Welcome back to the deep dive. Today we're we're
actually doing something a little bit different.
Usually, you know, we take a really broad topic,
maybe a new technology or a huge historical event,
and we try to pick it apart over the hour. Right.
But today. We're zooming way in. We are putting
just a single hour of television under the microscope.
And not just any hour either. Exactly. Not just
any hour. We are looking at what is widely considered
the single greatest hour of scripted drama in
history. We're talking about Breaking Bad and
specifically the episode Ozymandias. It's really
the hour that changed the medium, I think. Yeah,
totally. For anyone who watched it when it first
aired, or even for people discovering it now,
there is very clearly a before and an after.
It's the exact moment where the show stopped
being this dark adventure and just became a full
-blown tragedy. It's so heavy. I mean, I rewatched
it to prep for this deep dive. And I honestly
had to pause it like three times. It is just
relentless. It really is. But before we get into
the actual emotional damage it causes, let's
talk about its status in the culture. Because
we throw around words like greatest a lot, but
in this case, the data actually backs it up.
Oh, it absolutely does. If you look at the critical
consensus, it is just overwhelming. I mean, even
recently in 2024, Rolling Stone updated their
ranking of the best TV episodes of all time.
And Ozymandias was sitting right there at number
one. Number one. Yeah, number one. And you have
to remember, that's against the Sopranos, against
the wire. against literally everything that has
come out in the massive streaming era since.
And then there's the IMDB score, which is a whole
other saga in itself. Oh boy, yeah, the IMDB
saga. For over 13 years, this held a perfect
10 out of 10 rating. That is with over 200 ,000
people voting. Statistically speaking, that just
shouldn't happen. No, it's basically impossible.
Right, you usually get trolls or contrarians
or... Honestly, just people who accidentally
click the wrong button on their phone. Yeah.
But for a decade, it was absolute perfection.
It was the only episode of television to hold
that perfect score for that long. It became this
sort of Internet monument. Of course, as we will
discuss later on, monuments tend to crumble.
Right. The 2026 review bombing war. Yes, we definitely
have to talk about that war later. But the fact
that it stood for so long is just a massive testament
to how undeniable this piece of art is. And the
award shelf is pretty crowded. too, right? Writing
Emmy for Moira Wally Beckett, lead actor for
Bryan Cranston, supporting actress for Anna Gunn,
it basically swept the board that year. Which
brings us to our mission for today. We aren't
just going to sit here and recap the plot. If
you're listening to this deep dive, you probably
already know that Hank dies and Walt goes on
the run. Yeah, you know the basics. Exactly.
We want to unpack how this thing was made. We
want to look at the production secrets, you know,
the stuff they hid in the desert floor, the specific
camera lenses they used to make Walt look small.
And we want to understand really why it hits
the viewer so hard. And we've got a great stack
of sources here to help us do that. We have production
notes, interviews with creator Vince Gilligan,
psychological profiles of the characters, and
some deep literary analysis of the poem that
actually gave the episode its name. We're going
straight into the collapse of the Heisenberg
Empire. And we should definitely start with the
architects of that collapse, because interestingly
enough, the creator of the show, Vince Gilligan,
didn't write or direct this. That is so surprising,
right? Yeah. You would think for the climax of
your lice work. You would absolutely want to
be the one behind the camera calling the shots.
You really would. But he handed the keys over
to Moira Wally Beckett and Rian Johnson. Which
is a huge deal. It shows a tremendous amount
of trust on Gilligan's part. And you have to
understand the dynamic between Wally Beckett
and Johnson. They were self -proclaimed partners
in crime on that set. They had worked together
before on a very specific, very controversial
episode called Fly. Oh, I know Fly. That's the
bottle episode from season three, right? Just...
Walt and Jesse trapped in the super lab trying
to kill a single housefly for 45 minutes. Exactly.
That's the one. And for listeners who might not
know the exact term, a bottle episode is usually
done just to save money. You use one existing
set, minimal cast, no big expensive location
moves. Just trapping the actors in a room. Right.
And Fly was highly polarizing. Some fans absolutely
hated it because the plot basically stopped dead.
But others loved it because it was just deep
psychological surgery on those two characters.
