I know everyone loved Dead Freight and the train heist last week, but Buyout last night was hands down the best episode of the season. Start to finish it was 60 minutes of tension. From the opening scene to Jesse vs. Todd, Mike vs. Walter, Skyler vs. Walt, and Walt vs. Heisenberg, the whole episode was a power struggle of tension.

Don’t wanna spoil anything for the idiots out there who don’t watch yet, so click after the jump to keep going.

It finally happened for me – I finally started to hate Walter a little bit. When he’s presented with a perfect exit strategy to get out of the game with more money than he ever imagined, he gets too cocky for his own good. Spends half the episode with a snifter of sctoch in his hands with this sleepy eyes look, acting like he’s smarter than everyone else. Shoots down the idea, effective screwing his two partners and choosing a life of continual violence and danger for everyone involved. I couldn’t stand him in that moment. Whistlin dixie setting his eyes on an unrealistic $300 million fortune. It was just plain stupid.

But that was before the Gray Matter speech. In classic Breaking Bad fashion, two sides to every story, two sides to every character. After Walt’s speech on losing out on billions for a $5,000 buyout, including his “empire business” quote which may be the best quote of the whole series, I understand where he’s coming from. I stopped viewing him as the cancer stricken chemistry teacher making a mistake and thought of him as the emperor Heisenberg. Its stupid, its arrogant, it will never work in the end. But it was such a bad ass moment I wanted to be like “Fuck yea! Who cares how many kids you gotta kill! Cook that crystal.” Its clear that Walter’s life hit a very important fork in the road however many years ago with Gretchen and Gray Matter – he went the wrong way and he’s regretted it ever since. Hes resented his modest life as a teacher with Skyler and his kids ever since then and this is his chance to restore some of that power/control/glory. Maybe Walter started out looking for $737,000 for his wife and kids, but Heisenberg has his eyes on an empire and thats who’s in control now. It looked like in the preview for next week, the dealer from Phoenix refers to him as Heisenberg and he responds with a resounding “You’re damn right” or something to that effect. I think that might be like an official turning point. Like Victor Cruz’s 99 yard touchdown against the Jets that propelled the Giants and crushed the Rex and company.

As far as other storylines – Jesse vs. Todd is brewing and it ain’t gonna stop any time soon. Todd kills a kid, talks about some connections, and just like that Jesse’s opinion is outvoted and that bootleg Matt Damon looking motherfucker is still on board. That rivalry will come to a head sooner or later. I want Jesse to murder the shit out of him almost as bad as I want Walt to kill Skyler. Anna Gunn is either the best or worst actress of all time. Because Skyler is one of the biggest victims of this whole show and the entire world still hates her guts and wants her dead. Its amazing.

And finally, whatever plan Walter has concocted where he still gets to cook and Mike gets bought out, Mike still better be heavily involved in this shit. Best character on the show.