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"Just when we&amp;#039;d moved through the five stages of grief and begun to move on from the loss of Breaking Bad, the release of the final season on DVD and Blu-Ray came along to remind us of just how much we miss it. But rather than weeping crystal blue tears into our Heisenberg hats, we&amp;#039;ve been looking back on the finest hours from what will go down in history as one of the 21st century&amp;#039;s very finest dramas. Here are Digital Spy&amp;#039;s 15 favourite episodes from Walter White&amp;#039;s journey, in chronological order. WARNING: While this should go without saying, the following article will contain SPOILERS for all five seasons of Breaking Bad. If you haven&amp;#039;t seen it all and don&amp;#039;t want to be spoiled, turn back now. You have been warned! Season 1, Episode 6, &amp;#039;Crazy Handful of Nothin&amp;#039;  Heisenberg is born in a rush of bravado and a fistful of fulminated mercury, in the closing moments of an episode that doubles as a statement of intent for the series going forward. But even before a vengeful Walt blows the windows out of Tuco&amp;#039;s hideout in a patented Badass Chemistry Moment, this episode feels game changing in smaller ways: Walt shaving his head after beginning chemo, a blink-and-you&amp;#039;ll miss-it bit of early bonding between Walt and Jesse, and a blissfully ignorant Hank getting close to Walt&amp;#039;s trail for the first time.  Season 2, Episode 2, &amp;#039;Grilled&amp;#039;  While Breaking Bad might be remembered above all for its slow-paced, meticulously detailed character storytelling, it also did condensed tension better than just about any other show on the air. One of the best examples is &amp;#039;Grilled&amp;#039;, a taut little 47-minute thriller in which Walt and Jesse are kidnapped, held hostage and intermittently threatened with bloody murder by Tuco. Featuring the magnificent first appearance of Mark Margolis as Tio, the episode also deserves credit for turning the perfectly innocent sound of a bell ringing into a Pavlovian trigger for stomach-churning terror. Season 2, Episode 9, &amp;#039;4 Days Out&amp;#039;  There&amp;#039;s nothing quite like a good bottle episode for drilling down into character relationships, and this two-hander \u2013 in which an ambitious four-day cook leaves Walt and Jesse stranded in the middle of the desert with no water \u2013 is endlessly pleasurable to watch. Cranston and Paul&amp;#039;s chemistry is at its best in this stripped-down setting, and it&amp;#039;s riveting to watch the odd couple comedy (&amp;quot;Oh, oh, I&amp;#039;m sorry, the &amp;#039;work station&amp;#039;!&amp;quot;) give way to understated poignancy as Walt, resigned to his own death, confesses that he can&amp;#039;t keep the lies he&amp;#039;s told straight in his head any more. He kind of gets over this by later seasons. Season 2, Episode 12, &amp;#039;Phoenix&amp;#039;  The question of when you lost sympathy for Walt is one of the most enduring ones in the Breaking Bad discussion, but one of the most common answers is the scene in which he stands by and watches as an overdosing Jane (Krysten Ritter) chokes to death on her own vomit. Whether you believe what&amp;#039;s driving him is concern for Jesse, his self-preservation instinct or some blend of the two, it&amp;#039;s an earth-shattering moment from which Walt and the show never returns.  &amp;gt; &amp;#039;Breaking Bad&amp;#039;: Season 1 revisited &amp;gt; &amp;#039;Breaking Bad&amp;#039;: Season 2 revisited Season 3, Episode 7, &amp;#039;One Minute&amp;#039;  Catharsis comes thick and fast in this third season midpoint episode, with a black-and-blue Jesse finally unloading his rage and anguish on Walt after weeks of build-up, an increasingly erratic Hank finally getting suspended from the DEA after his explosion with Jesse, and the long-simmering threat of the cousins finally coming to violent fruition in the parking lot. Combining emotional tension with taut, brutal thrills, this is everything Breaking Bad was at its best.  