BREAKING BAD - "Say My Name"

Welcome to a roundtable discussion of this week's episode of Breaking Bad from your friendly neighborhood LowBrowMedia savants.

This is a spoiler-heavy zone. You have been warned.

Jon: Okay, first things first. This episode will be etched in my memory forever. I've never thought I could be so moved by a television show. But, OMG, you guys! Bacon-banana cookies? GOOD LAWRD, those sound delicious! How have I lived life for this long and never been mentally stimulated by such wonderment?!?! Oh, yeah. There was that other thing -- our favorite hitman, Mike, went to the big meth lab in the sky (c'mon, there's a freaking spoiler warning right at the top; don't complain). More about that in a bit.

Mike and I have talking a lot these past few weeks about just how downright unlikable Walter White has become this season. He's manipulated Jesse for his own gains at every turn. He seems not to have anything beyond superficial remorse for the death of the young 14-year-old dirtbike kid two episodes past.
He's essentially imprisoned Skyler in their home. He made poor Saul cower in fear in his own awesome office! And while blowing up a druglord of the level of Gustavo Fring is easily viewed as a triumph on Walt's part, firing a gut shot at an unsuspecting man in moment of blind fury is hardly anything to gloat over.

But in my view, his impromptu assassination of Mike Ehrmantraut was not when Walt blossomed into a straight-up villain. No, that happened during the cold open of this very episode, as he brazenly battled wits in a desert showdown with Declan, the Phoenix-based meth dealer we met last week and who was illustrated to be anything but a pushover (all that was missing was a backing score from Ennio Morricone). That was not Declan going up against Walter White, however. As he made clear to everyone present, Walt was in full-blown Hiesenberg mode. And what made this edition of his Hiesenberg persona so interesting was he wasn't wearing his patented black porkpie hat, which I believe was a first. In earlier seasons, Walt has don the hat whenever he needed an extra little spark to psych himself up through whatever crazy situation he was diving into. This season he's been wearing it much more frequently, often while doing little more than strolling in or out of the lab to get his cook on. In other words he's basically been master physicist Hiesenberg more often than cancer survivor Walt White lately. And now he's become so comfortable in that guise, he no longer requires the porkpie hat to thrust himself into character. He is Hiesenberg now, pure villain. And with LowBrowMedia's roots being a comic book review site, I'd argue that he's now transformed himself into a supervillain. We've seen what that manic mentality has wrought when Mike pushed him too far. There's no telling what atrocity he commits next. And I sincerely doubt he'll be using that massive machine gun we got a glimpse of in the cold open of the season premiere for good. It shall be interesting what unfolds next.

Anyway, plenty of other stuff happened in "Say My Name," but I think you'll find Mike C's recap of events below to be plenty thorough in this post and I'd really just like to get back to Mike E. It was a tragic, furious end to an existence predicated upon detailed planning, calculated action and measured patience, but you'll go up in flames if you allow a supernova like Walt soar into your orbit. Admittedly, Mike's ending was a little obvious once Walt peered into Mike's go-bag and found the gun, but that final sequence was so expertly executed, I have no complaints on how events unfolded. It was beautifully filmed, near-perfect send-off for a beloved character. His blunt one-liners and usually stoic demeanor were a welcome presence any time he appeared on screen ever since. Jonathan Banks' performance of the hitman for hire was masterful ever since we were introduced to him at the tail end of season 2, but I'm not sure he had a more powerful moment on the show than when he had to decide between leaving his granddaughter alone on the playground in order to save himself from assured doom.

RIP, Mr. Ehrmantraut. Breaking Bad won't be the same without you.

Mike: Now, here's what I thought!  I'll more or less keep it sequential:

- So, that was Walt's big plan?  Actually, it was a pretty good one.  Using pure ballsy chutzpah, and costing him only 35% of the take, Walt took care of the business end so he can focus on the science and cooking and manipulation and lying.  After all, Mike's retirement was impending, and they needed a new business partner.  (Little did we know that the aforementioned retirement was going to be so permanent.  Well, we had suspicions at least.)  And Mike even got a severance package to help keep the Gus Fring Nine out of the DEA office confessional for at least a little while longer.  If I were Walt, I'd be careful not to play the "I killed Gus" card too often, or else he's going to find himself with an identical target on his back.  He'll probably need some pretty heavy artillery to back himself up in that kind of situation, huh?



- Walt being so dismissive of Jesse at every turn this episode was just awful.  For one thing, Jesse is the closest thing that he has to a friend -- that is to say, he is a good friend to Walt, not the other way around.  If you allow a friend's girlfriend to choke to death, guilt them into breaking up with their next girlfriend, force them to kill, and otherwise constantly put their life and livelihood at risk.  Jesse, to a dangerous degree, has forgiven Walt every time he has pushed his luck too far.  After all, we need to remember that Jesse's family has disowned him, especially after the whole buying his aunt's house out from under them thing.  So, his heartfelt, familial respect for "Mr. White" and "Mrs. White" as well is one of the only assets that Walt has to work with these days.  But as is typical for Walt, there is a line, and he pushes Jesse right past that like when be brushes aside Jesse's wishes to get out of the meth business one too many times.  What could possibly bring them back together?  It doesn't take long.  It's probably the only thing that could do it, and that's Mike Ehrmantraut needing something.


- But first, how about that burgeoning meth chef, Todd?  I knew that Walt either can't or won't cook alone.  And by all appearances, Todd seems to be an eager, bright young man who has a good head for the amphetamine biz.  He even refuses to be paid until he gets it right!  Walt is eating this up, and even tries to share his delight with this new team-up at the dinner table with Skyler.  (She leaves the table in the middle of his sentence, huge glass of wine in tow.)  I keep going back to Todd's comment last week about his relative in prison for some reason, though.  It was probably nothing, but really, Walt doesn't even know this kid.  He's only training him because he has no partners left.  They didn't come up through chemistry class together like he and Jesse.  Todd doesn't have a firmly developed criminal code like Mike.  He's a cipher so far.  A cipher with a little notepad that contains the instructions on how to cook 99% pure blue meth.  We'll see if Todd ends up helping or hurting Walt in the end.  For now, though, he's been extremely useful in at least three situations that I can think of.

- I'm loving that every time we listen in to Hank's office bug, he's dealing with the boring minutiae of high-level police work that isn't often glorified -- filling out forms, making fundraiser calls, griping about food.  It was too bad that Walt had to pull the weepy brother-in-law act again and remove the tap from the office.  At which point he witnesses something that is probably the beginning of the end: Gomie telling Hank that they flipped Mike's lawyer.

- Losing millions of dollars to the DEA once has got to sting.  Twice, though?  OUCH!
 

- Jon's covered Mike's death pretty well already.  I'll just say this -- Mike was dead the moment he threw his hat in the ring with Walt.  At first it was definitely for a better cause, but as time went on, he had to know that he was just digging his own grave.  I guess this can be a lesson for all of us.  Especially when embarking upon criminal avenues, but also in other situations too, I guess, stay true to your hard-fought and long-held principles or that piece of garbage you aligned yourself with will put a bullet in your gut and leave you to die semi-peacefully along a river.

- Walt stalking back into the frame and across the screen, gun in hand, towards Mike's car was pathetic but also chilling.  These are not the actions of a criminal mastermind.  These are the actions of a child who has not gotten their way.  There aren't too many drug lords out there who engage in this type of behavior.  The reason for that is, they are all either in jail or dead in the desert somewhere.


