Welcome back to the deep dive. Today, we are
doing something that I have been wanting to do
for a really long time. Oh, yeah. It's a big
one. It really is. We are freezing the frame.
We're stopping the clock right before the end
of, well, one of the greatest cultural phenomena
we've ever seen. We're talking about Breaking
Bad. But not just the show in general, right?
We aren't doing a broad sweep today. We are looking
at a very specific moment in time. The deep breath
before the plunge, I guess you could say. Exactly.
We are diving into Season 5, Episode 15, the
penultimate episode, Granite State. Right. Now,
for anyone who was watching this live back in
2013, you remember the atmosphere. It was just
suffocating. Oh, totally. The tension was unbelievable.
The previous episode, Ozymandias, is widely considered
the best hour of television ever made. And there
was a nuclear bomb, Hank is dead, the money is
stolen, the family is destroyed, and Walt is
on the run. Yeah, Ozymandias was the crash. I
mean, it was the screaming, the crying, the blood.
It was this high octane trauma. But Granite State,
this deep dive, is going to explore why this
episode is actually the more interesting psychological
study. It's the silence after the crash. Exactly.
It's the fallout. And we have an incredible stack
of sources to help us unpack this for you today.
We've got the original production notes from
the writer and director, Peter Gold. Which are
fascinating, by the way. They really are. Plus,
we've got critical essays from Rolling Stone,
IGN, Vulture, and Slant that were written right
in the heat of the moment. We're also looking
at viewership data and some retrospective analysis
that connects this episode to the wider Breaking
Bad universe. Specifically, Better Call Saul.
Yes, exactly. Because that connection to Better
Call Saul is going to be a huge part of our discussion
today. Looking back, Granite State isn't just
the end of Breaking Bad. It's essentially the
backdoor pilot for the entire prequel series.
Even if they didn't know it at the time. Right,
exactly. So here is the mission for this deep
dive. We want to understand how this episode
systematically dismantles the legend of Heisenberg.
Layer by layer. Right. This isn't an episode
about action. It's an episode about stripping
a man of his power Until there is absolutely
nothing left, but a dying man in a cabin. It's
about isolation It's about the difference between
being literally free and actually being alive
And it's about how you know sometimes the scariest
thing isn't the guy with the gun Yeah, it's the
guy with the polite smile who offers you ice
cream. Oh man Todd We will definitely get to
Todd. We have to let's set the context first
Ozymandias ends with Walt getting to that red
van. He's leaving Albuquerque. He is leaving
his identity behind. And according to the production
notes, the writer's room, led by Vince Gilligan
and Peter Gould, they kind of hit a wall here.
Yeah, they really did. They didn't know what
to do next. It's a classic writer's dilemma,
right? Yeah. You've just blown up your protagonist's
world. Does he immediately grab a gun and...
go full Rambo. Right. Does he start plotting
revenge right away? That's the standard action
movie. Exactly. But Breaking Bad rarely does
the standard thing. No, it doesn't. Peter Gold
mentions in these interviews that they debated
having Walt be angry, having him be that cornered
rat immediately. But they realized that just
didn't feel true to the trauma of what just happened.
It would have been cheap. Yeah. So they decided
to go with Prussian. They wanted Walt to hit
bottom. And that tonal shift is jarring for the
viewer. If you binge the show now, you go from
the bright, harsh, desert sunlight of Ozymandias
to this dim, cramped, claustrophobic darkness
of the vacuum repair shop basement. Let's talk
about that basement. Because this is the first
time we actually see where Saul Goodman and Walter
White end up. when they pull the ripcord. We've
heard about the disappear for seasons. Right.
We saw the business card. We knew the vacuum
repair cover story. But now we're actually in
the belly of the beast. It's a literal purgatory.
You have these two titans of the Albuquerque
drug trade. Heisenberg, the kingpin. And Saul
Goodman, the criminal lawyer. And they are bunking
together like college freshmen in a dorm room.
A very damp. dusty concrete dorm room. Exactly.
And the production design here is so telling.
