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"There has been so much hype, so much expectation and so many elaborate theories about the final eight episodes of Breaking Bad&amp;#039;s fifth and last season that it was always going to take something very special to not leave viewers underwhelmed. However, if the first reviews for Sunday night&amp;#039;s opening episode &amp;#039;Blood Money&amp;#039; are anything to go by, the show has exceeded the hype and reached new heights. Keep reading if you want to hear the critics&amp;#039; verdict.  The Hollywood Reporter First glimpses - that&amp;#039;s all we got in this otherwise superbly powerful, brilliantly executed return to the small screen. We don&amp;#039;t know Skyler&amp;#039;s motivations. We don&amp;#039;t know if Jesse will stay in this catatonic state of regret. We don&amp;#039;t know if Hank has the ability to bring down the monster he now sees in plain sight (under his nose). We don&amp;#039;t know, in fact, if Walt is on the defensive or on the offensive. All we know - and we need to be careful not to over-think it - is that we&amp;#039;re at the beginning of the end. And the first glimpse was just that. Magnificent, but just a glimpse. And next Sunday can&amp;#039;t come soon enough.  Variety For those onboard since the beginning, Breaking Bad&amp;#039;s final batch of episodes seems destined to produce nothing less than a frenzy, a testament, in part, to how bracingly unpredictable Vince Gilligan&amp;#039;s creation has been. And while the first of these remaining hours does little to suggest whether the wrap-up will ultimately prove worthy of the journey, it&amp;#039;s breathtaking stuff, providing tour-de-force moments for the key characters. Continuing to tease the outcome with out-of-context glimpses of future events, there&amp;#039;s no telling where Bad will wind up. But if this first hit is any indication, the audience is in very good hands. IGN This episode fit perfectly in line with everything we&amp;#039;ve seen before. It&amp;#039;s what Breaking Bad has always been: thrilling, a touch scary, cool, a little funny, threatening, and haunting. It foreshadowed something greater, but kept us in the now. It&amp;#039;s directly in line with the show&amp;#039;s ethos and, hopefully, their finish. Time to sit back and enjoy the ride.  Screen Rant But &amp;#039;Blood Money&amp;#039; doesn&amp;#039;t just imply the stakes of the season will be high; it delivers on them in an excruciatingly tense confrontation between brothers-in-law that rapidly escalates from a punch being thrown to cancers being acknowledged to, finally, the issuing of a thinly veiled threat that strikes fear while pointing out the shortcomings of a particular investigator. &amp;quot;If you don&amp;#039;t know who I am, then maybe your best course would be to tread lightly.&amp;quot; It would seem Breaking Bad has no intention of taking Walt&amp;#039;s advice, if the show&amp;#039;s writers plan to cap off critical, longed-for moments like this in such spectacular fashion. Huff Po When a great show enters its home stretch, it&amp;#039;s impossible not to be nervous about the ending, but Breaking Bad reminds me of The Shield, in that it seems to work harder to satisfy and to earn every single moment and plot twist the closer it gets to the end. I have to think that &amp;#039;&amp;#039;Blood Money&amp;#039; was a reassuring hour for those who were wondering whether or not the show is going to stick the landing. The biggest indication that Breaking Bad is not messing around came at the end of &amp;#039;Blood Money&amp;#039;, when we had that intense confrontation between Hank and Walt.  USA TODAY Bryan Cranston is still turning in a transformative, unimpeachable performance as Walt, who remains one of the greatest dramatic creations ever to grace our TV screens. What Cranston and his utterly fearless series have allowed us to watch over the past five seasons is the complete moral disintegration of a man who thought he could dabble in drugs for the money and come away untouched. Taken as a whole, Bad is a far more convincing anti-drug screed than any educational film ever shown in our high schools. TIME If you were worried that the final run of Breaking Bad episodes would be lackadaisical in ramping up the drama and advancing the story as the finale approached: well, you can stop worrying. The return, &amp;#039;Blood Money&amp;#039;, meant business.  Collider Is there a word for what Breaking Bad fans feel at the close of an episode? It&amp;#039;s involves a mixture of excitement, fear, heartbreak, adrenaline and anxiety in one explosive emotional cocktail. &amp;quot;Glass case of emotion&amp;quot; might be a good place to start. We have begun the final countdown to the end of the show, and with only a handful of episodes to go before that finale, &amp;#039;Blood Money&amp;#039; wasted no time in getting right to the point. Every moment of Breaking Bad matters. It&amp;#039;s one of the things that sets the show apart from others who fans feel have gone past their prime. They may still be entertaining, but they have divergent plots that don&amp;#039;t matter to the overall story, or forgettable one-off episodes starring a famous actor friend of the showrunner. What was your verdict on Breaking Bad &amp;#039;Blood Money&amp;#039;? Let us know below! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/breaking-bad/news/a505932/breaking-bad-first-blood-money-reviews-what-the-critics-said/>