Deconstructing Breaking Bad's GREATEST Episode - Overanalyzing Breaking Bad

[00:00:00]Season 3, episode 7 is titled 1 Minutes, which means that this is not a Vince Old Movie reference, but rather a very ominous title that will almost certainly involve death. Right at the start of the episode, Hector would question how long Marco would survive underwater, asking whether it's going to be 1 minutes. I am fairly confident in saying that this is indeed just the production being a little bit cheeky and subtly leading you to believe that the whole central conflict of this episode is already solved by the first couple of minutes.

[00:00:27]We watch this and the title is referencing the cold open. So that is like the most important plot point already resolved. Except it's not. But if you want to get a teeny bit more artsy, I think the title also refers to the thin thin veil that separates life and death. 1 minutes, just 60 seconds and it can all end permanently. All job worries, all celebrations about getting that same job back, everything is separated by just 1 minutes. And on a somewhat similar but definitely overanalyzing note, the Jesse and Walter conversation about becoming partners again also takes one minute. Considering just how tightly connected all these plot points are currently, yeah, one minute on their end might very well decide their fates, much like we already saw last episode, and we'll see again.

[00:01:12]The episode opens with a very rare flashback to Hector and the young twins, later to be known as the ominous yet very stylish cousins. Hector talks about chicken man Gus, pretty much saying that he doesn't like him or trust him, going as far as to use the slur used in Spain and Latin America to demean South Americans. So, even before the whole meth trade and all the business mind games we see later, we see that Hector's hatred for Gus was already entrenched in xenophobia and just generally cartel elitism. To Hector, he is an outsider who simply doesn't belong in their hierarchy out of principle. He views the cartel as an old school empire built on blood and loyalty. Whereas Gus presents himself as this cleancut businessman wanting to transform their operation into a borderline industrial pursuit. To Hector, the whole idea of a civilian business, even if it might just be a front for the same exact operation they conduct, is a complete joke and almost an attack on their identity. And to some extent, we'd of course see that his suspicions were right. Purely emotionally, Hector might say that, "Oh yeah, Gus is just beneath him." But in reality, he would end up operating at a level that Hector can't even imagine. So some of this hatred must also be rooted in just fear. To some extent, I think even though it appears that Hector is just writing him off, beneath all of that, there is fear that is rooted in the fact that Gus does seem to be just a clean businessman with ideas of something much, much grander. Leonel, or Leonel, I've got no idea how you say these names. feel free to roast me all you want, but he complains that Marco broke the toy, saying he wishes he was dead. But Hector just calmly calls Marco over before dunking his head into a tub of icy water, intending to fulfill his wish and just straight up drown him. The whole thing is obviously just a very, very extreme lesson intended to make their brotherly bond completely unshakable. Something we of course see in the present day, though, it also ends up being a bizarre mirror of sorts for Walter.

[00:03:05]>> Hank is your family. Not currently.

[00:03:08]>> What >> I said not currently.

[00:03:10]>> Literally the entire foundation for Walter's business was making money for his family. That was the excuse that both he and Jesse echoed time and time again. But when the going gets tough, yet again, we see that no, much of Walter's actions have long since become entirely transactional. Doubly so with Hank, who is now on his trail. And so we have this slightly odd duality of the cousins truly seeking revenge for Tuco's death, whereas Walter's continuing downward spiral is exposed as nothing more than ego. Also know that the chair Hector is sitting in kind of sort of resembles a wheelchair. Probably a stretch, but it might be foreshadowing where he ends up. But as we fade to the present, we once again see the twins at a Santa Muerte shrine. Only this time, the picture they put up is not one of Walter, but Hank. absolute gem of a cold open. And with where the story already left off, I mean, yeah, this one's going to be a crazy one.

[00:04:13]Moving into the episode proper, after they are too close for a comfort encounter with Hank, Jesse has made it home. Except the boss has a second phase. MOMENT you >> first of all this shot right here is absolutely gorgeous. The sheer contrast of the sunset's heavenly rays and the pitch black silhouette is so good.

[00:04:37]Secondly, this is why you never turn around when a mysterious somebody pulls up to your house. Basic self-preservation skills, Jesse. You lock the door as quickly as you can and then you can do your gappery if you must, but ideally run. But thirdly, this is of course Hank's complete breaking point. Ever since the Tuco shootout and especially since the Zertuga incidents, we have seen his PTSD manifest in increasingly explosive ways. Just a couple of episodes ago, he explicitly pulled into a bar knowing that he could find someone dealing and inevitably get into a fight. there. He was still able to control himself, at least to the extent of picking a target that he knew wouldn't backfire. But now with Marie being weaponized against him, that illusion of control snaps all at once.

