OK, so this show is officially giving me anxiety attacks. The drama is high and there is almost no comic relief, just pure tension, so thick you couldn't slice it if you tried.
Walt is in full-on manipulator mode in this episode, and he wasn't kidding when he told his brother-in-law Hank to "tread lightly." I don't think even Hank was aware of what Walter White is capable of, the level of low he will sink to remain in control, and this time, the disguises are gone, the big show is over, Walt is Heinsenberg through and through, and any redeeming qualities he ever had have been officially wiped out.
Skyler, my strong, beautiful Skyler, remains stuck between a rock and a hard place, a complete shadow of her former self. And while many fans of the show may think her turning to the dark side is a good thing, those many fans have clearly been watching a different show altogether. Walt isn't the hero. He isn't even the anti-hero. Walt is the villain, and Skyler, though at times questionable in her decisions, is a Stockholm syndrome victim if there ever was one.
We open this episode with Todd standing outside of a diner, leaving Walt a friendly voicemail. Oh Todd, you creepy sociopath with a boyish grin. He informs Walt there's been a "change in management," if you'll recall, thanks to Lydia and her wiping out Declan and his entire crew while wearing a pair of stilettos.
Back in the diner, Todd is talking to his Aryan Brotherhood uncle and uncle's friend, regaling the tale of the Great Train Robbery Gone Wrong, and of course, aptly leaving out the part about him murdering an innocent boy without hesitation.
Uncle Aryan eventually shifts the focus of the conversation to the meth lab, and offers Todd the position of running it. You see, business continues, and when one monster goes underground, another will spring up to take his place. It's never-ending. Todd says, "I got this," and the three drive into New Mexico. Uh-oh.
After the opening titles, we're back where we cut off so abruptly last week. Jesse is being interrogated, or rather interrogated at, as he sits in silence as time flashes by in our signature "Breaking Bad" time elapse montage, only Jesse isn't even there. He hasn't shaved, he looks older, perhaps already dead, hardened and silent, a far cry from the loquacious and goofy Jesse Pinkman we once knew.
Hank enters the room, turns off the camera and tries to level with Jesse. He tells him he knows about Walt, and Jesse's reaction gives it all away. "There's that look," Hank muses. He offers the predicted deal: Jesse talks, Jesse walks away scot-free. "Eat me," Jesse replies. Hank tries another tactic: relating. Walt lied to Jesse for years, manipulated him. He knows the feeling. Just as we think he might be getting headway, in enters Saul, being 100 percent Saul, who ushers Hank out of the room and asks Jesse why the f**k he didn't call him the second he got arrested. Jesse tells him to chill, and Saul responds that things are quite the opposite of "chill" right now.
Notably, Saul is wearing yellow, a change from his normal wardrobe of green. In the "Breaking Bad" universe, yellow signals caution, a change that's about to occur. It's a striking color on Saul just as blue is so striking on orange-loving Hank. In "Breaking Bad," colors are no coincidence, and a difference from the norm is meant to jar you.
Back at home, Walt tries to cover up his bruises from his fight with Hank using Skyler's make-up when he hears Junior talking to him from somewhere in the house. Junior/Flynn informs him that he's been invited to Marie's house for dinner and to help fix her computer, and Walt freaks. But ever the quick-thinker, he comes up with a ploy, a mean and manipulative ploy, to keep Junior from falling into the clutches of the Schraders.
He sits down his son and calmly tells him that his cancer is back, being purposefully vague and urging him to stay positive. Junior, wearing a striped shirt of ambiguity, crumbles just like Walt knew he would. It's sickening to watch, Walt gently touching his face and feigning fatherly support while his son is being completely and utterly exploited. Walt tells him to run along to Marie's, but after that announcement, there's no way he's leaving his dad.
We cut to Walter sitting on his bed, the room dark and gloomy, his face appearing on a camcorder screen. Skyler asks him if he's sure this is what he wants, and Walt confirms it's the only way. With the camera on, Walt stares dead into the lens, Heisenberg in full force, before beginning his confession. It's a nice call-back to the pilot episode, where a frantic and suicidal Walt recorded a final message to his family. And in comparison, it's deadly chilling.
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Now it's time for the family showdown, perhaps the most intense scene of the episode. All are wearing dark, subdued colors. Skyler wears a dull yellow, as she is no longer really Skyler, but Walt's subservient puppet. The four sit around a dining table in a Mexican restaurant, and the poor, jovial waiter who offers them fresh guac clearly won't be getting tipped today.
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Walt asks Hank and Marie what he has to do to get them to believe him that it's over, it's all in the past, and Marie says frankly, "Why don't you kill yourself, Walt?" Damn girl, tell him! Skyler protests that it's not a solution, and honestly, it's heartbreaking to watch this once close, loving family staring each other down with such hatred and bitterness. I can't imagine what's going through Skyler's mind (no really, I can't), choosing her despicable husband over her own sister.
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Hank presses Walt to just confess, just be a man and own up to what he did. Walt stands up, gathers his things and Skyler follows suit. They slowly pass a disc to Hank, only it's not what you might think.
The next scene makes me need a Xanax. It's so quietly tense, so "No, you can't be serious, there's no way, OH MY GOD," it's unreal. It's classic "Breaking Bad," it's so, so scary, and it's genius.
