I just re-watched the series in full. I've been a fan since Season 2 was airing (or really, since S1 of Breaking Bad first aired), but I find BCS to be a show that not only richly rewards but almost demands rewatching. This time around, I was struck by a few things:
1) Season 1 and 2 are excellent, if a bit slow, but I still don't think there's a bad episode in there. It only may seem minor in comparison to what comes after, because..
2) Seasons 3 to 6 are all masterful, with the last few ep's of S4 in particular, when a certain Salamanca shows up, being the start of a hot streak that goes all the way to the end.
3) In particular, I find the latter half of the show to deal with themes of grief, guilt, repression/denial, and shame to a beautiful extent. That mid-season cliffhanger in S6 may be the most powerful death of any character I've seen on TV (well, hard to top the killer-reveal episode of Twin Peaks, but yeah).
4) Most of all, I found the opening montage of "Fun and Games" to be perhaps the most heartbreaking and beautifully-shot piece of the entire BrBa universe. In fact the entire episode is just astonishing, reaching an emotional climax one could compare to BrBa's last few episodes but I find it perhaps even more moving - perhaps because the stakes feel more intimate, more human.
All in all, I think I do prefer it slightly to BrBa, mostly for the strength of Season 5 - which is so tightly-written and harrowing in the second half - and most of Season 6 -- which closes out with a sort of 4-episode "epilogue" which almost wouldn't be necessary if we didn't already have the Gene scenes, but regardless I find it a very satisfying conclusion (Nippy is perhaps the best "scam"/heist episode of all). What matters is that Jimmy finally took responsibility for his actions and confessed to them, which is the moment the entire series was more or less leading up to.
