Tangled Up In Wires

One of Breaking Bad’s finest aspects is its tendancy to play fair with the audience. It doesn’t put off plot movement out of the need to fill time, it doesn’t cheat its characters out of their next logical move, and it doesn’t underestimate its audience. We’re smart enough to know where Jesse stands with Walt and Gus, that Hank wouldn’t march into the DEA headquarters without something concrete, and that Gus wouldn’t be cowering in fear of the cartel if there wasn’t something very serious going on. It is so good about this that when it does take a little narrative indulgence, as it did tonight, it has more than earned the right to do so.

This week’s episode largely belonged to Jesse and Hank, connected as they are. The former remains haunted by his demons (as we learned in this week’s bang-up opening, complete with a camera attached to the end of Jesse’s light gun) while the latter is exorcising them. Gus and Walt’s maneuvering has landed Jesse square in the middle of this conflict, after Walt learns from Saul about Jesse’s encounter with Gus last week. Walt tries to talk Jesse into killing Gus but it doesn’t matter because Jesse seems ready to do it anyway.

Walt, for his part, is more on the fringes of this week’s episode, but he remains driven to ridiculous extremes by his powerlessness. Rather than returning Junior’s car, he sets it on fire (incurring $52,000 in fees). He finds Skyler growing increasingly distant (see the awkward peck on the cheek) and he even offers her an out when he seems surprised about the amount of money he had (I have to admit I found this part a little bit of a stretch. Did this really never come up? Especially given Walt’s warped sense of pride)

So, anyway, Walt gets to work on a Breaking Bad standard, the odorless, flavorless poison (long term viewers will remember him trying to give the same thing to Tuco in Season 2). He gives it to Jesse, who hides it in a cigarette but is not sure when he may see Gus again. It turns out that he would see him the next day, as Mike takes Jesse to serve as muscle for Gus’ big meet with the Cartel. Jesse has a chance to poison Gus right then and there, and then again could just shoot him in the head, but both times he doesn’t do it. It seems like Jesse might be thinking seriously about Mike’s suggestion that his loyalty is to the wrong person.

Or it could just be Jesse’s deep and powerful self-loathing. The latter drives him back to NA where he runs into one of the lifers from last time (who we last saw harassing Raylan Givens on Justified). Jesse flirts with confession, telling the people that he killed a dog but when a woman in the group turns on him, Jesse turns back on himself, lashing out at the group and admitting that he started there to sell them drugs. The episode leaves Jesse even worse off than before. He’s slouching more and generally seeming disconnected from the world around him.

On the other hand, Hank finds himself taking control of his life and the episode reflects that in his physical improvement. Not only is he walking around without help, but he goes from a walker to a cane in the course of the episode. In his first scene he slyly takes Junior to Los Pollos Hermanos, getting some face time with Gus Fring and even a free refill hand delivered by the man himself (and look at how smooth Gus is in this scene. Not only does he laud Hank but he offers Junior a part-time job, which would also happen to give him more leverage with Walter, without ever once dropping his “upstanding businessman” act. The guy is cold-blooded.)

Gus is very good, but Hank is even better, and he shows the lengths he has been going to when he finally sits down with his former colleagues in the DEA. He backtracked a serial number in Gale’s apartment to a company that sells the kind of tanks that would be useful to someone looking to make a massive meth lab. Then he connects the company to Pollos. All of this is circumstantial, and the DEA guys dismiss it as much, until Hank drops his bombshell. He found Gus’ fingerprints at Gale’s house.

For an episode that was mostly about table-setting, this week’s Breaking Bad was still superb. The parallels between Hank and Jesse were brilliantly drawn, as was the tension (this show sure does poison really well). The tension has gotten so hard to bear that a lesser show would have brought everything to a boil weeks ago. Here, however, things just keep getting worse and worse, and the ways out keep getting narrower and narrower.

Jonah’s Score: 89
TUiW Grade: A

Other Notes:

-I didn’t touch on the bit of narrative indulgence I alluded to earlier, when we found out that the Cartel is after something very specific from Gus. I’m not sure if I was the only one who was assuming that the Cartel was simply mad a Gus for his direct actions against him, but that took me by surprise. Any guesses about what they’re after? The obvious guess would be Heisenberg, but the Cartel seemed happy to let the Cousins kill him last season. Maybe they want Hank dead? Either way, frustrating as it was, I’m sure there’s a good reason why we didn’t learn that piece of information this week.

