Breaking Badass Power Rankings: ‘Madrigal’

Saul is officially traumatized; he's afraid to say anything out of line, lest Papa Walt makes him fetch a switch. I'm pretty sure he was literally shaking during his brief scene in "Madrigal."

I wanted to crawl out of my skin and burn my eyeballs during the final scene of the episode, when Walt stripped down and cuddled up with his wife. I'm not sure if what Skyler did was "badass" — which is to say, do nothing while her monster of a husband paws at her boobs — but the restraint she showed in not slicing the top of Walt's head off, and then using it as a bowl for the Raisin Bran Crunch she never ate, was admirable.

I think? I have no idea what to make of Skyler so far.

The king gets knocked from his throne. For one week, at least. Walt is so far gone that what he says isn't even opinion anymore; it's fact, and Mike joining forces with him and Jesse, after originally saying no, is just fuel into the tyrannical fire. (I get the feeling that even if Mike explained the oddly noble reason why he teamed with them, which he would never do, Walt wouldn't give a sh*t.) "There is gold in the streets," Walt says at one point, "just waiting for someone to come and scoop it up." And why shouldn't it be him? He hasn't lost yet: Tio, check. Gus, check. Ted, check. Gale, check. He still has Skyler and Jesse. Walt is a force to be reckoned with — for now.

(Every one of these entries could end in, "...for now.")

Why is Mike a badass?

Long Answer: "You are a timebomb, tick-tick-ticking, and I have no intention of being around for the boom." Where Jesse's too obliviously trustful and Skyler's too involved, Mike knows that associating with Walter will have inevitably dire circumstances. There's no happy endings — or even content middles — on Breaking Bad. Instead, there's nearly shooting a(n admittedly evil) Lydia only a room away from her child, and then sparing her life because she knows how to acquire some methylamine. It's a rare moment of...I wouldn't call it weakness, because we're talking about shooting a mother in cold blood here, but a moment of Mike not pretending to be Morally Questionable Batman, someone who's able to slip quietly through homes and not move a muscle in his face during an interrogation. Were he only a scientist...Only time will tell if he made the right call (is it wrong of me to think he should have blown her away? Yes, it is), but Mike deserves the top spot for both calling Walt out on his sh*t and because he's back in the game for the reason Walt continues to use to Skyler: he wants to financially support his family, specifically his Hungry Hungry Hippos-playing granddaughter, Kaylee. (Also, yes, he needs to pay some guys off, to keep them from talking to the Feds.) Except Mike actually means it.

Medium Answer: He drinks beer with Ensure while watching The Caine Mutiny on his Barcalounger.

Short Answer: That picture.