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Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 5

Dead Freight

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AIRED: Aug 12, 2012

8.4

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EPISODE REVIEWS
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Episode Summary

EDIT

Mike and Lydia work to get the methylamine delivered for the operation. Walt and Jesse try to work through several ideas to keep undercover.

FAN RECAP

TV.com Episode Review

163

Breaking Bad: Loco Motives

Season 5 has been a clinic in teaching us the drug trade, but in "Dead Freight" our morals were put to the test.

By Tim Surette, Aug 13, 2012

Fan Episode Reviews (11)

Train Wreck... (spoiler)

10

By Deb4nier, Jan 04, 2013

This show is exactly like a train wreck that I can't stop watching. I'm horrified and morbidly interested in what happens next. I so wanted to root for Walter in the beginning and I kept having hopes that he would somehow redeem himself. I'm not sure how I kept holding out that hope after Jane and Gale - but he's crossed the line of no return with Brock and the little spider collecting boy. I just keep waiting for someone to realize that the carnage isn't worth the money. The end of this episode and the beginning of 'Buyout' had me crying like I'd lost my own child. My hat is off to Vince Gilliam, the writers and crew for yanking these emotions from me but I'm going to have to take a break and mourn this little boy before I jump back in and root for Walter's demise... and his death bed redemption.moreless
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Electric chair for Walt

8.0

By junk123456789, Aug 20, 2012

Good episode - but if our hero's now intend to kill mothers of 10 year old girls, and kill 11 year old boys who wave at them, then I think it best this series ends with Walt sitting on the electric chair.
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The Great Train Robbery (Spoilers Ahead)

9.0

By Neksmater, Aug 19, 2012

The cold open of the show shows a little kid on a dirt bike going through the desert and picking up a tarantula and putting it in a glass. With the kids out of the house Walt and Skyler continue their doomed relationship dance and Walt even has to sternly tell Flynn, who insists on staying at the house, that Skyler and he need to work things out that's all he needs to know. Walt's scene breaking down in Hank's office solely to bug his computer and his picture of him and Marie was masterfully sociopathic. But it allowed them to prove Lydia was innocent of planting the device on the methalomine. Gotta say, that indeed caught me by surprise when it turns out that law enforcement was dumb enough to put it on the bottom of the outside. But with that now being untouchable and Lydia wanting to bargain for her life she offers the trio a whole "ocean of methalomine" that they can get off of a train. The details of no security and only an engineer and a conductor really made Walt, Jesse, and Mike put their heads together. Every detail was thought out and Jesse's plan no doubt was to not have to kill anybody and to not have anybody ever know that they were there. This was really strung out and high tensity as the plan to stop the train was innocent and so many factors going into making the methalomine just look watered down and more diluted from China than usual with the digging and hiding the weaker methalomine compound under a reservoir of the bridge where they stop the train. But the action thriller angle really made it pass and Walt's high risk of not stopping when Mike's guy got his truck finally taken out of the way of the rails and not dislodging until the last possible second made it look a little too good to be true. The exterminator crew/thief guy Todd was their main helper too. But the soul crushing part was when after all that planning the little boy on the bike is sitting there on his bike and saw the whole thing go down and simply waves. Before Jesse can stop him Todd puts a bullet in the kid to silence him from telling anybody about what he saw. This was truly the death of their innocence particularly because all of the people they've had to kill before were involved in the drug business from Tuco to Gus to the guys Walt shot last year in the lab, even Gale was still a meth cook and Krazy 8 was trying to kill Walt in Season 1 and the two guys in Season 3 had killed a kid and were scum and about to kill Jesse until Walt intervened. This was the death of a true innocent by their hands who had nothing to do with drugs and was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's heartbreaking but it's what this show is all about. Taking "good people" and corrupting them elegantly into the other end of the spectrum to wrong-doers. I don't see this sitting well with Jesse or even Mike for that matter at all. Phenomenal episode and seeing where the fallout of this will be truly engaging I hope.moreless
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Where they got the stuff

10

By KeivSpare, Aug 16, 2012

Where did they find the equipment to do this? Let's see, they needed:

A couple of 1,000 gallon plastic containers. No problem.

A backhoe

A dump truck

A 1,000+ gallon tank truck

Some hoses with storz connections that will connect to a tanker car

Electric wrenches

All of this stuff can be easily rented. Remember they just had a 7-figure payday. This equipment is standard stuff and is easily within their means.

The fact that they acquired some pretty standard equipment is not absurd. The only absurd thing about the train scene is that in this goldylocks deadzone there just happens to be a railroad crossing which is the perfect distance from a trestle which has soil in which they can bury tanks and the specific tanker car happened to stop right at the trestle at the spot where they buried the tanks. There are so many variables, the fact that they all lined up perfectly is possible, but improbable. They didn't know which tanker it would be until the day of the heist. What if the tanker car had been toward the front of the train and not at the end? They would have been seen, and their underground tanks would have been too far away. I loved the train scene, it was exciting and suspenseful and had a tragic cliff hanger ending. I think it's funny you focus on the "hey, where did they get a backhoe?" issue and not on all the other details.

What IS absurd is that the DEA is dragging its feet on putting surveillance on Mike, meanwhile he is re-starting the meth network, paying off witnesses, destroying evidence at the police station. He didn't even wear a mask. Albuquerque is a big city. They probably have traffic cams. The police would spot Mike and Mr. White and Jesse instantly on traffic cams coming and going from the police station at night.moreless
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Epic show

10

By chris0478, Aug 14, 2012

What a show.

"So what ya doing now walt, burying bodies in the desert?"

"No, robbin' a train."

Epic, all hail to the king.

The ending is gonna mess jesse's $#@$ up.
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Cast & Crew: STARS

EDIT

Bryan Cranston	Walter White
Anna Gunn	Skyler White
Aaron Paul	Jesse Pinkman
Bob Odenkirk	Saul Goodman
Betsy Brandt	Marie Schrader
Dean Norris	Hank Schrader

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Cast & Crew: RECURRING AND GUESTS

EDIT

Joshua Gomez	Sandor	Guest Star
Miguel Martinez	Fernando	Guest Star
Ryan Begay	Good Samaritan	Guest Star
Jesse Plemons	Todd	Recurring Role
Laura Fraser	Lydia	Recurring Role
Steven Michael Quezada	Steven Gomez	Recurring Role

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Episode Photos

Bryan Cranston, Jonathan Banks and Laura...

© 2012 AMC Networks Inc.
Aaron Paul in Breaking Bad from "Dead Fr...

© 2012 AMC Networks Inc.
Jonathan Banks in Breaking Bad from "Dea...

© 2012 AMC Networks Inc.
Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul in Breakin...

© 2012 AMC Networks Inc.

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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TRIVIA (3)
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- There are actually specific areas of track called "dark territories" where the trains lose all signal contact and could potentially be in danger of attack. The original title for this episode was Dark Territories, but it was changed to Dead Freight because it is a train term describing an empty freight car, which you usually have to pay to ship anyways. One of the boxcars was visibly empty because the crew could not get the rusted door cover to close on the train.
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- The train engine, built in the 1950s, broke down on the first day of shooting and set back production. In addition, the production crew ordered 12 boxcars to use and they were expensive to rent. When they came in from Texas, they were covered in graffiti. At first, they thought it would be too much to paint over, but then they couldn't get clearance (from the artists!) to leave the graffiti as is, so they ended up painting over it.
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- Original ideas for the train heist involved a helicopter flying over to the depot where the train car was held to suck out the methylamine midair. They didn't think the train idea was going to work for budgetary reasons, however, the estimates for robbing the methylamine out of a truck was almost just as expensive.
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