By Jim Rohner · July 18, 2011
In just three seasons, Breaking Bad has won 6 Emmys, been nominated for 10 more, picked up a WGA award to go with its 8 other nominations, got some recognition from the Producers Guild of America, the Hollywood Foreign Press, the Screen Actors Guild, the Television Critics Association and a partridge in a pear tree. Some, such as myself, would say that ads some validity to the claims that Breaking Bad is the best show currently on television. But fans of Breaking Bad don't need a stuffy old critics association to tell them that; each episode speaks clearly to the power and audacity of a show that has slowly transformed cancer-striken Walter White (Bryan Cranston) from a mild-mannered, Mr. Chips high school chemistry teacher into an intimidating, meticulous Scarface crystal meth manufacturer.
It was a premise that I admittedly wrote off as foolish upon first hearing, but which has proven fresh, exhilarating, and addictive by constantly surprising us with a narrative that must progress because of the irreparable ethical and emotional lines that are crossed in each successive episode. In the past three seasons with Walt, we've seen him kill a man for the first time in his life, miss the birth of his own child, allow Jessie's (Aaron Paul) girlfriend to die in her sleep, indirectly cause two airliners to collide midair, get forced into a divorce by a betrayed and unfaithful wife and order the execution of a former partner in a desperate gambit to save his and Jessie's lives (among other things).
What we haven't seen is an honest to goodness season-ending cliffhanger. Season 1's finale was resolved enough for the show to end had it not been picked up and Season 2's conclusion was more an emotional cliffhanger than a narrative one, but Season 3, which ended with Jessie firing a gun either past or into Gale's (David Costabile) face, was the first true ellipsis finale that could not be satisfied with ambiguity. So here we are with "Box Cutter," the Season 4 premiere that reveals Gale has indeed been killed and that Walt and Jessie are safe from their seemingly imminent fate of death at Gus's (Giancarlo Esposito) command.
Or so they think.
***SPOILER ALERT***
With Gale dead, the cooks are rounded up and forced into the lab where they find out that Victor (Jeremiah Bitsui), the henchman who'd been tailing Walt's every move, was doing so in order to be able to perfectly emulate the cooking process. It's a fantastic surprise as Walt immediately devolves from the confident Scarface into the terrified Mr. Chips, begging for his life and hyperbolically overstating the value of his work as Gus moves about the lab, taking it all in without speaking a word. We're not sure what's going to happen, but the ominous score and the cold, expressionless look on Gus's face assure us that it won't be good.
Meanwhile, Skyler (Anna Gunn) has come to the realization that Walt, having been taken by Victor in the night, has once again disappeared, and she goes about searching for him. We all understand by now that it's Walt's sinful ways paying for Hank's (Dean Norris) medical bills, but we've seen Skyler playing the "Where Is Walt?" game many times before and the focus on her seems like more fat to chew than meal to digest. On the other hand, the brief time we spend with Hank – bedridden, unshaved, and bidding for minerals online – is not only much more effective in expressing a lot with very little screen time, but it's also a more hard hitting picture of the collateral damage Walt's path has incurred on others.
Which leads us to the shocking conclusion that bookends the open and makes sense of the episode's title. "Box Cutter" begins with a flashback to previously unseen events, this one show a jubilant Gale opening crates of industrial equipment that will ultimately become the lab. Typically, the flashbacks at the outset of every episode edify us of past events or shed light on what's to come, but the flashback that kicks off this episode serves a much less grandiose and complete purpose.
After Gale gushes over the incomparable magnificence of Walt's blue crystal – a fact to which we have already long been privy – the camera focuses on the box cutter he's been using to open the shipping crates. Flash forward to the episode climax, and our jaws drop as Gus uses this instrument to slit the throat of neither Walt nor Jessie, but instead of Victor. It's a shocking turn not only because it was unexpected, but also because it signifies, as Jessie later states, "if he can't kill us, he's gonna sure as hell make us wish we were dead." True, Walt and Jessie are still alive, but all sense of safety has been completely eradicated. So as Jessie chomps down on his Denny's breakfast, as Hank festers in his incapacitation and Skyler persists in her deceptions, we, like Walt, are again left wondering, "what's the next move?"