[00:05:22]>> They want to get a statement or we can hold him off till another time.

[00:05:26]>> Like we saw with Hank's wild RV chase, George pretty clearly knows that something is very, very off with Hank and there is sympathy there. But with this, you just can't have a loose cannon running around with a gun, especially one who actively refuses to help repeatedly offer to him. And lastly, this also sets up this episode's duality of the broken bodies Walter leaves in his wake. The episode begins with Hank brutally beating Jesse, and it ends with Hank fighting for his life against the cousins. Both incidents incited by Walter's growing empire.

[00:05:58]>> Yo, Adrien, Rocky called. He wants his face back. Okay, feel free to point and laugh at me, but today I learned that Rocky was first released in 1976. I obviously knew it had to be old. I think the first time I saw it, I was like five, but I never thought it was that old. So, yeah, I guess we can add that to the Vince old movie reference counter. Saul, of course, proceeds to lay out the whole plan of using Jesse's face as a bargaining chip against pretty much anything the DEA throws his way.

[00:06:26]Only problem is this time it's not the DEA and it's not just cleaning up Walter and Jesse's messes. This time that mess also somehow has to account for Hank aka part of the DEA.

[00:06:38]>> Your scumbag brother-in-law is finished.

[00:06:41]Every scent he earns is mine.

[00:06:45]>> Obviously, I can't play the full thing, but holy hell, Aaron's acting throughout this entire episode is just nuts. It's very easy to forget when re-watching the show, but something like this is not normal for him, like at all. This is not some over-the-top crash out or a desperate attempt at coming across as dangerous or even the disturbing charm act he pulls when pushing their products. This is the bad guy with straight up murderous intent in his eyes. A perfect reflection of Heisenberg, only one entirely unchained from any and all morality. Saul immediately tries jumping in and saying that the DEA will fight back and there'll be blowback on all of them, but he simply doesn't care.

[00:07:27]>> I give them what they want the most.

[00:07:31]You to give up the great Heisenberg.

[00:07:37]Throughout the season, we've already seen very deliberate parallels between Jesse and Walter, where Jesse has completely internalized the belief that the world is a cold and entirely transactional place and his role in it is the bad guy. Walter still tries to construct some fantasy about why he's doing this. And in doing that, he has given himself a blind spot that he could have never imagined. For this entire series, Walter has always ruled over Jesse. Sure, there might be some things that Jesse knows better, and there have been a few times where they work hand in hand, but by and large, Walter was always the one pulling the strings until Jane and the plane crash. Walter held on to that secret. He tried rationalizing it away to tell himself that it's not his fault, but Jesse simply accepted it.

[00:08:22]He fails to realize that in this postJ world, pushing Jesse out of the business gave up his only leverage. And even now, Walter fails to accept the reality that Jesse truly has surpassed him.

[00:08:35]>> What do you think that was in there, a bluff? He wants your brother-in-law.

[00:08:39]>> Walter still views the world through this false lens of I'm only doing this because I have to, and Jesse will always be my buddy, when in reality, the both of them have long passed the point of no return. We would of course see Jesse eventually agree to the deal because this toxic relationship of theirs and this weird codependence they've developed does very much go both ways.

[00:08:58]But still absolutely excellent drama that once again flips the whole Walter Jesse dynamic upside down and will also work as a very good showcase on how Walter views family. Again, jumping ahead for a second, but we'd see him distance himself from his very real family. While with Jesse, he is practically staring down the barrel of a gun and he still says, "No, no, no.

[00:09:19]Trust me, he'll come around." We then cut to Hang giving his statement on the whole incident, regarding the RV investigation, the Marie call, and eventually the boss battle. Probably over analyzing here, but note how as soon as the Marie hoax is mentioned, the prosecutor/ internal affairs/call it whatever immediately note down the response and then immediately switch to >> and it was at this point that you drove to the home of Jesse Pinkman.

[00:09:42]>> I think that right there was pretty much supposed to be their one and done. Hank got a phone call that they couldn't prove anything about. he completely lost control and brutally beat up a potentially innocent civilian. That is most certainly grounds for taking away his gun or termination altogether, which is of course exactly what happens. And as if Hank wasn't already feeling ashamed and humiliated enough, they then ask a photo of Agent Strader's hands for the record.

