'Breaking Bad' review: A worthy setup

The profound shock and realization that his own brother-in-law is the king of the Albuquerque meth trade, sets up the final eight episodes, but the repercussions are immediate, and severe. Without giving too much -- in fact, anything -- away, let's just say Hank has some thinking to do. Meanwhile, Walter (Bryan Cranston) has extricated himself from cooking, plunging into a new business (a car wash) with his partner and wife, Skyler White (Anna Gunn). Jesse Pinkman's (Aaron Paul) guilt has become all-consuming, particularly in the wake of the murder of the young boy who witnessed them just after they robbed a train.

However, Sunday's, in fact, is great. Everything -- every word, gesture, action, shot, scene and story idea -- combines to form an episode of uncommon power and forward momentum. The producers and writers had to make some critical choices, and they have -- audacious ones that also happen to be the absolutely right ones. Rather than methodically steer this classic to some sort of fateful showdown -- a TV version of "High Noon" -- "Bad" scrambles the formula, which demolishes any preset notion you may have of how this all might end. There was a hint of this at the start of the season, with a flash-forward moment where Walter checks out some serious weaponry in the trunk of a 1979 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, after telling a waitress at Denny's that he is from New Hampshire (the coupe was a favored mob model, but the meaning of New Hampshire?).

That scene set up a whole series of all-too-obvious questions, and more are piled on Sunday, when the flash-forward Walter and his Coupe de Ville reappear in the opening moments. The scene almost creates the sensation of looking at the last moments of "Bad" and Walter's story through a straw. Then it all dissolves back to "present" time, or immediately after Hank has been thunderstruck by that copy of "Leaves of Grass." More than any series I can think of, "Bad" creates moments of extreme tension mixed with pure anticipation -- which is just a fancy way of saying, "What the hell is going to happen next?" Beats me.

SEE PHOTOSBest TV shows now on Netflix, Amazon and more