Dead Freight

Later, Walt, Jesse Pinkman, and Mike Ehrmantraut interrogate Lydia Rodarte-Quayle about the tracking device found affixed to the bottom of one of Madrigal's methylamine barrels.

At first, the trio is skeptical, but with Jesse's motivation, they come up with a plan to stall the train in a stretch of dark territory, pump out the methylamine, and replace its weight with water, so that no one will know that the heist took place.

On the day of the heist, Walt's crew manages to stop the train by blocking a railroad crossing with a "broken-down" dump truck driven by Patrick Kuby.

When the engineer and conductor exit the locomotive to assist him, Mike acts as a lookout while Walt, Jesse, and Todd drain methylamine from the train into an empty buried tank, simultaneously pumping water back in to ensure its weight remains unchanged.

Mastras revealed that the episode was logistically complicated to film because many cameras were needed to capture the lengthy train heist sequence.

Though she criticized the material with Skyler and Walt Jr., calling it "clumsily functional", she stated that "this weak patch is more than made up for by the tremendous extended heist sequence and its tragic culmination, which is both well-conceived and perfectly shot.

[4] Alan Sepinwall of HitFix called "Dead Freight" a "great episode", stating: "So much fun, and then such a devastating but not unfair gut punch at the end.

[7] TV Guide's 65 Best Episodes of the 21st Century listed "Dead Freight" as just outside the top 10, but was mentioned as three alternate choices for that distinction.