Frank Ockenfels / AMC
The cast of "Breaking Bad," from left, Mike (Jonathan Banks), Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), Walter White (Bryan Cranston), Marie Schrader (Betsy Brandt), Hank Schrader (Dean Norris), Skyler White (Anna Gunn) and Walter White, Jr. (RJ Mitte).
By Anna Chan, TODAY
“You’re a time bomb, tick tick ticking away,” Mike the fixer says of master meth chef Walter White in a teaser for season five of the critically acclaimed “Breaking Bad.”
It’s no surprise that Walt -- played by Bryan Cranston -- is now equated with trouble ... really big trouble. He may have started as a goody two-shoes high school chemistry teacher who ended up cooking meth to ensure financial stability for his family after his terminal cancer diagnosis, but over the course of four seasons, he’s devolved into a ruthless man who’ll do anything to win.
“Walt, he likes the taste of what he’s tasted,” Betsy Brandt, who plays sister-in-law Marie Schrader, told TODAY.com. “He likes the power. He’s getting money. ... That’s not something he would let go easily.”
And if you thought Walt couldn’t get any more evil, think again. Cranston himself told TODAY in an interview Tuesday that his character could “go darker and darker.” Just how much darker, viewers will have to wait and see when the show returns to AMC on July 15. Who knows if Walt will continue to jeopardize the lives of family, innocent children, neighbors, or nursing-home residents, but one thing is clear from the teasers: He and his partner in crime, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), will be looking for a way to create their product and start selling again now that they are without both a boss and a lab.
Of course, where there are drug dealers clamoring for more power and money, there are law enforcement officers on their trail. In Walt’s case, that means Marie’s DEA agent husband, Hank Shrader (Dean Norris), who doesn't know his brother-in-law is one of the masterminds behind the drug ring he's been chasing.
Ursula Coyote / AMC
Betsy Brandt, aka Marie Schrader (center), assures "Breaking Bad" fans than an "interesting ride" awaits in the show's fifth and final season.
“I feel like (in season five), it’s really fun to see Dean and Bryan do what they do,” Brandt said. “Hank is such a great cop and Bryan is such a good criminal. ... It’s really interesting to see everything that happens with them.” She also noted that that in itself is a clue as to what’s coming, so keep your eyes peeled on the two men’s interaction this season!
But like her fellow co-stars on the subject of season five, Brandt didn’t let much slip – not only because she doesn’t “want to get canned,” but because she also doesn’t want to ruin viewers’ enjoyment in watching the show. She did, however, give another teensy little hint.
“(The writers) choose to do another thing later on in the season that I would never in a million have bet you would see on that show. It’s just ... it’s a really, really interesting ride,” Brandt told us. (Emphasis on the word “ride.”) “(It involves) probably who you might think would be involved in any part of craziness on this show.”
Brandt also said that as the season goes on, viewers will get “some great insight into all of the characters” and will “see more of who they are ... all of them.”
For her own character, Marie, Brandt said that family comes first. But as much as she loves sister Skyler – Walt’s wife, played by Anna Gunn – things will get complicated for the two women.
“Marie is really there for Skyler, and Marie is the one she knows she can count on,” Brandt noted. But because Skyler – who already knew of Walt’s drug dealing – learned in the season-four finale that her husband is also a killer, “Skyler’s in a really tricky position. It’s definitely a rock and a hard place. ... How much to share, what to share (with sister Marie).”
And let’s not also forget that it’s because of Walt’s “business” that Hank was nearly killed and spent much of last season relearning how to walk. Whatever Skyler reveals to her sibling, “We’re going to really see how (Marie) feels for her sister,” Brandt said. “If Marie ever found out Walt was involved in Hank being shot or Hank being threatened, she wouldn’t be able to say, ‘Oh, that’s OK. We’re family.’ ”
However things unfold on “Breaking Bad,” viewers can expect more great TV. “The things we do in this season are really phenomenal,” said Brandt.
Not only that, she also hinted that the long rumored big-screen move for the show may be gaining some steam. “There is a big director that would like to direct the last episode as a movie and put it in theaters,” she told us. “The show starting out as the little show that could ... it’s become such a big thing, and I’d just love for it to have a huge ending.”
Season five of "Breaking Bad" premieres on AMC at 10 p.m. Sunday.
What do you want to see happen to Walt in the show's final season? Tell us on our Facebook page!
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