Breaking Bad Review: "Say My Name" (Season 5, Episode 7)

episode 7 mike walt3894572304985723049578 Breaking Bad Review: Say My Name (Season 5, Episode 7)

Whether Walt will feel any guilt at all is something we will have to wait till next week’s season finale to see. In the end, guilt may be something he doesn’t have time for. After all, Mike’s death means he has a lot of loose ends to tie up, including dealing with the likes of Lydia to make sure she doesn’t squeal. I have a feeling that this event could very likely lead to Walt’s undoing with the DEA too. Now that Mike is dead Hank will most likely increase the strength of his investigation to finally hunt down the elusive Heisenberg, despite his orders to desist.

On the other hand, Mike’s death was an inevitability to begin with. Breaking Bad is a show that has a very strict rule of morals and is beholden to the eye for an eye principle. The characters in Breaking Bad reap what they sew and eventually all those on the wrong side of the law are punished. Mike knew this (despite his best attempts to avoid it) and in his final moments he acknowledges his own retribution.

It is a beautiful scene which sees him calmly pass away by the side of a river while the sun sets over the mountains. When Walt begins blathering, Mike instructs him to “shut the f**k up and let me die in peace”.

Mike’s moment of redemption is allowing himself that final moment of peace and reflection before his death. Mike has had the best intentions for going into this business but it has led him to some very messed up places, places he has gone to without question. For protecting the interests of his granddaughter though, a peaceful death is something he has in the end earned and it is a hauntingly resonant and beautiful scene.

Outside of Mike’s storyline, this episode of Breaking Bad had an awful lot to deliver elsewhere. The cold openings, which Breaking Bad has become famous for, remain terrific. It is a wonderful storytelling device that they have honed to perfection, allowing for 3 to 7 minute scenes to set the tone of the following 40 minutes.

With this opening, which sees Walt making a deal with the other meth dealer we were introduced to last week, the writers are finally, definitively telling and reminding us that Walt has now become a seriously dangerous man. His Heisenberg persona has seeped into his mind and taken control, Walt’s initial want for people to fear him has been blown totally out of proportion. They do fear him but they are simultaneously cautious around him and this has affected his family life, which is the only thing he initially wanted to protect.

The relationship between Walt and Jesse becomes fractured once again this week too. Jesse is insistent on leaving but this is something Walt cannot see. Jesse has earned his moral purity enough to know that now is the time to walk away. He even refuses the $5 million that is owed to him and the further money that Walt promises him through being a part of the operation. Money doesn’t matter to Jesse anymore, all he wants is to be free and away from this life which has cost him so much.

“Say My Name” is a thematically dense and emotionally resonant episode of Breaking Bad that will have a lasting effect on the show and only shows signs of darker, more violent events to come. With only 9 episodes left, and one episode left of this first half, there are some serious blues setting in.

Breaking Bad is a show that will be missed, folks. Cherish it while it is still with us.

Joseph McNulty

It was a fine episode, but for the first time I am starting to dislike “Breaking Bad.” I have been upset for months that an arbitrary end has been set for the series.
It is, without doubt, the best show on television. I have been watching TV since Uncle Miltie, and I think that it is the best show EVER on TV (at least, since the Moon landing). So I am upset for that reason.

I would think that the show could go on for several more years with the storylines available with Hank, Marie, Skyler, and Saul Goodman (a wasted asset this season, I think).

This bring me to my second complaint. Like “The Sopranos,” the other nominee for “Best Show Ever on Television” (but in second place), a show that was never the same after Adriana’s murder and really hit the wall after Christopher was murdered (Tony murdering his surrogate son?), I fear that “Breaking Bad” is consuming its characters.

Gus Fring’s exit was memorable, but he was irreplacable and has been missed this year. I fear that Mike’s demise will be the same, with the exception that his death was totally unnecessary and gratutious. Walt is becoming too much and too obvious a monster TOO QUICKL. Gus Fring was a wonderful villain because he SEEMED so ordinary, the local small businessman (who contributed to DEA charities), who was really a drug kingpin. But Gus Fring always had Mike to do his killing (exceot for Victor, an object lesson) when it became necessary (murder being just a normal business technique of the “meth” business).