- I am fascinated to see Walt's followup to this in next week's finale.  Will he take responsibility for what he has done?  Probably not.  But did he have an actual self-realization at the water's edge?  I'm sure he'll find some way to top his actions this week.  Either way, we are going to have a really unhappy Jesse on our hands.  Perhaps we will see a Jesse/Skyler team-up as a result.  Only one way to tell -- see you next week!

Previous Breaking Bad season 5 roundtables: 
Week 1 - "Live Free Or Die"
Week 2 - "Madrigal"
Week 3 - "Hazard Pay"
Week 4 - "Fifty-One"
Week 5 - "Dead Freight"
Week 6 - "Buyout"

BREAKING BAD - "Buyout"

Welcome to a roundtable discussion of this week's episode of Breaking Bad from your friendly neighborhood LowBrowMedia savants.

This is a spoiler-heavy zone. You have been warned.

Jon: After the shock that "Dead Freight" ended on last week, it was fitting that we began with a wordless, really creepy scene to open this week's episode of Breaking Bad. The atmosphere surrounding Walt, Mike and Todd as they barrel-ized the poor 14-year-old and his dirtbike was somber and complimented by a excellently crafted piece of droning music to emphasize the dreary business they had to complete. Meanwhile, Jesse is outside the garage having a smoke, presumably still so shaken from the shooting that he's excused from clean-up duty. Eventually Todd joins him, and acts like murdering a kid is no big whoop. He promptly gets clocked in the eye by Jesse and elicited a fist pump from me (fuck you, Landry!). When we come back, Todd's pleading his case to still be a part of the team. It's no surprise that Jesse wants him gone, but for once Mike and Walt agree on something and vote that he stay since he knows too much and they're not too keen on killing anyone else that night. So, we haven't seen the last of  psychopath Todd or the kid's taranchula in a jar that he's now claimed, probably as a memento of a productive day (and only a bit incriminating with it still being covered in the kid's prints).

Meanwhile, the next day Mike hilariously spots and loses another tail by Gomey and a DEA grunt. He checks in on the bug still broadcasting from Hank's office and realizes there's still a lot of heat on him, channel's Danny Glover, and decides to arrange a buyout of his share of the methylamine by a rival from the Phoenix area to get out of the business all together with a cool $5 million. He gets Jesse on board with his plan and the two try to talk Walt into joining them, but predictably he stubbornly refuses (more on that below). Mike and Jesse have one of those middle-of-the-desert business meetings Breaking Bad loves so much with this new drug lord. He quickly susses out that they have a third partner who isn't selling his share of the 1,000 gallons of methylamine, which means the infamous blue meth will still be out on the streets. This guy is no pushover and only has an interest in purchasing this stuff to get the blue meth out of circulation, so there's no deal until Jesse and Mike can get Walt to sell as well.


Jesse seems to be completely finished with the meth biz at all costs at this point, and goes over to Walt's house in an attempt to change his mind about selling. Now, all this season Walt has been manipulating Jesse into doing what he wants seemingly at will. But not this time. No, he just guilts him into it.

You see, Walt has been highly distressed by this whole methlymine-selling scenario, reduced to sulking in his living room easy chair with little more than a glass of scotch, a houseful of silence and a lifetime of regrets. And those regrets have manifested themselves into where we are today. Walt is haunted by the buyout he took for Gray Matter decades ago; you know, the company he started with Elliot and Gretchen Schwartz, who we met way back in season one. You might remember them as the billionaire scientists who offered to pay for his chemo treatments? Well, the details are still unclear but we now know Walt left the partnership for personal reasons. The short-term financial gain then pales in comparison to the torment he puts himself through each week by forcing himself to look at Gray Matter's worth each week. Walt doesn't want to make the same mistake again. Plus, it's become more than that now. Since his family is broken (and that was the whole reason he started down this path in the first place), he claims his motivation to continue cooking is not financial. So if he's not in the money business and not in the meth business (per se), what the hell is he doing it all for? In a bold speech, Walt proclaims he's actually in the EMPIRE business, aka the power biz as we discussed last week. He is trying to build an empire that would rival the one he presumes he would have had if he hadn't taken that buyout all those years ago. The man is going to overdose on power quicker than Jane OD'd on their blue meth.

But then Skyler walks in through the front door, and we're quickly treated to what turned into an awkward dinner of epic proportions. For all the heaviness this episode waded through, this scene was a welcome sight and a great reminder at just how hilarious it can be when it chooses. At the close of the dinner, Walt reveals to Jesse just how bad his home life has become. He knows that's a sad tale but it might not be enough to sway Jesse back to his side, so tells him, "This business is all I have left. And you want to take it away from me." That's probably enough for the good-hearted Jesse, who thinks so highly of Walt still, to get back on his side.

Later, Walt arrives at the gang's headquarters to swipe his share (if not all) of the methylamine. Mike anticipates this and holds him hostage in the office for the rest of that night. However, Mike has an appointment with Saul and Hank at the DEA and leaves Walt zip-tied to an old-school radiator while he attends it. This gives Vince Gilligan and company another opportunity to flex their creative science muscles as Walt hatches an escape plan by using the live wires from a coffee pot to melt the plastic cuff holding him down. (A quick side note: I usually am all for the utilization of crazy science to help Breaking Bad characters get in and out of their pickles, but this time the lack of common sense in lieu of creating drama bothered me a bit. I'd think placing the wire on the other side of the zip tie against the radiator would be the safer option, preventing him from burning himself. But electrocuting plastic that also will hurt your main character exemplifies just how desperate he was to free himself, so for drama purposes, the higher stakes made sense. The only reason I can come up with as to why this wouldn't have worked is the metal coils would have conducted the electricity and thus become an even greater hazard than the severe burn on Walt's wrist. Obviously, I have no idea if this is the case, and the show made no attempt to explain Walt's decision, so all I'm left with is speculation.) And just like that, Walt is back on the streets causing mayhem once more.


So while we watched Saul work his magic on Hank and Gomey, our newly freed Walt managed to move all the methylamine in addition to talking Jesse into backing him up once all is revealed to Mike. And we'll just have to tune in next week to see if everyone wins, as Walt asserts with Mike's pistol pressed against his temple.

All relatively straight-forward stuff, don't 'cha think? Speaking of which, that's been one thing I've noticed this year -- there's not much to analyze on this show. Maybe I just got spoiled with Mad Men a few months ago, but I really expected to be able to delve into BB with more gusto. Obviously this is our first crack at examining the show week by week here at LowBrowMedia, but I've always felt previous seasons were overloaded with talking points. This being the final season may explain that since everything has to start coming to a conclusion, but everyone's motives are basically laid out for us right now and I'm finding it difficult to drum up subjects worthy of great discussion. It's still an excellent show, but perhaps it's not rife for deep analysis as I had led myself to believe it to be.

So, what say you, Mike (and fellow blue-meth heads)? Is everything merely as it seems, or is your old pal Jon just missing something incredibly obvious in these first eight eps?

Mike: Well, in answer to your last paragraph, I think a lot of the problem lies in the fact that, although they do have certain things in common, in that they are both extremely high quality shows on the same network, "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad" are two completely different shows.  I think the case could be made that "MM" is more of an English major's paradise, pregnant with undercurrent and symbolism, while "BB" is a little more of an open book.


