Let's act out the entire Breaking Bad season premiere based solely on these production stills
Yesterday saw the release of the first official promo photos for Breaking Bad’s final episodes—so rich in symbolic tableaus and flannel, so enigmatic in their refusal to have little speech balloons clearly stating what will happen. (“@#*$! My brother-in-law is the very criminal I’ve been pursing this whole time! Aaugh!”) But today comes perhaps the greatest clue to what the future holds yet, in the form of stills from the Aug. 11 premiere episode “Blood Money.” Indeed, there’s likely very little need to watch that episode at all now, because we can probably just extrapolate the entire story solely from these images. Let’s do that.
In this scene we first glimpsed back in April, Walt confronts a distraught Jesse about his increasing apathy. “Jesse, you’ve got fast food and giant duffel bags full of cash lying everywhere,” Walt says. “You’ve got to pull it together, for both of us.” Inside Jesse thinks to himself, “But can anything ever truly be clean, stained as it is with the blood of so many innocents, bitch?”
Jesse attempts to lift his spirits by taking the only pal he has left, a pile of hamburger trash, for a little joy ride. “Are we just going to sit here while you brood?” Hamburger Trash asks. “Not much of a joy ride.” “Yo, I have regrets, half-eaten hamburger,” Jesse replies.
Having run out of space at his house, what with all the beer bottles and takeout, Jesse finally pays a visit to Saul Goodman to dispose of his ill-gotten money, at least. He lights up a cigarette right there in the waiting room, because that is how much he just doesn’t care anymore. After all, what’s a little secondhand smoke after so much secondhand death?
“Hey kid, I’m wearing green, which the show has traditionally used as a signifier of life,” Saul Goodman says. “Clearly this meeting is having some sort of renewing effect on you. Right? Come on, now.”
“Hang on, I just got a phone call. Hello? Yes, I would like to practice law with a safer, slightly more humorous clientele… Sorry kid, I’m out of here. You’re on your own.”
[SAD NU-METAL SONG PLAYS.] Finally, Jesse is left alone to contemplate the mess he has made of his life and of his coffee table. “Truly, I am broken… bad,” he thinks. Roll credits.