It's stripped of all glamour. There are no stacks
of money on the table. There's just the hum of
the ventilation and this ticking clock. And the
dynamic between them has completely flipped.
Entirely. Think about their relationship up to
this point. Walt has always been the alpha. Always.
He bullies Saul. He shouts. He threatens. He
grabs him by the lapels. Saul has always been
the terrified jester just trying to keep the
king happy. But in this basement... Walt tries
to play that card one last time. He does. He's
pacing around the room. He's trying to formulate
a plan. He wants Saul to give him a list of hitmen.
Right. He wants to hire a crew to go wipe out
Jack Welker's gang and get his money back. He's
trying to conjure up the spirit of Heisenberg,
is one critic put it. He's literally putting
on the costume. He puts on the pork pie hat.
He adopts the wide stance. But the reality of
his failing body betrays him. He puffs up his
chest to intimidate Saul to do the whole I am
the danger routine and what happens. He doubles
over coughing. He doubles over. It's pathetic.
And I mean that in the true literary sense, it
induces pity. The cancer is back. and it's back
with a vengeance. And Saul's reaction is what
really sells the scene for me. He doesn't flinch.
He doesn't back away like he used to. No. Saul
just looks at him. He looks at this dying man,
breathless and weak, and he realizes the monster
is gone. The boogeyman is just a sick old guy.
And Saul delivers what I think is his most serious
line in the entire series up to this point. Yeah.
He says, it's over. It's over. It's such a simple
line, but coming from Saul Goodman, the guy who
always has a scheme, always has a guy who knows
a guy, it's devastating. He's telling Walt that
there are no more moves on the chessboard. The
game is done. And this is where the two characters
diverge. This is the fork in the road. Saul is
choosing survival. He's choosing to walk away.
Walt is just unable to accept that the game has
ended. Now, we have to pause here and talk about
the departure of Saul Goodman. Yes, definitely.
Because he leaves the basement, he walks out
of Walt's life, and he heads toward a black car
that's going to take him to Nebraska. But before
he goes, he says something that, at the time,
we all kind of just laughed at. The Cinnabon
prophecy. The Cinnabon prophecy. He looks at
Walt and says, if I'm lucky, a month from now,
best case scenario, I'm managing a Cinnabon in
Omaha. It is. arguably the most famous throwaway
line in television history. And I want to emphasize
that word, throwaway. I was reading an interview
with Peter Gould, and he admitted that when he
wrote that line, It was literally just a joke.
It was just a specific funny detail to illustrate
how incredibly mundane Saul's life was about
to become. They had no concrete plans for a spinoff
set in Omaha. That is mind -blowing to me, because
if you watch Better Call Saul, that line is the
gospel. The entire black and white timeline of
that show, Gene Tarkovitch, the mustache, the
mall, it's all built on this one sentence. It
shows the organic nature of storytelling in this
universe. One's Better Call Saul was greenlit.
They looked back at the scripture breaking band
and said, well, Saul said he was going to Omaha
to manage a Cinnabon, so I guess we're going
to Omaha. And it goes even deeper than that.
If you look at the timeline, the events we are
seeing in Granite State Wall and Saul in the
basement are happening simultaneously with events
we see years later in Better Call Saul. Specifically,
the episode. Quite a ride. Yes. In quite a ride,
we see the frantic energy of Saul tearing apart
his office, shredding documents, collecting the
cash from the ceiling tiles, all while Francesca
is holding down the fort. Right. That is happening
right before he gets to this basement. So when
Saul is sitting on that bunk bed, staring at
the ceiling, he's just come from destroying his
entire life's work. Yeah. He's traumatized, too.
Exactly. It adds so much weight to his silence.
He's not just annoyed with Walt. He's actively
mourning Saul Goodman. He really is. And when
he walks out that door, Saul Goodman is dead.
He is becoming Gene, and Walt is left alone.
