"Box Cutter" Breaking Bad review

"Box Cutter"

So, Breaking Bad's season 4 premiere was last night and as expected it was awesome!  One of the things I love so much about this show is that it is quietly intense.  What I mean by that is there is not a lot of unnecessary bombast.  Everything is quietly boiling or seething beneath the surface forcing you to pay attention.  Just one quietly uttered line could define or explain everything that's going on.  There have been plenty of times when I'll miss something that was said or some seemingly unimportant action only to find out later that it was/is a major plot point.  A great example of what I mean by quietly intense is the scene pictured above.  This scene was the focal point of last night's episode and on any other show, it would have been loud with overly dramatic music, unnecessary pause points, and ridiculous dialogue as if we're too stupid to understand what's going on.  But on Breaking Bad, as violent as it was, this scene was beautiful.  The sociopathic manner with which Gus Fring set about murdering his associate Victor will only uttering 5 words was brilliant!  Now, I'll admit that as soon as I realized someone (and by process of elimination it had to Victor) was going to get his throat slashed, I had my hands over my face peeking through my fingers just waiting for the gore to happen!  With just about any other TV show or movie, a scene like that would've totally freaked me out.  But not this one.  That's the beauty on this show.  It takes a subject matter that could very easily be exploited for it's innate violence and illegal activity and turns it into a great character study.  Please read the A.V. Club review linked above for a more thorough review.