If Breaking Bad season two’s ‘Seven Thirty-Seven’, ‘Down’, ‘Over’ and ‘ABQ’ are anything to go by, episode titles can be important indicators of what is to come in the show. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the remaining instalments in season 5 (Potential spoilers throughout).

S05E11 – ‘Confessions’

With tenth episode ‘Buried’ ending with Hank preparing to interrogate a dejected Jesse, the confession this title is referring to seems to be fairly clear – backed up by one of the final shots seeing Schrader behind a crossed grill, just like a priest in a confessional booth.

The plurality of the title suggests Jesse may not be the only one unburdening however. In Hank’s previous scene he set up an impromptu meeting with DEA head Ramey, implying his impending confession to his colleagues that his brother-in-law is the man he’s been hunting the past year. Such a development would tip the scales against Walt very early on in the final season however, so perhaps something Jesse says will persuade Hank to keep his suspicions to himself for a little while longer.




S05E12 – ‘Rabid Dog’

We previously saw dog references with regards to Jesse in Blood Money (Picture: Netflix)

The seventh episode of season four saw Jesse describing Gail Boetticher as a ‘problem dog’ (also the episode title) that he was forced to kill. Rabid Dog could well refer to the altogether more dangerous mutt he has to sort next: Walt.

Other theories have Walt killing Skyler as the scenario, but Walt seems more likely as the Rabid Dog – once a sweet man who has become diseased (cancer) and must be put down before he harms others.

There are some pretty monumental spoilers for episode ten circulating courtesy of an Empire interview with its writer Sam Catlin. It has since been pulled (probably due to its spoilerifc nature), but can be read here if you can’t wait two weeks.

S05E13 – ‘To’hajiilee’

Tohajiilee looks to be the area of the desert where Walt concealed his millions in ‘Buried’ and where he cooked with Jesse in the pilot, as confirmed by the image below.

The episode title suggests we will be visiting Tohajiilee for a third time, but why? Why would Walt need to dig up his treasure so soon?

Possible reasons:

– Its location is compromised (unlikely, unless someone questions why a multi-millionaire is buying a lottery ticket and decodes the coordinates)

– He needs the cash to reinvest in a new meth business (highly unlikely this late in the game)

– He needs the cash to pay off Saul’s ‘vacuum repair guy’ so he can disappear (very possible given the flash forward has him living under a pseudonym in New Hampshire)

Other theory – remember this girl from season one episode The Cat’s In The Bag?

Creator Vince Gilligan and his team are very fond of foreshadowing and this strand, in which a small child finds one of the pair’s masks, remains unresolved. Will Hank and/or the DEA be driven back to Walt and Jesse’s formative meth-cooking months and any evidence they may have left behind in the desert?

S05E14 – ‘Ozymandias’

This is the Shelley poem used in the season 5b teaser trailer, reproduced below, which explores the inevitable decline of all leaders and the empires they leave behind.

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away



Disturbing abandoned pork pie hat in the trailer aside, the poem suggests that this episode will see the beginning of the fall of Walter White, or at least his disappearance.

The ‘decay of that colossal wreck’ is echoed in his ailing meth empire meanwhile, which has suffered since Lydia tried to continue Heisenberg’s business with a changing cast of amateur cooks. As such, we might see this aspect of the plot tied up in some way here, possibly with the demolition of another lab.

S05E15 – ‘Granite State’

The flash forward in Live Free Or Die (Picture: Netflix)

The nickname of New Hampshire, this episode will likely follow Walt as he heads to the Granite State to grow a beard of sorrow and perfect his hobo look, apparently. His hair suggests he has given up on chemotherapy and is a man who has accepted his death, trying to evade capture and die in peace.

If his relocation is the work of the vacuum repair man, it is interesting that his family have not disappeared with him. With the White house having already been shown in ruins in Blood Money it is possible that they are already dead by this point, and if the theory that Walt takes on his victims’ traits is applied here, then his adoption of Skyler’s maiden name and his laying out of birthday bacon in Skylerish fashion do not spell out good omens for his wife.

His re-arming with the machine gun in the trunk of the car suggests he does still have someone or something left to fight for in Albuquerque however, or else he is on an all-out mission of vengeance.


S05E16 ‘Felina’

The Felina script was teased in a Breaking Bad behind the scenes video (Picture: YouTube)

Breaking Bad’s final episode title is open to many interpretations. We’re probably safe to discard the fact it can mean cat-like and is the name of both a professional wrestler and a Pokemon character, but the word’s appearance in an old country song is ripe for extrapolation.

Marty Robbins’ El Paso tells the story of a cowboy who after killing a rival flees to the ‘badlands of New Mexico’. Driven by his desire to see his lover Feleena, he returns however in the face of almost certain death. ‘It’s been so long since I’ve seen the young maiden / My love is stronger than my fear of death’, the song goes, with the cowboy eventually dying in Feleena’s arms.

It is clear to see how this tale can be applied to Walt’s story thus far, but what of the difference in spelling? And ‘Felina’ being an anagram of ‘finale’? These subversions could be indicative of a change to the song’s story, or else other twists along the way. For while there’s romance in a blind suicide mission, you have to believe Heisenberg has a few more tricks up his sleeve.