Photos
There’s an unfortunate thing that comes with shows like Breaking Bad — shows that are great and rewarding because of their subtlety and their complexity — that makes them hard to watch without feeling anxious that you are totally missing something and are an idiot. In the opening scene of this week’s Breaking Bad, we find Mike hiding out in a refrigerator truck while we hear some guys outside murder the driver of that refrigerator truck. Immediately I think, “Oh no. Who are these characters going to be and am I supposed to know who they are and what does this all mean and what is going on?!” Then they shoot up the truck, open it, and BOOM Mike kills them. Boom! Boom they are dead and Mike is alive and very cold and very cold blooded. And his ear got a bullet in it and is really gross:
And at that point you tentatively realize that maybe you aren’t missing anything with who these guys are and the point of this scene is just supposed to show in better detail how Mike is just a guy who does his job (murder + don’t get killed) very well and doesn’t give an F about anything. Oh thank goodness.
Then, we see Skyler in bed having an idea at 3AM. She goes to the kitchen table and writes down the idea. “Gambling.” She writes “gambling” on a legal pad and then underlines it. Oh yeah, Skyler? Gambling? That’s the idea you had to write down? But maybe it was just shorthand for “gambling support group,” like when I had the idea for something this weekend and instead of writing down the whole idea I wrote down “draw a picture” in my iPhone notes and now have no idea what I meant, because in the next scene they’re at a gambling support group.
Which is hilarious. A hilarious thing to make your drug-making husband do. Good one, Sky.
Most of this episode was dedicated to Skyler forcing a teen-angsty Walter to get his blackjack/counting cards story straight. They play a few hands at the dinner table and Water seems to be not very good at blackjack/counting cards even though he can explain different methods very well, like the “Kelly Criterion,” which has MY name in it. But while they’re doing this I’m thinking, This is like trying to teach someone who is posing as an alcoholic how to drink a lot. Probably people aren’t going to make a recovering gambling addict gamble to prove that he knows how to do it well. And then Walter says something to that effect and they stop. But. Like. Why did they do it for so long anyway? I guess they have to cover their bases. But then they just gave up their bases very quickly after they realized the thing I was just talking about. Guys! What are you doing. We have no time to waste since apparently you’re trying to get your entire coverup story straight on literally the day you have to reveal it.
After they give up on the actual card playing, Skyler hands Walter a detailed narrative/script of the discussion they’ll be having later with Hank and Marie, when they “come clean” about “where they’ve gotten the money” to buy the car wash. Skyler is an incredible writer and explains that she’ll be opening with the line, “We want to tell you the whole story. It’s a doozy, so hold onto your hats.” Hahahah. LOL. Very good opening line. Walt is upset about how this narrative portrays him, as Skyler has made him out to seem like a bad guy who is completely ashamed of his bad guy actions. Which is how he should feel anyway? Deal with it, Walt. Skyler tells him that he’s not the only one who looks bad, to which he responds, “Where is the ‘I slept with my boss’ part of the story?” OOooooohhhh BURN! Walt burn. That was a good one. But then Skyler says, “At least you won at gambling, I’m just the bitch mom who wouldn’t cut you any slack.” Oooops. Nope she’s right, sorry Walter! That was still a good burn, though! Then there is a moment where we think maybe Walter is not being a huge jerk, when he says, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I put you through all of this.” And we all think, Maybe we don’t hate him right now because he’s lost his brain? Maybe his brain still exists? And then he says, “How’s that sound?” And writes it down. And we all think, Ugh you’re the worst but THIS SHOW IS THE BEST!
When they show up for dinner that night at Hank and Marie’s, Marie immediately tell Hank to “Go show the boys your new rock collection.” Hahahah. “THEY’RE MINERALS” The “THEY’RE MINERALS” joke is the best part of season four. I can’t wait until I can buy a “THEY’RE MINERALS” t-shirt. But anyway, Hank takes them to see his rocks but then after one second of looking at a rock, Hank puts in a DVD pertaining to a case he’s consulting on. “Gulp” – Us.