[00:10:10]Bandage off if you would.

[00:10:12]>> He feels like a criminal. Everything he has worked on, the person he had built himself into is being torn away. And in his mind, he's the only one at fault.

[00:10:20]Absolutely love how Hank's silent turmoil is handled here. On one hand, he knows he was doing the right thing. He knows that he was the only one who saw right through the whole Heisenberg case and would have caught them, but he is also deeply ashamed of the complete emotional mess that he has become. He prides himself on his resilience.

[00:10:38]Everyone around him quite literally describes him as indestructible. But now that image no longer aligns with reality. And this next sequence, cinema.

[00:10:48]In complete silence, he walks through the cubicles, obviously a far cry from his usual bombastic announcements. And the moment he enters the elevator, we just smash cut to him weeping on Marie's shoulder. And the most tragic thing is that when the doors open, he again forces himself to be stone cold. Like don't get me wrong, obviously just about everybody would try to hide crying in public. That's just what people do. But it's also this exact kind of self-destructive insistence that nothing is ever wrong that got him into this position to begin with. He pushed away Marie when she saw that he was clearly struggling. He pushed away Gomez when he offered supports. He even pushed away his superiors. And so, yeah, he just finally snaps completely. This is easily one of my favorite Hank sequences in the entire show. And I think it also works as a very neat encapsulation of how absurdly cooked the story as a whole is at this point. Hank has been struggling for a while, sure, but to see him just break, like things are definitely not mighty fine. And then when you add the rest of the absolutely immaculate character writing in this episode, and we basically see the same thing on Jesse's side. Yeah. Like this episode is pretty much we just killed the RV. This is the second half of Breaking Bad where look, everything is bad and everything will only keep getting worse. Literally every single character in the show is miserable and it will never get better.

[00:12:09]But of course, despite Hank's insistence that Marie not talk to anybody, she already has.

[00:12:14]>> Do you have a minute?

[00:12:16]>> Taking a quick step back though, before Skyler pulls into Walter's apartment, better known as Vince Gilligan's love pad, we see him again preparing his now very famous PB&J. I think it's another example of Walter's incessant need for control and routine. It's his way of again telling himself that nothing has changed. We saw the same thing when he cosplayed the model husband and even wrote on's little lunch pack. [music] And now we're seeing the same exact thing of him just pretending everything is fine when Jesse is ready to sell him out entirely. Perhaps it is pride and a refusal to admit the mess that he has made. Or perhaps it is simply fear. But in either case is just more of him lying to himself.

[00:12:54]>> I guess crime does pay.

[00:12:56]>> I don't suppose he just came by to insult me. Obviously very very ironic though I don't think it's actually meant to be an insult. If anything it's the opposite. I think it's her again recognizing her own hypocrisy just like we already saw with the whole he the flooring thing. We've been talking about Skyler's slow deconstruction of her own beliefs for these past couple of episodes already and there is so much to talk about today that let's not rehash all this. TLDDR is even though she's talking about criminality and crime and all this, it's pretty clear that she is starting to accept it and to a certain degree almost want all this money as well.

[00:13:27]>> Is there any danger That could lead back to you.

[00:13:30]>> No.

[00:13:32]>> Why would it?

[00:13:33]>> Yeah. So, remember the whole thing of no more lies? The whole I'm done. So, about that. We are basically back to episode 2 and Walter is already spinning an entirely new lie once again centered around Jesse. Except this time, it's 10 times worse. And Walter's lie from 5 seconds ago is already backfiring.

[00:13:51]>> Hank could lose everything. Contact Pinkman.

[00:13:55]>> It's not as if we were even close. Hank is your family >> currently.

[00:14:00]>> What?

[00:14:02]>> I said not currently.

[00:14:04]>> He obviously has his hands completely tied because he has nothing on Jesse while Jesse has everything on him. There is literally no story he can spin up here whatsoever because as soon as he leans in one direction, the other will get hurt. But Walter could never admit that he's at fault. And so the whole fantasy of doing everything for his family suddenly has a clarifier of current family. That is his only way of protecting his own ego. And taking that one step further, Walter, currently not trying to pressure Jesse at all, implicitly already says that he considers Jesse as more family than Hank. In any other situation, you might say that no, this is just strictly self-preservation. But no, we saw that he truly believes Jesse won't talk.

