22) Ozymandias (Breaking Bad)

This episode was going to be on the list if I just used the marketing for the episode, featuring Walter White (Bryan “I should have been Lex Luthor” Cranston) reading the title poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Run down to the bookstore and pick up a copy of all of Shelley’s works if you can, he was pretty amazing. The poem was written as a friendly competition between Shelley and poet Horace Smith, each about Ozymandias and the statue of him that was to arrive in Britain. The poem describes finding an ornate statue in the desert, and on the pedestal, are the most well-known lines:

‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’

Those words, when read right, are dramatic, threatening, and glorious. Cranston does them perfectly, however, it’s the next three words that he truly nailed in the ad.

‘Nothing besides…