Giancarlo Esposito's performance in Breaking Bad's Fourth Season Premiere was so electrifying that, as Woody Allen once said, "All the blood went of my face and went to my buddy."

You can hold on to your seat, but that is no guarantee that you will be in a position to remain in it.

We sit in Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, watching Walter White and Jesse Pinkman go up against their boss and "King-pin" Gus Fring (Esposito) in just a minute that is so pivotal and gruesome that... [and suddenly the lights come up]

Everyone audibly groans, planning on function as the usual technical difficulties. But it isn't. The commentator yells out, "Is there a doctor in the house?" And now we are scared. Very afraid. Giancarlo Esposito's acting is so powerful that I begin to wonder if it may have killed someone in the house.

The scene was so epic, so fantastically brutal, that a woman actually needed to be carried out. And honestly, who can blame her? But in the end, everybody was fine, and also the premiere continued. Actually, it was only acceptable for people within the audience. For those people left onscreen with uber-villain Gus Fring? They were totally on their very own.

Out of AMC's "Embarrassment of Riches" (LA Times) Breaking Bad, developed by the brilliant Vince Gilligan, may be the 120% show. Every aspect of the show, writing, directing, acting, music, and cinematography, is given the most care, attention, and talent possible. 120%.

The premise: a brilliant chemistry teacher needs in order to smoke crystal meth after being given a terminal lung-cancer diagnosis to cover his health care and to offer his family, and slowly becomes someone even he doesn't recognize. If it sounds dark, well, it's. But there's a kernel of goodness that resonates throughout the cast, and throughout Breaking Bad itself. The show is startlingly funny, and episodes like "The Fly" are too written like a Beckett play.

Bryan Cranston has won the Best Actor Emmy Award 3 years in a row now, playing a man in a complete state of metamorphosis. But what type of energy could one put up against his Walter White, a man of ethics, intelligence and scruples, placed in probably the most violent and unscrupulous of territories? Enter Giancarlo Esposito playing Gustavo 'Gus' Fring.