That said, as I often say, I hope I never have to choose, at gunpoint, whether "MM" or "BB" is the better show.  For as much as I love the unpredictable, black-humored, breakneck crime noir that "BB" has become, I also hesitate to say that I enjoy it more than the pointillist, character-focused short story narrative that is "MM" at its best.

Which also isn't to say that I don't enjoy writing about both shows!  Speaking of, here goes for episode six of this season:

- I agree, it was a great cold open this week.  I knew what was going to happen next, but I still gasped a little bit as the small, cold hand was uncovered in the dirt.  That's some pretty great all-purpose acid they've got access to, huh?  Disposes of a metal and plastic dirt bike just as cleanly and completely as human remains. 


- Todd, Todd, Todd.  What are we going to do with you?  Oh, cool.  Sure, that works -- we'll just keep you on.  Yeah, he deserved that punch from Jesse, and also that neck grab from Mike, but I still maintain that he made the best, most pragmatic, business-positive decision last episode.  (What I should probably underscore is that, of course, it really doesn't make it morally right in my book.)  But that's not the business they're in.  Every stage of this thing, from precursor fluid to blue meth in some poor junkie's bloodstream is based on hurting someone.  There are no winners here, as Walt is getting closer and closer to finding out.  I mean, he is, right?  That's the only way that we can interpret the opening sequence from the season premiere?  Right?

- Okay, a pretty obvious thing I'm going to say anyway: I think this meth competitor/precursor buyer is going to be nothing but trouble.  And would it have killed Mike to doctor the numbers a bit so that it wasn't so obvious that Walt was being a stick in the mud?  Well, it will probably end up killing Mike in the end, one way or the other.  I hope it doesn't happen, but I have had a theory since the season premiere that Mike won't survive this half-season.  He had a good run.

- I agree with Walt.  I think a year, maybe a year and a half is a reasonable amount of time before doing any soul-searching.



- Some great Skyler stuff this episode, which also continued to make my stomach ache for all the tension in just about every scene she's in.  I mean, can't she just chill out for one minute?  Yeah, it made for some pretty impressive, and -- again, agreed! -- much-needed comedy during the meeting Jesse again for the first time and dinner party scenes.  Was the last time Jesse was even on Skyler's radar when she came over to his house and yelled at him for being Walt's pot dealer in the first season?  Either way, I just loved when Jesse was bug-eyed, taking the longest sip of water ever captured on film.  And whatever DID happen to truth in advertising?  It's interesting to see that, as I've mentioned before, Walt is essentially living a lie in most aspects of his life, which is in turn enabling him to be more truthful in his relationships with Skyler and Jesse, however painful that might be.

- Speaking of the lines he's feeding Jesse about building his empire, as I've just implied, I think he's being more or less completely truthful for perhaps the first time with Jesse.  (It just hit me -- in a reversal of the usual scenario, it's Jesse that needs to convince Walt to do something that he wants.)  I wonder when the not-so-subtle shift from simply providing for his family to nascent emperor Walt happened.  If I had to hazard a guess, it would probably be around the time the last emperor had half his face blown off and this kind of thing became even a distant possibility.



- Jon, if memory serves, I'm pretty sure in the episodes with Gretchen had at least a pretty heavy implication that she left a personal relationship with Walt for one with their business partner, and that was what resulted in him leaving the company.  So, of course, it wasn't quite as cut-and-dry as he's making it seem to be here, but just using a bit of the truth to make Jesse second-guess himself.  A classic Walter White-brand manipulation!

- I also loved the interaction between Mike and Walt at the end of the episode, and then Walt's "MacGyver"-esque escape from radiator confinement.  Though it was on a much smaller scale than last week, I was left just as breathless after this scene, and winced right along with Walt as he singed his wrist with arcing electricity.  After yet another hilarious meeting with Saul, Gomie, and Hank, Mike has 24 hours with the law off his tail, so he can get out of this mess for good.  What excellent timing that the now free, and now-precursor possessing Walt has a plan to get everyone their money and also keep everyone happy.  What could possibly go wrong?


- Favorite one-liner of the week: "I've never seen anybody work so hard not to get five million dollars."

See you next time!

Previous Breaking Bad season 5 roundtables: 
Week 1 - "Live Free Or Die"
Week 2 - "Madrigal"
Week 3 - "Hazard Pay"
Week 4 - "Fifty-One"
Week 5 - "Dead Freight"

BREAKING BAD - "Fifty-One" & "Dead Freight"

Welcome to a roundtable discussion of this week's episode of Breaking Bad from your friendly neighborhood LowBrowMedia savants.

This is a spoiler-heavy zone. You have been warned.

Mike:  First off, my thoughts about “Fifty-One”:

- Walt’s trademark Aztek is now history!  Well, as I was just researching it, I see that various internet authorities list the Pontiac Aztek as either one of the 100, 50, or 10 worst cars of all time.  But because we had such a blast in Walt’s increasingly cruddy vehicle, it’s easy at least for me to overlook its hideous shape and brand-destroying reputation.  I mean, remember when Walt got in an auto accident on purpose so that Hank wouldn’t find out about the drug lab?  Good times.  In moving on from his clearly cheesy and uncool vehicle, in his mind he’s putting aside the “old Walt” and living his life -- what's left of it, at least -- to the fullest.  But what happened to being cautious of even having an expensive wine bottle in the trash?  Certainly, the whole leasing angle is one way to deflect suspicion, but Hank the bloodhound is at the height of his powers here.  The car wash may be successful, sure, but all it should take is a stray thought or two.  After all, this is the guy who suspected Lydia, correctly, solely on the basis of her mismatched shoes.  Hank hasn’t made a mistake yet in his investigation of the mysterious Heisenberg, except perhaps being a little too trusting of his curmudgeon of a brother-in-law, but then again, neither has Walt.  (Yet.)

 - To go along with that, Walt Jr.’s Charger is back!  And this one probably won’t get detonated in a parking lot, either.  I’d say that getting the two sports cars is a bold move, and one that more or less shines a huge spotlight on the fact that Walt doesn’t really care what Skyler thinks anymore.  Sure, he’s creepily putting the moves on her every night, and is playing the part of the loving but put-upon husband with their relatives, but at least for now, she is no longer a player in this game.  I’ll get more into this in a bit, but I’ve got to say that this week I was thinking a lot about the vial of poison that Walt has hidden in the walls of his family’s house.  If, God forbid, Holly doesn’t somehow ironically stumble upon it, then I have a feeling a certain person who has recently taken up indoor chain-smoking will soon be the recipient of a very special cigarette indeed.

- Oh, man, Skyler breaking up Walt’s birthday bacon.  I really hope that I am never the focus of the level of spousal disgust that our birthday boy received from his dead-faced, barren-souled wife the morning of his fifty-first birthday.  Though he is painting himself as the victim here to anyone and everyone who notices, with Skyler as the birthday party-ruining future mental patient, the thing is, it’s more or less factual.  Skyler is at the end of her rope here.  As Walt accuses her, and she agrees, there is no plan.  At the end of her and Walt’s little discussion in this episode, she has more or less given herself over to him, to be used as he wishes.  The only stipulation is that their children are no longer in the picture.  If Walt was as shrewd and calculating a businessman as he thinks he is, he would see what a great, pragmatic deal this is.  Not to mention that Skyler is correct about the danger of either of their children being allowed anywhere near their house.  At least, of course, until the timer ticks down and Walt’s cancer finally does him in.  What a brilliant, cold as ice, nightmare-inducing scene this last one was for me.