-Really great work by Aaron Paul this week, especially in his big scene at the NA meeting. In fact, between him, Dean Norris, Giancarlo Esposito, and Jonathan Banks, there are enough good performances this year to totally overwhelm the Best Supporting Actor category at the Emmys.

-I would like to see more of how Hank’s newfound sense of purpose has changed life at home for Marie. She certainly seems happier. Am I the only one who wants to see a scene with just the two of them to confirm it?

Walter’s complete powerlessness has continued to manifest itself in bizarre and increasingly destructive ways. At the rate we’re going, I give it a couple more episodes before he makes a very violent, very big mistake.

And Bryan Cranston’s performance has been phenomenal. For weeks he’s been so good at playing the flounder, weak Walter that his recent lashing out has seemed all the more violent and shocking. His drunken rousting of Hank was one thing, but his powerhouse monologue to Skyler (where, among other things, he said “I AM the danger” which is one of the most amazing lines in television history) revealed the layers of deception under the surface. Walter’s claims about supporting his family or trying to make the right choices no longer hold. At this point, it is all about ego, which makes his total futility in the face of Gus that much more damaging.

But for Skyler, it seems to rip apart the final shreds of justification for her. Her first reaction, upon deducing that poor Gale was a cohort of Walt’s, but it quickly melts into something else when Walt tears into her. In that moment she got her longest prolonged glimpse of the true Walter, the violent angry man who needs power and control, and she didn’t like what she saw. For weeks, she has been concerned about his safety, never for once realizing that Walter has long passed the threshold of that being a viable concern. Walter’s pride, let alone his own level of culpability, makes going the police all but impossible at this point.

But Walter is getting it from all sides this week. Skyler skips off without saying a word to Walt (she winds up at the Four Corners and, in a moment I think we’ll all look back on at the end of this with regret, opts to go back home instead of bailing on Walt and heading for the greener pastures of Colorado). That leaves it to Walt to take the keys to the car wash and meet face-to-face with his old boss for the first time. Bogdan wastes no time challenging Walt’s manhood (which, as we know by now, is the key to his existence), and Walt takes control by exacting a small, petty measure of revenge. Him taking Bogdan’s dollar and spending it on a Coke was a wonderful bit of character business in an episode jammed full of them.

Ironically, Walt can see things clearly, but he just can’t help himself in making it all about him. See his one scene with Jesse. Increasingly the two are acting like strangers and Walt wastes no time in deducing what, exactly, is going on. In order to eliminate Walt’s strongest bargaining chip, his alliance with Jesse, Gus has attempted to indoctrinate Jesse in the organization, by setting up last week’s bit of heroics. But the way Walt tells Jesse, cruelling ripping away the first thing that has given Jesse meaning and made him feel like a human being, was maybe not the best. It only serves to widen the gulf, as Jesse finds himself gravitating to a role model whose gentler touch contrasts nicely with Walt’s smug derision of everyone around him.

(Incidentally, Jesse’s increased confidence manifested itself more tangibly this week, as he used his methhead experience to break into the house with the stolen meth. We may not have heard Mike’s answer to Gus about Jesse’s performance, but Gus’ encouragement to Jesse outside the diner would seem to indicate that Mike is starting to warm to his new protege)

So Walt lashes out at his boss and naturally hurts people in the process. Without Jesse to clean (note that the problem this week is cleaning, not moving heavy equipment around the lab), he pays off a few workers to clean the lab. I’m not entirely sure what Walt thought would happen, but Gus quickly dispatches Tyrus to send the workers out of the country, but not before Tyrus stops to reassure Walter that Gus blames him.

Which brings us back home. Walt, in his transparent attempt to get Junior back on his side (and points to Flynn for recognizing it and using it to his advantage) (“if you’re going to buy me off…buy me off”) has bought him a flashy new car. Skyler comes home and tells Walt to sell it. Walt falls back on his default posturing: “I should be able to give him what he wants” and “I have to protect this family” but Skyler sees through that now. With nowhere left to turn, Walt can’t resist threatening his ex-wife, telling her that Junior will blame her. But Skyler has an answer for that too, and it is the reason why she decided to go back home instead of running away. “Somebody has to protect this family from the man protecting this family.”

Jonah’s Score: 92
TUiW Grade: A

Other Notes:

-Sorry I missed last week’s episode; I was bogged down in moving. Like every episode, I thought it did a good job of warming the pot further while filling it with a nice load of character moments. Perhaps the most stunning thing about this show, and this season has been especially good about this, is the way that it has managed to load all of its tension and violence into seemingly tiny character moments. That is some subtle writing.

