character traits and motives: Reception Viewership The episode's original broadcast was viewed by 1.20 million people, which was a decrease from the 1.62 million of the previous episode, "Kafkaesque". It has the second-lowest number of viewers on its original broadcast of any season-three episode, just ahead of "Half Measures" (1.19 million). Reviews "Fly" has been widely acclaimed by critics, particularly for its cinematography and its method of developing the relationship between Walter and Jesse. Donna Bowman of The A.V. Club gave "Fly" an A grade, praising Rian Johnson's direction and remarking that the episode "would have been stellar even with more conventional direction, but with the unhinged images and bold juxtapositions Johnson provides, it's one of the most distinctive hours of television we're likely to see this year." In Time, James Poniewozik called it "the most unusual and very possibly best episode of Breaking Bad so far", comparing it favorably to The Sopranos "Pine Barrens". In Entertainment Weekly, Ken Tucker said he would be "shocked if both Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul don't use the episode for Emmy consideration", and lauded it for "[opening] up to become an opportunity for Walt and Jesse to explain more fully the sadnesses and regrets they have over everything". Alan Sepinwall, writing for HitFix, speculated that "Fly" may be "the best bottle show ever" and remarked in the subtitle of his review that the budget-saving approach ended up leading to "an instant classic". Emma Dibdin of Digital Spy, Kathryn Kernohan of Junkee, and Kaitlin Thomas of TV.com have all ranked it among the show's best episodes. In 2013, Matt Zoller Seitz, writing for Vulture, named "Fly" the greatest episode of the entire series, calling it a "perfect Breaking Bad episode and a perfect hour of television". The same year, it was ranked fifth in Entertainment Weeklys ranking of all 62 episodes from best-to-worst, with Darren Franich writing, "Some people despise 'Fly' for its artsy pretensions and its go-nowhere plot arc. Others frankly think it belongs much higher on this list. But we can all agree that 'Fly' is one of the great bottle episodes of the new golden age of TV." Ian Sandwell named this episode as number one best bottle episode. However, Tasha Robinson of The A.V. Club argued that the episode presents "a vision of Walt that did not in any way coincide with the mental image I'd built of him over