[00:14:49]self-preservation is not the primary concern here at all. By all accounts, it genuinely does just seem like he wants to protect and fix Jesse more than he does Hank. Granted, it's still not that simple because if Hank loses his job and kind of is hurt, that is still preservation since he'd no longer be pursuing Heisenberger. But still, to completely just brush him off is crazy.

[00:15:12]And on a very, very similar note, as he pulls up to the super lab, his spiral of denial just continues. But not before we see Gail laring as Walter, which is certainly something.

[00:15:22]>> Gail, what temperature did you set here?

[00:15:26]>> 575C.

[00:15:28]>> I said 85.

[00:15:29]>> Again, this episode is just insane because this is a masterclass in character writing. Once again, Walter is a complete contradiction. On one hand, this kind of superlab has always been his dream. I mean, one look at it was enough to completely oneshot every single value judgment he held. And then you add Gail on top of that. Someone who is a true equal, perfectly capable of matching him beat for beat. And well, what more could he possibly ask for? But then the Jesse incident happened. And though Walter would never admit fault in that whole cascade of events, the guilt is eating him alive. He saw what happened to Jesse after he stood by and watched Jane die. Now he has seen the undeniable very material and personal destruction right there on Jesse's face.

[00:16:16]He cannot accept the reality that he has dragged Jesse down with him. He can't accept the fact that he is completely losing control over what happens around him.

[00:16:24]>> Now you've just brewed 50 gallons of useless sludge. Congratulations.

[00:16:28]>> He does everything to force Jesse back under his wing where he can regain control and quote unquote fix things as if that has ever worked out. And again, while I think you can argue that there is some degree of self-preservation mixed in here, getting Jesse close would give Walter a much greater sense of what he's up to, I still think that this is almost entirely Walter's ego trying to come to terms with crushing guilts. And obviously, Gail getting caught in the crossfire as opposed to Walter just trying to make some kind of deal with Gus personally and, you know, not just literally dump Gail for no reason is another showcase that nothing has really changed. He is ready to ride off, sabotage, call it whatever. pretty much whoever stands in his way just to protect what he cares about, which in this case is Jesse. We then pop on over to the cousins for a quick shopping trip. And I know the series is called overanalyzing and I yap about the most nonsensical things ever, which absolutely kill my retention, but I am absolutely not overanalyzing this merchant dude's dialogue. If you really want, that can be like your homework assignment. You can leave an essay in the comments. I'll read it. Best essay will get a thumbs up from me. I'm not talking about that, though.

[00:17:31]>> How bullets known by the natives is black death. Six razor claws that expand upon impact.

[00:17:37]Keep it on the house.

[00:17:39]>> I think everybody already knows that this is Vince's little Czechov's bullets, but hollowpoint rounds are indeed very, very nasty. A normal bullet can break up on impact, and that is typically bad. But it can also just go straight through and actually do relatively little internal damage.

[00:17:54]That's why in movies and games and whatnot, you often see the whole thing of do you see an exit wound? It going straight through is often the very best case scenario. A hollow point on the other hand is literally designed to expand when hitting a target. On one hand, that means it's not going to hit anything else by accident if it does go straight through because it won't. But on the other hand, that also means your insides are going to be turned into a bit of a smoothie. And this is where overanalyzing taught me something as well because I always thought that in the big 2026 there was just a blanket ban on them because, well, smoothie. But as it turns out, they are only banned in war and large-s scale military engagements. Yet our standard issue for regular law enforcements. But when you think about it, the rationale does kind of make sense. I still think it's a little bit uncanny that this is something we've agreed is too brutal for war and this would just like make people suffer, but then it's something that you also just see walking around. That whole thing is kind of uncanny to me. Now, you might think all this bonus lore is pointless. And uh I guess you'd be kind of right cuz it's a head shot. I don't think you need a hollowpoint round for a headsh shot, but it is a Czechov's bullet. We then return to Hank and Marie, and you can tell it's them because it's purple. But Marie is just trying to do whatever she can to help, coming up with a dozen bogus stories about how Jesse apparently hit him with a pipe and whatnot. But Hank is just nodding along. He doesn't snap at her like he had done previously. He doesn't say that it'll all be fine or whatever.

[00:19:19]Now that his fate is all but sealed, there is no need to pretend anymore. And in that he has found a kind of peace.

[00:19:27]>> I'm supposed to be better than that. Oh, it wasn't one mistake. I've been unraveling my panic.

