Breaking Bad re-watch: Season 2, Episode 1: "Seven Thirty-Seven"

In one of the most brilliant uses of foreshadowing in television history, the episode opens with a shot of an eyeball floating in a swimming pool. Our momentary gross-out reflex is dashed when it’s revealed to be a plastic eye coming off of a half-burnt stuffed animal also in the pool, but our curiosity isn't.

There’s no explanation as to the doll’s nature, but it suggests something big, something bad, must have gone down. Was it burned in a meth lab explosion? Was it a toy for Walt (Bryan Cranston) and Skyer’s (Anna Gunn) coming baby, singed in an attack on the White household? The pre-credits scenes in each episode this season reveal a little more each time. The explanation, in the form of a devastating turn of events in the season finale, is a complete surprise.

Back in the present, last season’s beating Tuco (Raymond Cruz) laid down on his lackey for talking out of turn is replayed, and revealed to have been fatal. Having witnessed the brutal deed, Walt and Jesse (Aaron Paul), still far from hardened drug lords, believe they’re next. As the two scramble to find a way to kill Tuco first, the tension is sky-high in every scene, even though the villain only appears briefly at the start and finish, and it’s never clear until the very end whether they’re just paranoid or if their fears are actually warranted. It also introduces the ricin, which will become a recurring card Walt has in his hand (but never actually uses, at least not yet) throughout the series, and which seems a little more poignant today than when the episode first aired.

The family drama in the episode has a more mixed execution. The tension between Skyler and Marie (Betsy Brandt) from the shoplifting debacle brings out some more in Hank (Dean Norris), though he’s still more of a goofball than strong character. Skyler comes out of these scenes with a little more depth as she reveals how her husband’s behavior is affecting her, and her role becomes more than just a hurdle for Walt to get past like season one. Too bad this development is torpedoed at the very start with the scene where Walt tries to aggressively mount Skyler in the kitchen (it seems more like a rape attempt, even though she reluctantly goes along at first). I doubt the show tried to glorify the act because it’s not at all depicted positively, but it just seems gratuitous instead of crucial to the story, like the writers were just trying to provoke viewers. Or they got lazy.

But the stuff away from home is excellent. The tension never lets up, literally because the closing scene, with Walt and Jesse riding away with their foe to God knows where, resolves nothing. This one certainly covers its bases, leaving us guessing about what will happen in the immediate and the long run, and making us want to stick around for both.