- With Hank’s new position as head of the ABQ DEA, it remains to be seen if he will still be able to indulge himself with his search for the elusive Heisenberg.  The agent who temporarily replaced Hank’s boss seems to think that it’s case closed, or if not, it should be soon.  Of course, since Hank will essentially be the boss now, I suppose that he could find some justification for a task force to be formed if he looked hard enough.  The return of blue methamphetamine to the streets is one pretty solid clue that Heisenberg wasn’t Gale Boetticher after all, but Hank is risking a lot reputation-wise if he puts himself out on a limb with a huge investigation at this point.  If Hank is good at anything, though, it’s pulling at loose strings and seeing what comes to light, so there will be more to come on this point, I'm sure.

- A personal note: when this episode was over, I went upstairs and gave my wife a hug.  The plan was for me to watch both episodes the same night, but I just needed a break.  I didn’t sleep too well that night.

And here’s what I thought about “Dead Freight”:

- Anyone else think that Walt’s new watch, though certainly an extremely thoughtful gift from Jesse, could end up being the thing that does him in?  If he brings it up one more time with Skylar, that only brings to the forefront yet again how he’s bragging about people wanting to kill him all the time.  And the eagle-eyed detective Hank definitely took notice in their meeting at the beginning.

 - I didn’t mention this in the first half of my write-up this week, but I’m really intrigued by the position that Jesse keeps finding himself in, between the two powerhouses of Mike and Walt, and often in relation to the unreliable, radioactive Lydia.  When Lydia discovers the GPS unit on the bottom of the precursor barrel, Jesse buys her story, but Mike sees it as the result of a long-running pattern of behavior that he now intends to put an end to.  Walt could go either way, it turns out, but both men are men bending their colder instincts as a result of their association with Jesse.  And even though it turns out that Jesse is right after all, I get the distinct impression that the elder partners in this business relationship would rather that they were done with Lydia once and for all.  And business-wise, that definitely makes more sense.  She’s just a liability right now.  Her usefulness, after any train heist inside info is no longer relevant, is negligible at best.  And I think as time goes on, a lot of things are going to have to be decided solely on the basis of their validity, business-wise.  And that’s the smart, if not humane, way to play it.

- Which is actually a pretty nice segue to what everyone is surely talking about this week: the ending of this episode!  We know that Todd, the young go-getter from the pest squad, has shown dedication and promise.  What we didn’t know was that he has the uncanny ability to assess a situation, and act in the most prudent, efficient manner to take care of that situation.  (Side note: who else was so on the edge of their seat from the big heist setpiece of this episode that they forgot about the enigmatic teaser at the beginning of the episode?  Well, me, for one.)  Now, as a result of Todd acting on his own here (or, as, I’m sure, Walt and Jesse are going to be explaining to Mike) there are going to be some pretty serious consequences.

- All of the sudden, Jesse, the idea man, and Walt, the brilliant strategist who’s always got a plan, are presented for the first time (post-Fring, at least) with a true x-factor, completely outside of their control.  If some homeless vagrant wandering the desert disappears, that’s something that might get some media attention, and then it will blow over, assuming that the body is able to be disposed of with enough care.  But this is an otherwise innocent kid who is, I assume, going to be going missing.  There are going to be search parties, and community vigils, and police involvement.  This is a huge deal.

- In the coming episodes, we are really going to see the stuff that our favorite meth crew antiheroes are made of -- what kind of leader Walt really is, if Jesse is really going to have a conscience, if Mike is going to tolerate this kind of garbage for one more second before wisely hitting the bricks out of town.  And what will happen to Todd?  Again, looking at it from a practical perspective, he made the right call.  There is literally no other way to handle the situation that would make sense and maintain the anonymity and tracelessness of their plan.  You can’t pay a kid off and get him to leave town.  You can’t kidnap him or scare him off.  I mean, it’s possible that the kid might have gone on his way and thought nothing of what he may or may not have just witnessed.  But in the meth game, there is no room for that kind of variable.

 - Jesse isn’t necessarily going to agree with that line of reasoning, though.  I have a crazy feeling that the next episode is going to pick up seconds after the end of this one.  I’ve got a sick feeling in my stomach just thinking about it.  I can’t wait to see it.

Jon: Since Mike's already did a wonderful job of laying out all the key events in "Fifty-One" and "Dead Freight," plus we're super late with this recap (totally my fault!), I'm just going to dive right in and talk about the good stuff, of which there was plenty. Together, these two episodes encompass what I love about this show: nuanced character development excised with stage-worthy performances and intense, well-crafted action that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Week 4 brought us an hour light on action, but bursting with individual character moments and evolutions. Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper and last year's great Breaking Bad episode "The Fly") returned to the director's chair for"Fifty-One" and his fingerprints are all over it. There are top-notch performances from everyone, but special kudos must go to Anna Gunn for her scenes this time out because this was a Skyler episode. I've never been much of a big fan of her work on the show, but her dead-eyed blankness of late is perfectly rendering Skyler's feelings of dread to the audience. The pool sequence was a highlight for both Gunn and Johnson, and having reached her breaking point, Skyler has at least for the time being given in to much of Walt's demands. But she'll not have the kids near him or the house until things changed and she's declared an open rebellion on him until further notice. And, oh my, has that been fun to watch thus far or what? Gotta love it when she sits in the living room puffing away on cigarette after cigarette and starts ashing in Walt's happy 51st b-day mug.

Meanwhile, the highlights the following week were all action and suspense, and some of the very best Breaking Bad has ever delivered. The homefront scenes with Walt Jr... er, Flynn were a little on the weak side, but when your antiheroes decide to rob a train in the most fantastic locomotive heist scene in television history later in the episode, you can let that slide a bit.

I love that Jesse once again is the impetus for another crazy, science-based caper (liquid, bitch!). And Walt's continuous ability to push the envelop into the danger zone was maddening. Really, every moment of that long heist was amazing; total edge-of-your-seat work by all involved. And then that last scene. Man. There's just no way not to be totally devastated by that, is there? But that too was great on many levels. Just another example of why this show is such a must-watch each week.

And, Mike, here's where you and I differ a little bit. Yes, Todd may have arrived at the same conclusion the group would've ultimately come to in his split-second decision in the episode's closing moments, but shit, bro -- that's cold! Jesse may have a mild reaction compared to what I was going through after watching that. I can't go as far as you and chalk that little guy up to a mere casualty of the meth biz. I was completely floored when it happened; blood boiling and all. It was the most shocked I'm been by this show since Jane's sudden demise back in season 2. Now, a lot of that had to do with my perception of Jesse Plemmons from FNL (here was my initial reaction), but it was still shocking nonetheless. How the group deals with Todd's actions is going to be fascinating because I have no clue how it will all shake out. Does Todd meet a quick end? Will Jesse turn him in to the authorities? Does Walt protect him, keeping him as his new little henchman? So many possibilities.

