Vancouver-raised scribe wins Emmy for beloved ‘Breaking Bad’ episode

LOS ANGELES, – Canadian-raised writer Moira Walley-Beckett won an Emmy Award on Monday night for writing the gut-wrenching third-to-last episode of “Breaking Bad,” entitled “Ozymandias.”

“Vince Gilligan, this is your fault,” an emotional Walley-Beckett said to the “Breaking Bad” creator as she accepted the award. “Thank you for your mentorship and your mad skills, yo!”

She added: “I share this wholeheartedly with you and my fellow writers.”

Walley-Beckett grew up in Vancouver and trained at the Banff School of Fine Arts. She moved to Los Angeles in her 20s to pursue a career in the entertainment business and found work on camera, gathering acting credits with bit parts on shows including “ER,” “Chicago Hope,” “The Practice” and “NYPD Blue.”

She earned her first writing credit in 2008 on the short-lived legal musical “Eli Stone,” then joined the “Breaking Bad” writing staff as a story editor in season 2, working her way up to a full writer-producer role by season 4.

Directed by Rian Johnson — the auteur behind such innovative films as “Looper” and “Brick” who was also recently announced as the director of at least one of the forthcoming “Star Wars” sequels — “Ozymandias” (the 14th episode in the fifth and final season of “Breaking Bad”) became an instant classic.

A critic at Britain’s the Independent mused that it could be the best television episode ever written. Gilligan offered only slightly more reserved praise when he said he considered it the episode the best of his series, a conclusion echoed by Hitfix critic Alan Sepinwall and the Hollywood Reporter.

Said Walley-Beckett during her acceptance speech: “To my brilliant cast of actors, writing for you was pure joy.”