[00:19:36]Obviously, both of their stories are heavily centered around toxic masculinity and the way their pride destroys, in Walter's case, just about everyone around him, while Hank largely destroys himself. But even though for a time they walked very similar paths with how they deal with their self-image finally cracking, in this episode their [music] reactions could not be more different. Both in this episode and prior ones, Walter is already constructing some type of new reality where he is, of course, once again not to blame. And in doing that, someone else naturally has to tank it. In this episode, that is Gail. In prior ones, it has been Jesse or whoever else manages to be in the blast zone. But with Hank, all of that armor that he had built for himself comes crashing inward, and he's just ashamed of what he has become. The more he looks back, the more he realizes just how bad things have gotten. He finally accepts that he cannot live up to his own expectations. He doesn't try to find excuses. He doesn't even begin to entertain any kind of justification for his actions. Even when we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Walter and Jesse are responsible, Hank just doesn't try anything. All he feels is shame. shame that his own mind and body have finally betrayed him.

[00:20:46][snorts] >> I'm just not the man I thought I was.

[00:20:50]>> Genuinely, 10 out [music] of 10, no notes. I was writing the script and I was like, "Oh, right. This is the episode with so much character writing.

[00:20:57]I'm recording this and I'm still like, what was this episode? It's so good."

[00:21:02]And to again flip all the way back, but also not really because it's time for Absolutely Magnificent Parallels, we got to Walter talking with Gus. Best option is Jesse Pinkman.

[00:21:15]Hello.

[00:21:17]Look, Mr. Frank. First of all, you know Walter is absolutely cooked when he starts using honorifics. Literally, a couple of episodes ago, he stormed into Gus's office like they are total equals.

[00:21:29]Now, he sounds like a junior mustering up courage to talk to his manager. But upon getting the green lights, Walter, of course, quickly runs to Jesse in an attempt to get him back. Only problem is Jesse is quite a bit smarter than Walter gives him credit for.

[00:21:41]>> A nice try is even your ass hat brother-in-law.

[00:21:45]>> His deduction is of course spot on. In terms of Walter's own personal interest, absolutely he'd be doing this to solve the Hank problem. If you profile Walter as just a selfish bozo, this is basically his best play. He is going to effectively pay Jesse to be silent. So he gets him under his wing and the whole Hank problem is automatically solved as well. Except we know when it comes to Jesse, that's not all there is. Walter is a selfish bozo. But for some reason with Jesse, it's never that simple.

[00:22:13]>> Partners be partners again. Split everything 50/50 just like before.

[00:22:20]>> He truly wants to work with him. He straight up says 1.5 million each. There is no my product, my formula, I do most of the work. There is no I made a deal with Gus. After what happened with Hank, he truly does feel indebted to Jesse. He wants to try and fix things.

[00:22:36]>> Ever since I met you, I have ever cared about is gone. Dead. Ever since I HOOKED UP WITH THE GREAT HEISENBERG.

[00:22:48]I have nothing.

[00:22:51]NO ONE. YOU SAID I WAS no good.

[00:22:55]I'm nothing.

[00:22:57]>> This is what I keep saying. As if this episode isn't stacked enough already, Aaron Paul delivers one of the most iconic performances in the entire show.

[00:23:06]Made so much more powerful by the complete tragedy that is unfolding. This whole series, Walter has practically used Jesse as a punching bag whenever things go wrong. But now that he finally recognizes the bond they had forged, the respect they actually had for one another, now that he has finally felt that crushing guilt he has tried outrunning this entire season, the literally broken Jesse looks back at him and implicitly asks, "Isn't this what you wanted?"

[00:23:33]>> Hey, YOU SAID MY COOK WAS GARBAGE.

[00:23:37]>> Your math is good, Jesse.

[00:23:41]as good as mine.

[00:23:45]>> For Walter, those words right there are practically the same level of vulnerability as when he held Jesse crying. Chemistry is his world. It is his magic. When he tells Jesse that he is an equal, that is not a lie because chemistry must be respected. Walter's whole world was rattled to hell when Jesse came to him asking to evaluate his products. He was terrified by the idea of being surpassed by him. Terrified that he was not one of a kind. He was terrified of losing the only thing that made him special. By finally admitting that Jesse's product matches his own, similar to what we saw with Hank, for but a brief moment, Walter strips away the false persona that he has built for himself. It is a rare, pure confession that is as much about Jesse's growth as it is about himself.

