TV Review: BREAKING BAD: Season 5, Episode 1: Live Free or Die

Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 1 Live Free or Die Review. Breaking Bad: Season 5, Episode 1: Live Free or Die starts off the season right where the last season ended.

Walter White (Bryan Cranston), after successfully manipulating Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) and Tio Salamanca (Mark Margolis) and killing Gustavo ‘Gus’ Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), has gotten full of himself, cocky, and authoritative in a very short period of time.

He was feeling the fact that he has killed two people (let a third person die and poisoned a small boy), doesn’t have to take life as it is handed to him, that he can manipulate it, twist, make it what he wants.

What was interesting to witness in Live Free or Die was people’s reaction to Walter’s new demeanor. Some were surprised like Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), others were scared like Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) and Walter’s wife Skyler White (Anna Gunn). The best lines: “Because I say so” and “We’re done when I say we’re done.”

Outsider of Walter’s evolution, the evolution of Breaking Bad‘s plotline is the show’s best aspect. Walter believed he was so clever burning the meth lab under the laundry but he forgot the cameras. That is the big difference between Gus and Walter. Walter acts without thinking everything through thoroughly – even though he is clever, “Terl clever” – whereas Gus was completely calculated in his actions. Gus would never have forgotten the cameras or what they were recording to.

I was glad to see that Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) was proven right all along about the lab but Walter should not have burned it. What purpose did that serve? The police know it was a Meth lab from the equipment and chemicals there. If Walter had cleaned the lab and gotten rid of the bodies, there would have been nothing leading back to him or Jesse. By burning it he brought additional police attention to Gus (the first being from dying in the nursing home explosion) and by extended implication, to his Meth cookers. By doing that Walter proved all of Hank’s theories right. Why?

A tragic and horrible realization was that Ted Beneke (Christopher Cousins) was alive and his condition. Seeing Skyler use it to her advantage was even more surprising. Like Walter, the drug business is changing her.

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