So Gilligan takes the exact team that made the
slowest, most psychological episode and gives
them the most explosive, plot -heavy episode
of the entire series. It's brilliant when you
really think about it. Fly proved they could
handle the intense claustrophobic emotional beats
between Walt and Jesse. Ozymandias is essentially
just Fly writ large, but with gunshots and kidnappings
and huge desert landscapes. And I read that Gilligan
gave Wally Beckett unprecedented freedom here.
Usually a showrunner is constantly rewriting
scenes, tweaking the dialogue. But for this,
Wally, Beckett, and Johnson basically oversaw
the final cut themselves. Yeah, Gilligan watched
it and reportedly just said, this is the best
episode we have ever done. Let's talk about the
production timeline because I found a fact in
the source notes that genuinely blew my mind.
The episode opens the flashback right. We see
Walt and Jesse in the old RV back in the good
old days. Walt is in his underwear. Yeah. Jesse
is acting like a fool. It's the pilot era. It
is such a heartbreaking scene because it shows
us exactly what we've lost. The innocents, well
if you can call meth cooking innocent. But here
is the kicker with that scene. That flashback
was the very last thing they shot for the entire
series. Wait, hold on. The very last thing. Yes.
After the grand finale. Yes. After everything.
And it wasn't just some weird scheduling quirk.
It was a physical necessity for the actors. Think
about what Walter White looks like in season
five. Right. He has the shaved head, the harsh
goatee. He looks terrifying and haggard. And
Jesse has super short hair and all those scars
on his face. But back in the pilot era, Walt
had that floppy brown hair and the big mustache.
Jesse looked like a kid in baggy clothes. So
they couldn't just throw a wig on him and call
it a day. They could have, but this is breaking
bad. They do not do half measures. The production
actually paused. They waited for Bryan Cranston
and Aaron Paul to physically grow their real
hair back out. That is just insane dedication.
So the crew wraps the main show. They probably
have a huge wrap party. Everyone cries and says
goodbye. And then months later, they meet up
out in the desert one last time. Exactly. Ray
and Johnson came back just to direct that one
single sequence. It adds this weird metal layer
of nostalgia to the scene, if you know about
it. When you watch Walt and Jesse fading out
at the end of that cold open, the actors are
actually saying goodbye to those characters for
the final time in real life. They are ghosts
in their own show. Wow. That context makes the
transition to the present day so much harsher,
because we cut from that soft, golden, nostalgic
flashback straight to the brutal reality of the
shootout. And apparently the vibe on set for
the main shoot was not fun at all. It was incredibly
intense. You have to remember, these actors had
been living inside these skins for five or six
years. They loved each other off camera. And
the script called for them to just absolutely
destroy one another emotionally and physically.
Yeah, the source mentions Bessie Brandt, who
played Marie. She actually refused to read the
scene where Hank dies. She just wouldn't read
it. She completely avoided it. She couldn't do
it. It was too painful for her. She said in an
interview, and this was seven years later, mind
you, that she still hadn't watched the episode.
She lived it on set, but she couldn't bring herself
to witness it as a viewer. That is real trauma
from playing a role. And Anna Gunn, too. I mean,
Skyler goes through the absolute wringer in this
hour. We'll get to the big knife fight later,
but she talked about the scene where Walt kidnaps
the baby. She called it the hardest but richest
scene of her entire career. And there is a moment
during the baby scenes that we really need to
highlight, because it is one of those pure movie
magic moments that you just can't plan for. The
mama moment. Oh, yes. This is legendary. This
is the scene in the public bathroom right after
Walt takes her. Right. Walt has kidnapped his
infant daughter Holly. He is on the run. His
whole life has collapsed. He stops in this dingy
bathroom to change her diaper. He's trying to
coo at her, trying to play the good dad one last
time. Now, in the script, the baby is just supposed
to be there. Babies don't exactly take direction.
Obviously not. You can't tell a 10 -month -old,
hey, look really sad about your father's criminal
enterprise collapsing. Exactly. But while they
were rolling the camera, the baby's real mother
was standing just off camera to keep an eye on
her. The baby spots her real mom, reaches out
her little hand, starts crying, mama, mama. And
Brian Krantz just rolls with it. He doesn't cut
the scene. He doesn't cut. And this right here
is why you won the Emmy. He stays 100 % in character.
