I love this show, but have a limited amount of time for TV-watching, and so have only now reached the end of season four. I can’t help thinking that it would have been a perfect and natural finale for the entire series.
I’m reminded of the fly-swatter episode where a sleep-deprived and doped-up Walt looked back trying to imagine the “perfect” time when his life ought to have ended, regretting that he went on past that point. I’m also thinking of some other series that went on a little past their prime, ignoring the old maxim of “Leave them wanting more…”
I love the show and there’s no chance I will stop watching, but I’m wondering if I should lower my expectations a bit? Does it keep going at the level that season four performed at? Is that possible?
First off all, Season 5 is only (technically) half over. The next ‘season’ is the second half of season 5.
The second half of the season should be very good.
Also, if you don’t follow the podcast, they didn’t know if there was going to be a season 5. The season 4 finale was written to be a series finale if it needed to be. As you could tell, the should could have ended there if it needed to.
ETA, there was nothing wrong with the first half, I’d call it ‘your typical Breaking Bad’, but they left us on the edges of our seats.
There’s nothing boring about the first half of this season. Quite a lot of interesting shit goes down, quickly. Looking back, it almost feels like they managed to cram an entire season into only eight episodes.
I’d say that season 4 is the pinnacle of the show up to this point. Overall, fantastic with all parts at their best.
Season 5 is definitely great, but it’s not up to that peak. There are a couple of episodes so far that have been up there with their best, but the consistency isn’t quite up the standard set in S4. At least to me, S5 so far has felt slightly rushed, like they could have filled 13 episodes with what they crammed into 8. It doesn’t have the deliberate slow burn of several episodes of building up tension because it doesn’t have the luxury a long season with only 8 episodes to grab you before a year-long break.
I’m really excited for the second half of S5, but I will admit that the quality of S5 so far hasn’t quite been up to par with S4.
And to provide a contrasting opinion, I think even the worst episode of this season (so far) is better than nearly every episode from season 4, with the exception of “Problem Dog,” “Salud,” and “Crawlspace”
Not disappointing, but I preferred season 4 overall (and, BTW, think this business about not just going ahead and referring to two sets of episodes airing a full year apart as two “seasons” (that is, 5 and 6) is pretty silly.)
And to provide yet another contrasting opinion (sorry interface2x!), I’d have said the exact opposite - season 5 so far is ALL slow burn. Absolutely brilliant slow burn, and completely riveting at every step, but since a lot was resolved at the end of season 4, it takes some some time to carefully create new plot threads and pull them together, presumably heading towards ratcheting things up in the second half of the season.
I don’t think you’ll be disappointed though… my god, the tension in these relationships is nearly killing me by this point. There are some incredible scenes between Walt and Skyler, really some of the most intense stuff the show has ever done.
And they left us in a very, very interesting place.
Yeah, I don’t know what came over me, really. It’s just that season four ended pretty much perfectly, I wondered where the dramatic tension was going to come from.
After watching 5.1, FL glad to see that it just never lets up.
As I said above, it was specifically set up to end the series if it didn’t get renewed. Vince wanted to be able to walk away with no loose ends. BUT, he left one major thing still available to be explored if it did get renewed.
Well, the “very special episode” - in which the cast of Malcolm in the Middle shows up, playing roles from A Christmas Carol to show Walt the error of his ways - was a tad unpleasant.
I would actually watch that. (Something like this, I’d hope.)
Brilliantly done, because although it seems natural enough to pick up with that, it didn’t really feel like there were any threads left hanging. (Would assume that Gus’s video feeds were just a stream for real-time surveillance.)
The thing I was talking about won’t be revealed until the end of this ‘season’. But it’s already been covertly mentioned in the thread.
Just keep plugging along, you’ll get there.
If I were you, I’d stop reading this thread before you end up getting spoiled by accident and just keep watching. You only have, what, 7 more episodes left.