It was a great train robbery night on AMC. Well, not really but both dramas, season premiere of Hell On Wheels and Breaking Bad, featured one of film making’s classic situations, train heists. While the two robberies were very different, I’d have to give the nod to Breaking Bad considering it was quite surprising, sans the episode title, and built the tension meter up to maximum. Without further ado, let’s see what ‘Dead Freight’ has in store for us.

The episode begins with a short and somewhat obscure scene where a young boy is off road dirt biking through the desert wasteland. He comes across a tarantula and puts it in a jar that was stored in his jacket pocket. Ok…? After the title screen, we’re shown Walt visiting his brother-in-law at in his new office as he was promoted due to his suspicions on Fring. Walt tells Hank that his relationship with Skyler has totally collapsed because she doesn’t love him anymore. Feeling uneasy by Walt’s crocodile tears, Hank leaves Walt in his office alone for a couple minutes where Walt takes the opportunity to plant an audio bug in a picture of Hank and Marie.

Next we find Walt, Jesse and Mike holding a tied up Lydia in what looks to be a large damp basement. Mike accuses Lydia of planting the GPS unit of the barrel of methylamine and forces her to call Hank at the DEA office to see if he was responsible for planting the device. Hank says that he didn’t know anything about it and they listen in on a call between Hank and Gomez where he says that their office wasn’t behind planting the unit. Right as Mike is about to pull the trigger as his gun is pressed up against Lydia’s temple, Hank phones the Houston DEA office where the man says they had planted the tracking device. With their batch of methylamine now gone at the Madrigal warehouse, the gang has to decide what to do about Lydia. Thinking quickly as he life was still in jeopardy, Lydia tells the men that she knows where they can get an enormous amount of methylamine.

Lydia spills the details about this “ocean” of methylamine which is transported by train throughout the south west. Luckily for Walt and the others, the train passes through a remote, dead area (no communication) of New Mexico where they could potentially be able to rip off the train. Mike is extremely cautious about this idea considering that the department of homeland security would be on them almost instantly if they were to hold up, kill or even if the train weighed in significantly different at it’s weigh station at the next stop. Lydia goes over all the details with Walt, Jesse and Mike including the number of people on the train and the weight of the methylamine contents. When mulling over their options, Jesse has an epiphany (much like the magnets) on how they can steal the methylamine without the conductor or engineer even knowing they did so. To do this, they bury two 1000-gallon tanks underneath the trestle that the train is going over. They also get help from Todd who works for Vamonos Pests to help with the heist.

Back at the home front, Walter Jr. is upset with his living situation and decides that he’s going to move back home at the expensive of Skyler’s fears. When Walt arrives home, Skyler says that he got what he wanted but Walt tells his son to stay with his aunt and uncle. Walter Jr. asks for an explanation which Walt give him the old “we’re your parents and we say so” answer. Lydia later phones Mike about when the next shipment of methylamine will be coming through their state and the time of arrival. The heist begins with a diversion. Mike employ’s one of his guys to park a dump truck on the railroad tracks. He desperately tries to get the train conductor’s attention and eventually they stop quite close to the “broken down” dump truck. The conductor and engineer leave the train to try and help the man fix his truck. Once the conductor and engineer leave the vehicle, Jesse and Todd go to work by opening the contents of the tank containing the methylamine. Jesse hooks a hose up with the bottom of the truck that’s connected to the empty 1000-gallon tanks located underground. Todd is tasked with opening the top of the methylamine tank where they will be adding water to balance the weight of the tank once they have taken enough methylamine out of the tank. The plan goes well for a while until a good Samaritan comes along and pushes the dump truck off the tracks. After getting the remaining amount of their supply, Jesse almost gets run over by the train but barely slithers between the rails while Todd is forced to jump from the moving train to remain undetected.

Walt, Jesse and Todd celebrate their seemingly impossible task. Although, not everything turned out well as the young boy who was on the dirt bike in the beginning of the episode shows up and interrupts their party. Remember Mike’s words to kill anyone that sees them, Todd pulls out a gun and shoots the boy as Jesse screams, “No!”. The boy falls off the bike as the camera focuses on the tarantula in the jar the falls out of his jacket pocket on recoil.

‘Dead Freight” was, in my opinion, the most exciting and shocking episode of this shortened fifth season. I can’t believe there’s only 3 episodes left as Jesse, Walt and Mike have just begun their next venture into the drug trade. While things seem to be going well, next week’s episode will test the gang’s nerves as their may be some dissension between the men. Here’s a short preview of next week’s episode entitled ‘Buyout”.