He looks at this baby who's actively rejecting
him and calling for her mother and his face just
completely crumbled. It's devastating. It fits
the narrative so perfectly. Walt has taken this
child to prove he's still a family man, but she
doesn't want him. She wants the mother he literally
just assaulted. It underscores his total, utter
isolation at that point. It's amazing that they
recognized what they had and kept that in the
final edit. It feels so raw and unscripted. It
was a happy accident that became the thematic
core of the entire sequence. But let's zoom out
to the desert for a minute. We need to talk about
the actual fall of the Empire, because the episode
starts with the immediate aftermath of that massive
gunfight. Hank is shot in the leg. Gomez is dead.
The neo -Nazis are completely in control. This
is the exact moment where Walt finally loses.
He has spent five seasons outsmarting literally
everyone. He's like an evil MacGyver. He's the
guy who blew up a nursing home just to win a
turf war. And here he has absolutely nothing
left but his money. And he tries to use it. He
offers Jack Welker $80 million in cash to let
Hank go. And this is a really important psychological
beat for Walt. Critics often say Walt is purely
selfish and ego -driven, but here in the dirt,
he is willing to trade his entire life's work,
every single dime he earns, just to save his
brother -in -law. But Hank knows better. Hank
has the line of the episode, maybe the line of
the entire series, to be honest. You're the smartest
guy I ever met, but you're too stupid to see
he made up his mind 10 minutes ago. Man, it gives
me chills just hearing you say it. It's Hank.
reclaiming his power in his final moments, isn't
it? It absolutely is. For the whole show, Walt
has made Hank look like a fool. He has run circles
around him right under his nose. But in the very
end, Hank is the one with the crystal clear vision.
He sees the brutal reality of the situation while
Walt is still pathetically bargaining with murderers.
Hank dies with his dignity totally intact. I
read in the production notes that the writers
were really specific about that. They wanted
his death to be dignified and honorable. They
did not want him begging or pleading for his
life. And they actually had to film it in minimal
takes because of weather and time constraints.
Yeah, they had to move fast. And then the shot
happens. Yeah. And Wal just hits the ground.
Okay, here is where we need to get a little technical.
Because there is a visual shot here that people
feel in their gut, but they might not realize
exactly how it was achieved. When Walt collapses
in grief, the camera is positioned really low
to the ground. And as he hits the dirt, the ground
literally seems to shatter underneath him. Yeah,
I remember that. It looks like a mini earthquake.
Or like, his grief is so incredibly heavy it
physically breaks the planet. I always just assumed
that was CGI added in post -production. No, and
that is exactly... why it looks so incredibly
good. It was a practical effect engineered by
Rian Johnson. They actually dug a hole in the
desert floor before filming. They built this
rig essentially a set of wooden puzzle pieces
that fit together perfectly to look like solid
ground, and they covered the whole thing with
dirt. So it's basically a tiny trap door. Kinda,
yeah. It was wired to a manual trigger. The second
Cranston's knees hit that specific spot, the
special effects operator pulled the trigger and
the pieces fell away slightly dropping down.
It created these deep instant fissures in the
earth. It is a literal physical manifestation
of his world breaking apart. That is wild. If
you did that in CGI, it would look floaty and
fake. But because it's real dirt and real gravity,
your brain just accepts it as a visceral reality.
That is such a subtle, genius touch. Most directors
would just push in on his face, crying. Johnson
makes the earth itself react to the tragedy.
But then, as if losing Hank wasn't bad enough,
we get the betrayal. Walt looks over and spots
Jesse hiding underneath the car. This is the
moment that truly tests the audience. Walt blames
Jesse entirely for Hank's death. He points him
out to the Nazis, he hands him over, but he doesn't
just let them take him. He has to twist the knife
on the way out. The Jane moment. Yes. He stops
the Nazis from dragging Jesse away, just so he
can say, I watched Jane die. This is a secret
he has held since the end of season two. He looks
Jesse in the eye and tells him, I could have
saved her, but I didn't. Why do you think he
does that? Is it just pure spite at that point?
