotional (anit-emotional?), but every thing about this show is so consuming it surpasses any level of involvement I have ever experienced in this medium and genre. Maybe even in all media and genres. We all knew what was/is coming. Between flash forwards and other clues it has been all but spelled out for us, and yet it still explodes like schrapnel.
In case you missed the teasers or have never read the original work, here you can hear Bryan Cranston read the Shelley poem for which the episode is named.
The show opened with a flashback that now feels like an Ali punch to the gut. I’m not going to recap the episode. There’s no need, and I don’t want to rehash it all anyway. Instead, some fragmented highlights. Hank: “You’re the smartest man I know.” Walter’s resurgence over Heisenberg in the restroom and his subsequent phone call to exonerate Skylar. Marie, for whom I have never been emotional, falling to her knees. [Oh shit here come the tears y’all] Todd volunteering to torture as if he were offering to mow your yard. But the greatest horror of them all? Jane.
I have always said that “Fly” is my favorite episode of the series. It’s largely uneventful and if memory serves it only involves Jesse and Walter in a single location. It unfolds like a stage play, and the entire episode filled me with such disquiet because I was convinced that Walter would let slip his involvement, or lack thereof, in Jane’s death. The tension was epic. He didn’t slip in “Fly,” and Jesse – even while growing to hate and fear Heisenberg – never learned that truth. Until tonight. And the announcement was breathtaking in its pomp.
The final scene involved Walter meeting up with Saul’s “vacuum repair” man. The bags and money went in the back, and our last sight was Walter in the van’s side mirror. Mirrors are wildly telling metaphors in Walter’s story line, but was that our last glimpse of Walter White or of Heisenberg?
I often frown when people rave about Bryan Cranston because I feel like the other actors on the show are being dismissed, but I’m just going to have to go ahead and say that Bryan Cranston is the greatest living actor, possible the best ever. Is it the role, the writing? Don’t care. It’s clicked, and he’s perfection. The rest of the cast is peerless as well, but Cranston has reset the bar completely.
I’ll post poll results before the penultimate episode. You can go vote if you still have the will to do so.
* I know, I know, it’s a good movie. I just can’t do it. Both war stories and the particular event that I omitted hit me way too hard and it’s just too much. But again, my inability to cope is a testament to the filmmaking.