-The cartel is becoming a bigger problem for Gus, who has set up a meeting with them. I’m not sure where this is going, but I imagine that some kind of opposing force to Gus could provide Walt with the way out from under Gus’ thumb that he has been looking for.

-That said, given the way things have been developing lately, I wonder if we aren’t setting up for some kind of Walt/Jesse conflict in the end. Given the nature of their relationship, it makes a kind of sense that the show would end with them as enemies.

-Speaking of which, in case you missed the news, AMC has officially renewed Breaking Bad for 16 more episodes, which will be the last 16 ever. Obviously, I have mixed feelings about the announcement of an end to my favorite show, but I think it is obvious that for Breaking Bad to continue to excel creatively it needs a point to build towards. Fortunately, the forces aligned to make that happen.

Among Breaking Bad’s best attributes is the way the show manages its pace. When the show moves slowly, like it has the last few weeks, it never feels like it is stalling. It doesn’t put off plot points or create artificial obstacles to stop the next obvious thing from happening. And yet, it lulls you with this pacing so that when things finally explode and suddenly people are staring at death, you can’t help but wonder how we got here and how things go so wrong so fast. Just like Walt himself.

This week’s Breaking Bad felt almost like it was split in two. After another rousing Mike Adventure (this time with him getting part of his ear shot off), the first half settles in on Skyler and Walt telling Hank and Walt Jr their new cover story for the first time. For Skyler, lying to family members and building cover stories is still a new thing, and she wants to make sure she has as much control over it as possible. There’s plenty of humor in this scene (especially meta humor, like when Skyler talks about emphasizing the cancer part of the story at first to make Walt more sympathetic), but at the same time there’s an undercurrent of desperation. Skyler, for her part, is grasping for control anyway possible over something that is way out of her league right now (like the way she bitterly tells Walt that she’s not as good at lying as him). Walt, for his part, continues to be disgusted with himself for bringing Skyler into this and also resentful, since Skyler makes the script as much about punishing Walt as telling a convincing story.

But he’s not nearly as disgusted as he is at Hank’s, where he ends up spending a little more time with Gale. Gale, it turns out, is an accomplished karaoke singer (ascot and all), in addition to being a meth cook. It looks like working on Gale’s investigation has helped Hank get some confidence back and the show didn’t waste anytime in letting Walt see Hank’s file on Gale. Hank’s pet theory right now is that Gale was Heisenberg, and Walt works around the W.W. that was in Gale’s journal, but Walt knows that any sort of investigation only makes him and Jesse more of a liability to Gus.

For Walt, the problem is a lack of professionalism, as he vents to Saul. Mike is punching him, Gus is cutting people’s throats open, Skyler is no longer in the dark, Jesse is disconnected from everything, and Walt feels like he is running out of options. Is it time to cut his losses and make a full escape? Saul suggests a person who can make Walt and his family disappear, but Walt refuses. As usual, he seems to feel he can think his way out of an impossible situation instead of getting out while he can.

As for Jesse, things continue to spiral worse and worse for him, not because he doesn’t understand his situation, but because he does understand it and doesn’t care. Unlike Walt, he’s already thought about the police and isn’t worried about it (if they had his fingerprints, after all, he would already be in jail) and he is less impressed with Mike’s display of power with the guy who stole Jesse’s cash. Jesse is pushing out the world and anything he might still have connections to in it (like Walt) and Mike, Walt, and Saul can all tell that something is going to break.

But even with all of that, the ending is a whopper. Jesse doesn’t show up to work and Walt goes to get him, only to find an empty apartment and Jesse’s cell phone. That’s because Jesse is in a car with Mike, heading off to parts unknown for reasons that are unclear. Jesse’s such an important character that my brain tells me he’s probably safe, but Breaking Bad is so successful at building tension and making it seem like anything is possible that, well, it is going to be a stressful week.

Jonah’ Score: 81
TUiW Grade: A-

Other notes

-The cold open was pretty badass. My favorite show was the one of the two hitmen flying out the back of the truck.

-As always, great work from Bob Odenkirk, who managed to show real concern for Walt even underneath the layers of sleaze.

-Finally, I don’t know if you keep up with or care about the business of the show, but apparently negotiations between AMC and Breaking Bad had gotten strained and there was talk that the show could finish on another network. However, it looks like that may be resolving and to me, the most interesting thing is that all of this talk has revolved around the next season potentially being the last of Breaking Bad. As much as I love the show, I think ending it in a season or two is a great idea, if only because I don’t know how much longer Heisenberg can continue to cheat death.