It's only the third episode in this season of Breaking Bad, but it already feels as if we've been served the same plot for ages. Besides more and more character development in Skyler and Jesse, "Open House" is sparse on new ideas and difficult to enjoy.
As Jesse's parties grow bleaker and bleaker, Aaron Paul impresses me even more through his almost wordless, yet still so deep acting – especially the go-kart scene near the end of the episode was a small, but mentionable gem. The bigger part of this episode was definitely focused on either the Schraders or the Whites though, and while these also had some nice parts here and there, the average was rather low. Especially Marie bringing out the kleptomaniac side of hers was overly long and resulted in a ridiculous and redundant crying scene of Betsy Brandt.
Skyler got a tad more interesting in "Open House" as she is willing to passively participate in Walt's crime by becoming a (different sort of) criminal herself, yet that doesn't say a lot for a character that bored and annoyed me for pretty much all three seasons up to that point. This story part had some blatant stupidities in it, such as the "It's been six hours, he won't call – he calls" and the "Giving a random guy instructions over headphones so he can manipulate someone else in your favor" clichés. At least Bob Odenkirk was able to uplift both the humor aspect and the quality of it with some trademark stupid jokes.
As you see, there really were only few things for me to appreciate in "Open House", an episode that proves yet another time that Breaking Bad is weak when the story is evolving slowly.
As Jesse's parties grow bleaker and bleaker, Aaron Paul impresses me even more through his almost wordless, yet still so deep acting – especially the go-kart scene near the end of the episode was a small, but mentionable gem. The bigger part of this episode was definitely focused on either the Schraders or the Whites though, and while these also had some nice parts here and there, the average was rather low. Especially Marie bringing out the kleptomaniac side of hers was overly long and resulted in a ridiculous and redundant crying scene of Betsy Brandt.
Skyler got a tad more interesting in "Open House" as she is willing to passively participate in Walt's crime by becoming a (different sort of) criminal herself, yet that doesn't say a lot for a character that bored and annoyed me for pretty much all three seasons up to that point. This story part had some blatant stupidities in it, such as the "It's been six hours, he won't call – he calls" and the "Giving a random guy instructions over headphones so he can manipulate someone else in your favor" clichés. At least Bob Odenkirk was able to uplift both the humor aspect and the quality of it with some trademark stupid jokes.
As you see, there really were only few things for me to appreciate in "Open House", an episode that proves yet another time that Breaking Bad is weak when the story is evolving slowly.