Season 3, Episode 10, &amp;#039;Fly&amp;#039;  Rian Johnson&amp;#039;s first episode is the very definition of Marmite. An instalment spent wholly on Walt and Jesse chasing a fly around their laboratory was never going to be an easy sell, but the joy of &amp;#039;Fly&amp;#039; lies in discovering everything that&amp;#039;s going on beneath the surface of this surreal, Kafkaesque construct. Walt&amp;#039;s obsession with contamination, his faltering grip on reality and the gothic sense of his own guilt weighing on him snowballs into one of the series&amp;#039; most moving monologues, as he admits to a concerned Jesse that he&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;lived too long&amp;quot;. An unsettling, touching gem.  Season 3, Episode 12 &amp;amp; 13, &amp;#039;Half Measures&amp;#039; and &amp;#039;Full Measure&amp;#039;   Yes, this is technically a cheat, but these two episodes function like a two-part season finale, and it&amp;#039;s their combined power that makes them so memorable. The escalating tensions between Walt, Jesse, Gus and the local dealers pay off in one of the series&amp;#039; most straight-up &amp;quot;Hell yes!&amp;quot; scenes, as Walt springs into violent action to protect Jesse (&amp;quot;Run&amp;quot;), but no badass moment goes unpunished in Breaking Bad. The consequences unspool in the wrenching final moments of &amp;#039;Full Measure&amp;#039;, where Jesse is forced to pull the trigger on Gale in order to protect Walt in turn. A devastating end to arguably the show&amp;#039;s best season.  &amp;gt; &amp;#039;Breaking Bad&amp;#039;: Season 3 revisited &amp;gt; &amp;#039;Breaking Bad&amp;#039;: &amp;#039;Malcolm in the Middle&amp;#039;-themed alternate ending - watch Season 4, Episode 1, &amp;#039;Box Cutter&amp;#039;  It takes balls to centre a season opener around a tense, episode-long standoff in which two of the major characters don&amp;#039;t say a word. Jesse&amp;#039;s traumatised silence and Gus&amp;#039;s chilling, wordless fury both speak volumes about where these characters \u2013 and their relationship \u2013 is heading, while the infamous box-cutter moment is the kind of abrupt, bluntly drawn explosion of violence at which Breaking Bad always excelled. The fourth season is where Giancarlo Esposito really came to life as Gus, and &amp;#039;Box Cutter&amp;#039; is one hell of an entrance. Season 4, Episode 11, &amp;#039;Crawl Space&amp;#039;  It&amp;#039;s a close-run thing between this episode and the one that precedes it, &amp;#039;Salud&amp;#039;, which features Walt&amp;#039;s moving meltdown and Gus&amp;#039;s spectacular takedown of Don Eladio and his men. But &amp;#039;Crawl Space&amp;#039;s slow-build atmosphere of dread as the walls close in on Walt is breathtaking; Vince Gilligan resisted the temptation to put Walt&amp;#039;s family in jeopardy too frequently, but here that dramatic card is played with stony-faced certainty. The intense final moments play like a short horror film: Marie&amp;#039;s panicked phone call, Skyler&amp;#039;s bemused fear and Walt&amp;#039;s maniacal, mesmerising underground meltdown, all scored by a throbbing, distorted soundtrack of industrial noise that leaves a pit in your stomach for hours after the scene ends.  Season 4, Episode 13, &amp;#039;Face Off&amp;#039;  Now that&amp;#039;s how you kill off a Big Bad. Gus Fring was a formidable, wily, endlessly surprising villain who was consistently two steps ahead of everybody else on screen, and it&amp;#039;s only fitting that he should go out with a formidable, wily, endlessly surprising episode that was consistently two steps ahead of its audience. Nobody guessed that joining forces with Tio, of all people, would be the key to Walt finally defeating Gus. Nobody guessed that Gus was going to go out on precisely that spectacularly grisly, quasi-farcical note. And while some people did guess that Walt was the one who poisoned Brock, that closing Lily of the Valley shot was still a gut punch.  