[00:24:33]I'm just not the man I thought I was >> as good as mine.

[00:24:40]>> But saying all of that, don't forget that even though this is Walter finally being honest with himself, it is still born from a lie. This whole thing of projecting guilt on Gail and wanting to fix Jesse is what created this situation in the first place. So, as is always the case with Walter, even in the best of times, one step forward, two steps back.

[00:24:58]Also, I absolutely love this short little scene of Jesse glancing at the pain scale and us lingering on the maximum. On one hand, Walter has been the only person to ever fulfill Jesse's desire of improvement. He's the only one to truly see him grow and evolve. There is a kind of a codependence between them born from an understanding that no one else in the world can share. [music] And now Jesse is truly alone. He has lost everything. He needs something familiar.

[00:25:22]He needs the lab and he needs Walter.

[00:25:25]But at the same time, he is the bad guy.

[00:25:28]Working with Walter, the very same person who has destroyed his world, is his way of punishing himself. He resigns himself to a world of pain. He gives up hope on anything ever getting better or anyone coming to save him. And so, he returns to the business. The final scenes of the episode take us back to Hank. After giving his testimony, he's suspended and has his gun taken. But George does, of course, jump in with a lore update that Jesse is not pressing charges.

[00:25:53]>> Maybe you have a guardian angel.

[00:25:55]Along with the Czechov's bullet, we now have the Czechov's guardian angel, which spoilers would have originally once again been our very own Mike. Just like with him watching Walter, the original script saw Mike coming in to clean things up and drown one of them in a puddle, not my words. But the writers decided that it'd be super disappointing if Walter never even saw the cousins.

[00:26:14]And so, >> two men are coming to kill you. We're approaching your car. You have one minute.

[00:26:20]>> Put on your analysis cap because there's a lot here. First off, note how when Hank looks at the time for that 1 minute, it reads 307. This is episode 307. 1 minute later, it is 308. Walter's address is 308. It's again Breaking Bad's bizarre, almost divine connections that somehow end up defining the entire story, just like the allseeing eye of the bear. That was another thing that through episode titles almost creates this 4D perception of what the story is telling you. And also, a fun little mystery is about who it actually was.

[00:26:51]the tip off Hank. Considering this whole Cousins versus Hank ploy was Gus's personal big gamble for the throne, you'd assume that to be him and no one else would be roped into this operation because it was super secret and it was super grand. Thomas Schultz, I think that's how you say it, the writer of this episode has noted that in one of the early drafts, Gus actually did appear himself, but it ended up being cut due to contractual obligations regarding the number of episodes he can appear in. So, he just legally could not be here. And on top of that, even through the filter, his voice would simply be too recognizable. And so that is not Gus. According to Jeremiah, I've got no idea how you say his last name, Victor's actor. It was in fact Victor who called Hank, obviously at Gus's command. But ultimately, we don't really have a concrete answer on who exactly it was. Clearly, it's not Gus himself. So, someone had to have been roped into this operation, and at that point, it could have been just about anyone. Also, note when Hank starts panicking and looking around, his hand instantly goes for his gun. that is no longer there. Earlier in the episode, Maurice suggested that he just lie about the attack on Jesse and say that something happened and he instinctively did what he did. Whereas with this scene, we see that no, Hank's instincts are actually calibrated entirely correctly. The Jesse thing was him going off the rails, but he never actually lost grip on what he was doing.

[00:28:07]Yes, he was very emotionally volatile and he beat him up, something that he didn't want to do, but in terms of controlling these primal instincts of going for his gun and whatnot, he never did that. And also the sound design here, chef's kiss.

[00:28:24]That bass impact is so good. During the shootout, there's also a another kind of a call back because all the way back in season 1, Hank said, >> "Forget the 9 mil." I seen one of those uh bounce off a windshield one time.

[00:28:37]>> The same thing kind of happens here. He tanks a few bullets head on and Marco's vest is totally fine. But then he reaches for the check offs bullets. The single dropped hollowpoint round that was just an act of courtesy and creates a brain smoothie ironically for Marco himself, which again an act of courtesy I suppose. Now, saying all that, I am fairly certain the cousins have 1911s, which from my Daisy days, I know very well is 45 ACP, NOS 9mm, and beyond that, I'm fairly certain any round would work with a head shot. And the bullets never actually bounced off a windshield.

