"Ozymandias" is the fourteenth episode of the fifth season of the American television drama series Breaking Bad, and the 60th episode of the series overall. Written by Moira Walley-Beckett and directed by Rian Johnson, it aired on AMC in the United States and Canada on September 15, 2013. The episode's narrative concludes the previous episode's cliffhanger.
Beckett and Johnson had previously worked together on the season three episode "Fly" and had a friendly working relationship that lasted throughout the production. Beckett was allowed greater creative freedom than she had experienced before. Owing to the intensity of the episode's storyline, the production was emotionally difficult for those involved. The episode was subject to much analysis following its release. Focus was given to the episode's parallels to its namesake, Percy Shelley's "Ozymandias"; its depiction of redemption; and Walt's (Bryan Cranston) phone call to Skyler (Anna Gunn).
"Ozymandias" has been universally acclaimed since its initial airing and is widely considered to be Breaking Bads finest episode as well as one of the greatest television episodes of all time. Critics praised its writing, acting, direction, and payoff of storylines set up since "Pilot". At the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards, Walley-Beckett won Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for her teleplay; Cranston and Gunn won Lead Actor and Supporting Actress respectively for their performances in the episode. In 2024, Rolling Stone ranked the episode first overall in their list of the 100 best TV episodes of all time. It was the only episode to have an aggregate 10/10 rating on IMDb before losing it to a review bombing campaign in 2026.
Plot In a flashback, Walter White and Jesse Pinkman conduct their first meth cook. Walt calls a pregnant Skyler White with an excuse for not being home, and she suggests the name Holly for their baby.
In the present, Hank Schrader is wounded following the shootout with Jack's brotherhood, and Steve Gomez has been killed. Jack prepares to kill Hank but Walt begs Jack to spare him, offering his entire fortune in exchange. Hank chides Walt for not realizing Jack has already decided to kill him. Jack shoots Hank dead, and Walt collapses to the ground in despair.
The gang discovers Walt's seven money barrels, but Jack tells Walt they will leave one for him because of Todd's respect for Walt. They bury Hank and Gomez in place of the barrels. Walt identifies Jesse's hiding place and demands Jack carry out the hit he requested. Todd suggests taking Jesse captive to learn what he revealed to Hank and Steve. Walt consents, and spitefully tells Jesse he watched Jane Margolis die. The gang then takes Jesse to their compound where he is imprisoned and forced to cook meth.
Walt's car runs out of fuel because a bullet pierced the fuel tank, so he rolls his barrel through the desert until he passes a house and buys the owner's truck. Unaware of what transpired in the desert, Marie Schrader informs Skyler that Hank has arrested Walt and demands that Skyler tell Walter White Jr. the truth. Skyler informs Walter Jr. about Walt's drug business, and he tells her she is as bad as Walt for going along. After arriving home, Skyler finds Walt frantically packing and he tries to get Skyler and Walter Jr. to leave with him. Skyler realizes Hank is dead, and believing Walt to be responsible, attacks him with a kitchen knife. A violent fight occurs and Walter Jr. tackles Walt, then calls the police. Walt kidnaps Holly and flees.
Marie and the police arrive at the Whites' home. Knowing police are monitoring the phone, Walt calls and attempts to establish Skyler's innocence by berating her and falsely claiming he built his drug business alone. Walt confirms Hank's death and leaves Holly at a fire station with her home address written on a note. The next morning, Walt meets Ed Galbraith, Saul Goodman's new-identity contact, who drives away with Walt and the money barrel.
Production
The episode was written by Moira Walley-Beckett and directed by Rian Johnson—self-described "partners in crime". As the writers are chosen in advance of the plot points being formed, Walley-Beckett's appointment was, in her own words, "luck of the draw". She requested to work with Johnson because of their experiences together working on the third-season episode "Fly". The two worked together throughout the production with them overseeing the final cut, a first for Walley-Beckett. Ultimately, Johnson said that the episode was Walley-Beckett's, who found herself deeply proud of the episode. Series creator Vince Gilligan was also enamored, thinking of it as the show's best. It aired on AMC in the United States and Canada on September 15, 2013.
This episode marks the final appearance of Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) and Steve Gomez (Steven Michael Quezada), though both would reprise their roles in season 5 of the prequel series Better Call Saul. Hank's death was shot in a minimal number of takes, due in part to the limited time the crew had and the inconvenient weather present. Although the writers discussed many options for his death, it was agreed, from the start of talks, that his death would be dignified and honorable; Hank was originally supposed to die at the end of the previous episode, but it was moved to "Ozymandias" for better pacing. To preserve the drama of Hank's death, the show's producers secured special permission from Hollywood guilds to delay showing the opening credits until 19 minutes into the episode.
The opening flashback scene was the last scene to be shot for the entire series. The crew waited to film the episode to allow for Bryan Cranston's and Aaron Paul's hair to grow in so they would look like they did before Walt began shaving his head and Jesse began wearing his hair short. Although it was filmed months after the rest of the episode, Johnson was able to return to direct the scene.
