The opening to Season 3 marked a dramatic change in the way Breaking Bad was going to present itself visually, and was possibly the most stunning, most cinematic sequence ever to appear on a television episode at the time. It was an introduction to the Cousins, the Salamanca Twins we’d be intrigued by for much of the season, and an announcement that this season of the show would be different than the previous two.
All we see in this prologue to the episode “No Mas” is a number of people crawling in the Mexican sand towards some hut that houses a deity Vince Gilligan revealed is Santa Muerte. The religious rite featured is odd enough, and then we see two twins emerge from a Mercedes and join in on the congregational sand crawl. It all builds to the reveal that they are serving up a drawing of Heisenberg to their death god.
This is some high end Coen brothers shit right here. No words are spoken, no explanation given; we’re left only with the images and the surrealistic impression it leaves with us. And we instantly know these twins are important and want to know more. The show has continued to do this as it has gone forward. Cinematographer Michael Slovis is earning loads of accolades for his work, and deservedly so. The show’s distinct look, both the way it shoots Albuquerque, New Mexico as well as good old Mexico itself, are uniformly gorgeous and haunting with they need to be.
Even little things, like the way it pulls back to a wide shot as we watch Walt shoot and kill two men in Season 3’s penultimate episode, a contrast to the tight closeup of Jesse pointing the gun at Gale in the season’s closing shot. Many of its visual strengths go undetected yet contribute to the menacing spirit of the show’s final seasons. Despite being a writer’s medium, Breaking Bad has found a way to express itself more cinematically than any series to come before.
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