"Mandala" had a rather ridiculous start with one of Walt's and Jesse's dealers getting shot by a grade school kid – the fact that the victim was the fat one only reinforced that. But fortunately, the episode only got better after that – slowly gaining more and more quality until it ended it a fantastic cliffhanger.
I don't want to spoil what happens in this episode, but I'll say that much: all of it is due the killing of Combo, the aforementioned dealer, and Skinny Pete's quitting after that incident, which leaves their two 'bosses' without anyone to sell the humongous amount of meth they've recently cooked. Cue Giancarlo Esposito's Gus – a mysterious new character that I'll only say one thing about: he's awesome. The same goes for Bob Odenkirk as Saul Goodman who once again gets the silliest stuff to say, yet impresses the most. However, speaking of the drama in the episode, Bryan Cranston is the one stealing the show. At first, he has an intense and momentous conversation with Gus, just to then experience the heaviest collision of interests imaginable in the final scene. In between that, there's some uninteresting talk with doctors again, boring time with Skyler and her new boss Ted (including an impersonation of Marilyn Monroe's famous singing of Happy Birthday that gave me almost as big of a vicarious shame as Walt's WTF moment in "Over" did), and Jesse and Jane mutually leading themselves into disaster (which sounds more thrilling than it actually is).
That's about it with "Mandala" and in my opinion, one awesome scene at the end doesn't justify flaws throughout the rest of the episode. Anyway though, now that I'm over the Breaking Bad drought, it's time to look forward to the great season finale and the next season, which is even better.
I don't want to spoil what happens in this episode, but I'll say that much: all of it is due the killing of Combo, the aforementioned dealer, and Skinny Pete's quitting after that incident, which leaves their two 'bosses' without anyone to sell the humongous amount of meth they've recently cooked. Cue Giancarlo Esposito's Gus – a mysterious new character that I'll only say one thing about: he's awesome. The same goes for Bob Odenkirk as Saul Goodman who once again gets the silliest stuff to say, yet impresses the most. However, speaking of the drama in the episode, Bryan Cranston is the one stealing the show. At first, he has an intense and momentous conversation with Gus, just to then experience the heaviest collision of interests imaginable in the final scene. In between that, there's some uninteresting talk with doctors again, boring time with Skyler and her new boss Ted (including an impersonation of Marilyn Monroe's famous singing of Happy Birthday that gave me almost as big of a vicarious shame as Walt's WTF moment in "Over" did), and Jesse and Jane mutually leading themselves into disaster (which sounds more thrilling than it actually is).
That's about it with "Mandala" and in my opinion, one awesome scene at the end doesn't justify flaws throughout the rest of the episode. Anyway though, now that I'm over the Breaking Bad drought, it's time to look forward to the great season finale and the next season, which is even better.