It is pure, unadulterated malice. It's the very
last shred of whatever goodness was left in Walter
White just evaporates into the desert air. He
is hurting so deeply about Hank, so he wants
to inflict maximum psychological pain on the
person he blames. Cranston has actually noted
that this was the moment he felt the audience
finally turned on Walt for good. Right, because...
You can justify the drug dealing maybe if you
squint. You can justify the self -defense killings
of rival cartels. But kicking your surrogate
son when he's literally being dragged off to
be tortured, that is just... unforgivable. And
the show makes a very smart choice here. Jesse
is taken into slavery to cook meth, but the actual
torture was mostly left off screen. They didn't
want to manipulate the audience's emotions too
cheaply with gratuitous violence. The emotional
violence of Walt's words was more than enough.
And then Walt is left totally alone. The Nazis
take all the barrels of money, they leave him
just one out of pity. And we get this incredible
wide shot of him rolling that single barrel through
the desert. Ah, the dung beetle shot? Is that
what they called it on set? The dung beetle.
Yes, they did. Rand Johnson had a very specific
visual metaphor in mind for this sequence. He
wanted Walt to look like a tiny dung -deedle
rolling a ball of Well, a ball of crap across
the sand. To get that specific look, they used
a very long lens. Explain that for the non -photographers
listening. What exactly does a long lens do to
an image? Sure. So a wide angle lens, which is
what a lot of movies use, makes things look close
and it distorts the edges. A long lens, like
a telephoto lens you'd use for sports photography,
compresses the background. It makes the background
look massive and strangely close to the subject.
So they took the camera track and parked it way,
way back far away. from Cranston. This flattened
the entire image. It makes Walt look like a tiny
insignificant speck against this massive uncaring
desert landscape. He is just a little bug pushing
his dirty money. It really sells the idea that
he is incredibly small. Yeah. He thought he was
this massive kingpin, but the desert just does
not care about him. Exactly. And that grand visual
transition leads us perfectly into the next segment.
We go from the vast, open, quiet desert where
the Empire fell straight into the claustrophobic
family home where the family shatters. This part
of the episode honestly feels like a horror movie.
Marie has gone to the car wash and told Skyler
the truth. Skyler now knows Walt has been arrested,
or at least she thinks he has, based on what
Hank told Marie on the phone. And so she finally
tells Walter Jr. And that scene with Junior is
pivotal. He is the very last truly innocent person
left in the show. When Skyler tells him the truth
about his dad being a meth kingpin, he doesn't
just quietly accept it. He lashes out. Yeah,
he's furious. He tells his mom she is as bad
as Walt for keeping the secret for so long. It
is the definitive end of his childhood right
there in the middle of a car wash clothing store.
And then they go home and Walt shows up and he
is frantic. He's bleeding. He's screaming. We
have to go pack your bags right now. The tension
here is just unbearable. Skyler looks at him,
looks at his reactions, and she realizes Hank
is dead. Walt tries to lie. He gives her the
whole I negotiated, I made a deal speech. But
she sees right through it immediately. And she
makes a terrifying choice. She steps between
him and her son, and she grabs a kitchen knife.
Let's talk about the choreography of this physical
fight. Because TV fights usually look very polished,
the punch block kick. This fight was just messy.
It was scary. It was incredibly clumsy. That's
what made it so terrifying to watch. Wally Beckett
described writing this confrontation as operatic
with these distinct crescendos and decrescendos.
Skyler slashes his hand with a knife and then
suddenly they are just wrestling on the floor.
Scrambling. Right. It's not martial arts. It's
a desperate husband and wife rolling in the dirt
of their own hallway. And Johnson drops the camera
right down to the floor with them. So we as viewers
are trapped in the chaos right alongside them.
And the most shocking part of it, every single
time I see it, Is Walter Junior? He intervenes.