The chess game between Gus Fring and Hank and the DEA should have been allowed to play out longer, with the local charitable involvement of Gus Fring obscuring his drug dealing. I guess that what I am saying is that the entire story seems too fast. Like the breakfast plate at Denny’s in the first episode, it seems not quite “well done.”

How did Walter White go from lecturing bored students in a high school chemistry class to “Tony Montana” buying a machine gun in the parking lot of Denny’s in just two years? “Breaking Bad” has killed off two of its most compelling characters, Mike and Gus, althogh Lydia seems promising (a twitchy woman, but one with enough moxie the want to talk about payoffs with a gun to her head). And what of Madrigal? Are they “dirty” or not?

Is Vince Gilligan tired of “Breaking Bad” and itching to move along to the next project? I can understand wanting to end a series before it “jumps the shark.” But I cannot fathom ending an astonishing series arbitrarily when there are so many stories left to tell. We should see Walter White, local car wash owner, become a pillar of the community just as Hank begins to figure out who Heisenburg really might be.
- romina
  
  i agree with you.And i think the reason its a low budget.They are screwing up a great TV show only for money
- bob
  
  u should make your own show twat. Season 5 is great, god dam critics and your heavy handed opinions
  - Joseph McNulty
    
    I will try to make my opinions lighter in the future. Unfortunately, I can do nothing about the weight of my hands.
- Charlie
  
  Excellent points. Ignore Bob.
Michael Noel

Really liked this episode, although the “Bringing Todd to make meth” seemed forced to me, since Walter proved that he didn’t need help with the meth before (The part where he isn’t able to deal with it on his own is obviously planned by him so that Gus doesn’t kill Jesse).

I do think however, that we might have a clue on why Walter went into hiding in the beginning of this season’s first episode: Jesse. Jesse is tired of the meth business, he even get’s so tired of Walter’s “BS” like he calls it, that he refuses to help out until he gets his five millions. Which proves that he has had enough of the industry. But the thing is, he considered Mike, as stated in this review, as a father figure. If the kingdom crumble around the kingpin, and if we stay true to how things work in “Breaking Bad”, Jesse will end up learning the horrible truth about Mike’s murder (And hunts down Walter?).

Mike’s murder bugs me though. Walter always was the guy that looked at EVERY option before taking actions, hell the episode where him and Pinkman are stuck in the desert and how he escapes Mike in this season cleary demonstrates that, yet after he shoots Mike he goes “Woops, I could simply have asked Lydia for the names, silly me.” That felt cheap, it’s as if the writters had a bunch of great ideas of what Walter could do but also the kind of things that Mike wouldn’t close his eyes on, so they went “Well Mike needs to go sometimes right?”.

Still a great episode although my favorite character died and that I can’t wrap my head around what Walter’s going to do with the body…(The cops aren’t stupid enough to not understand what happened there).
- Charlie
  
  Well said; my thoughts exactly.
weirdthings

why didn’t mike look in the bag as soon as it was handed over? why didn’t he give walt the names? it was in both parties’ interest to satiate gus’s men with payoff money in order to keep the cat in the bag. walt had no means to kill those men. he would have assumed mike’s (and therefore gus’s) debt to them in exchange for silence. he had enough incoming funds to pay their lein and profit from doing so. the simmering feud between walt and mike was apparent enough. mike would have never trusted walt with a task of such gravity. his character’s cold nonchalance was pushed too far with the writing of this episode. a career criminal with the savvy to throw off such seasoned DEA agents surveillance would have anticipated a too close for comfort double cross such as walt picking up the go bag, even in a desperate moment. it was a brilliant mind coup on the part of the writers but it could have been even more intricate. it was heartbreaking to watch mike’s face as he made the implied decision to flee, leaving his main motivation for illicit profit alone on a swing, oblivious to the complex web of criminal and law enforcement entities rapidly closing in her geriatric guardian. but then again, breaking bad has proved to be an astute distillation of the strange and oft unpredictable nature of those who choose to dabble in an unregulated and amoral occupation.