32,861. That’s how many episodes IMDb lists with at least 1,000 user ratings. And while that’s far from a perfect, infallible metric, it is a useful one for assessing quality and even more so consensus. Of all tens of thousands of installments, 20 reach the rarefied air of near-perfection that is 9.9/10, from prestige dramas such as Six Feet Under, Game of Thrones, and Succession, to animated series like BoJack Horseman and Avatar: The Last Airbender. Those feats are remarkable enough, but what’s more impressive is that there’s only one (1) that has scored a perfect 10/10 (with over 200k ratings at that).
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On September 15, 2013, Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 14, “Ozymandias” aired. For those up-to-date at the time, we knew it’d be good, and likely great – the show was building to its finale and had a lot of momentum behind it. But what we got was shocking for many reasons, not least that it’s an all-time classic, which will go down in history as one of the finest hours of TV ever made, if not the very best.
Over a decade later, it still stands tall as a towering achievement, a shining example of what the medium can do. Indeed, it might look even better now: as TV has shifted to all-at-once releases and binge-watch models, it’s a reminder of the power and weight a single episode can carry, its narrative impact not lessened at all.
Is Breaking Bad’s “Ozymandias” The Best TV Episode Ever?
“Ozymandias” is undoubtedly the crowning achievement of Breaking Bad. This is an hour that’s all about consequences: it brings the Walter White power fantasy crashing down to a terrifying reality. Major characters die, his control begins to slip, and the most devastating truths have to emerge.
It’s the explosion that comes at the end of a fuse burning for five seasons, all of Walt’s actions leading to this very moment. It sets up the final two episodes in thrilling style. And yet, most importantly, it’s all just perfectly contained, from start to finish, as a breathless, captivating installment. It’s an episode where everything races but time stands still, that created a cultural moment but feels timeless.
Forget the blue meth, the real cooks here were writer Moira Walley-Beckett and director Rian Johnson, who crystallized Breaking Bad right down to its purest form: the myth of Heisenberg, and the sad, dark truth of Walt. The script is beautiful, the direction and pacing relentless yet restrained. The performances from Bryan Cranston and Anna Gunn, in particular, are so raw it hurts. It’s a masterpiece. But is it the best TV episode ever?
That’s a question that is almost impossible to answer. It’s difficult to compare eras and genres. It’s not only about how does Breaking Bad’s “Ozymandias” stack up next to other drama heavyweights, like Mad Men’s “The Suitcase,” “College” or “Pine Barrens” from The Sopranos, or “Middle Ground” from The Wire. But how do they compare to, say, The Simpsons’ “Last Exit to Springfield” and Seinfeld’s “The Contest.” And then how do you weigh those against the best of I Love Lucy or The Mary Tyler Moore Show? What about more avant garde, experimental fare such as Atlanta’s “Teddy Perkins” or so much of Twin Peaks?
Everyone will, of course, have their favorite, but that’s perhaps what makes “Ozymandias” holding the sole 10/10 rating so notable. As much as those metrics can be influenced by hype, backlash, and review-bombings, its perfect rating speaks in part to a shared experience, a collective, universal agreement of something we all watched and sat in awe of, and that we’ll always remember witnesses, which few dramas have managed (and drama, wrongly, does often get weighted more in these conversations).
There are other TV episodes that are as great, and certainly some less stressful to sit through, but as an hour that feels both brilliant in its individualized, contained self, and yet such a distillation of everything the show and its characters was, it’s hard to argue for anything else.
All five seasons of Breaking Bad are available to stream on Netflix.
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Image courtesy of Paramount+
