The best episode of Breaking Bad gets even better when you learn about this BTS detail

“Ozymandias” is widely considered to be the greatest episode of Breaking bad‘s five-season run – but there’s a little-known behind-the-scenes tidbit that makes it even better. Season 5, Episode 14, “Ozymandias,” is the jaw-dropping climax Breaking bad was built to from the beginning. It opens with a shootout in the desert that results in Jesse’s enslavement and Hank’s anxiety-inducing death, and it only gets more intense from there. This is the episode that brings Walter White’s criminal empire broken down as his family turns on him and he has to disappear with a new identity.

To this day, “Ozymandias” is the only TV episode with a perfect 10/10 rating on IMDb, and it’s tops. Rolling Stones 2024 list of the greatest television episodes ever produced. The episode also swept the Emmys: Bryan Cranston picked up his fourth win for Outstanding Actor, Anna Gunn picked up her second consecutive win for Outstanding Supporting Actress, and Moira Walley-Beckett won Outstanding Writing for her incredible script. This episode is impressive by any metric, however It becomes even more impressive with the knowledge of a behind-the-scenes detail that made a tough scene even harder for Gunn to pull off.

Skyler’s cathartic scene in “Ozymandias” was a difficult shoot for Anna Gunn

Gunn had to remain in this emotional state while the crew waited for the snowfall to subside

In one of the most explosive scenes in “Ozymandias” Walt and Skyler will get into a physical fight with a kitchen knife. Walt, Jr. jumps in to protect his mother and Walt realizes that his family sees him for the monster he has become and the jig is up. He decides to leave his family, but not before kidnapping his baby daughter Holly. As Walt takes Holly into his car, pulls out of the driveway, and disappears down the street, a distraught Skylar runs out into the road, begs him to stop, and breaks down.

In a behind-the-scenes video posted on YouTube by AbharghusGunn described this scene as the “Culmination of six years on the show.“It’s arguably the most important moment for her character up to this point, and one of the most intense scenes in the entire series. It took a lot of Gunn to get into the right emotional state to play it. And then, in an irritating twist of fate, it started to snow and the filming had to be put on hold.

Gunn is already in character and in the frothy emotional state that the scene demands. The crew told her to hold her emotions and stay in this tortured state of mind until the snowfall subsided and the cameras could start rolling again. Playing a mother whose emotionally abusive husband has abducted her baby is already a common mindset for an actor to get into, but Gunn had to remain in that mindset indefinitely until the snow finally stopped falling.. It makes her Emmy-winning performance all the more impressive.

The end of “Ozymandias” was the culmination of Skylar’s character arc

Skyler finally stood up to Walt and got him out of her life for good

In addition to serving as the point of no return for Walt, “Ozymandias” was the culmination of Skyler’s entire five-season arc. throughout the series, Skyler went from being the oblivious wife of a drug lord to a knowing accomplice in her husband’s crimes to essentially a victim of psychological torture.. In “Ozymandias”, when she grabbed the kitchen knife, she finally stood up to Walt. She successfully got her husband out of her life once and for all, and the confrontation was just as terrifying and devastating as she had feared.

Anna Gunn’s performance was one of the many great things about “Ozymandias.”

It’s a perfect episode on every level – writing, directing, performances, etc.

Gunn’s spectacular performance as Skyler is just one great aspect of “Ozymandias.” It’s a perfect episode of television on every level. All the other performances are just as great as Gunn’s. Cranston brings Walt’s monstrosity to a head while expertly maintaining what’s left of his humanity; His sharp delivery of the line “We are a family!“is one of Cranston’s key moments Breaking bad Performance. Aaron Paul captures the tragedy of Jesse’s life turned upside down and Dean Norris nails Hank’s badass monologue in the face of death.

Rian Johnson’s razor-sharp direction ratchets up the tension brilliantly As Walt’s two lives come crashing into each other. Walley-Beckett’s masterfully crafted script lands every dramatic payoff, from Hank’s heroic final stand to Walt’s anticlimactic disappearance, in deeply satisfying fashion. If Breaking bad didn’t pull out “Ozymandias”, then the whole series would fall apart. Now that it’s famous as the greatest episode of television ever produced, it’s hard to imagine the climactic hour being pulled off more effectively.

Source: Rolling Stone, Abharghus