Dear
Breaking Bad fans: Please sit back and watch this. And, more specifically, listen to it. Listen to the ominous voice of Bryan Cranston (aka chemistry-teacher-turned-meth-kingpin Walter White, aka Heisenberg) intoning Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem
Ozymandias. Remember when Cranston, as White, told his wife Skyler, “I am the one who knocks”? This video is like that, only 5,000 times more chilling.
The message in this latest teaser for
Breaking Bad is pretty clear: White may have “
won” and he may have told Skyler “I’m out” the last time we saw him, but in the drug game no one gets out clean. The main theme of “Ozymandias” is that all great leaders eventually fall–claimed either by death or their own failings–and no matter how great their works, the day will come when “
nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away.” In other words, Walter White may have a storage unit full of cash, but you can’t take money to the grave–and the legacy he leaves behind may prove equally empty. (Cue the image of Walt’s Heisenberg hat lost in the desert covered in sand.)
This is, of course, what
Breaking Bad has been building to for five seasons. Walt began cooking crystal meth in order to provide for his family after he was diagnosed with cancer, but as the money and power crept in, his humanity was lost. He’s built a meth empire, but will it matter when he’s gone, claimed either by violence, cancer, even old age?
There may even be clues to his potential endpoint in the clip. There are glimpses of the pest-control tented homes that Walt and Jesse were using to cook meth at the beginning of Season 5, the exterior of the meth lab they used when they were cooking for Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), the Zia Motor Lodge across from Saul Goodman’s strip-mall law practice, the car lot where the abandoned RV meth lab has been laid to rest, and a few more. (Did we miss any other meth-cooking locations?) Is this video pointing to the road Walt has traveled to build his kingdom, or the loose ends that could cause his whole world to unravel?
Judging from how the first half of the season ended, probably the latter. When we last saw
Breaking Bad, Walt’s DEA agent brother-in-law Hank was finally–
finally–connecting the dots, and realizing that Walt might be the drug dealer he’s been searching for this whole time. The revelation came courtesy of another famous work of poetry: Walt Whitman’s
Leaves of Grass. The book was left on the White family commode with the inscription to “W.W.” from “G.B.” – the dearly departed meth-cooker Gale Boetticher, whom Hank believed was responsible for the crimes of Walt’s alter ego, Heisenberg. Talk about poetic justice.
So will Walt and his works all be turned to dust? We’ll find out when
Breaking Bad returns for its final eight episodes on August 11
This pair of striking images of teeth colonized by ambitious antiquarian architecture are part of a campaign for Maxam toothpaste from JWT Shanghai; the slogan is "Don't let germs settle down." 