It is a very, very good DVD of Gale singing “Major Tom (Coming Home)” by Peter Schilling. And look at the face Walt makes while he’s watching it:
The teeth face! I love when he makes the teeth face. But yes obviously this is a very unsettling thing for Walt to be seeing, I’m sure. First of all, it’s clear that Gale was a very talented karaoke singer. And Walt had him murdered! Boooooo. The world lost a beautiful karaoke spirit that day. And then of course, you know, UH OH. What a mess you’re in, Walt. But what, did you think they WEREN’T going to investigate that murder? Did you forget that your brother in law gets to hear about that stuff too? C’mon, Walt. Put your teeth back in your face.
At the dinner table, Walt and Skyler tell the story they’ve prepared and Hank and Walt Jr. (Also, as an aside, HELLO, WALT JR.! Long time no hear!) are only very impressed. “Damn dad, why’d you quit?” asks Walt Jr. Skyler tells them that they’ve made enough to buy the carwash and pay for some college tuition. “Uh, why are you buying a carwash?” seems to be a question that is never asked.
Walt sneaks off to look at the Gale evidence in Hank’s room. Hank approaches him in the hallway and tells him, in a nice moment, that he can always talk to him if he needs to. Walt, in a hilariously dumb moment, responds: “The same goes for me. If you ever want to bounce anything off of me…Casework…Sometimes just talking something through could really make a difference.” Hahah, UGH. WALT. Very smooth. “I’ve crafted this response very carefully and it will certainly never be a response that maybe looks weird in retrospect after some new evidence develops in future episodes.” – Walt’s idiot brain.
So Hank takes him up on his weird offer and shows him some of the evidence. The lab notebook has an inscription: “To W.W. My star, my perfect silence.” Uhoh! WW? WALTER WHITE? But then no it’s Walt Witman because it’s a Walt Whitman quote. That suspense was pretty weird, I thought. Because, like, of course he didn’t put that weird thing in for Walt? I don’t know. That suspense seemed kind of silly. But anyway, Hank explains the story behind this guy he’s been chasing — Heisenberg — and how he suspects that he had been Gale the whole time. He’s only upset because he wishes he could have caught Heisenberg himself. Walt asks if they have any leads on who could’ve murdered Gale, and Hank tells him that they have some finger prints and an eye witness. UH OH AGAIN.
Walt heads to Jesse’s nightmare house and is VERY upset. Jesse is shaving a man’s head:
Of course.
Walt tries to get as much information as he can out of Jesse about the night he killed Gale. Jesse says he didn’t leave any fingerprints, but he did leave casings behind. Walt continues to push him, somehow not noticing that it is making Jesse insane and somehow not putting together, once again, that maybe Jesse isn’t handling being a murderer so well. “Did you ring or knock? Did you walk into the house or shoot him outside?” Jesse can’t take the questioning and the being-forced-to-think-about-it and walks into the main room asking if anyone wants to make $100. And then:
Walt goes to see Saul, who attempts to calm him down. Saul tells him that they have nothing on him, but Walt continues to rant about Jesse and the pressure Gus and Mike are placing on him at the moment. He’s upset that instead of being civil and just doing their jobs, Gus and Mike are only interested in intimidating and threatening him, and Jesse is only interested in being a waste. “Why am I the only person capable of behaving in a professional manner?” he asks. Uh, I don’t know, why are you incapable of understanding the motives behind any of the characters on this TV show? Walt White is the exact person that I am afraid that I am every single time I watch this show. “Am I supposed to know why he just did that?” – Walt White after any character does ANYTHING on Breaking Bad. “How did everything get so screwed up?” he asks Saul. Which is basically the tagline for this show. And Saul tells him that he can make him and his family disappear, if it comes to that.
Back at Jesse’s house, the skinny guy from last episode is talking about radiation. Blah, blah, blah. Radiation, etc. Jesse tells him to make sure there’s pizza for everyone by the time he gets home (which is an ADORABLE demand) and he gets him money from his huge bag of money that is just sitting in a drawer in a way where you’re like, Oh yeah someone is going to steal that money later. So he goes to work, comes home, says “soak it up, bitches” and throws I guess meth at the garbage people living in his house, and picks up a girl and takes her to his room. TO PLAY VIDEOGAMES.
