Breaking Bad Week: Series Defining Episodes

Breaking Bad has been a series to help define modern television.  It is one of the smartest series to exist to date.  The writing is impeccable, bringing a myriad of literary techniques to the screen.  Not only is the dialogue memorable, but so is the vast amount of symbolism.  The character development is of such high caliber that it becomes obvious how the characters changing has also influenced the show changes.  With that being said, we felt there were certain episodes that changed the course of the series in the most dramatic ways.  Here are our Series Defining Episodes:

7. Blood Money

“Tread lightly.” The quote still sends shivers down my skin. This is the turning point of the series; Hank had just gotten the epiphany (or rather, the epoophany) that Walt had been the Heisenberg all along. Instead of quietly searching through the evidence for any proof, or telling anybody at the DEA, his pride leads him to confront Walt after Walt asks him about the LoJack he sloppily placed on the Chrysler 300. He decks Walt in the face and lets out all his anger to him. We can see the hurt and anger in Hank’s face, but Walt is still calm and in command. He advises Hank that he needs to drop the case, because he has no idea what the Heisenberg is capable of. It sets the rest of the season in motion, and truly marks the beginning of the downfall of the empire – all ironically when Walt is finally out of it. It’s also the end of Jesse and Walt’s relationship. Jesse knows that Walt killed Mike, the only true father figure to him through the series, and we realize that Walt has no power over anybody anymore. He pleads Jesse to believe that his hands are clean, because he needs him to.

6. Face-Off

Gus Fring represented a new type of “bad guy.” Unlike Krazy 8 and Tuco, Gustavo Fring didn’t have to be the villain. Gus gave Walt several opportunities to be a good asset to the business, and Walt was the one that proved to be the the sloppy, unpredictable one. It’s a theme that is consistent through The Walking Dead comics – it’s the realization that maybe our protagonist isn’t a good guy. A lot of fans were polarized by this because Gus Fring (an oddly charismatic character) didn’t have to be the villain, but Walt’s arrogance and greed put Gus in a situation with no choice in the matter. Walt poisons a little boy and throws Jesse right into the fire to save his own ass. He even literally uses Hector Salamanca to do his dirty work in killing Gus. “Face Off” marks Walt’s fall into villainy. While he does what he does out of the fear of his family’s safety, Walt proves that it’s little more than a pissing contest to him, telling Skyler “I won” after the deed was done.

Dafuq??

5. One Minute

This episode is about much more than Hank’s parking lot stand-off with the Salamanca cousins. It marks the turning point for when Hank stopped being a jerk off and became a hero that we all rooted for. Hank Schrader was simply caught in the web that Gus Fring and Walter White had weaved for him. Hank was the sacrificial lamb Gus gave to the cartel hitmen, Marco and Leonel Salamanca, or so it seemed. The episode really showed us that Gus Fring is not simply your neighborhood “Chicken Man.” He is a manipulator, and with the botched attempt at agent Schrader’s life, he causes the death of a major cartel capo. More importantly though, this episode marks Hank’s true cross into lawlessness. The beatdown that he gives Jesse can be interpreted as his frustration that a junkie got the better of him, and not as much being about Marie. As we see later in the series, Hank hates to lose and will bend the law pretty far to make sure that he doesn’t. “One Minute” also captures the tragedy of Jesse; while Jesse undergoes even more tragedy, he never words his feelings quite as honestly as in this episode.

This is how an average day at Wal-Mart ends.

4. Phoenix

“Phoenix” was defining in so many ways.  Walt just missed the birth of his daughter.  He claims to be doing everything he does for his family for the entire series, but it is a rare occurrence when he is actually there for his family.  Missing Holly’s birth continued Walt’s dead-beat daddy routine.   Walt Jr. sets up a website for Walt’s cancer treatment, savewalterwhite.com.  It highlights Jr.’s kind heart and what he thinks of his dad, or probably the man he used to know.  But as so well stated in this episode, Walt is not the man he used to be.  He mars the point of Jr.’s website and allows Saul to use it as a money laundering technique for the meth business.  Walt will continue to ruin nice things for the sake of the money he makes.  Most importantly, “Phoenix” defines the series because of what happens to Jane Margolis, Jesse’s girlfriend.  In the duration of the episode, Jane lies to her father about using again, lies to him about seeing Jesse, blackmails Walt into giving Jesse his fair share of money, and helps Jesse shoot up a combo of meth and heroin.  She shoots up the mixture herself.  Walt goes to Jesse’s house while the two are both passed out due to the drugs.  Walt tries to wake up Jesse, seemingly to talk about his drug abuse, and in the process of shaking him, causes Jane to roll onto her back.  She begins to vomit and choke.  Walt looks on at her with his hand covering his mouth.  He knows he has every opportunity to roll her on to her side, but instead he chooses to let her choke and die on her own vomit.  This act, or rather, lack of act, set in motion not only the pain that Jesse endures from Walt, but the fact that Walt is willing to let go of anybody as long as it benefits him.