But while Walt is being shipped off to the snowy
isolation of New Hampshire, we have to look at
what he left behind. Because if Walt's story
becomes one of quiet desperation, the story back
in Albuquerque turns into a straight up horror
movie. This is the dark timeline. We need to
talk about Jesse, Todd, and the Whites. Yeah.
Because the power vacuum Walt left behind has
been filled by something much, much worse than
Heisenberg. Let's start with the raid on Marie's
house. We see Jack Welker and his neo -Nazi gang
breaking in, and they find Jesse's confession
tape. The one he made for Hank. Right. And this
is a crucial plot point. Jack watches the tape,
and his immediate reaction is very old school
criminal. He says he's a rat. Kill him. Jack
is pragmatic. He doesn't hold grudges. He just
removes loose ends. It's business to him. But
then we have Todd. Todd Alquist. I think Todd
might be one of the most disturbing villains
in TV history. Because he's so pleasant. Yes.
Todd is the banality of evil personified. He
doesn't twirl a mustache. He doesn't scream.
He says sorry and please. And he intervenes to
save Jesse's life here, but not because he cares
about Jesse. No, he wants to learn to cook. Right,
he needs to get the purity up. But let's think
about why. Why does Todd care about the purity
of the meth? That's a great question. He's already
rich. They stole Walt's millions. They have literal
barrels of cash buried in the desert. They don't
need to cook anymore. It's Lydia, isn't it? It's
entirely about Lydia Rodarte Quayle. Todd has
this twisted adolescent crush on her. He knows
that Lydia is a perfectionist. She creates chaos
when the product isn't up to standard. Remember,
she was ready to cut ties completely. Exactly.
Todd keeps Jesse alive as a pet chemist solely
so he can bring 92 pure meth to Lydia and impress
her. That is so deeply creepy. He's keeping a
human being in a concrete cage and torturing
him just so he can flirt with a business associate.
It reduces Jesse's existence to a bargaining
chip and a weird sociopathic courtship. And to
keep this operation running, they have to secure
the perimeter. That means silencing Skyler. The
scene where they break into Skyler's house is
terrifying. It really is. They appear in the
baby's room, standing over Holly. Yeah. It's
a violation of the highest order. And look at
the contrast here. Walt tried to control Skyler
through manipulation and gaslighting. Todd controls
her through sheer unspoken physical threat. Yeah.
They threatened her to keep quiet about Lydia.
And Skyler, who stood up to Walt so many times,
is completely paralyzed by these men. She knows
they are a different breed of animal entirely.
But nobody suffers more in this episode, and
honestly maybe in the whole series, than Jesse
Pinkman. We have to talk about the escape attempt.
We do. Because for a brief moment, the show gives
us a glimmer of hope. Jesse manages to pick the
lock. He gets out of the concrete pit. He runs
for the chain link fence. And the directing here
is just masterful. We see the stars. We see the
wide open sky. You can almost feel the cold night
air. For a second, you really think, he's going
to make it. And then the floodlights hit him.
It's heartbreaking. He's dragged back down. But
the punishment isn't a beating. Jack doesn't
break his legs. They decide to break his mind.
They put him in the van and drive him to a residential
street. And when they pull up, my stomach just
drops. I knew exactly where they were. Andrea's
house. The woman Jessie loved. Brock's mother.
This scene, it's really hard to watch. They park
the van across the street. Jessie is gagged,
screaming against the window. And Todd walks
up to the porch. Let's analyze Todd's behavior
here, because it's chilling. He knocks on the
door. He smiles. He says, personal thing, really.
He is so unbelievably polite. He doesn't look
like a monster. He looks like a friendly neighbor.
And then he pulls the trigger and shoots her
in the back of the head. It's the silence that
gets me. He just does it. There's no speech,
no anger, just a pop. And then he turns around
and walks away. And Jesse, watching from the
car, the camera just stays on Aaron Paul's face.
It's the absolute destruction of a human spirit.