And physically, this is a huge moment. He tackles
his father. He throws his entire body over his
mother to shield her from Walt. It's a complete
reversal of roles. The son suddenly becomes the
protector of the family against the father. And
then he does the one thing Walt absolutely cannot
fight. He calls the police. That phone call is
haunting. He says, my dad pulled a knife on my
mom. That is the exact sentence that ends Walt's
life effectively. It is the exact moment Walt
realizes he is fully dead to them. He can have
80 million dollars, well, or 11 million, which
is what he's left in that barrel. He can be the
great Heisenberg, but his own son looks at him
with pure unadulterated terror. So Walt does
something completely irrational. He takes the
baby. The kidnapping scene. I read in the notes
that there were like a hundred onlookers watching
them film this sequence on the street. Yeah,
they were filming on location in a real Albuquerque
neighborhood. You had paparazzi super fans, local
neighbors all just standing around. It was a
total circus. And Anna Gunn had to summon this
primal guttural scream while running down the
actual pavement chasing a moving truck. With
all those people watching. Plus I think the note
said there was erratic weather and they were
super late on the shooting schedule too, adding
to the pressure. Exactly. She delivers. She looks
like her heart is actively being ripped out of
her chest. She basically said it was the hardest
scene of her life. She is running. She's stumbling.
It's not a pretty Hollywood hero run. It is pure
motherly panic. Yeah, it's so real. And that
final image of the street of the truck driving
away, leaving the mother screaming on her knees
in the middle of the road, that is the true emotional
climax of the series. The meth business is done.
The cartel is done. Now it is just a destroyed
family. Which brings us back to the title of
the Deep Dive today, Azimandias. We established
it's the best episode of TV, but why that specific
name? It's not just to sound fancy and intellectual,
it is a very direct reference to Percy Bischelli's
famous poem. It is, and the show isn't being
subtle about it either. Bryan Cranston actually
recited the entire poem in a promotional teaser
trailer for the final season back in 2013. The
showrunners were practically screaming at the
audience, this is the theme, pay attention. So
for those of us listening who haven't read Shelley
since high school English class, break it down
for us. What is the poem actually about? The
poem describes a traveler in an antique land
who comes across a ruined broken statue in the
desert. It's the statue of an ancient king named
Ozymandias, which is actually another name for
the Egyptian pharaoh, Remes II. And there is
a boastful inscription on the pedestal of the
statue. It reads, my name is Ozymandias, King
of Kings. Look on my works, ye mighty in despair.
Which sounds very much like a Heisenberg monologue.
I am the one who knocks. Exactly. It embodies
tyrannical aspirations and ultimate hubris. But
the brutal punchline of the poem is that around
this boastful statue, there is absolutely nothing
left. The poem says, nothing beside remains.
Round the decay of that colossal wreck boundless
and bare the lone and level sands stretch far
away. The king thought his mighty empire would
last forever, but it's just a colossal wreck
now, just sand. And the episode maps onto this
analysis perfectly. Walt is Ozymandias. He absolutely
is. He built an empire. He wanted to be the king
of kings, but... By the end of this 47 -minute
hour, he is left with a colossal wreck. His brother
-in -law is dead. His son hates him. His wife
is broken. His money is mostly stolen. He is
standing in the desert with nothing to show for
his hubris. There's a brilliant visual detail
that connects to this, too, from the sources.
In the opening flashback, when we see the RV
in the Pila era. The pants. The pants. Walt is
standing there in his tighty -whities without
his trousers. It's a funny visual memory for
the fans, but there's a specific line in the
poem that says, two vast and trunkless legs of
stone stand in the desert. The shot of Walt's
pale, pantsless legs standing in the desert dirt
is a direct visual illusion to those trunkless
legs of the statue. He is already a ruin from
the very beginning, he just doesn't know it yet.
And the source material points out that the desert
environment itself remains totally unchanged
despite all the violence. That is a crucial thematic
point. The desert is the sand in the poem. It
doesn't care about Walt's meth empire. It doesn't
care about Hank's badge. It absorbs the blood
and the money and just keeps being an indifferent
desert. It reinforces that classic Western trope
of nature's total indifference to human struggles.
It highlights the complete emptiness of Walt's
desires. So Walt has lost his empire. He has
kidnapped the baby. And now we get to what is
arguably the most debated and controversial scene
in the episode. The phone call. Ah, yes, the
phone call. This is a scene that launched a thousand
internet dissertations. It is easily the most
analyzed aspect of the hour. So the stage for
us. Walt is calling home from a payphone. Mm
-hmm. He knows the police are at the house. He
knows the line is being recorded. He calls Skyler.