Speaking of possibilities, I don't think I've made any wild predictions for things to come later this season thus far in our recaps, but I'm in the mood to do so in another area this time around. I was especially intrigued by Walt and Lydia's exchange as Jesse and Mike waited up above. I'm probably grasping at straws here, but with his marriage souring by the hour, Walt seems poised to make for a romantic push at some point soon. He got into cooking in order to provide for his family, but that's falling apart and he's clearly more interested in obtaining more power than he is merely profiting from his criminal activities these days. If Skyler is able to keep brushing his advances aside, I could totally see him making a move on Lydia. She'll obviously only have any interest in him in terms of saving her own skin, but if she continues to play the "brilliant chemist" card she flashed in "Dead Freight," I can see Walt taking the next step toward her. Sexual conquest is one of the few power trips Walt hasn't realized as he's descended further into his Heisenberg persona. Like I said, I'm grasping at straws; but a boy can dream, can't he?

Anyway, we'll be back soon and plan to return to the old schedule for the last handful of eps for the first half of this final season. Til next time...

Previous Breaking Bad season 5 roundtables: 
Week 1 - "Live Free Or Die"
Week 2 - "Madrigal"
Week 3 - "Hazard Pay"

BREAKING BAD - "Hazard Pay"

Welcome to a roundtable discussion of this week's episode of Breaking Bad from your friendly neighborhood LowBrowMedia savants.

This is a spoiler-heavy zone. You have been warned.

Jon: Another solid installment of our favorite chefs this time out, but in terms of episode recapping, nothing enormous happened in week 3; mostly this was just table-setting for what I'm sure will be typical Breaking Bad craziness later on this season. What I mean by that is there was lots of minutia on how Walt and Jesse will be cooking their blue meth for the foreseeable future. Great to watch, but not that interesting to talk about, really. The gist of it is they're going to forgo having a traditional laboratory, and instead will employ a roving lab temporarily set up in pest-infested homes with the help of shady Terminx-type dudes. Frankly, it's a pretty ingenious plan and severely reduces the chances of their getting busted, but there does seem that it's only a matter of time before a cockroach or other vermin may contaminates a batch at some point. I'm sure hilarity will ensue if that comes to pass.

One moment of significance did occur during the cook, when Walt continued with his manipulative ways while the two were waiting for the meth to finish cooking. After seeing how close Jesse and Andrea were becoming again earlier in the episode (a scene that also contained the most awkward stare imaginable between Brock and his poisoner), Walt convinces Jesse under the guise of fatherly advice about commitment to break it off with her to further his own interests, all while making Jesse believe it was his idea in the first place. The cook turns out to be a successful one, and the two seem pleased with themselves after they leave the tented house.

Getting back into production has generated their cashflow once more, but the total is not to Walt's liking. Mike divvies up the mullah in plain sight  of all and, by the end, there is less than half left of what Walt thought he was going to get to take home. He and Jesse's product yield is lower than it was while working out of Gus' lab, plus they have tons of overhead now in paying off Saul, dug mules and "legacy" members (aka the 9 of the 11 guys left Lydia was trying to off last week), which lowers their payday considerably. Walt had not considered either of these factors when their payday arrives. After making his displeasure known, Mike responds with the line of the season thus far: "Just because you shot Jesse James, doesn't make you Jesse James." It looks as though Walt will try to find a way to usurp Mike's authority once he figures out a method of replacing what he brings to the group, which is basically everything aside from the actual product.


Meanwhile, on the homefront, Skyler continues to veer off the deep end of sanity. Just when she thinks things can't get any worse than they already are, they do. The culprit this week? Walt's moving back into the house unannounced. This leads to a scene at the car wash at Marie (hey, remember her?) where Skyler officially snaps, screaming "SHUT UP!" repeatedly. This had the rare effect of actually getting Marie to stop talking for 10 seconds. She takes Skyler home to sleep off her panic attack and waits for Walt to return from cooking. When he finally arrives, she's ready to let him have it and get to the bottom of what's going on with her sister. But Walt turns the tables on her quickly. I don't think he actually lied about anything during this exchange. He just dropped a hint here and there, and let Marie's imagination do the rest. Next thing you know, he's out of her line of sight and she'll focus her well-intentioned but ultimately misguided wrath at Skyler instead.

Of course the big news of the week was introduction of Lance... er, I mean, Landry from Friday Night Lights! Better known in the real world as Jesse Plemmons, he'll be playing Todd, who will... well, I don't know yet, but he'll do something memorable before long. And for those you unfortunate folks that have not treated yourselves to FNL, you are going to be pleased by what he's able to bring to a scene. He's one of the pest-control burglars, capable of spotting and disabling nanny cams. In other words, he could be useful to Walt.

For as long as I can remember, I've been drawn to books, movies, shows, etc., where the criminal is, if not the hero of the story, the focus of the it. It's one of the many reasons I enjoy Breaking Bad as much as I do. But one movie I have never gotten around to seeing is Brian De Palma's Scarface with Al Pacino from 1983. And even though I haven't seen it, basically everyone knows it's the story of the rise to power and thunderous collapse of a drug lord. So deep into this week's episode when an increasingly horror-stricken Skyler walks into the living room to find Walt watching the end of the movie with their two children (yes, including their little baby girl), I couldn't help but connect Walt and his big bad machine gun we saw in the season premiere's cold open to a coke-infused drug kingpin Tony Montana blowing the shit out of everything in his sight. Obviously their paths are incredibly different, but each season we've seen Walt come closer to becoming the top dog in the southwestern U.S. meth landscape. Judging by his continued displeasure with his current situation, it stands to reason he'll keep cutting through anyone in his way until he's able to call all the shots. Any guesses as to which person will Walt's little friend be saying hello to in the coming weeks?

Mike:  Here’s my take, in conveniently hyphenated bite-sized bullet thought points!

- Mike Ehrmantraut, the hardest-working man in “loss prevention,” is really hustling this entire episode.  That’s the thing about him, though.  He knows exactly what needs to happen, and he’s got a plan as to how to accomplish that.  This is, of course, due to his many years on the job doing things that required some pretty fancy footwork in order to keep everything running.  So, if I was in business with him, I would pretty much let him do his thing.   Walt’s already got a problem with letting Mike handle the business, simply because he apparently thinks that he can do better.  Well, he’s done fine so far, but only through an incredibly disproportionate dumb-luck-to-smarts ratio. If he takes Mike out, as he’s getting ready to manipulate Jesse into getting behind by the end of the episode, we’ll just have to see how smoothly this whole operation will run.

- That said, I’ve got to wonder about the whole process of making the former employees of Gus Fring “whole.”  To me at least, it seemed as if it was presented to Walt like an ongoing concern.  I can’t help but wonder if Walt might have handled the bad financial news better if they looked it as a loan that needed to pay off, and then profits would be back up to a higher level.  Now, something like $20 million in makegoods (by my calculations, there are 12 people on the list including Mike’s granddaughter, minus the two dead guys from last week, multiplied by $2 million a piece) is nothing to sneeze at.  But at least it’s a goal to move towards.  I can imagine that seeing those stacks of bills get decimated as each piper gets paid has got to hurt.

- But Walt has to keep the long view.  (OR DOES HE?)  It just doesn’t make sense that Walt wouldn’t see the wisdom in Mike’s business sense.  (OR DOES IT?)  Maybe, just maybe, Walt doesn’t really see much of a future for himself.  But then, if his cancer is back, as I honestly and truthfully do believe it is, what is he working towards?  It can’t be as “pure,” relatively speaking, as it was when he started out.  I’m sure we’ll be seeing and hearing more on this during that big 51^st birthday celebration that his wife and sister-in-law are planning for him.  We’ve all seen how Walt likes to celebrate poolside with his family -- drunk, swaggering, and belligerent.

