Chills, guys. Chills. That’s what I felt when the lights dimmed in Ballroom 20 at the San Diego Convention Center, and after five hours of waiting, a trailer for the fifth season of Breaking Bad began playing. Having to sit through a screening and Q&A of The CW’s terrible-looking Arrow was totally worth it to hear Jesse Pinkman say, “If you kill him, you’re gonna have to kill me” in the same room as creator Vince Gilligan and stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul. Not to mention Jonathan Banks, Dean Norris, Betsy Brandt, R.J. Mitte, and Anna Gunn as well.
To get a feeling for the tone of the panel, here’s an exchange between Gilligan and Cranston:
“I think of that story about Alexander the Great, who, when he heard he’d conquered all the world, he wept.”
“So at the end of the series, Walt is left alone, weeping?”
“Yep, in his underpants.”
Yeah, it was great. Here are 10 more notable exchanges and moments during Breaking Bad‘s Comic-Con panel.
(All photos via Nadia Chaudhury)
Dean Norris (Hank) came out on stage as some sort of weird Xena-Zardoz-ultimate Frisbee player hybrid.
He was very proud of his bosom.
But Norris’s get-up was nothing compared to Bryan Cranston (Walter) and Aaron Paul (Jesse) wearing the show’s trademark hazmat suits, complete with a fake baby that Paul immediately dropped. For a brief second, I must admit, I thought it was a real kid.
Remember how tense “Crawl Space” was? According to Paul, “That’s how this entire season felt for me.” There might be panic attacks and/or mass suicides following every episode.
One of season five’s biggest challenges is that ever since season two, much of the show’s momentum came courtesy of the dearly departed Gus Fring. Now that he’s gone, Gilligan and the writers were forced to come up with something else.
Walter does something this season that made Gilligan “lose all sympathy” for the character.
Betsy Brandt (Marie) thinks that she’s the one who got Hank’s mojo back after a certain “two-handed scene.” I know Marie as a character isn’t a fan favorite, but Brandt seems like an awesome person.
Where last season’s premiere, “Box Cutter,” was ultra-violent (NEVER. FORGET.), this year’s premiere will be “intellectual,” but also the “[funniest] episode in awhile.”
There will be “more German subtitles than Spanish” this season, due to an increased focus on Madrigal Electromotive, the manufacturing company that backed Los Pollos Hermanos. So much of a focus, in fact, that Breaking Bad will go to Germany during the first eight episodes.
Actress Laura Fraser will also factor in somehow as a former associate of Gus’s.
The ladies love it when Paul yells, “BITCH.” Also, the phrase “MAGNETS, BITCH” means something to this season.
Other random bits of tid:
- Walter White’s one redeeming quality: “He makes damn good meth.”
- Walter’s point of no return for Cranston: the pilot episode; Walter’s point of no return for Gilligan: the fourth episode, when Walter is given a no-strings-attached out from Elliott and Gretchen, which he doesn’t take.
- Speaking of Elliott and Gretchen: expect to see them — and Gray Matter Technologies — again at some point.
- Ditto the Aztec.
- And Skinny Pete and Badger.
- There won’t be another “Fly”-like bottle episode this season, but episode five will be the “polar opposite of a bottle episode,” whatever that means.
- The show’s happy ending might be “if Walt dies.”
And here’s the trailer:
It’s back tomorrow, you guys.