BREAKING BAD ”Buried” Review

Hello, and welcome to my reviews of AMC’s Breaking Bad‘s final season, here at UTF. Unfortunately I couldn’t review last week’s mid-season opener, Blood Money – but to save you the waffle, it was pretty amazing. So, with the requisite impossibly high standard set, can Breaking Bad keep up the momentum with episode ten of season five, Buried?

Buried began with an old man from the neighbourhood that received quite a big cash injection from Jesse last week following a trail of cash to Jesse’s car, still filled with money, and Jesse himself, going round in circles on a roundabout. Jesse’s fall from grace and/or sanity began last week, but it’s even more prominent here that the murder of the boy on the motorcycle has sent Jesse into a very dark pit indeed. Kudos too to Aaron Paul, who put in a great performance… even with Jesse not speaking a word all episode (I’d imagine next week’s Jesse-centric episode will compensate for that). Still, in a mostly Jesse-free episode, Paul makes an impact.

But of course, we have some unfinished business with Hank, who immediately goes to Skyler to try and get a few answers from her and/or get some concrete evidence to nail Walt. It’s interesting to see Skyler, whose allegiances have wavered an awful lot over the course of the five seasons, refuse to help and side with Walter – but then again, with Skyler deeply embroiled in Walt’s empire, the chances of her staying out of a jail cell aren’t much better than Walt’s(and this plot twist will certainly sit a bit better with Skyler haters than certain scenes this season) Anna Gunn isn’t often praised as much as her co-stars, but she put in an excellent, multi-faceted performance this week.With Skyler now on Team Walt, the stage is set for a tag-team battle between husbands and wives…

But before we delve a little more into that, it’s back to Walt, or rather, his money. Kuby/stand-up comedian Bill Burr and Huell are two extremely funny peripheral characters, so it’s nice to see a little more of them, as they pause to have a lie-down on Walt’s stack of cash before delivering it (quite possibly sans a few bundles of cash). It’s more clear than ever this episode that the walls are closing in on Walt – he’s forced to bury the majority of his money in a nice little montage set in To’hajiilee (in a great callback, it’s the place where Walt and Jesse first cooked meth in the pilot… and intriguingly, it’s also the title of the fifth episode of this half-season). Walt’s tracks appear to be well and truly covered… but in a show where literally no-one is safe from anything, it’s looking unlikely that the buried cash will stay untouched…

As I mentioned above, Skyler isn’t exactly innocent (with the money laundering, indirectly threatening Ted and covering Walt’s secrets for quite a while now) – and despite Hank’s initial beliefs, Marie soon finds out that Skyler knew about Walt for a long time (two and a half seasons or thirty-five episodes if you want to be precise). It’s very Breaking Bad to have Skyler’s guilt revealed Marie with three words (‘I’m so sorry’), and, to again praise one of the best casts in TV today, Anna Gunn and Betsy Brandt knock the scene out of the park. It’s also interesting to see Walt and Skyler on the receiving ends of a blow to the face (I’m sure I’m not the only viewer who felt that slap) by husband and wife in these two episodes – clearly showing that the cosy White/Schrader family has splintered for good.

I was expecting Walt to turn on Skyler when he found out she had talked to Hank, but what we get is a little more interesting than that. Walt claims he’ll turn himself in if Skyler spreads his money (tainting a further generation of the White family with drug money) – but Skyler, channeling her inner Heisenberg, claims that they’ll get away scot-free if they stay ‘silent’. Walt was never going to turn himself in, but now the battle lines have been drawn, it looks like he won’t give up without a fight (involving a certain M60 and a vial of ricin, perhaps?).

And now for something relatively different, as our old friends from season 5A – Lydia, Declan and Todd (the second most polite meth cook of all time, after Gale ‘Major Tom’ Boetticher) show up. Lydia’s still in a huff about the drop in meth quality, but Declan’s content just to show her his buried bus meth lab (still not quite the RV). But he gets a little surprise, as Todd’s uncle’s gang of Nazis from Gliding Over All shows up and murders Declan’s crew, including Declan himself. It’s probably not the last we’ll see of the Nazi gang… and don’t be surprised if Walt crosses paths with them, holding a machine gun.

But back to the DEA, where Hank has resolved not to present his evidence until he’s got a rock solid case against Walt (good luck with that), and a certain Jesse Pinkman has been taken. He’s silent when the two douche-bag guards (still funny, though) interrogate him, but the chances are that his conversation with Hank (which we’ll presumably see at the start of the next episode) will be a little more interesting…

Overall, Buried is an excellent episode, keeping up the momentum of last week and adding on intriguing new plot points for the rest of the season, with some excellent performances to boot. It doesn’t quite have the ‘wham’ effect of last week, but the stage has been set for quite the long awaited reunion between Jesse and Hank…

Tune in next Monday, where I’ll be reviewing episode eleven, Confessions. There will be a confession. Possibly even more than one.

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