Review: Breaking Bad Semi-Finale “Gliding Over All”

Warning:  This review contains spoilers.

I dreaded last night’s Breaking Bad.  Mostly I just dreaded the interval of time between that episode and the kick off of the final half of the final season of Breaking Bad.  Watching “Gliding Over All” was a bittersweet experience to say the least.

After taking it all in, I kind of realized why so many people bristled at the final episode of LOST.  Not necessarily for what happened in that episode, but for what it symbolized most strongly:  no more LOST.   Ending a story populated with people that the fans care about is no easy task because you are asking them to be satisfied with the termination of something most of them are probably not ready to let go of.  Whatever the reasons for cutting Breaking Bad’s final season in half like this, they probably involve money, the series has an additional hurdle to jump over.  Was the cut intriguingly done to the extend that the fans will somehow accept it?

Ending with Hank realizing that Walt might have been involved with Gus Fring, to me, was not the moment to leave us all gasping for air.  I’d venture to guess that very close to 100% of the Breaking Bad audience knew that eventually Hank would have this realization, the fact that he had it while reading on the toilet doesn’t exactly elevate what was considered an inevitability.

Breaking Bad has been a series that has never really wavered in quality, and “Gliding Over All” was a definite example of that, it was by no means a bad episode of the series, but it did, in my opinion, keep it’s biggest moves buried in the subtext.

The Big Problems with Gliding Over All

Over the years we have rapidly watched Walter White change into a man consumed by his ambition.  The act of killing has become all too easy, loyalty is only a convenience, and Walt has becoming dangerously clear headed about all of it.  So what made him change his mind so quickly?  The answer is easy, his Cancer is back.  We didn’t see it, but it was fairly obvious.

Where does he go from here?

Okay so, Walt at poolside with the knowledge that his cancer has returned has one of those existential rewinds and doesn’t like what he sees.  Yes, he is well on his way to his empire, but the woman he loves said, apropos, that she was simply waiting for his cancer to come back.

I can understand where Walt might have a moment of clarity here, but he is far too smart of a man to think that he can walk away without repercussions. Eliminating the ten did NOT pull his ass out of the fire.  There is still Declan, who invested five-million-dollars that he admitted he had to ‘stick his neck out’ for.  Then there is Lydia, and the Czech connection. And that’s just beginning to fork through the nuance.

And Then …

At the end of the hour, “Gliding Over All” offered very little in the way of increasing the sense of danger that surrounds Walt.  If anything, it was a sort of a rapid chilling.  A ‘reset’.  My problem with it was that it ended on a plot development we knew would come.  It was interesting that it wrapped around in the larger story, but those kind of retrospective wrap-rounds really don’t pack much oomph unless it is somehow evident that they were ‘planned-all-along’.  Am I concerned with what Hank’s discovery will mean for the family?  Of course.  On the other hand, if there were ever a payoff to those who complained that Breaking Bad was becoming too procedural it can be found in dialing down the more criminal threats to Walt and putting him the cross-hairs of his DEA Brother-in-law.  I don’t find it compelling that Walt may go to jail, I’d rather spend the trip across the gulf between now and next summer wondering if Walt, or someone close to, is going to be safe.