A.V. Club - A Very Special Episode: A very special Breaking Bad pulled a train robbery, and proved the power of plot by Noel Murray
The arrival of an unexpected witness is a classic Breaking Bad twist, made all the more wicked by the way it’s set up. The episode’s cold open shows this boy, out in the desert, collecting a scorpion in a jar… and then he’s not seen again until the end. We’re meant to forget all about him after the first few minutes of “Dead Freight,” so that when he comes back and gets killed, we quickly cycle through two reactions: “Oh yeah, that kid,” followed by, “Oh no, that kid.”
But the brilliance of Breaking Bad is that this twist doesn’t exist in limbo. It’s a plot machination that serves two purposes: to jolt, and to start laying the groundwork for how the rest of the season will play out. Because Jesse’s fundamentally a sweet guy, and is so emotionally fragile, he’s going to blame himself for this murder, and start spiraling down. Meanwhile, it turns out that Todd and his equally sociopathic criminal family are poised to move in and seize control of Walt’s operation.
h/t @elephantandthedove
All HC posts on “Dead Freight”
