The flashback of Walt and Jesse at the beginning of the episode was the final scene that was shot for the series.
Series creator Vince Gilligan said in an interview that, "Ozymandias is the best episode we ever have had or ever will have."
The episode's title gets its name from the famous poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, which alludes to a crumbled empire. Bryan Cranston read the poem in a promo for season 5B.
The final shot of the cold opening of this episode, where Walt and Jesse are shown cooking their first batch of meth, shows them and their RV fading away, leaving just a vast desert landscape in frame. The last lines of the poem Ozymandias, which this episode is named after, describe how a vast desert landscape is all that remains of a once mighty empire.
This episode is considered by many television critics and audiences to be the greatest episode of TV ever produced. It received universal critical acclaim, is the highest rated TV episode on IMDb and won three Emmys for Best Writing, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actress.