And he just verbally eviscerates her. He calls
her a stupid bitch. He tells her she has no right
to his money. He aggressively claims that he
built the drug empire completely alone and that
she was nothing but a nagging weight around his
neck the entire time. And Skyler is standing
there in her kitchen, surrounded by cops, crying,
holding the phone. It is incredibly brutal to
watch. But the big question is, is he telling
the truth? That is the ultimate debate. Interpretation
A, which is very popular, is the strategic ploy.
Walt knows the cops are listening in. He is intentionally
putting on a performance, painting himself as
the soul monster and Schuyler as his terrified
victim to clear her of complicity. He is giving
her a legal out to save her from prosecution.
The writer Moira Wally Beckett actually weighed
in on this, right? I read she said this wasn't
really open to interpretation. She did. She was
very clear that she wrote it as a strategic move.
She sees it as Walt's final desperate act of
protection for his family. But then as viewers,
we have interpretation B, which is genuine rage,
because the specific things he says on that phone,
they feel a little too real. Yeah, he attacks
her for telling him to stop dealing early on.
He attacks her for disrespecting him. That's
old baggage. Right. And that is why the scene
is an absolute masterclass. Yes. It is a legal
ploy, but he is using his real genuine resentment
to fuel the performance. He is channeling all
the anger and wounded pride he has felt toward
her for five seasons into this protective lie.
It's a lie that is completely wrapped in the
ugly truth. There was a really fascinating critique
from Emily Nussbaum at the New Yorker about this
specific scene that was in our notes. She argued
that the episode was actually trolling the fans
here. the bad fans specifically. Who exactly
are the bad fans in this context? Well, you have
to remember the Internet culture back in 2013
when this aired. There was a huge, very loud
segment of the viewership that despised Skyler.
They saw her as the annoying, nagging wife who
just wouldn't let Walt be a cool badass drug
lord. They even sent real life hate mail to Anna
Gunn. It was deeply misogynistic and ugly. So
Nussbaum is saying this phone call addresses
that specific toxic part of the audience. Yes.
She argues that by having Walt use that exact
hateful language, calling her a bitch, telling
her to shut up and toe the line, the show is
holding up a very harsh mirror to those fans.
It's essentially saying, is this what you wanted?
You wanted him to put her in her place. Well,
look at it. It's not cool. It's deeply abusive.
It's horrific. It completely strips away the
power fantasy aspect of the viewership. That
is a brilliant way to look at it. It's like the
show is actively punishing the audience for rooting
for Heisenberg all those years. Exactly. And
Brandon Taylor from UBC made a very similar point
in his analysis. He suggested that the episode
serves as a critique of the audience for deriving
pleasure from Walt's violent actions up to this
point. We cheered for the cool train heist. We
cheered for the clever explosions. Now the show
is making us sit in the awful rubble and asking,
are you still entertained by this man? And the
music choices reinforce this dark mood perfectly.
The song that plays right after the phone call
when Walt leaves the baby at the fire station.
Take My True Love By The Hand by a group called
The Lime Leaders. It's an older folk song, very
haunting. What's the significance of that track?
The lyrics heavily foreshadow his fate. They
sing about saying goodbye to everyone. It underscores
his total permanent isolation. And it connects
directly back to the baby. Holly rejected him
calling for mama. And now he has to say goodbye
to his true love, his family forever. He leaves
his own daughter sitting in a fire truck. That
is the definitive end of Walter White as a father.
So the episode airs. It completely devastates
everyone who watches it. Critics call it visceral
and a terrifying culmination of the series. TV
Guide names it the best episode of the 21st century.
It wins all the Emmys. And it gets that legendary
perfect 10 on IMDB with hundreds of thousands
of votes. But nothing gold can stay right. Or
rather, nothing Ozymandias can stay. We finally
have to talk about the cultural downfall, the
great review bombing campaign of February 2026.
This is a story that I honestly think will be
taught in internet sociology classes someday.