Hank and Marie watch the tape on their giant flatscreen TV, and it's like something out of a horror movie, Walt staring into the camera and confessing that his own brother-in-law is the mastermind behind and the head of a meth empire that he helped him create. We get some eerie close-ups of Walt's mouth, his eye, as he elegantly twists every detail of his saga to make Hank out to be the kingpin of the entire operation, Walt using his acting skills to evoke sympathy for a man dying of cancer who felt he had no choice. Hank and Gus Fring were friends, they worked together, and when things went sour, Hank had him killed. "I guess you call it a hit," Walt says with such innocence that it turns your blood cold, as this man who has been responsible for hundreds of deaths and so much chaos paints himself as the ultimate victim who hopes the world will finally see Hank for who he truly is.
Marie and Hank have just watched the end of everything. It's a threat, clearly, but it's also got Hank's wheels turning. Walt mentioned $177,000, what he was talking about? That's when Marie stutters, and the truth about Hank's medical bills finally comes out.
Hank delivers perhaps the best "Jesus Christ, Marie!" of the entire show, completely flabbergasted that Marie would accept the money that she believed to come from Walt's gambling addiction. "How was I supposed to know?" she cries, and then a pleading, "What are we going to do?"
"You killed me here," Hank says. "That's the last nail in the coffin."
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As if that all weren't enough, we're only halfway done with the episode, and we've still got a Jesse Pinkman to emotionally destroy. Walt, Saul and Jesse meet out in the middle of the desert, where Walt questions Jesse about his meeting with Hank and the DEA. Jesse assures him that he said nothing, and Walt puts on his father face and tries to convince Jesse he needs a new start, a fresh chance at life, he's so young, after all. "Will you let me help you?" he asks his adopted son, and it's then that Jesse (YES, Jesse!) finally cracks.
"Would you just, for once, stop working me?" he demands. He's finally standing up to Walt, seeing him for the monster he truly is, the emotional manipulator to the extreme. He tells Walt to drop the whole "concerned dad thing," and it's so great but so, so sad. He screams at Walt that he knows he just needs him to go away so Walt can get away, that he probably brought him here to kill him anyway, isn't this what this is all about? Saul, the middle of nowhere desert? Would Walt just tell the truth for ONCE? Aaron Paul completely and utterly DESTROYS this scene, and I just want to throw every Emmy at all of them.
"It's either this or you'll kill me the same way you killed Mike," Jesse says, and he's breaking, and we see Walt slowly, surely slink towards Jesse, and it's so scary and for a moment you think he may strangle him, but his arms lock him in a tight hug instead of a chokehold, and Jesse just collapses into them and sobs and sobs as Walt holds him like a child. And you have to wonder if Walt really still cares about Jesse, even amid all of this, and my thinking is that he does. In his own twisted way, he loves this kid that he routinely shatters and puts back together, and it's killing me softly.
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And we know that without Walt, Jesse thought little of himself, he was just a junkie, he was nobody. Jesse, in his signature red and black, becomes "pink" (Pinkman) with Walter White (white and red makes pink), and finally becomes someone, becomes not just capable, but good, really good at something. It's incredible to see not just how far Jesse has come since the beginning, how smart and sharp he's gotten, but also how completely decimated by Walt's constant manipulation, so much so that even as he pleads with Walt to just let him go, just make it all end, he'll still fall into his arms at the hint of comfort.
He still calls him "Mr. White," and oh Jesse, oh sweet Jesse, who has always been the moral compass of the show, and at many ways the heart of it.
Jesse goes to Saul's office (Saul still in yellow! Something's about to go down!) and, all despondent and sullen, agrees to let him call "that guy" and get a fresh start at life. He pulls out some weed and lights up, and Saul chastises him, tells him not only to quit doping up right there, but to get rid of any drugs whatsoever. Jesse puts out the joint but keeps the weed, and Saul sighs that some people just can't accept good advice.
Saul hilariously hands him a new phone, and in a classic Jesse Pinkman moment, Jesse goes, "Seriously? Hello Kitty?," and Saul tells him this is kind of a last resort deal. Jesse asks if he'll get to pick where he goes, and considers Alaska.
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"Yeah, Alaska's good," he says, a tinge of hope buried somewhere beneath all of that sadness. Oh Jesse.
But just before he goes, Huell is at the door, blocking his way. He pushes into him (!) just before Jesse leaves. He and Saul have a nice handshake, a nice goodbye to Jesse Pinkman.
And as Jesse waits for the car somewhere on the highway, he reaches for his weed and pulls out...a pack of cigarettes. Jesse's world nosedives into vertigo as he makes the realization. Oh s**t. Oh s**t. Because Huell lifted the weed just like Huell lifted the ricin right before Brock died and somehow they're all connected and OH MY GOD.
After the break, Jesse storms into Saul's office and punches him dead in the face. He starts kicking the life out of him, and a terrified Saul fishes for his handgun, but Jesse yanks it away and points it at all of them, including Huell and the secretary. He screams at them, shoves the gun in Saul's face and accuses him of helping "that a**hole Mr. White" (still and forever Mr. White) of poisoning Brock. Saul begs for mercy, claims he had no idea it would come to that, and Jesse takes off. Saul immediately calls Walt, because he is and has been Walt's b***h, and informs him there's a big problem.
In a pretty funny scene, we see Walt speeding into the parking lot of the car wash before slowly, casually entering and engaging Skyler in some small talk. Poor Skyler, who is in such a daze she handed a customer a $5 instead of a $1, and ironically thanked him for his honesty right before ever-lying Walt barges in. He does that too-friendly voice that lets you know he's lying before retrieving a frozen gun of of the vending machine, then bulls***s Skyler some more before taking off, popsicle gun in his pocket. OH S**T!!
Jesse veers into the White house, knocks down the door, starts pouring gasoline everywhere in a frenzy, all rage and hurt and out of his everloving mind.
Cut to the credits. DAMN.
I am praying for Jesse Pinkman.
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