- Man, oh, man.  Though Walt and Jesse’s plan for using a series of about-to-be-fumigated houses to cook meth is pretty brilliant, the image that has stuck with me all week is the fumes being ventilated right near the kids’ swingset.  Wasn’t Jesse in trouble a few seasons ago because, essentially, once you use a house to cook meth in, it leaves poisonous residue, and renders the house unlivable, or at the very least extremely dangerous to live in?  Just another way that Walt infests and kills everything around him.  Just think, who could have foreseen that just because he watched a young woman OD/choke to death, a devastating plane crash would occur which would affect the entire community?  The dominoes, I believe, are stacking up and are going to fall down hard.

- The series of scenes where Saul took Jesse, Mike, and Walt to all the prospective meth cooking sites was wonderful.  Poor Saul, he’s working so hard for these guys.  Would it be so bad to say “thanks” once in a while?  Just look at these knuckleheads, working together for the common good:

 - A lot of favorite incidental characters reappared for the first time this season, too.  Skinny Pete shows some business acumen, while Badger seems to have been correctly nicknamed, if badgers are lumpy, dense, and oafish.  (Actually, I’m pretty sure they’re not.)  I still haven’t mentioned the return of Saul’s bodyguard Huell!  You gotta love all the noise he makes when he breathes.  Finally, as Jon mentions above, we’ve got Jesse Plemons joining the cast this week as an up-and-coming fumigator with an eye for security systems.  I’m really looking forward to seeing what he adds to the mix.

- Also, a lot of movement this week with Jesse's personal relationship, as well as Marie and Skyler butting heads and Walt continuing his truth-telling and gameplaying.  I'm not going to get into them too deeply right now, but these are important things that are going to have huge consequences this season.  Though this was another one of those table-setting episodes in a lot of ways, I’m cool with the table-setting.  I can wait.  I know it’ll be worth it when it all blows up in Walt’s face.

See you next week!

Previous Breaking Bad season 5 roundtables: 
Week 1 - "Live Free Or Die"
Week 2 - "Madrigal"

BREAKING BAD - "Madrigal"

Welcome to a roundtable discussion of this week's episode of Breaking Bad from your friendly neighborhood LowBrowMedia savants.

This is a spoiler-heavy zone. You have been warned.

Jon: The second week of season 5 is still dealing with the fallout from last season's finale. We're discovering that Gus spun an incredibly intricate web of an operation and his absence is causing catastrophes for just about everyone in his world aside from Walt and Jesse. But this is one of those episodes of a series that pushes its main characters off to the stage and gives the limelight to a sideline player. This time, the honor finally goes to Mike, Gus's blunt, methodically efficient hitman who I've always found impossible not to love.

His hatred from Walt continues to be unwavering, this despite an appeal from Walt and Jesse to become an equal partner in their future dealings. As far as our two main characters are concerned, they need him as much as he needs them. But Mike disagrees. Every time he looks at Walt, the scowl we see is the result of  hearing tick, tick, tick. To Mike, he is a walking timebomb, and it's only a matter of time until he explodes. Aside from Skyler, Mike's the only one who realizes just how dangerous Walt has become.

We've never been given much of a backstory for Mike, and we don't yet get a complete one here, but it's becoming clear he was the closest thing Gus had to a right-hand man. When heat starts raining down on Gus's associates in the wake of Hank's investigation, one top executive at a company called Madrigal commits suicide in imaginative fashion at the company's headquarters in Germany instead of speaking with authorities. Turns out Madrigal is the parent company of Los Pollos Hermanos. Clearly this Mr. Shuler had, at minimum, a deep financial connection with Fring's narcotic ring, and judging by the demands of a very freaked-out Lydia later on in the episode, he wasn't the only one at Madrigal with a finger in the blue-meth pie. Speaking of Lydia, she's a stateside Madrigal exec of some importance and attempts to enlist Mike to clean up the loose ends of Los Pollos Hermanos before those threads are traced back to the two of them. He refuses and hands back her list of 11 names to her.

But this is before Hank and Gomez ask him to come in for a little talk. Overconfident that the DEA duo has nothing substantial on him, he taunts them and appears to have won the battle of one-liners before heading to the interrogation room door. Just then, Hank pulls out his trump card -- a pile of cash to the tune of $2 million in the name of Mike's granddaughter hidden away in one of those Cayman Island bank accounts listed discovered in the picture frame from Gus' office last week. Mike had mentioned a fondness for a granddaughter in a previous season, and we get to meet her in all her Hungry Hippo domination this time around. So it's not completely out of nowhere that he did this and, frankly, it's hard to blame him for allowing little Kaylee to be his lone weak spot. But with Hank and Gomez keying in on it, it tosses him back into the Madrigal shitstorm he was trying to lay low from.

Turns out Lydia didn't shake the idea of offing the 11 people on her list and lured one of the others in the group to take care of them and adding Mike to the list. But somehow this lady isn't aware that good 'ol Mikey is THE MAN and snuffs out the would-be assassin's plan first. Mike pays a visit to Lydia's home next, and I was completely convinced that that was going to be the last we saw of her. But between her pleading, her being a single mom and the realization that she could help him obtain methylamine, a suddenly scare chemical Walt and Jesse are in need of to cook again. So now Mike is reluctantly back in the fold with Walt against his better judgement.

Meanwhile, on the sideline, we learn what Walt did with the ricin shot he concocted -- he still has it, and stashed it behind an electric socket faceplate. Only a matter of time until he has a need for it at this point. Concurrently, he makes a placebo vile of salt so a panicked Jesse will calm down once he knows the poison has been disposed of and can't hurt another innocent like he believed had happened with Brock. The two tear apart Jesse's house looking for it in a very intriguingly shot montage, before Walt plants it in the path of the Roomba roaming the floors.

Jesse had little to do again this week aside from opine for the Crystal Ship's return, although Aaron Paul gave a marvelous performance in the moments after discovering the misplaced "toxic" cigarette as Jesse breaks down and apologizes to Walt for nearly killing him (which obviously he was spot on about) and solidifying his position as the conscious of Breaking Bad. The very existence of this intense friendship is completely due to Walt's manipulations at this point, but it's still hard not to enjoy just how great of a bond the two of them have right now. It won't last since I'm sure Walt will slip up at some point about Brock's poisoning, but that doesn't mean a part of me doesn't like their closeness while it lasts.

Not fooled by Walt's duplicitous sweet-talk, however, is Skyler. She's completely frozen by her fear of Walt and the monster he has become, not even able to muster the energy to get out of bed for days. And, my god, Walt even out-creeped himself past last week as he consoled her with unwanted kisses to her shoulder. It's almost impossible to root for him on any level after watching him engage in this behavior. But that also happens to be the most fascinating aspect of this show -- the steady devolution from mild mannered high school chemistry teacher to master crimelord.

The other moment from "Madrigal" that stuck out was Hank's soon-to-be ex-boss, recalling how Gus had joined his family at his home for meals and wonderful conversations, yet lamented "the whole time he was somebody else completely, right in front of me, right under my nose." Those words are likely going to mirror how Hank feels when he discovers Walt's crimes before the series comes to a close. I have no doubt about that happening, and I expect how he deals with that revelation to be especially riveting when it comes to pass.