I only set my DVR to 60 minutes…

3. Dead Freight

“Dead Freight” is the episode that really changed the game.  Not only was it masterfully pieced together, it influenced the rest of the series up until the tonight’s finale.  With a serious lack of methylamine, Walt, Jesse and Mike devise a plan using Lydia to get what they need.  According to Lydia, there is “an ocean” of the methylamine in trains that run in the northern part of New Mexico.  The three men plan to  rob the train, replacing it with water to make up for the weight difference when the train is weighed.  With Todd, the worker from Vamanos Pest, in tow, they are able to stop the train with a road block.  Todd is at the top of the train with the hose to release the water, Jesse is on the bottom of the train to release the methylamine, Mike is radioing Walt to tell him what is happening at the front of the train and Walt is counting off the gallons.  The train starts moving with Todd still on the top and Jesse still on the tracks.  In the end everything goes off without a hitch.  Except that Walt made it clear to Todd that no one can know what they did.  So after their short celebration, they turn and see a young teenage boy on his motorbike.  Todd without hesitation raises his gun and shoots the boy, killing him.  The episode ends there, with Jesse screaming “No!” but the effects of that one action have continued to take their toll.  Jesse got out of the meth-game because of it, Todd has been revealed to be an even bigger piece of trash since, Walt killed Mike, and Hank is dead.  And it all leads to Walt’s stupidity of trusting Todd at the train heist in the first place.

Dead-eyed Opie son of a bitch

2. The Pilot

In a 45-minute period, we meet a normal high school chemistry teacher, Walter White, who turns into a meth cook.  We saw his life quickly spiral out of control in one episode.  He is diagnosed with cancer, turns 50, quits his part-time job, goes on a meth-lab bust with his DEA brother-in-law, reunites with an old student of his, and decides to cook meth with said student, Jesse Pinkman aka Cap’n Cook.  Walt and Jesse cook meth together, and Jesse takes it to his friend Krazy-8, who was part of the meth bust Walt was a part of.  Krazy-8 is upset with Jesse about the bust for leaving his cousin, Emilio to be caught by the cops, so he questions the high quality of the cook.  Jesse is forced to take the two druggies out to the desert to the RV he and Walt bought to cook meth in.  Jesse lets Walt know they are in danger, promptly trips and Krazy-8 and Emilio beat him up badly.  Then they force Walt to teach them how to cook the meth he made.  Instead, he uses red phosphorus to kill them.  Or at least just Emilio.  There are so many decisions made in this episode that could have avoided the decay of this man everything he touches.  Without being on the car ride with the DEA or seeing Jesse, or decided to cook meth at all, Walt may be dead because of cancer, or he may be alive and just in debt.  But for such a prideful man, we know that he couldn’t live with constantly being at the bottom of the food chain.  His pride alone set in motion the consequences of the rest of Breaking Bad.

My life after Breaking Bad

1. Ozymandias

If you’re a family member of Walt’s, sorry, you don’t get any free trips to Belize. After several offers to off his brother-in-law, Walt’s twisted sense of morality keeps him from taking out his one real threat to him and his empire. Picking up at the end of the shootout that began in “To’hajiilee,” we see a very weak Walter White pleading the Uncle Jack and the Aryans to spare Hank’s life (oh, and Gomey’s dead already). This is the same man who was a hardened criminal that ordered Jack to murder ten men in prison. In a panic, Walt offers Jack and crew $80 million to turn their back. The Aryans counter Walt’s offer by killing Hank and taking all of him money for themselves. Walt’s two treasures are his family and his money – and in just one segment, they are both stripped from him. It’s not as satisfying as I thought it would be, and is instead terrifyingly tragic. In a panic to make his family disappear with the remainder of the cash that Todd convinced Jack to leave him with, Skyler deduces that Hank is dead and that it is Walt’s fault. When Skyler and Walt get in a tuft over the kitchen knife, Walter Jr. becomes the man that must protect the family from the man that protects this family (cue Inception music. Baauumm!). Not to mention Walt’s ultimate sacrifice of absolving Skyler and saying goodbye to baby Holly, who he realizes he does not even know due to his exploits of the Heisenberg. Plot aside, there is so much symbolism in this episode, most of it stemming from the first cook. The call-backs to the Pilot remind us of a simpler time, a simpler lie. Walt has been broken by Hank’s murder, and in turn, his wife and child have abandoned him. “Ozymandias” does a superb job of making a full-circle to the beginning of the series. Not too be hyperbolic, but this is one of the best episodes of any drama. Ever.

Tonight is the last episode of the Breaking Bad.  How will our lives go on?  There is nothing on cable as high of caliber of writing.  Vince Gilligan, sir, you spoiled us.  Thank you for such a rollercoaster of emotion through your writing.  “Felina” an anagram for finale and the chemical symbols for Iron, Lithium and Sodium or as the internet has deemd it, Blood, Meth, Tears will surely by the final piece of the puzzle of “Growth, Decay, Transformation.”  Be sure to read our recap and review later tonight.

Written by Adrian Puryear and Sherif Elkhatib

Breaking Bad Week – Top Quotes

The dialogue in Breaking Bad is the baseline for what makes the show so enjoyable.  It’s smart and funny.  It is packed with a lot a punch.  There are very few things that are said that don’t mean more than what it first appears as.  It is also one of the most quoted pieces of modern pop-culture.  It suddenly doesn’t seem inappropriate to yell “Bitch!” at someone or gruffly tell them to “apply yourself.”  It was difficult to narrow the list to only seven, as there are so many great ones,  but we felt these were the best of the best.

7. How Walt Lives His Life: 

“To hell with your cancer. I’ve been living with cancer for the better part of a year. Right from the start, it’s a death sentence. That’s what they keep telling me. