Ep 15. Granite State

After the events of the previous episode, in "Granite State," the penultimate installment of Breaking Bad's fifth and final season, everything seems to have gone wrong for Walter White. He's holed up in a remote cabin in rural New Hampshire, alone and afraid. With no other options, he's forced to rely on Saul Goodman's "vacuum repairman" (who's really more of a disappearing act specialist) to get him out of town and start a new life somewhere far away. But getting away from his problems won't be as easy as he hopes.

"Granite State" is a tense, introspective study of Walter's psyche as he confronts his own mortality and the consequences of his actions. The episode is mostly confined to a single location, with occasional flashbacks to earlier moments in the series. It's a quiet, brooding hour of television, more concerned with character than with plot.

The opening shot of "Granite State" sets the tone for the whole episode: a wide, desolate landscape covered in snow, with a small cabin in the middle of it all. Inside, Walter looks haggard and broken, his hair grown out and his face scraggly. He's watching a news report about his crimes, which have now become national news. There's a reward for his capture, and his face is plastered all over the TV screen.

Walter spends most of the episode alone in the cabin, with nothing to do but watch the news and wait for the vacuum repairman to show up. He tries to call his family, but they've all but disowned him. Flynn won't even answer the phone when he calls, and Skyler tells him to never come back. Marie is the only one who still seems to care about him, but she can't do anything to help him.

There are a few scenes in the episode that take place outside the cabin, but they mostly serve to set up the endgame of the series. We see Todd and Lydia try to set up a new meth lab, with mixed results. We see the neo-Nazis who killed Hank and took Jesse hostage, and we get a sense that they'll play a bigger role in the final episode. But for the most part, "Granite State" is about Walter coming to terms with what he's done and what he's become.

The biggest surprise of the episode comes when the vacuum repairman finally shows up. Walter is expecting to be whisked away to a new life in Alaska, but the vacuum repairman has other plans. He tells Walter that he needs to wait a while longer, until the heat dies down. In the meantime, he'll keep him in a different safe house, just a couple of hours away.

Walter is furious, but he has no choice but to go along with it. The new safe house is a bigger, nicer cabin, but it's still a prison. Walter is stuck there with only a TV and a phone for company. His only visitor is the vacuum repairman, who brings him groceries and updates him on the outside world.

As the days turn into weeks, Walter becomes more and more despondent. He's lost everything that mattered to him: his family, his business, his health. He's alone and dying, with nothing to show for it but a pile of money he can never spend. In one scene, he tries to get up from his chair and falls to the ground, weak and helpless.

The episode ends with Walter making a decision that will shape the course of the series' final episode. He uses the last of his money to call the neo-Nazis and set up a meeting. He tells the vacuum repairman that he wants to go back to Albuquerque, to tie up loose ends. It's clear that he's not going to go peacefully.

"Granite State" is a moody, introspective episode that sets up the show's final act in style. It's a testament to the show's strength that even an episode as quiet and contemplative as this one can be so gripping. The final episode is sure to be explosive.