This is the moment Jesse Pinkman ceases to be
a person and truly becomes a tool. And just to
twist the knife. Jack threatens Brock. He says
if Jesse ever tries to escape again, they'll
kill the boy. That's the luck. That is why Jesse
stays. It's not the physical cage that holds
him anymore. It's the threat to the one innocent
thing left in his world. The critics praised
this sequence for how it completely shifted the
audience's alignment. Up until now, you could
argue Walt was the ultimate villain of the show.
But compared to Jack and Todd, Walt looks like
a saint. It clarifies the end game. The audience
needs to want these guys dead. By killing Andrea,
the show makes sure that when Walt eventually
comes back, we aren't asking, is this moral?
We're just saying, get him. So while Jesse is
living in literal hell, Walt arrives in the Granite
State. New Hampshire. And we finally see the
disappear in action. Ed Galbraith, played by
Robert Forster. Robert Forster, what a legend.
I read that he won the Saturn Award for this
role, and he's only in this one episode of Breaking
Bad. He brings such a unique gravitas to the
role. He's a no -nonsense professional. He's
not a criminal in the flashy way Saul is. He's
a service provider. Yeah. And he drives Walt
all the way across the country in a propane truck
to the secluded cabin. Now a little behind -the
-scenes magic for you, we're supposed to be in
the snowy mountains of New Hampshire, right?
Yeah. And the wide shots of the snow were actually
filmed in Crawford Notch, New Hampshire. Right.
But the cabin itself, that was built on a soundstage,
and the exterior close -ups were shot in the
Sandia Mountains in the Mexico. They had to truck
in fake snow for that. But visually, it works
perfectly. It feels miles away from the desert
of Albuquerque. Let's talk about the deal Ed
offers Walt, because this is where the theme
of isolation really kicks into high gear. It's
a very stark contract. Ed says, I am your lifeline.
He will come once a month with food, newspapers
and chemotherapy supplies. But that's it. No
phone, no internet, no television reception that
gets any news from outside the local area. And
the visuals of the cabin reflect this perfectly.
It's rustic, sure, but it's essentially a prison
cell. Critics like Seth Amitin from IGN noted
the color palette shift here. We are so used
to the sickly greens and the bright yellows of
Albuquerque. Here, everything is white, gray,
and brown. It's the white motif. White like his
name. Exactly. It symbolizes a blank slate, but
also a void. It's a kind of non -existence. And
Walt has the barrel. He managed to save about
$11 million, but he takes out a stack of cash,
must be $100 ,000, and he puts it on the table.
And there's nowhere to spend it. This is the
central irony of the episode. The Ozymandias
poem touches on this. Look on my works, ye mighty,
and despair. Walt has built his massive empire.
He has his immense fortune, and it is completely
useless. He can't buy a loaf of bread. He can't
buy a conversation. He is the richest man in
the graveyard. And then the show does something
it rarely ever does. It gives us a time jump.
We see the text on the screen. New Hampshire,
live free or die. That state motto is doing a
lot of heavy lifting right there. Live free or
die. Walt is technically free. He's not in prison.
Right. But he is dying. And the freedom is a
curse. When we see Walt after the time jump months
later. He looks awful. The makeup department
deserves an award here. He's gaunt. His glasses
are taped together He is a full head of hair
and this bushy beard He looks like a hermit who
has completely lost touch with humanity and he's
so desperate for connection When Ed comes for
the monthly supply run Walt practically begs
him to stay This is one of the most pathetic,
again, inciting pity moments for Walt. He pays
Ed. He literally takes a stack of cash, probably
$10 ,000, and says, I'll give you this if you
stay for one hour. Just to play cards. Just to
play cards, just to have another human being
sit across from him. This is a man who used to
command rooms. He used to kill people who disrespected
him. Now he's paying a delivery driver to be
his friend. And Ed gives him the update on his
family. And it's bleak. Skylar is using her maiden
name. She's working as a taxi dispatcher just
to make ends meet. She and the kids are in this
tiny cramped apartment. And the house, the famous
white residence. When I'm mayor of the house.
