Note: Full spoilers for the episode follow.
Of all the disturbing things this show has done, there hasn’t been a detailed, in-your-face instance of any innocent bystanders paying a price. Sure, there was Jane’s dad, who crashed a plane and killed a bunch of people, but there wasn’t much tangible about that; we never saw people burning alive on a plane or crashing to the ground (that would’ve been pretty bleak, even for this show). The most we’ve seen is the crack addicts or dealers who occasionally kill someone or one another and they’re not "innocent" in the same way. Gale may have been the most innocent person on the show, but he was still a meth cook.
People are people and every death is a tragedy, yes, but it doesn’t hit home. We, the viewers, are mostly law-abiding citizens. We don’t do drugs (OK, most of us don’t), we don’t skirt the law, and we don’t kill anyone. Therefore, we don’t identify with the drug dealers or the addicts or any person who, to this point, faced direct, tangible repercussions -- i.e.: death (and on camera) -- for decisions they didn’t make.
Most of the people in the series do terrible things and don’t see the repercussions of their actions—especially Walt, our "hero". The one character who’s the most closely related to us, Jesse, has a conscience, but he’s still a cook and he’s killed. He does harm to other people. In "Dead Freight," we have a boy killed in cold blood, whose only crime was he wanted to motorbike through the wilderness. Everything about him was supposed to be the definition of innocence and childhood. He even wears a helmet because he feels safety is important (or his loving parents do).
And it was a horrible twist. It was a tragedy. It was disturbing. It was necessary. It was amazing TV.
Gotta love all of the little hints in there. First, there was the opening. Although the show’s done at least one red herring opening, this opening looked more like a flashback. The kid on the motorbike looked straight out of the ‘70s. The kid was off-screen just long enough to completely forget about him.
Then there was Mike saying, “I've been around long enough to know there are two kinds of robberies: the ones that get away with it and the ones that leave witnesses.” It could’ve been just a Way of the Gun kind of one-off random philosophical quote about murder and crime, but since this show is Breaking Bad (and doesn't have bad writers), it had to come into play.
There was also all the talk about (and action from) kids in this one, with Walt Jr. returning to Flynn and Holly existing (we haven’t seen much of her this season). The one that stuck was Lydia asking Walt if he had kids and their brief conversation about it. In any other episode these probably would’ve been red herrings, but they definitely weren’t... Holy S**t...
And there’s this odd parallel to this story and the meta-story, where the entire story is a train robbery itself. How much time do you think it took the Breaking Bad writers to A) come up with this idea and B) plan how to do it? I’m guessing weeks, maybe even months. It’s clear it took a long time to figure out the details anyway. The director made damn sure we knew they put a ton of thought and planning into it, from the feeder tubes and their installation right down to the little silver “SECURED” tags. There wasn’t a shot out of place.
Jesse Pinkman contemplates which came first, "bitch" or "yo."
So the writers came up with a great idea to solve a big problem for this season. It had to be executed to perfection. The tension was high. There were a lot of stumbling blocks.
But after this was done, how would the season progress? How would we take this into a far more disturbing territory?
And that’s where the motorbike boy came back in. With just that last minute—that last little flick of the wrist—the writers found their gateway into the end of the series while destroying everything Jesse had worked so hard for. It moved us into a bigger, deeper abyss.
How each character reacts to this will be important too. The idea of the train robbery was innocent, too. Jesse came up with the idea so no one would get hurt and it was a brilliant idea. It’s innocence was slaughtered at the same moment that boy was shot. Where will this take Jesse? Todd (Friday Night Lights' Jesse Plemons) was oddly the seasoned professional despite being the newest “member” of the team. He’s a good insert in this series to provide that bridge between where Walt and Jesse are into the bleaker territory. And dang did he deliver in this one.
Even without that last minute, this was an amazing episode. There was talk of killing Lydia again—and hey, she turned out to be innocent! That’s interesting. Holy Shlamoley, what’s going to happen with that? There was tension throughout and we were taken on quite a ride. “Flynn’s” return delved us back into developing Walt Jr. and where is that going to go? Is he going to side with Hank eventually? (Oh man, that scene with Walt and Hank in Hank's office was amazing).
The whole train robbery scene was action-thriller-y, even up to Walt doing the “HOOLLLD! OK NOW!!!” on the feeder tubes, right up until the final scene. “Dead Freight” was the series in a nutshell.
Maybe the greatest part of this episode was how well this will lead us into the end. This was a train robbery of an episode. It was beautifully crafted, excellently executed and we know the ending is coming soon.
Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com
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