Season 5, Episode 4, &amp;#039;Fifty-One&amp;#039;  Not since Buffy Summers has a fictional character had such consistently disastrous birthdays as Walter White. The day after his 50th, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. We&amp;#039;ll get onto his 52nd later in this list. But his 51st birthday party took the cake in terms of sheer psychodrama, with a desperate, borderline suicidal Skyler immersing herself in the swimming pool rather than listen to another second of Walt&amp;#039;s posturing. With Rian Johnson back in the director&amp;#039;s chair, this is a visually striking and symbolically rich episode that heralded darker things to come for the White family.  Season 5, Episode 5, &amp;#039;Dead Freight&amp;#039;  There&amp;#039;s nothing quite like watching a really well-executed heist play out on screen, and the train job Walt, Jesse, Mike and Todd orchestrate here in order to tap into an &amp;quot;ocean&amp;quot; of methylamine is thrilling, pulse-pounding stuff. But we&amp;#039;ll say it again: no badass moment goes unpunished. Just when it&amp;#039;s all gone off without a hitch and our heroes are taking a deep, relieved breath and high-fiving, that pesky Todd has to go and prove what a raving psychopath he is by putting a bullet in a child&amp;#039;s head.  &amp;gt; &amp;#039;Breaking Bad&amp;#039; creator Vince Gilligan talks final season, fan theories &amp;gt; &amp;#039;Breaking Bad&amp;#039;: 8 unbearably tense dinner scenes Season 5, Episode 11, &amp;#039;Confessions&amp;#039;  One of the few sticking points many fans had with Breaking Bad&amp;#039;s final season was that Aaron Paul didn&amp;#039;t get as much to do, overall, as he had in previous years. But this episode, where one of the series&amp;#039; biggest dramatic time bombs finally detonates as Jesse uncovers the truth about Brock&amp;#039;s poisoning, is dynamite for him, from the sad, scary moment where Walt hugs Jesse in the desert, in a gesture that&amp;#039;s half love, half threat, to Jesse&amp;#039;s horror-struck moment of violent understanding. And that&amp;#039;s not to mention the viciously brilliant revelation that the &amp;quot;confession tape&amp;quot; Walt has given Hank and Marie is, in fact, a blackmail tool, proving to Hank just how easily he could be implicated in all of Walt&amp;#039;s crimes. Extraordinarily clever, elegant writing that develops character at the same pace as plot.  Season 5, Episode 14, &amp;#039;Ozymandias&amp;#039;  Rian Johnson is three for three: his final offering has been touted by many as the show&amp;#039;s best ever episode, and by some as the episode that should have been the series finale. Walt&amp;#039;s empire lies in ruins \u2013 he&amp;#039;s watched Hank die, sent Jesse to his death and lost all but a barrel of his money \u2013 and a pre-credits flashback to easier times reminds us just how much he has lost. To say that the experience of watching &amp;#039;Ozymandias&amp;#039; is like being punched in the gut is an understatement \u2013 this is as bleak and pitiless as it gets, with Jesse enslaved by monsters, Walt and Skyler grappling over a kitchen knife and Walt kidnapping baby Holly in one last, desperate attempt to cling onto the family he&amp;#039;s always claimed to value above all else. And as little sympathy as we have for Walt at this point, the climax in which he finally lets them go is flat-out heartbreaking.  Season 5, Episode 16, &amp;#039;Felina&amp;#039;  Redemptive and cathartic where &amp;#039;Ozymandias&amp;#039; was nihilistic and brutal, &amp;#039;Felina&amp;#039; was a finale steeped above all in love for its characters. To call the climax \u2013 in which Walt storms the Nazis&amp;#039; compound with a vengeful rain of bullets before dying alone in their lab \u2013 a happy ending would be a stretch, but this graceful closer does allow Walt, and by extension us, real closure. He has his first honest conversation with Skyler, admitting that he did all of this for himself; he ensures that what remains of his money will go to his family, and he takes a bullet for Jesse, who we&amp;#039;re allowed to hope may still have a future. After a physically and emotionally draining final season, this was everything the final chapter needed to be.  Breaking Bad: The Final Season is out on DVD and Blu-Ray today (November 25). Gallery \u2013\u00A0Breaking Bad from the beginning:  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/breaking-bad/news/a532851/breaking-bad-15-greatest-episodes-from-the-award-winning-drama/>