It's abandoned. It's fenced off. Kids are skateboarding
in the empty pool. It's become a literal tourist
attraction. That detail about the tourist attraction
really hit me. It means Walt has passed into
legend. He's not a real person to Albuquerque
anymore. He's an urban myth. And that hurts him
more than anything. He wanted to leave a legacy
of provision. He wanted to be the man who saved
his family. Instead, he left a legacy of total
ruin. His family is struggling and his empire
is a ghost town. The isolation eventually just
breaks him. He decides he can't do it anymore.
He packs up some money into this pathetic little
cardboard box and he starts walking down the
snowy road to town. The music here is incredible.
Dave Porter's score is so sparse, just this lonely,
cold, driving sound. Walt walks out of the woods
and finds a local dive bar. And here we see the
last flicker of Heisenberg. He needs to talk
to his son. He needs to make things right. But
he knows he can't just call the apartment, so
he pulls a ruse. He's still clever. He pays the
barmaid to call Flynn's school. He has her pretend
to be Marie. It's a classic Walt manipulation
to get Flynn on the phone. This phone call. It's
the climax of the episode emotionally. Walt is
pouring his heart out. He's trying to explain
himself. He says he's sending money to Flynn's
friend, Louis, so Flynn can accept it without
the police knowing. He's desperately trying to
rationalize everything. He's clinging to the
one lie he's told himself since the pilot episode.
It's for the family. If he can just give them
the money, then the murders, the meth, the destruction,
it validates it. It makes it all worth it. But
Flynn destroys that illusion. Flynn is not having
it. He doesn't hear a provider on the other end
of the line. He hears the man who killed Uncle
Hank. And Flynn screams at him. He says, you
killed Uncle Hank. You killed him. And then he
delivers the line that finally kills Walter White.
He says, why don't you just die? Why don't you
just die? You know, the critic Laura Hudson pointed
out a brilliant parallel with this specific line.
Oh. What was that? In season one, Flynn asks
the exact same question, but the context was
totally different. Back then, Walt was refusing
treatment for his lung cancer. Flynn was a scared
kid, angry that his dad was just giving up. He
asked, why don't you just die, as a way of saying,
why are you quitting? Fight for us. Wow. And
now. Now, it's literal. It's the pure rage of
the wronged. He isn't saying don't give up. He's
saying please remove yourself from the earth.
He is actively wishing for his father's death.
That is heartbreaking. It's the exact same words,
but the meaning is completely inverted over five
seasons. And you can see it on Bryan Cranston's
face. That is the bullet to the heart. The money
is rejected. The love is rejected. His son hates
him. And there's a great piece of production
trivia about this scene. Apparently, while they
were filming this intense crying phone call,
an airplane flew right over the set and ruined
the audio. Yes. Can you imagine? You're giving
the emotional performance of your life, snot
running down your nose in a jet engine. just
roars overhead. They had to yell, cut. And Bryan
Cranston, being the pro he is, had to completely
reset and summon all that pain back up for another
take. That is unbelievable. So Flynn hangs up,
and Walt is broken. He drops the phone, leaving
it dangling. He is totally defeated. He realizes
that for the family is a lie. The family wants
him dead. So he does the only thing left to do.
He calls the DEA. He surrenders. He gives them
the address of the bar, leaves the phone off
the hook so they can trace him, and goes to sit
down. He orders a drink, a dimple pinch, neat,
and he sits there waiting for the handcuffs.
And he says that line to the bartender, it can't
all have been for nothing. But as the critic
Tim Goodman noted in his review, the show is
suggesting that at this exact moment, yes, it
was all for nothing. He has lost everything.
He's sitting there. A failed kingpin waiting
to die in a prison hospital. And if the episode
ended right there, it would be a classical tragedy.
A pure story of hubris and the inevitable fall.
But the universe has one last cosmic joke to
play on Walter White. The TV above the bar. Charlie
Rose. Walt looks up and sees an interview. And
of all the people in the world, who is on the
screen? Gretchen and Elliot Schwartz. the founders
of gray matter technologies, his old college
partners, the people he feels stole his research,
the people who are living the billionaire life
he always believed he deserved. And the interviewer
asks them about Walter White because, of course,
the news is all about the blue meth and the nationwide
manhunt. And Elliott, Elliott twists the knife.