The shot depicting Walt's reaction to Hank's death was, according to Beckett, Johnson's invention. To emphasize the physical impact, he requested that puzzle pieces be placed on the ground, covered in dirt; the pieces were controlled by a trigger and disassembled upon the moment Walt landed, thus emulating the effect of "shattering the earth". The ground shots of Hank and Jesse required a special crane rig and "periscope lens". For the following shot of Walt rolling the barrel, Johnson wanted to emulate the stature of a dung beetle. To do so he got the "longest possible lens" they could afford and sent "the B-camera crew out in a truck way the hell out". Jesse's torture was left off-screen owing to the script excluding it and Johnson feeling that it would be unfair to the audience to manipulate their emotional investment in Jesse's character.
Betsy Brandt said that during production she avoided reading Hank's death, as she found it too emotional. Brandt noted that seven years after airing, she had not seen the episode. Co-executive producer Melissa Bernstein described reading the script as an "intense experience". Anna Gunn recalled that during the scene of Holly's kidnapping there were what "seemed like" a hundred onlookers. This coupled with the shooting running late and the erratic weather of the day led to her feeling under pressure and seeking support from Johnson. In 2014, she named it the hardest scene she filmed but also one of the "richest".
Walley-Beckett said that Walt's preceding confrontation was "extremely complicated" to write owing to the characters' differing objectives, the scene's "operatic" nature, and the multiple "crescendos and decrescendos". Johnson—who had it all "mapped out"—saw the scene as the hardest to film, noting that the line "I tried to save him" underwent multiple takes until Cranston commented that Walt should be, instead of bumbling, exasperated. Cranston and Gunn both performed the stunts themselves, barring two shots. The scene in which Walt is changing Holly's diaper had no lines for Holly in the script, but as Johnson explains: "[t]hat baby's mom was just off camera" which caused the baby to say "mama". Cranston stayed in character and went along with it, and it ended up in the episode.
Analysis The University of Colorado Boulder's Amanda Knopf noted that the shootout aligns with the conventional Western trope of improbable success in a gunfight and is an example of Walt's moral code and belief that dying in this manner would restore his masculinity and heroism. Walt is throughout the episode emasculated, in various ways. She also notes that, within the series, the desert is visually unique in that despite the destruction and loss taking place it remains "unchanged".
The lyrics to "Take My True Love by the Hand" by The Limeliters references and foreshadows Walt's isolation from his family, emphasized by Holly's first words being "Mama".
Parallels to Percy Shelley's Ozymandias
The episode title refers to the poem "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley, which recounts the crumbling legacy of a once-proud king. Bryan Cranston recited the entire poem in a 2013 trailer for the series. Walley-Beckett had wanted to use the poem for a long time and thus introduced it to showrunner Vince Gilligan.
Although the episode makes no explicit references to the poem, Austin Gill of Xavier University felt that by this episode's point in Walt's progression he had embodied the "tyrannical aspirations of invincibility and arrogance" of the poem's pharaoh, whose downfall is paralleled in Walt's. Douglas Eric Rasmussen of the University of Saskatchewan said that Walt's reaction to Hank's death indicates that he has become the "colossal wreck" of the poem—the empire of Ramesses II, which Shelley alluded to.
Further parallels are seen in both the episode and poem concluding with their protagonists left with little to show for their actions and how the "concept of hubris and being punished for grandiose projects that serve an individual's egotism are central aspects of each work". Walt's pant-less appearance in the flashback echoes the line "Two vast and trunk-less legs of stone". By evoking the poem, Rasmussen said, the show is critiquing Walt's empire and his "empty desires"—which he sees Walt embodying. Gill said that the episode—and by extension, the show—uses the poem to "underscore and warn of the ramifications of vanity" and "sustain cultural life and power".
Redemption Donna Bowman of The A.V. Club said the episode portrayed "Walt at his most human [and] most deluded... Hank [is] transformed by his pursuit of Heisenberg into the lawman he always wanted to be". She concluded that Holly's kidnapping was the final straw for Walt's humanity. Alberto Nahum García Martínez and colleagues provided a reading which said that Walt's actions before and, particularly, after "Ozymandias" indicate moral redemption with the intention of the audience once again supporting Walt; in a review for Slate, published the same day as the episode, Matthew Yglesias speculated this to be the writers' goal.
When asked if the writers were trying to get the audience to support Walt, Walley-Beckett responded opaquely, noting that "moral ambiguity is a cornerstone of the series" and that they always "tried to legitimately confound expectations and put people in the moral position of rooting for somebody who's become a cancer to himself and everyone around [him]". Cranston said that the episode "[twisted] the allegiance, testing the audience" and that many people told him, following Walt disclosing his involvement in Jane's death, that they lost faith in Walt.
Phone call