AMC's "Breaking Bad" Comes Crawling Back -- And It's Terrific

The opening, pre-credits sequence of Sunday's third-season premiere of AMC's Breaking Bad is a wordless marvel. It begins with a shot of a beautiful landscape, then pans down to reveal one man crawling. Then another, then many more, like human ants following some invisible, humbling trail. Where? Why?

What matters is that Breaking Bad is back -- and announcing once again, without saying a word, just how daringly different a TV series it is...

Season three of Breaking Bad begins Sunday night at 10 ET on AMC, and begins right where season two left off. Everyone is still reeling from the midair crash of two planes over Albuquerque, a crash caused, indirectly, by events traceable to science teacher Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul).

When the series began two years ago, Walter was diagnosed as having terminal lung cancer, and decided to provide his pregnant wife, Skyler (Anna Gunn), with a nest egg by secretly manufacturing crystal meth, and deputizing Jesse to sell it. Now, at this point in the narrative, Walter's cancer is in remission, but nothing else is going well. His wife has thrown him out of the house. Jesse's girlfriend, a junkie, choked on her own vomit and died, sending Jesse into rehab. And drug dealers Walter crossed in the past have dispatched enforcers to find and kill him.

Welcome to season three.

At Walter's high school, where he's resumed his teaching duties, he attends a grief counseling rally, and tries to soothe the students by putting the airline disaster into statistical perspective -- but it's all figures, no feeling, and it's hardly a successful pep talk.

And around a rehab-house campfire, prodded by a counselor (guest star Jere Burns) to open up, Jesse has problems verbalizing his feelings, too. But when the counselor shares his own tale of addiction and grief, Jesse pays rapt attention.

So will viewers.

I've seen the first three episodes of this new season, and my excitement over their contents is matched only by my impatience at wanting to see more. Series creator Vince Gilligan and his writing and production staff have laid out the starting framework for another edge-of-the-seat thriller, and this season, every cast member gets to stretch and impress early and often.

Dean Norris as Walter's brother-in-law gets increasingly stressed -- and, at the same time, increasingly close to tracking down Walter as the mysterious local drug lord. RJ Mitte, as Walter and Skyler's son, gets to react, and act out, as his parents separate.

Also in the mix, in all this, are several attention-commanding recurring featured players, including Bob Odenkirk as shady lawyer Saul, Jonathan Banks as ruthless "cleaner" Mike, and Giancarlo Esposito as fast food franchise owner and secret drug kingpin Gus. Those three alone are from Mr. Show, Wiseguy and Homicide: Life on the Street, respectively -- quite a lineage.

And Breaking Bad, no less than ever, is quite a program. You can read and hear my NPR Fresh Air with Terry Gross review of Breaking Bad, along with several other new and returning cable series, by clicking HERE. And you can also listen to a replay of my 2008 interview with Bryan Cranston, which Fresh Air repeated Friday, by clicking HERE.

Meanwhile, and most important, mark your calendars and set your recorders for Sunday. Breaking Bad, one of TV's best current dramas, is back.