(TV) Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 9 “Blood Money” Review

I know it’s late but welcome to the Breaking Bad season 5 episode 9 part 2 review. Breaking Bad is one of the greatest television shows ever and probably the best show on TV in an age many have described as the mediums golden era. Without further ado, here’s the review, Enjoy!!!  

"If you don't know who I am, then maybe your best course would be to tread lightly”

There hasn’t been many in Breaking Bad, but the flash-forward in the first few minutes into the first episode of the second half of season five left as provided as many questions as it did answers. We see the strange but telling image of a bearded Walt with a full head of hair pulling up a dirt strewn Cadillac on a ring-fenced and dilapidated  version of the Walter White household we have come to know it with kids skating in an empty pool. The strange sight gets even more alienating yet intriguing when Walt gets out of Cadillac, pops the trunk and we see a M60 as he pulls out a crowbar.

The questions only proliferate when Walt enters the house and spots ‘Heisenberg’ Tagged on the wall of what he once called home and we finally realized why he there in the first place when he uses a quarter to unscrew the plug socket to take the resin he ruthlessly used to get Jesse back in the fold in season 4. Now all this brings a number of questions we are definitely going to get answers to as the remainder of this season plays out but what most of us would like to know is who is the ricin and the M60 for?.

After the strange flash forward, we return with Hank still reeling from finding out that he had been after his brother in law all along and the shock and anger of being made a fool out of Walt only intensifies when he sees Walt at the table, child at hand, laughing and living the dream at the same time.  The realization cements in his mind when he matches Walt’s handwriting with evidence found in the Gale Boetticher case.

This sets up a conflict that clearly could have been forestalled forever with Hank trying to foil Walt and Walt ending up suspecting Hank is looking in to him but testament to the geniuses in the writers room who have rarely put a foot wrong in the last few years, they decided to get it out the way early and set up an epic game cat and mouse between Walt and Hank that will play out over the remaining episodes-goodie!!

We get a glimpse into what this clash would look like over the course of the season when Walt pays an unwelcome visit to see how hank is doing after making a lame bellyache excuse to get out of watching Walt lie to his face (not to mention finding a tracking device) and after a friendly but strained conversation about his ‘condition’, things go left the moment Walt walks away, stops and turn back to confront Hank about the tracking device.

If the conversation about the tracking device wasn’t enough of a signal that things were going to get messy, Hank’s lowering of the garage door with hate and anger seemingly surging from every part of his body to his face was a good a sign for what was going to happen next as Hank landed a massive right hook to Walt’s face and pushed him across the garage door

What ensues next is one of the best pieces of dialogue so far in the series as Walt manages to protest this innocence, challenge, taunt and even threaten Hank at the same time in an scene that was already top drawer television by anybody’s estimation

While Walt’s use of language was a sight when used against Hank, his conversation with Jesse was less than awe inspiring. Jesse, still reeling from the events of the first half of season five was less than convinced with Walt’s insistence that Mike was still alive crowned by him telling Jesse that he needed Jesse to believe him despite it being a clear sign that he is lying.

The whole conservation was sparked by Jesse, racked by guilt, ordering Saul to deliver two duffel bags full of meth cash to Mike’s Granddaughter and the family od Drew Sharp, the kid who was murdered last year. It has always been clear that Jesse was motivated more by human connections than money and nothing made more in this episode that clear when he gave the homeless man much more than he bargained for.

In sum, Episode 9 was another great installment of a great TV series that has shown what can achieve when television is done properly. It did its job of showing us what’s to come  and set up future stories set to play out that will surely satisfy all involved.