[00:29:12]They they did very much go through, but still, it's kind of uncanny how this whole thing works out. Which also, side note, if those are indeed 1911s, yep, this is another action scene in the never- ending list of action scenes where the number of shots does not add up. It's seven in the bag and one in the chamber at the absolute most. Whereas with the twins here, they're just blasting. Also, bonus fact, according to Hanks actor Dean Norris, parts of the sequence were filmed across two whole days and it wasn't exactly warm as they were filming during winter time. Some of the segments of him lying on the pavement were apparently inserts filmed later and it was freezing. And also speaking of things being freezing, here's another call back. When they were doing the whole thing of getting his head dunked in the ice water, apparently that footage messed up and they only got like a few seconds. So whenever we see him underwater, it is actually very cleverly shot to appear as though there is more of it when there wasn't.

[00:29:59]Returning to the present day, the sound design here is so good.

[00:30:10]I've been yapping about this this whole season, so I think you're probably sick of it, but I just love how whenever the cousins are on screen, it just literally absorbs all sound. It is so spooky.

[00:30:21]Also, I have absolutely no idea how in the hell an axe might stick in literal concrete, but rule of cool, I guess it does admittedly look very cool and we'll tolerate it. What I do have an idea about, masterful segue there, is the very end of this episode being another call back of sorts. As we cut to the credits, we just hear the blaring of the car horn, something that very much seems to mirror the Tuko shootout from season 2, which is of course what created this whole standout to begin with.

[00:30:53]>> [bell] >> And with that, that is 1 minute, [music] which I think was actually closer to 30 something minutes. The longer I work on this series, the more I'm realizing that I think I'm just going to have to do like a 3hour video ranking all the Breaking Bad episodes. I'm not joking. I have seen this episode like a dozen times throughout my life, maybe even more. I just wrote the script. I recorded the whole thing. I even got done editing it. Even sitting here right now, I'm just like, this episode, it's incredible. This episode is so incredible that APA has decided to join us. This episode literally has it all.

[00:31:27]And again, this is not a premiere or a finale or even like a mid-season thing.

[00:31:31]It has excellent character drama that perfectly crystallizes who these characters were and who they're becoming and who they've already become while also functioning as a whole jumping offboard for the rest of the story to follow. This episode is genuinely I don't think there is a single thing about it that I don't like. I do think this is an episode of television that I would actually say is a 10 out of 10.

[00:31:50]And the thing is that should be a ridiculous thing to say because I don't know if you noticed, Walt Jr. literally does not appear in this episode even for a single frame. So the whole other part of Walter's story, but this whole family stuff does not exist. But because the story so far has been written so incredibly well, we don't actually even need to see Wall Jr. to know that when Walter is talking about family and Hank, all of that also applies to his own family when he's pushing Skylar away and saying, "I'm not really going to help them, that is still his character." Also regarding Law Junior, even though he's not even there. So well written. And also side note, obviously this over analyzing series is going right up until the end of Breaking Bad. And assuming I don't fall off, I can just answer this right now. Yes, obviously we'll be doing better call and El Camino as well. But one thing I've been thinking about is doing a few self-contained videos dealing with like specific plot points that in over analyzing we kind of overanalyze but we don't really talk about it larger place in the broader story right because I don't know if you also noticed this but when I actually do overanalyzing I very much concentrate on this episode and like a few explicit links going back and forth right but there's a lot of things in Breaking Bad where a single scene pretty much defines the entire story for a character some of those happen like all the way back in season one with gray matter some of those happen in season 3 with sunset for example where again it's a whole reququum for the first half of the story and I kind of want to talk about those things more [music] without having to deal with the rest of the episode and obviously all the details that come with that. So we'll be doing the overanalyzing overanalyzing I guess uh I'm not even joking. Do let me know if that's something you're interested in.

[00:33:20]Again that's just going to be a bonus thing. Nothing about over analyzing is changing. This is going right up until the end. Even if I have to keep fighting copyright every single week and both of us just have to sit around waiting 10 days or something for literally no reason. You know what has a very good reason to uh give me money? Our YouTube members and patrons who I want to give a massive thank you to. And let's also give a warm welcome to the newest member of the team, W Fish. Without you, there'd be a whole lot less of my rambling. So, seriously, thank you.

[00:33:45]Thank you. Other than that, I want to say thank you very much for watching. I hope you have a great day. And hopefully, I'll see you in the next one.

[00:33:50]Bye-bye.