Ugh, Jesse. I know you are depressed and totally broken, mentally, but it is very cute. Oh also his money is gone.
Duh.
The next morning Mike wakes him up. “WAKE UP” he says. Very effective. All of the garbage people are gone except for one — the tattoo guy who stole his money. He is bound and gagged on the floor. The new Gus guy is also there — I guess last week he was outside of Jesse’s apartment. Not Walt’s. Live and learn! Mike explains that they caught him trying to steal his money and implies that they will now be killing him. Jesse doesn’t care and explains that he isn’t going to tell them to do anything different. But then also, “You know how I know you’re not gonna smoke this guy? You went through the trouble of putting a blindfold on him.” So pretty much he didn’t think they were going to kill them anyway and I’m not sure if we’re supposed to think that he would’ve reacted differently if he really thought the guy was in danger. But mostly I think we’re supposed to think, “Jesse is very messed up at the moment.”
In the next scene, Mike talks to Gus about Jesse. He explains that he’s a liability and that “something’s got to be done” about him. Uh oh.
Later, Walt is at Jesse’s house trying to get in touch with him. He calls his phone and bangs on his door but gets no response, so he breaks in through a window and finds that Jesse’s not there, though his cell phone is. Uh oh. He goes to the lab and looks in the camera. “Where is he.”
Meanwhile, Jesse is in the passenger seat of a car with Mike, staring out the window. “Want to ask where we’re going?” asks Mike. “Nope,” Jesse responds. The end.
UGH IT WAS SO GOOD. It has been clear for all of this season that Jesse is very close to not caring about whether he lives or dies. It has also been clear that Walt has been a total bonehead about Jesse being very close to not caring about whether he lives or dies. So this will be interesting. Will Jesse just die? Will he die on the car on the way to wherever they’re going because he just doesn’t care anymore? Are they going to a party that Gus and Mike are throwing to make Jesse feel better? Will Walt be upset that he wasn’t invited to the party? Will Marie ever be able to tell the difference between minerals and rocks? TUNE IN NEXT WEEK AND LET’S MEET BACK HERE AND TALK ABOUT IT.
 |
 |
You Might Also Like
 Breaking Bad S04E12: Think About It, It’s Brilliant! |  Breaking Bad S04E05: It’s Not My Fault You’re, Like, In… |  Breaking Bad S04E13: Season Finale |  Breaking Bad S04E11: Oh My Goodness |
Leave a Reply
Sign inSign in with FacebookYou must be logged in to post, reply to, or rate a comment.
So it’s clear that somehow Walt needs to kill or get rid of Mike.
And somehow Walt needs to kill or get rid of Gus.
But…
Is Walt going to need to kill or get rid of …Hank? Hank has been kinda dense, but he’s gotta connect the dots someday, right? And then what?
So much of the show is about the descent of Walt from “normal guy” to “villain.” He’s already killed three people by this point! Is he eventually going to take the step of offing someone close to him, like Hank? Or even…Jesse?
Thoughts?
I think Mike and Gus will eventually be taken care of by the Cartel, now that they aren’t friends anymore. Walt will for sure have to kill Hank, that’s whey they’ve been making him such an ahole this season, so we won’t feel bad for him. I bet he gets smashed in the head with a huge mineral, or his final seconds are spent looking at a mineral, somehow minerals will be involved. I hope no one kills Jesse ever.
walt killing hank? i like your take. i just figured he’d be sort of spiraling down into this huge depression, with him being largely immobile and increasingly alienated from his wife, whom he starts to hate for the way she cares for him, and then takes up the bottle or something. And he’s becoming so obsessed with this case he investigating things on his own, like flying solo, because he is fired for being drunk or being an asshole to his superiors, or maybe beating up another junkie (maybe one of those people that ate jesse’s pizza? I thought there were waaay too many people inside for Walt to get in safely). And then, just when he finds out it’s been walt all along, either 1. he is not believed by his (former) superiors (because he has been making a lot of random accusations, crying wolf etc.) and maybe kills himself? or – the 19th century option – goes permanently insane? or 2. gets killed by someone who is not walt right before telling on Walt (the suspense!).
