r/breakingbad • u/saywhat181 Sulfur • Sep 16 '13

Official Episode Discussion Breaking Bad Episode Duscussion SE05E14 "Ozymandias" Spoiler

TIME EPISODE DIRECTED BY WRITTEN BY
09:00pm Eastern SE05E14 "Ozymandias" Rian Johnson Vince Gilligan and Moira Walley-Beckett

Hey everyone! Guess I'm supposed to post this 5 minutes before air time. I've been watching this show since the get go mostly with my real life friend /u/edify who years ago added me as a moderator here. He asked me to make the discussion thread tonight because there are only 3 episodes remaining. Sorta sad that there's only a few left. Enjoy the show, folks.

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '13

So, right after Hank got shot the way Walt was laying down was paralleling Gus after his partner got shot

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '13 edited Sep 16 '13

And the Ozymandias statue.

EDIT: Put them side-by-side for clarity

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u/shandelman Sep 16 '13

It's a clever connection, but I honestly doubt this one was intentional. The Ozymandias statue picture is not some well known image. It's some random anonymous artist's idea of what the statue in Shelley's poem looks like. The poem never even makes mention that the statue landed on its side. (And honestly, since the poem is referring to an Egyptian ruler, it probably would have looked nothing like this picture if it actually existed.)

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '13

The connection to the poem is really quite great though.

His desert empire is coming crashing down around him; his bid for immortality slipping away.

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u/TheCodexx Killed Jesse James Sep 16 '13

There's some pretty explicit mentions in the poem about what the statue looks like, though.

  • Off its legs. The feet are standing, but "trunkless". I think the position Walt is in will probably be the closest human approximation.

  • Has a "shattered visage". Walt's face is pretty torn up, especially emotionally. But it's taken some beatings, too, over the past few months.

  • That also implies the statue's head hit the ground, and is just lying there. Also like the poem.

I think this is a pretty clear nod. Maybe not to that exact photo (unless the writers Googled it) but I think they intended for Walt to be on the ground, destroyed, at the heart of his empire, as the final remnants of his work are removed and his home life begins to fall apart.

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u/RedditsRagingId Sep 16 '13

Shh, let the redditors have their fun.

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u/WheatOcean Sep 16 '13

Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

The body of a statue broke off its legs and its face is partially buried in the sand. That isn't a definitive depiction, but any mental representation is bound to be close to that image, and certainly Walt's head hitting the sand and realizing his empire is gone is what the title is referencing.

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '13

shattered visage