It is so petty but so incredibly revealing about
human nature and fandoms. It really is. So fast
forward 13 years to February 2026. HBO releases
a new highly anticipated show, A Night of the
Seven Kingdoms, which is a Game of Thrones spin
-off. There is a specific episode in that run
called In the Name of the Mother. I remember
when that aired. It was an incredible hour of
fantasy television. It was fantastic. And for
a brief shining moment on IMDb, it hit a perfect
10 .0 rating. It threatened the long -standing
king. And the Breaking Bad loyalists just did
not take that well. They viewed it as a direct
act of aggression against their monument. They
couldn't handle Ozymandias sharing the throne
with a fantasy prequel. So a coordinated group
of Breaking Bad fans went to the IMDb page for
the Thrones episode and review bombed it. They
spammed it with one star ratings, not because
they actually hated the episode, but just to
mathematically drag the average score down. Which
is just so childish when you think about it.
It's literally, my dad is stronger than your
dad, but with TV shows. But the Internet entirely
works on retaliation. The Thrones fans saw this
unprovoked attack, and they organized a counterattack.
They flooded the sacred Ozymandias page with
one -star reviews. Thousands and thousands of
them overnight. And the perfect math just couldn't
hold up under that much weight. It couldn't.
Ozymandias finally dropped. It lost its perfect
ten. It fell to a nine point nine. The Internet
monument was officially defaced. But the absolute
best part of this whole story is who actually
won the war, because while these two massive
fandom giants were aggressively nuking each other,
who quietly slipped past them to take the crown.
This is the ultimate irony of the situation.
While the Breaking Bad and Thrones fans were
busy destroying each other's scores, the series
finale of six feet under an episode called Everyone's
Waiting didn't have any active. It had a pure
high score that no one was messing with. So when
the dust finally settled from the review bombs,
Six Feet Under mathematically slipped in to become
the new highest rated episode. That is just too
perfect. The quiet show about death and undertakers
wins the massive internet war. It really fits
the Ozymandias theme of the episode, doesn't
it? The mighty and boastful fight for dominance
and ultimately destroy their own empires. And
the quiet truth just wins out in the end. So
as we wrap up this deep dive today, Ozzy Maria
stands as a massive monument to consequences.
Narratively, for Walter White, it is the end
of the road. He loses literally everything he
claimed he was fighting to protect. It strips
away the cool factor of Heisenberg completely.
And emotionally for the viewer, it's a harsh
wake -up call. It forces us to confront the ugly
reality of what we were gleefully watching for
five years. It strips away the cool black hat
and the sunglasses and leaves us with a broken,
crying man sitting in a dusty van. leaves us
with a final provocative thought to chew on.
The source material reminds us that the desert
remains unchanged despite all the destruction.
It's totally indifferent, and it makes me think
deeply about the legacy we try to leave behind.
Walt killed people, he poisoned a child, he destroyed
his entire family, all to leave a legacy. To
leave a pile of money. To leave a feared name.
Right. And in the end, the money is stolen by
a gang of neo -Nazis. The name is completely
hated by his own son. The only actual legacy
he leaves is generational trauma. It raises the
ultimate question. If our works, our careers,
our money, our little empires are just going
to turn to dust in the wind, like Ozymandias'
statue, what does that say? about what actually
mattered. Is the only thing that actually survives
the relationships we protect, or in Walt's case,
the ones we destroy? I think the episode strongly
argues that the relationships are the only thing
of actual value, how you treated the people around
you. And Walt failed that test completely. He
traded his family's genuine love for the temporary,
a plastic barrel full of cash, and the cash just
ran out. That is a very heavy thought to leave
you all with today. But hey, that's exactly why
this is considered the best hour of television
ever made. It forces you to think. It demands
that you reflect on it. If you haven't watched
it in a few years, I highly encourage you to
go back and rewatch it with all these production
secrets in mind. Look for the physical puzzle
pieces in the dirt when he falls. Listen to the
clumsy background noise during the knife fight.
Watch Bryan Cranston's eyes when the baby calls
for her mama. It is an absolute master class
in storytelling. It truly is. There's nothing
else quite like it. Well, thanks for diving deep
with us today. We will catch you on the next
one.