Wow. I expected another astonishing episode for the penultimate installment of "Breaking Bad," and I got that and more. "Granite State" may have been mostly buildup to what will pretty much be the greatest series finale of all time, but it was still phenomenal on its own. The moral of the story is that Heisenberg is back for one last stand. It's still unclear whether that machine gun Walt was carrying in the flash forward is meant for Jack and his goons or for Gretchen and Elliott, but either way, s--t is about to go down a week from tonight.

It's funny that what caused Walt to leave his cabin in the woods was Gretchen and Elliott cutting all ties on national TV (Charlie Rose, for that matter), as I was expecting it to be the death of Skyler at the hands of Jack and Co. But let's backtrack to that cabin in the woods. That place looked cozy and all, but it was pretty much misery for Walt. Saul's disappearance man, who also sent Saul to Nebraska, took Walt to a secluded cabin in New Hampshire (hence the title). He set him up with everything he needed and paid monthly visits delivering cancer treatment and news about his family and the hunt for Walter White. The episode saw a shift in character for Walt. Heisenberg would have left that cabin immediately. Our new Walt tried to on the first day of cabin life, and he failed. It was a shift that mirrored pre-pilot Walt, who never had the balls to do anything until after he started cooking meth. While this episode almost saw the disappearance of Heisenberg completely, those final moments showed that he's back to cause some trouble, one last time.

Another surprising aspect of this episode was how Walt still seemed to think money was the answer to all his problems. He paid disappearance man $10,000 to stay and play cards with him for an hour. He sent $100,000 to his family and then unwittingly called Jr. to tell him where to pick it up. Jr. once again was awesome, telling Walt that he was insane. He was responsible for Hank's death, yet still all he could think about was money. Walt knew he was on the brink of death, and money was still the answer for him. Walt still hasn't learned much, has he? His greed is what got him into this mess (understatement) in the first place.

Oh, and a lot of other events took place in this episode. Jesse escaped his torture chamber only to get caught moments later, and then witnessed Todd shoot Andrea in the head. Yup. That happened and it may have been more shocking and devastating than Jane's death. Brock is now without a mother and Jesse has to be a slave-cook or else Todd will kill Brock as well. What we don't know is what exactly is happening with Jesse now, as the last part of the episode with Walt showed that many months had past, almost to Walt's 52nd birthday.

In other White family news, Skyler experienced terror firsthand. Todd and Co. broke into the house wearing ski masks and essentially threatened to kill her if she spilled about Lydia's involvement with Walt to the authorities. If she did this, she would obviously be taking down Todd, Jack and everyone else involved. The scary part is that this was Todd being nice. Lydia had wanted them to murder Skyler then and there. Will Skyler make it to the end of the series? My bet is yes. I think the entire White family will live, except Walt. I honestly can't predict what will happen next week, but I will say this. A lot of characters are going to bite the dust (Lydia most definitely, Jack and most of his crew, maybe Marie). As for Walt and Jesse, their fates could go either way. No matter what, I'm pretty confident the series finale will make television history.

Leftovers

- Marie was shown grieving for a couple seconds and then the FBI saw her an Hank's busted up house. Girl cannot catch a break.

- "The fun's over," Saul said. Walt tried to pull his "it's not over til' I say it's over" response but was interrupted by his own coughing.

- If you weren't put into immediate depression after Andrea's death, you have no soul.

- Walt should've asked for some skis to pass the time.

- One minor perk of being Todd's slave? Huge bowls of ice cream.

- Two things that are still unclear: Exactly how much does the world know about Walt, and how much time did he spend at the cabin?

- I hope Saul appears in next week's episode and I hope he's managing a Cinnabon in Omaha.

- While Anna Gunn (Skyler) won an Emmy last night for an earlier Season 5 episode, "Granite State" and "Ozymandias" are both perfect examples of why she won.