Anyone who has seen “Breaking Bad” will probably remember very well the phase in season 3, where the conflicts should slowly increase. What will happen next with Hank (Dean Norris), Jesse (Aaron Paul), Walt (Bryan Cranston) and Gus (Giancarlo Esposito)? However, episode 10 (“The Fly”) took its toll on many viewers, as the entire episode was all about watching Jesse and Walt try to catch a fly in their meth lab.
So all the explosiveness that season 3 “Breaking Bad” had built up in the previous nine episodes came to an immediate halt. In television jargon, something like this is known as a “bottle episode”. This means an episode that can be shot quickly and doesn’t take up much of the budget as only a few sets and actors are used.
Usually such episodes are shot when money is tight, but an episode has yet to be made. Often an absurd scenario is invented for such a case, with some characters stuck for the entire episode. To further save costs, one of the main sets is always used. In the case of Breaking Bad, however, that didn’t fare well – and the episode is the lowest rated, with a still strong IMDb average rating of 7.8 out of 10.
That’s why Walt and Jesse were chasing a fly
As “Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan interviewed revealed at the time, “certain financial realities” played a part in the episode. So to save money, the episode was set up so that Walt and Jesse were only active in one set – in their meth lab. For Gilligan, however, there’s much more to the episode than a financial crunch, which had to be offset by smart manufacturing economics.
As Gilligan explained in the interview, The Fly also has an important function within the season: “As a showrunner, I think every season should have a specific shape and pace. I don’t think the big dramatic moments full of action and violence would seem so difficult without the moments of silence beforehand. The silent episodes make the more dramatic episodes stand out even more, if only for their contrast.
So while the episode’s critics speak of a boring bottle episode, “The Fly” can also be seen as a stylistic start-up, where the series takes a short breather, then finally goes crazy in the grand finale of the third season. Either way, the episode is pretty special, and the fact that Rian Johnson (“Knives Out”) directed it underscores the filmmaker’s ability to subvert expectations.