Why I don’t think it’s Walt is because I think the writers have cut Walt A LOT of slack killing-wise, undoubtedly to make him stay like-able: there’s been so many moments it seems that he was in great danger and had to do something, but something magical and coincidental happens and then he’s all safe again. can’t imagine walt killing hank as it is.. but yeah. it would enable walt to “grow” as a character? (i have no idea. dying to find out, though!)
just read my comment again and the whole flying solo part (and beating up another junkie) is really assuming he gets his legs back (unless? no.), which would then presumably make him hate his wife.. less? because he can wipe his own bottom now? I haven’t thought this through yet.
Prediction: Hank learns that Walt is paying for his therapy treatments. Instead of continuing to work towards learning to walk again, he instead starts stashing the money away in secrecy, and eventually saves up to buy one of those Avatar mech suits:
The finale will be a fight to the death between Mecha-Hank and Walt, backed by his army of methamphetamine addicts. Critics will compare it to the final battle on the forest moon Endor between the Ewoks and the AT-ST walkers, and it will win all of the Emmys.
i think i don’t need to watch breaking bad anymore. your ending is infinitely better.
My younger sister, to her credit, paid a medium amount of attention to nerdy things I liked when we were growing up.
One of my favorite moments was when she revealed what was her understanding of the AT-AT and AT-ST acronyms.
AT-AT: All Terrain All the Time
AT-ST: All Terrain SomeTimes
Worst New Party Game.
All-Terrain Awesome Tank
All-Terrain Stupid Tank.
I KNOW EVERYTHING IS SAD FOREVER SO LET’S MAKE THIS A HAPPY DANCING GIF POST INSTEAD OF FOCUSING ON THE HEART PROBLEMS THIS SHOW HAS GIVEN US ALL
“I love you forever, this gif. Marry me.” – djfreshie
“No, I can’t, I’m just a gif, and also you’re very immature and sometimes really emotionally distant.” – a gif
Between Doug and Gail, David Costabile has made me laugh about 5 million times in the last decade. (And then cry.) Obviously the producers had to kill him off, but they keep finding ways to bring him back. I hope he gets another flashback.
I just sat there, amazed at how Vince Gilligan can turn something so funny into a NAIL BITER for the audience because of what Hank having this video means.
Writer: This shit is so dark, we need something funny in this ep.
Vince: LOL k but only if it helps give the audience heart attacks
TRUTH: Gale rocks the neckerchief better than Ellen Page.
Speaking of Gale, can we please address this subliminal fraction of a second:
Dude is a fucking vegan libertarian who does karaoke, to sci-fi theme songs by himself. Is a posthumous Gale becoming the single most interesting character this season?
Or was that just a send up to our boy, “AaRon Paul”?
It was interesting to read NY Mag’s calculation of just how much time has passed on BB in 3 years — essentially 7 months as of the start of this season. This means that Obama isn’t even president yet.
Wow that’s interesting
99% purity methamphetamine? Sure, why not.
Vegan s’mores? No way, can’t be done
Do you have any composting tips or advice on recumbent bicycles?
The big question is WILL ANYONE HAVE HAIR BY THE END OF THE SEASON? And will there be pizza AND DIPPERS when I get home? There’d better be.
Who will win the Sega and Sonic All-Stars Racing match? Jesse or Meth Head Girl #2??
I may be wrong, the light isn’t too good, but is that Amy Winehouse playing Meth Head Girl #2?
That was super insensitive. You know there are also dead people in Norway who are playing Meth Heads playing Sonic on TV shows?
Go karts, speaker systems, and roombas: modern symbols of humanity’s fall from grace.
My mistake, it must be Russell Brand
WHO WILL JESSE BRING TO HIS BED NEXT? Loljk it’ll be me
I know what you mean about TV shows. Like how in Mad Men Don Draper says “I love you” to Betty, but what he really means is “I love ALL of the hos, everywhere, forever.”
