Breaking Bad gets on back on track : Season 5

It has taken a while for the current season (5?) of "Breaking Bad" to find its footing, but the current episode was very strong and has gotten the season on track. The first two or three we very slow and incremental, despite a few fine scenes the excellent writing and acting by the leads that we've come to expect from this strong series. It's as if they felt they had to move slow and recap a lot of material for the many new viewers they inevitably pick up thanks to the strong reviews. Only in this week's episode did the tensions really build and the vise-grip of the narrative take hold. First episodes showed Walter and Jesse getting back into the meth business - setting up a portable lab, with help of tough-guy Mike, the lone survivor from the Mexican-based drug ring now wiped out. He's a great, compelling character and I'm glad they've retained him: one of the best scenes in earlier episodes was his confrontation with the various other survivors of the defunct meth lab and "convincing" them to keep silent. In current episode, we get at last to the heart of the story: the tension between Walter's commitment to his family and his ever-deeper involvement in the big $ of drugs. Terrific scenes showing Skyler's growing alienation and estrangement, culminating in her plunge into a pool - obviously not a serious suicide attempt, but very deranged behavior. This followed by a torrential scene in which she (the excellent Anna Gunn) says she will do anything to get her children out of the household and away from Walter, whom she sees as increasingly dangerous. He (the equally excellent Bryan Cranston) is cool and placid through most of the episode - strangely oblivious to how much his wife is ignoring him - but he explodes in this scene, and you can see and feel that danger that Skyler is beginning to feel in his presence. All the while, the brother-in-law drug agent continues his pursuit of the drug mastermind, and we know - we've been building toward this for 5 seasons (which, oddly, seem to cover only a year in story time) - the ultimate confrontation between Hank and Walter, and what that will do to their entwined families.