My Top 5 Most HOLY S**T Moments From Breaking Bad

This episode didn't have one of those moments where you stood up and shouted in shock and horror or shock and delight or shock and shock... but it's here because its one of my favorite entire episodes. Everything about it was just pitch perfect, and Hector with his angry eyes in his wheelchair ringing his bell? Just... so good. The steady increase of suspense... the real fear of crazy-ass Tuco... back when we still saw Walt and Jesse as a duo and not the twisted mess they are now. I loved this whole episode.

When Walt finally saved Jesse. FINALLY does something that Jesse can see... that shows that he wants to protect him, that he cares about him....well, it was a moment I had been waiting for and almost never expected to see. I'm so used to Walt being unable to even recognize what Jesse needs from him. This moment was awesome in a way that regular awesome can't match up to. I screamed out loud in triumph (yeah, sorry, breaking bad has a way of making me cheer murders on a regular basis). I wish there were more moments like this - but I know Walt isn't capable. I think its possible that he does care about Jesse on some level, yes, a level he can't access and doesn't know how to... but come on Walt. Go-carts. Why didn't you just go with him to the go-carts?

This is high on my list because it was fairly recent, sure. But come ON. The entire sequence with Gus poolside with Don Ellario. Holy crap. And Jesse, sitting there like a terrified spectator - the stand in for us, the audience - watching Gus straight up murder 10 guys at once. The cool, studied deliberation of his puking, the careful way Gus dabs his mouth... and what you see in his eyes when he says his last words to the man who killed his friend. Just... wow.

Was this the moment it started? Or only the first time we got to see what was inside Walt? What he was capable of? I didn't see this coming, I didn't know what Walt was going to do when he went to Tuco's. And what he did? Not only did it make me stand up off my couch, but I spilled my drink and scared my dog. When he brings explosives to a knife fight, that was when I knew that there would never be a moment of this show that I would miss. Heisenberg was born.

All I have to show here is a promo for the ep. But let's just say that this episode contained an hour of sitting on the edge of the couch, leaning forward - punctuated with several HOLY F**K moments. The rhythmic pounding of the soundtrack dragging us to the inevitability of Gus's (and Walt's exposure as having truly broken bad) end... the slow, drawn-out, excruciating movements of Gus changing his tie, of Tyrus slowing sweeping the room for bugs, of the letters being spelled out for us by Hector's oblivious nurse... all for a cartoon-style end to a very real and formidable character. But that wasn't the moment, awesome as it was. No, the moment came at the very end... when we found out just how far over the line Walt has gone. And that he's no longer breaking. He's bad.