Sometimes I just want to punch Walt Jr.
“Way to go Dad, now you can buy me a car!”
What? Calm down kid. We just had a very serious discussion about gambling and cancer and your parent’s marriage and some tears were shed. You need to relax and eat some breakfast.
Walt Whitman has an “h.” That is all.
Yalp!
They set up that opening scene with Mike in the truck by showing us what happened last year (in the whole “Previously on Breaking Bad…”). Those guys were working for the Mexican druglords that Gus is having a little tiff with (they threatened his life last season). How Gus and Mike knew they were going to attack that truck…. I have no idea. I think everybody would get along a lot better if they had all of their meetings at Los Pollos Hermanos over a bucket of spicy. But that’s just me.
I haven’t seen anyone else point this out so I will point it out: Skyler’s big dream career is TO BE A WRITER. Remember in one of the episodes (season 2? sure, season 2) they have a flashback and Marie and Skyler are chilling and Marie is all “you published a book of short stories, Skyler!” and she’s all “Yep I did, wonder if my propensity for spinning tall tales will come in handy ever in the future!” and the New York Times Book Review was all “Good short stories, bad dialogue. Who says ‘it’s a doozy!’ NO ONE.”
I have every expectation that Skyler will publish a doozy of a memoir by the end of the series.
Jesse taking the girl up to play video games IS super cute. You see him take her hand and you’re like “Opp, time to go have ugly, awful, repressed-memory sex”, and then they grab some PS3 controllers and you’re like “Oh, Jesse. How do I unbreak you?”
I have to say I was a little annoyed at the opening scene when those shooters were like “we’re totally gonna kill anyone who might be in that truck. Unless they lie on the floor of course, but who ever heard of someone lying down? Come on. Shoot high in case someone is maybe floating in there.”
Also it sounds just a little bit risky to pay someone a large amount of money to make you and your family disappear forever. I bet none of their previous customers were ever heard from again, exactly the kind of thing that Walter White would consider “a good sign”.
They shot that truck all up and down. Mike had a partial barricade he was lying in.
Do you think maybe Mike is just taking Jesse somewhere to hide him? Maybe he’s not that bad-a-guy after all.
Also, I’m not sure who I’m supposed to be rooting for anymore.
An interview with Mike at New York Magazine might speak to this question, or at least about the immediacy of the Jesse situation. http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/08/breaking_bads_jonathan_banks.html
Half-measure.
Quick side note (possibly uninteresting to anyone but me): I saw Aaron Paul at Lollapalooza this wknd. Twice! He was with this very Silver Lake looking gal that I’m assuming was his GF. They kept to themselves and didn’t hang out in VIP which I always appreciate. And he is a very cute guy when he’s not playing a meth head. Hi Jesse!
This episode WAS really good but I would’ve liked it more if it had just been 45 minutes of Walt and Jesse unwinding at the go-kart tracks.
Jesse seems to be the most clearheaded one at this point. I know! It doesn’t seem like it, but at least he knows what he has done & has a way of trying to cope with it (getting high every second). He even knows immediately that he doesn’t have to worry about fingerprints when Walt interrogates him about the shooting.
Also, blindfold.
Do we actually think that Jesse is high every second? Or just hate-watching all of the hoboes getting high while he plays video games?
how do you make a karaoke dvd like that? i have some songs i want to sing.
If they just kill Jesse in the desert I’m going to be very disappointed with the show. Which will be awful because it’s such a great show. They have been particularly creative in how they’ve shown Jesse’s downward spiral (of sorts) after the murder and it just seems like such a waste to kill him off like this. It’s like, “Breaking Bad, why did you tickle me with all these little moments where I get to see Jesse’s innocence clash with the fact that he’s now a murdering murderer just for you to go, YUP ok he’s dead now, thanks Mike?”
In fact, no. I’ve convinced myself it won’t happen. The scenes with him and Walt are just begging for Walt to pull his Walt head out of his Walt ass and open up to Jesse. Perhaps over a further rehash of what happened the night of the murder? And plus this show is great and it will not do something so dull and obvious? Killing Jesse now would be like the show admitting that it didn’t know what else to do so it just killed Jesse.
