AMC’s Breaking Bad
5×14: “Ozymandias”
Directed by Rian Johnson
Written by Moira Walley-Beckett

* For a recap & review of 5×13, click here.
* For a recap & review of 5×15, click here.
A flashback takes us to To’hajiilee out in the desert, where Hank and Steve have finally caught Walt, along with the help of Jesse. But now it’s back when Jesse and Walt were cooking. We see Walt making up an excuse about working for Bogdan late and it sells with Skyler, hook, line, sinker. Back to the present and gunshots are exploding everywhere. Walt’s trying not to get shot. Jesse’s someplace hiding. When the smoke clears, Steve is dead, and Hank lies wounded in the dirt. The neo-Nazis led by Uncle Jack now have Hank right where they want him. Except Walt pleads for his brother-in-law to be left alive. He offers the $80-million he buried out there in the desert. Hank won’t plead for his life, though. Because he knows that Uncle Jack’s made his mind up about leaving a federal agent alive. And then, Jack pulls the trigger, putting a bullet in Hank’s head.

Walt is devastated. Meanwhile, the neo-Nazis have the coordinates to Walt’s money barrels and they dig it all up, taking every barrel for themselves except one which they leave for ole Heisenberg. There’s also still the matter of Pinkman. They find him hiding under one of the vehicles. Jack’s about to murder him when Todd suggests they take Pinkman home and torture him to find out if the DEA know anything about them. Before the neo-Nazis take Jesse away, Walt uses this moment to cruelly tell Jesse about the night Jane died and how he watched it happen. Any humanity left in Walt has thoroughly been washed away.
The neo-Nazis leave Walt and his barrel. Unfortunately for the former chemistry teacher, his car breaks down on the way back home, leaving him deserted with his barrel, so he starts to walk and roll the barrel through the desert. He eventually comes to a small house where he buys a truck from an old man, allowing him to drive out of there.
Back in the city, Skyler’s unsure of where Walt is after he stormed out of there in a panic earlier. Perfect time for Marie to turn up. Of course Marie knows Walt’s been taken in by Hank, and she gloats about it in private while she and Skyler talk. She doesn’t know her husband’s been murdered, though. She goes on about her sister’s behaviour, hoping that whatever Walt did to her “can be undone.” She says Skyler must be prepared for how things are about to change irreparably. She also wants to get any copies made of the DVD Skyler and Walt put together. And she orders Skyler to tell Walt Jr. what’s happening before he finds out from the cops.

Jesse’s been brought back to the neo-Nazi hideout, caged underground and chained to the floor like a dog. His face is half mangled already. Todd comes down and Jesse pleads to be left alone. He brings the battered Pinkman up into the fresh air then into a garage where the meth lab’s setup. Jesse’s chained so that he’s able to move around, enough so that he’ll be able to cook meth for the neo-Nazis, and he sees a picture of Andrea and Brock pinned up, knowing that he has no choice but to do whatever he’s told.
At the car wash, Walt Jr. is mentally collapsing after finding out his father’s a meth kingpin and his mother’s been lying constantly. He doesn’t quite believe everything, either. He wants to talk to Walt, or Hank; anybody who can explain to him what’s going on in his family. About as chaotic as expected for such wild news. Simultaneously, Walt’s at home frantically packing everything he for his family can into suitcases.
On the way back home, Walt Jr. tells Skyler: “If all this is true, and you knew about it, you‘re as bad as him.” They arrive at the house where Walt’s busy loading up the shitty old truck he bought. Walt Jr. wants answers to a million different questions but his father can’t calm down for even a second. Walt urges his son and his wife to get their things so they can leave. Skyler wonders where Hank is, considering her brother-in-law supposedly had her husband in custody. She knows something bad went down. She repeatedly asks her husband: “Where is Hank?” Walt only talks about the $11-million he has with him, and “a fresh start.” Skyler knows Hank is dead. She thinks Walt did it. But Walt pleads with his family that’s not the truth.
Walt goes on packing and Walt Jr. keeps questioning his dad, so Skyler grabs a knife and stands between the two of them, ordering Walt to leave. When Walt takes a few steps towards Skyler she slices his hand with the knife, beginning a wrestling match with a knife in between while poor Walt Jr. watches on in horror and baby Holly screams. Walt Jr. tackles his father to save his mother, and in darkly comic fashion Walt yells: “What the hell‘s the matter with you? We‘re family!” Then Walt Jr. calls the cops, sending his father running. Before Walt goes he takes the baby, too. Although Walt has already lost it, and he’s already a scary man, this is perhaps the scariest he’s ever been. Terrifying to see Skyler in the middle of the road crying, smeared with blood, wondering where Walt is taking their infant child.

As Walt plays dad changing little Holly at a rest stop bathroom, his little baby girl starts saying “Mama” and the reality of everything weighs on him. At the White home there are police putting out an Amber Alert for Holly. Skyler’s sick with worry. Marie doesn’t know what could’ve happened to her husband. Then Walt calls. He gets angry at Skyler, claiming this is all her fault. He says “there will be consequences” for her so-called disrespect. He rages at Skyler for not appreciating all his meth money. He calls her a “stupid bitch” for revealing the truth to their son. Awful stuff. Then he says that Skyler will end up “just like Hank” if she isn’t careful. Jesus! Walt confirms that they’ll “never see Hank again.” Soon he hangs up. There’s more work to be done yet. But was that call for real? Or, was Walt giving his last ditch effort to make Skyler look innocent?

A while later at a fire station, firefighters discover baby Holly left in one of the fire trucks with the lights flashing. The one image in Breaking Bad that truly breaks my heart: baby Holly crying, trying to hide herself behind the seat as a firefighter finds her inside. Someone’s chopping onions! In the morning, Walt waits for a ride to go get disappeared by Saul’s vacuum cleaner guy.