Breaking Bad was always a great show, even its weaker seasons in its first half are still really great TV. But the jump in quality between Seasons 3 and 4 is definitely noticeable, and is the start of why I can easily name this series as one of my all-time favorites. Seasons 4 and 5 are both phenomenal, but the former is easily one of my favorite television seasons of all time.
Season 4 of Breaking Bad feels focused, really focused. Unlike Seasons 2 and 3 which juggle a whole bunch of arcs and storylines, this season has one main storyline: Walt vs Gus. This entire season is an extended war between the two, and this main storyline is given all of the attention it deserves. The conflict between Walt and Gus is a compelling cat-and-mouse game, one that slowly evolves and becomes more and more deadly throughout the season, starting with Gus making a simple threatening move, and ending with poison, house arrest, and explosions. In addition, the development for Walt and Gus is some of the best in the series. Walt is starting to make some truly despicable actions that are really beginning to scare everyone around him, isolating him even further. Meanwhile, Gus gets a ton of compelling backstory and sequences of his own. For all intents and purposes, this season belongs to Walt and Gus, and it's that razor sharp focus that makes it my favorite season of the bunch.
My favorite aspect of Season 4 is its pacing and buildup. Outside of the genuinely traumatic premiere, this entire season is a slow buildup, meaning that I can actually use the cliche and say that every episode is better than the last. As the season progresses, the pace slowly increases, the intensity slowly increases, to the point where nearly every episode in the second half of the season is ridiculously intense and shocking. There's no stop-and-start like in Season 2 or meandering like in Season 3, this season excels with its satisfying and beautifully crafted buildup and payoff. It also feels like nearly every episode has some kind of iconic or important moment this time around, like how "Bullet Points" sets the stage for one of Season 5's biggest plot twists, how "Cornered" has that iconic "I am the one who knocks" quote, and how "Bug" has one of the most brutal fights between Walt and Jesse in the series. Season 4 is packed with amazing episode and iconic moments.
There's a lot of strong outings this season, especially in its latter half, but these are easily the best:
Box Cutter: This premiere is a phenomenal followup to the final two episodes of Season 3, a tense waiting game as Walt, Jesse, Mike, and Victor wait for Gus to return, and man, does he return. The scene where Gus slits Victor's throat is easily the goriest scene in the series, and it still has me screwed up even a year after seeing it for the first time.
Hermanos: While this episode was generally pretty great, it's Gus's backstory that truly made it amazing for me. The flashback that shows Gus's start of darkness being causes by none other than a pre-wheelchair Hector Salamanca is one of my favorite scenes in the series, and a rare instance of emotion from one of the most cold characters.
Salud: Similarly to Hermanos, Salud is a great episode made even better by one really good extended sequence. The finale where Gus kills off the entire cartel pretty much single-handedly is phenomenal. It leaves you shocked at how quickly the threat was disposed of without feeling anticlimactic, if anything, it makes Gus feel like an even more dangerous threat than he already was.
Crawl Space: I'd say there are two Breaking Bad episodes that left me feeling sick by the final scene, Box Cutter and this. Crawl Space's second half is phenomenal, it's tense, terrifying, and some of the best TV out there. From Gus's brutal threat, to the genius way that Ted ends up tying into the main plot, to Walt's iconic and chilling breakdown at the end of the episode, Crawl Space is a phenomenal episode that amps up the stakes for the final few episodes of the season.
End Times: Slotted in between two of the greatest episodes of the series, it's a miracle that End Times holds up as well as it does. Similarly to Bug, there's a brutal standoff between Walt and Jess as the tension between them comes to a head, and the final scene where Walt nearly manages to kill Gus only to fail plants the question of how he could possibly defeat such a powerful man.
Face Off: Where do I even start with this finale? Face Off is one of the best season enders in TV history, it takes all of the plot threads throughout the season and ties them all together on an explosive note. It's not just the final battle of Gus and Walt, in one single move, Walt destroys Gus, his empire, the drug cartel, and most of his relationships, making this episode a huge step in his development. The final twist of who poisoned Brock is one of the greatest "a-ha!" moments in all of TV.
Overall, Season 4 of Breaking Bad is a pretty much perfect season. The pacing is perfect, the payoff is phenomenal, the main storyline is compelling, and the sheer amount of amazing episodes make this easily my favorite season of the series.
5/5 Stars
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