The problem with your honest, rational request, is this this show also happens to be so so good at doing absolutely nothing you expect or want it to do. I think a lot of people like pretend the things that happen were inevitable (after the fact only do they profess this of course) but man, there was nothing that ever implied a lot of the things that happen in this story.
I’ve heard from so many people who insist that Walt should become some sort of drug kingpin and kill everyone, and I’m just very convinced that Gilligan is not driving us to some supposedly necessary final act where he actually “Breaks Bad.” I definitely don’t think that Jesse is doomed – at least not next episode – but I’m also so so so not going to stake any money on that, because regarding the things I definitely thought would or would not happen – well, my record isn’t very strong right now.
My record isn’t the greatest either. I wish I could just quiet my brain when it comes to this show and enjoy it for what it gives me each week (and it rarely disappoints), instead of always trying to piece everything together. It’s futile but I do it anyway.
But you’re very very correct and, in the end, if they do kill Jesse off they’ll probably do it in a way that absolutely won’t disappoint me or anyone else. Trust in the force.
Breaking Bad, when it comes right down to it, is still a television show. Sure, it’s a cable show, not network, but they need what every other show needs: viewers. If Vince Gilligan is stupid enough to kill Jesse, right now, in the middle of season four, and lose an actor like Aaron Paul, then he deserves to get reamed by AMC over season five. Viewership might rise a little in the wake of Jesse’s death, but then I bet it would plummet. Aaron Paul is too valuable a commodity to get rid of at this point. I just don’t see it happening.
Nobody else has mentioned this yet, but my theory is that Mike is going to make Jesse dig his own grave, then Jesse will have a sudden change of heart and realize that he DOES want to live.
Then it will be revealed that the dude who stole Jesse’s money has been in the trunk the whole time, and Jesse is going to have to kill him himself and then bury him, because this is the path he chose and he has to be more careful and act like an EMPLOYEE.
I think Jesse will survive, and Mike didn’t make him wear a blindfold DELIBERATELY to show him that he isn’t as smart as he thinks he is.
That is an excellent theory. In fact, that’s the only way forward that I can see makes any sense in which Jesse does not get killed by Mike. He’s clearly a liability for Gus and Mike, we know, is all about making things work right.
I wonder if it’s possible there will be a rift between Mike and Gus at some point. Mike was very much not happy about the box cutter job. But that seems to be forgotten?
One last thing. I know there’s lots o’ Jesse love her on videogum but one thing about the show that has stumped me throughout is: Why is Walt so loyal to Jesse? Up until he killed Gale Jesse did nothing but cause trouble for Walt. The whole first three seasons my default question throughout each episode was, why doesn’t Walt cut him loose? Obviously now Walt owes Jesse his life and he’s been kind of a dick about not being there for Jesse who very much needs someone to look out for him. But for me Jesse was just a pain in the arse
My computer went crazy and posted before I was finished. What I meant to say was Jesse was just a pain in the arse until he killed Gale at which point he became possibly the most interesting character.
Him having to deal with what he’s done is some deep stuff
One thing that cracks me up about these recaps is this. Pretty much every scene in which Skylar and Walt are arguing about something and Kelly gets mad at Walt for being a dick, I am thinking “Good one Walt! Skylar is being too bossy!”
I think it may be a guy vs girl thing. Like with the gambling story fight. To me it looked like Skylar passive aggressively punishing Walt by making him say that he was shit. And when he pulled his “I’m sorry, sorry for what I put you through” I was surprised but then like, “Haha!!!!! Turnabout!!!!! How you like dem apples!!!”
I don’t disagree with Kelly’s take I just usually feel like Walt deserves more slack. Again I can’t stop being a dude so maybe it’s just one of those kinda things.
its super fucking obvious
he’s driving him to rehab
half-measure
“(Also, as an aside, HELLO, WALT JR.! Long time no hear!)”
And I’m all like, ” HELLO, WALT JR.! Long time no walk properly!)”
because, you know, he’s can’t….did you guys see that? *runs out of the room*