Man. This show just doesn't stop even when it slows down, does it, fellas? Hit me up with your reactions.

Mike: Okay, then -- here is what I thought of this week’s “Breaking Bad” in quick, bite-sized format:

- Hilariously bleak cold open.  I’m actually really glad that it wasn’t another flash-forward to whatever Walt is up to in the future, what with the hair, and the guns, and the 52^nd birthday.  That will keep.  I’ll just say this, then -- “Breaking Bad” seems to have an endless vocabulary in the way of visiting indignities upon characters, and I love every minute of it.  I could really use some chicken nuggets right now, but I’ll pass on the Franch sauce.

- This was definitely Mike’s episode.  Being that pretty much any scene with Walt churns my stomach these days, it was a welcome focus.  Now, Mike's a paragon of prudence, he’s just as careful as his old boss Gus was, business-wise, and only works with people that he’s “vetted” and who can be trusted.  Not to mention that they have been well-compensated in case of any trouble.  But since Walt’s little magnetic mishap last episode simultaneously ruined a bunch of evidence (that was probably going to be inaccessible anyways) while introducing valuable, game-changing data to the tune of a dozen or so secret Caymans bank accounts, now that compensation is gone.  And the noose slips a little bit tighter.

- Well, every man has his soft spot, even one so guarded as Mike Ehrmantraut.  His is a little girl named Kaylee.  I think we first saw Mike’s granddaughter when he bought the balloons that he used to short-circuit the warehouse way back in the season three finale.  And when Hank “Columbos” Mike in the interrogation room -- you know, the whole, “one more thing…” thing -- thus threatening the monetary insurance policy for his beloved granddaughter, that’s when Mike starts to go against his own rules.  (No half measures, remember, Mike?  Damn it!)  All of the sudden, he’s getting in back in bed with Walt, and not killing Lydia when, let’s face it, it’s pretty much a given that she is going to be trouble.  I hope Mike wises up to his own wisdom sooner or later, or we’re not going to be seeing him in the back half of this season.

- Speaking of the mysterious Lydia, I hope I’m not the only dumbass watching this show who immediately thought that we’re looking at some sort of ex-trophy wife of Gus’.  I mean, I know we’re also supposed to have drawn a few conclusions from the flashback to Don Eladio and Gus’ tenderness towards the missing Pollos Hermano.  But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have started a family after that.  Anyway, there were some mysterious children’s toys spotted in his house a while back that have always stuck in my mind.  Now, whether or not Lydia has a personal connection with Gus, she definitely has a business one.  The Internet consensus seems to be that some have spotted her in the room with the U.S. drug agents and Madrigal executives during this episode.  I’m not so sure.  One thing I am sure of, though, is that she is bad news, and is only going to add to Walt, Jesse and Mike’s woes before she ends up with that promised bullet in her head.  Or worse.

 

- And so on to Walt’s continued calculated manipulation of Jesse.  This week, here’s a classic routine for you: the old “plant the ricin cigarette in the Roomba” gambit.  Works every time.  As a result, and completely on purpose, Walt breaks Jesse’s heart yet again.  And maybe mine, too, a little bit.  At first, I thought that Jesse’s emotional outburst was just explosive relief venting, but in actuality Jesse’s reaction is proof positive that even with everything that’s happened over the past year or so, “Breaking Bad” time, Jesse still has a good heart.  And that Walt has a black one.

- When Jesse called Walt “Mr. White” yet again during his pathetic (in the best possible way) monologue, we’re reminded again, but for perhaps the first time this season, exactly where Jesse sees himself in relation to Walt.  Sure, Jesse might respect Mike, and even regard him as a friend, but it pales in comparison to the nigh paternal regard he holds for Walt.  Until something changes.  And dramatically, it makes sense for that to happen.  Knowing Vince Gilligan and staff, it’s probably just going to happen at the worst possible time.

- Man, so gross!  Speaking of Walt’s psychopathy, is every episode in this half of the season going to end with Walt uncomfortably forcing himself on Skylar, to varying degrees of intimacy?  Nah, probably just the first two.  It’s only a matter of time until she starts coming out of her stupor and facing up to the very few choices that she has: either wise up and get the hell out of there, because Walt is radioactive, or take a page from the Carmella Soprano book of selective cognition and make the best of an awful situation that is only going to continue to spiral downwards.

See you next week, a little further down the spiral!

Previous Breaking Bad season 5 roundtables: 
Week 1 - "Live Free Or Die"

BREAKING BAD - "Live Free Or Die"

Welcome to a roundtable discussion of this week's episode of Breaking Bad from your friendly neighborhood LowBrowMedia savants.

This is a spoiler-heavy zone. You have been warned.

Jon: Gatorade me, bitches! Another season of Breaking Bad is upon us, and sadly, it will be the last. At least AMC has split the 5th season into two parts, so it'll be a while until we reach the end, leaving us plenty of time to savor each glorious moment left. The Mad Men roundtables earlier this year were a lot of fun for us and, judging by the increased spike in the site's traffic, enjoyed by many of you out there as well. Thus, we're planning doing something similar for our favorite meth dealers. Let's get to it.

Is there another show with better cold opens than Breaking Bad? If this season follows the pattern of the last few, we'll continue to follow these future adventures of one Walter White as Vince Gilligan and company slowly reveal them out for us to parse over. We start out with one of the show's staples -- breakfast -- but it's immediately clear that something is amiss as Walt Jr. is nowhere to be seen anywhere in the vicinity of this plate of eggs and bacon. We quickly learn that Walt  isn't there to celebrate his 52nd birthday, but rather to covertly meet up with the black market arms dealer (played by the great Jim Beaver) who sold him that pistol in a hotel room last season. In the clandestine paradise that is a Denny's restroom, he and Walt exchange a fat envelope for a set of keys. These keys open up a new set of wheels for Mr. White, complete with ginormous rifle for who-knows-what. Clearly some length of time has past since current events, as in addition to the return of Walt's hair, he's sporting a thick beard, glasses and is using a fake New Hampshire i.d. This being this show, I'm sure we'll learn things didn't go so hot for Walt and his "current" plans, and he's now forced to take matters into his own hands in predictably extreme measures. Who knows where this will all lead, but I suspect a familiar face will staring down at the other end of that barrel soon enough.

But just as our appetites were whetted by that little tease of the future as much as the glimpses of a Denny's Grand Slam platter, we're re-winded back to the close of season 4, with Walt assuring Skyler on the phone that the war with Gus is over and that he's won (not that she actually knew that was what the security detail was for, but you get my drift). If there was any doubt left that Walt was behind poor little Brock's poisoning last year, it all evaporated as we watched him clear away all signs of his concoction of the toxin from the house, including the Lily of the Valley plant where the powder was derived from. And just as he's about to enjoy some celebratory booze for a crime well covered up, it dawns on him that even after disposing of the poison evidence, killing Gus and setting Gus' lab aflame that there's one loose end -- the security cameras recording their every move. And only one person left knows where those recordings were kept -- Mike, our favorite hitman.