He doesn't call Walt a monster. He doesn't call
him a criminal mastermind. No, he trivializes
him. He says that Walter White had nothing to
do with the success of gray matter. He says Walt's
only contribution was the name, the name. That's
it. This is a direct laser guided attack on Walt's
ego. And remember, throughout the series, we've
slowly learned that Walt's true drug wasn't meth.
It was pride. It was getting credit. He left
gray matter years ago because of his own inferiority
complex. He built the meth empire to prove he
was the best at something. And here are these
two people. on national television, erasing him.
They're rewriting history to say he was a nobody.
And that is what wakes him up. The family rejected
him and he was ready to surrender. But these
two people insulting his intelligence that he
absolutely cannot abide. It's fascinating, isn't
it? He was willing to go to jail for his son's
hatred, but he's willing to go to war for his
own pride. It's the return of Heisenberg. The
camera slowly pushes in on his face. The actual
Breaking Bad theme music starts to thump, which
they very rarely use in the show itself. And
the police arrive, they surround the bar in the
snow, they come bursting in with guns drawing.
But the stool is empty, the glass of dimple pinch
is empty. He's gone. It gives me chills every
single time. It's such a perfect setup for the
finale. It totally pivots his motivation. He's
not going back to Albuquerque to save his family,
not primarily anyway. He's going back to settle
scores. He's going back to secure his legacy.
He's going to make sure everyone remembers the
name Heisenberg. Let's talk about the reception
of this episode, because Ozymandias gets all
the glory. But Granite State put up some serious
numbers. It really did. It actually beat Ozymandias
in viewership. 6 .6 million people watched this
live. It was a record high for the series at
that time. Everyone needed to know what happened
next. And the critical reception was glowing.
I mean, it has a 9 .7 out of 10 on IMDb. Chuck
Bowen from Slant Magazine praised how it coolly
navigated the shifting tones. It was recognized
as an absolute masterpiece of pacing. And the
runtime was actually extended for this one, right?
Yeah, both this episode and the finale ran 75
minutes with commercials, so you're looking at
about 53 minutes of actual content. That extra
time allowed for those long silent depressing
scenes in the cabin to really breathe. So as
we wrap up this deep dive, what are the big takeaways?
What is the legacy of Granite State? First, it
bridges the gap. It closes the book on Saul Goodman
and sets up Better Call Saul. It's essential
viewing, if you want to understand that spinoff.
It completes the isolation of Walter White. It
strips him of every single excuse he ever had.
He has no family, no money that works, no friends.
He is forced to just sit there and face himself
in that cabin. And finally, it sets up the end.
It clarifies that Walt's final journey is about
ego. It's about gray matter. It's about, as he
eventually admits, I did it for me. Which leads
us to our final thought. And this is something
I really want you to chew on after listening.
It's the question of fate versus coincidence.
Think about that bar scene. Walt was literally
seconds away from being arrested. If the bartender
had changed the channel to a football game, if
Gretchen and Elliot had been booked on Letterman
instead of Charlie Rose, If Walt had sat in a
booth where he couldn't see the TV, he would
have just been arrested. The entire show would
have ended with Walt in handcuffs, crying into
a scotch in New Hampshire. Exactly. The machine
gun in the trunk, the rescue of Jesse, the ricin
for Lydia. None of that happens. So was it fate?
Did the universe conspire to give Heisenberg
one last ride, or is it just the biggest wildest
coincidence in TV history? Did a random rerun
of Charlie Rose spark the destruction of a neo
-Nazi gang? It certainly seems so. Next time
you watch that scene, look at his eyes. You can
see the exact moment the surrender turns into
rage. It's the moment Walter White dies and Heisenberg
takes the wheel for good. Thank you so much for
joining us on this deep dive. It's been incredible
to slow down and really look at the quiet moments
that make this show a masterpiece. Always a pleasure.
We'll see you next time. Stay curious.