"Rabid Dog" – as all Breaking Bad episodes with canine references in its title referring to Jesse – is the lull before the storm, preparing the audience for the final quarter of the season. Although lull is quite an understatement, considering that Jesse almost burned Walt's house down just one episode ago and the intensity is still omnipresent.
Yet for these three quarters of an hour, the immensely talented screen writing staff of the series got together to bring about a surprisingly amusing and quote-laden episode, whether it's the really good laughs (Jesse's "Yeah, Mr White is gay for me", Marie's psychiatrist's "Last week you were upset about the new parking rules", Saul's "But you got to understand, deep down he loves me") or the alarming, character-defining ones (Hank's "Pinkman gets killed, and we get it all on tape", Skyler's "We've come this far, what's one more?", Jesse's "Mr White
he's the devil"). Pardon me for listing all of this, but I really noticed this episode's extraordinarily great dialogue and just wanted to bring up these moments again.
With the Whites' hotel and a closer look on the Schraders' interior decoration (Loved to see a Deadwood box on their bookshelf), there was also some wonderful set design to enjoy, while Michael Slovis's cinematography was as impressing as all his other work on the series. Thus, while it is one of the less momentous episodes of the final eight and has a couple of scenes that go on for too long, "Rabid Dog" shows other qualities of Breaking Bad more clearly and furthers the excitement for the grand finale.