Season 2

This is where Breaking Bad found its identity.
Massive improvements in terms of cinematography, sound and editing when compared to season one.
The new additions to the cast are all amazing, and I like the arcs of the main characters, the development of Walt and Jesse in particular being very well handled. However, it isn’t exactly the tightest season of this show in terms of storytelling:

• The first half of the season feels a bit directionless
• The subplot with Jane, while it has a great pay-off, feels a little undercooked and rushed (mostly because she isn’t the most interesting character)
• Hank and Marie are almost forgotten about entirely during the second half of the season, which is weird because there’s quite a lot of time spent with developing Hank in the first half of the season
• It was an odd decision to skip the final deal between Gus and Walt, which is quite a major part of the story
• The flash forward stuff was convenient and didn’t work, almost felt like Lost
• How exactly did Walter expect this fake visit to his mother to pan out?

Nevertheless, the show is still so good at creating memorable moments and scenes, and the acting is so fantastic, that none of those issues become dealbreakers. The first time I watched this show was about 10 years ago, and there were still so many moments that I recalled on a rewatch because they burned themselves into my memory (ATM machine, kid shooting the dealer, the Heisenberg song, etc.), which to me is always a sign that you’re watching quality television.

7.5/10

I've always remembered liking this season less than the other seasons for some reason, and while it's still probably not the best season this is like trying to compare which Lord of the Rings movie is the worst. They're all fucking amazing!
This season kinda has a weird identity issue I think, because the first half and the second half are very, very different from each other, made weirder by the fact that apparently this was the only season where the writers knew where they were going with? I guess I gotta revise my first season review now, lol
But the inclusion of Hank's adventures in El Paso that just immediately get dropped as soon as something happens, and the subplot with Jane and Jesse's relationship, as well as the introduction of our favorite psychopathic pair of cousins, all feel kinda weirdly out of place. And don't get me started on the plane stuff lol. There's a lot of good episodes with good endings and good arcs! That just feel like they get a little bogged down with unnecessary fluff that, ultimately, does become necessary because to get from point A to Point B, there's a bit of slowness that has to come with it. Point A, being the end of season 1 and Point B being the end of season 3.

However, I still love this season because where the first season just establishes things, this season dials in everything so much that, by the end, this show knows exactly what it wants to be and is gonna start doing it really, really well. Style and cinematography all come together, the music and the acting and just everything about this all just comes together so well that it becomes the norm for the rest of the series.
Arcs like Jesse coming to terms with himself through Jane that, while I think Jane isn't written the best, is done so well that it's monumentally impactful on why Jesse is actually the best character of the show! And Walter starting to go into this near sociopathic nature of drug lordery is fucking awesome to see, and I wish Skyler had more to do but what she has is still like, amazing. She has to slowly come to terms that her husband is lying to her about something, and that she's not being gaslit.

This review got messy and became streams of consciousness, so it's done lol.
So yeah, awesome season, I'm glad I'm past it because it's definitely the slowest one by far. Still a 9! there's so much to remember and so much good shit!