‘Breaking Bad’ season 5: Bryan Cranston on Walt’s evolution

There are few opportunities to speak about “Breaking Bad” season 5 at the moment, especially since we are still an impossibly long time removed from when season 5 will pick up with new episodes on AMC this coming summer.

So what does one of the show’s stars in Bryan Cranston saying now? What is particularly interesting about the actor’s comments in a new interview with the New Yorker is that he admits that while Walter White has gone more and more off the deep end over the course of the past several years, he has actually been able to discover more of who the man is in the process:

“At first, Walt’s emotional core wasn’t available to me, because he was so depressed he was numb. But now it’s all coming out, this shotgun of emotions.”

We have already faced the darkness of Heisenberg as much as humanly possible during the first half of season 5, as the new Walt that emerged out of Gus’ death was obsessed with power more so than money or protecting his family. Did he get out of it somewhat with the revelation that he is “done”? Sure, but “done” is at the moment a relative term. He may only be “done” in the same sense that he realizes that his time is short (that is, if he has cancer), and he does not want to spend his twilight years continuing to put himself in danger. After all, we don’t think that this is a man who has suddenly seen the light after hurting his family for so many years.

As for what sort of other emotions could be coming up soon, we expect Walt to struggle more than ever this coming summer with the fact that someone in Hank now is one the scent for him, and will be slowly gathering evidence to take down a man he once considered to be his friend.