If you recall, Mike had been critically wounded during the Don Eladio massacre and was left in Mexico to recover. He's mostly healed now, living a simple life of feeding chicken in a bathrobe. After getting wind that Gus has been blown to bits, his fury overcomes him and nearly takes down Walt at first sight. Unfortunately for Walt, Jesse and Mike (who are essentially the only three left with anything left to worry about in this), during his inspection of the torched meth lab Hank has also realized that there was likely a security footage feed of the inner workings of the room broadcast somewhere. Only the realization that the existence of this footage could ruin them calms him enough to put aside his murderous rage for the time being, listen to Jesse's pleas and reluctantly work with Walt.

And what's misery for them is a treat for us, as they hatch a plan to eliminate this threat. After establishing they can't just waltz into the precinct and swipe the laptop from the evidence room, an idea emerges from Jesse's infinite wisdom in the "so crazy it just may work" variety -- magnets, yo! And before you assume that a magnet couldn't possibly strike their mark behind two feet of reinforced concrete, keep in mind we live in an age of String Theory and God Particles, so really any cockamamie idea can't be ignored or realized with the power of science behind it. The solution is no mere magnet, however. It's super electro-magnet! With a scheme devised with Old Joe (our favorite junkyard man last seen in season 3) that would make Reed Richards a little jealous, the crew cobbles together a ridiculous amount of batteries to power the junkyard's giant, car-transporting magnet, store it in an old U-Haul truck and park it outside the wall of the evidence room. Let's just say hi-jinks ensue, and it's a safe bet at this point that the hard drive on that laptop is dunzo. (Would it work in real life? Experts seem skeptical, which is close enough to a "yes" for me.)

Ah, but things are never that simple, are they? As the police department re-categorizes the items in evidence room, an old framed photo of Gus and his deceased lover is revealed to have been damaged. Normally this wouldn't be much of anything to take note of, but the astute evidence room officer notices that were a series of words and numbers hidden behind it. Methinks this looks an awful lot like some offshore Cayman Island bank accounts that Mr. Fring had his excess cash tucked away. Before long, our old friend Hank will be following that lead back to Walt and company.


Can you tell I liked this episode? I haven't even mentioned Saul or Skyler yet! But they had plenty to do too (in fact, aside from Marie who didn't appear, Jesse was probably played the least key role this week out of our regulars). Saul drops in on Skyler at the carwash, warning her that the authorities may similarly pay her a visit about Ted. I for one assumed Ted's demise before Huell and Bill Burr last year was the final black comedy moment for the character, but it turns out he survived. Skyler visits him in the hospital, where he appears to have little left to live for considering most of the rest of his life was in shambles before his fall. He still has his kids, however, and pledges to Skyler that he'll never breathe a word of this to the police. It's then that Skyler realizes he's completely horrified by and frightened of her, and basically will do whatever she asks. In a flash, she turns on that same steely, calculated strength Walt channels in this situations over the very real grief she was expressing moments before and simply tells him, "Good."

Later, Walt pays a visit to Saul at his wonderfully over-the-top office (it still cracks me up every time a scene takes place there), where he learns of the Ted situation including the $600K of his money Skyler used to pay him off. A furious Walt stares down Saul into submission after he attempts to quit their business relationship, a moment that's a little hard to believe the man from season 1 would be capable of. Walt's creepy, subdued anger is also dished out on Skyler in the final scene of the episode, where he tells her, "I forgive you." But even though he tells her this in regards to giving Ted the money without his permission, that it happens during a very awkward embrace is all the more chilling. I mean, I'm pretty sure Fredo Corleone wet himself when he heard that line. Just as Saul cow-tows to Walt's wishes out of fear, Skyler is scared too. After the events of "Face Off" to close out season 4, it's not hard to envision just how far Walt would go again if they were to incur his wrath. They both know Walt is no longer a man of half measures, and should rightfully be terrified of him.

So I'm not crazy, right? This episode kicked a lot of ass even if it was chock full of exposition and table setting for the remainder of the show's run. Thoughts? Predictions!



Mike: It's my son's birthday today, and on top of that, I had Internet accessibility problems, but all excuses aside, it's going to have to be brief and to-the-point this week.  So, without any further ado, here are my thoughts on the season premiere of "Breaking Bad," season five:

- What a cold open!  Nice to see Jim Beaver again, and I love his signoff – "Good luck, I guess."  Though a little Internet magic, I was reminded that it was Walt's 50th birthday in the pilot episode.  Which makes this scene, well, exactly two years in the future – as long as Walt's fake ID birthday is the same as his real one.  (Which strikes me as a really bad idea, now that I'm thinking about it.)  We don't know the circumstances that Walt is in, though unless Vince Gilligan completely drops the ball we eventually will.  He's sick again, he's got his hair back, and a beard, and is very clearly not wearing a wedding ring.  He's not up to any good, though he does leave his waitress a very generous tip.

I notice the Heisenberg Swagger is not there in this cold open.  Walt is hunched over, defeated, not quite the "Mr. Chips" of season one, but also not the promised "Scarface" that I'm sure we'll be seeing this entire season.  Events must have taken place to really cut Walt down.  He's getting ready for something that even he isn't sure he'll see the other side of.  But not to worry -- we're seeing Heisenberg's head get just about as inflated as possible in the "present time" segments of the program.  Now, I don't expect a glimpse into the future every episode, because they've already done this in the second season of this fine program.  I wouldn't complain if it became a regular feature most weeks, though.

- I was a little taken aback by how much Jesse is on Walt's side again.  I know that in his eyes, he is has been redeemed to a large degree – mainly because he doesn't know what the audience, if they have been paying any attention at all, knows.  Especially when you take into account the standoff scene with Mike near the beginning of the episode, Jesse is the only reason that Walt doesn't have a gaping hole in his forehead.  (Thinking of that, it also applies to many of the previous seasons as well!)

- Look, Mike's not going to be able tolerate Walt for long, no matter how much he may have come to respect Jesse as a partner.

- I'll say it right now, which isn't to say that it's probably not obvious to even the most casual of "Breaking Bad" viewers: Walt's pride will be his downfall.  I could tangibly feel his blood boil as Walt Jr. glorified his uncle's crimefighting skills in the living room scene.  It's been proposed (on the Internet only, mind you) that Walt Jr.'s inevitable fate lies on the floor of a squalid meth den, ironically telegraphing the efforts of his father.  I don't think that's really going to happen, but it sure would be interesting, to say the least.

- In only the sequentially most recent instance of Walt's pride getting the better of him, he pushes the electromagnet too far, which perhaps takes care of the little laptop problem, but also unwittingly creates a new arena for Hank and his cohorts to investigate -- that of Gus' illegal holdings in a simultaneously Swiss and Cayman Island bank.  If Walt hadn't nudged the power just that much further, he might have been home free, at least for the time being.  But as usual, he is his own worst enemy, and that will ultimately be what does him in.  I don't know how it's going to happen, but I honestly can't wait to see it.



- The final image of Walt, embracing his estranged wife clearly against her will and "absolving" her of her wrongdoing, will stick with me for a while.  But even more horrifying, and nightmare-inducing, is the Ted Beneke hospital scene.  Man, did that guy look awful!  And Skylar's cold, no-nonsense response to his promise that he will not breathe a word about her shady financial dealings indicates to me that she's not so different from her husband, at least not where it really counts.  I'll really be looking forward to seeing her circle the toilet along with Walt this season.

- My prediction: it's going to be a real bloodbath!

See you next week!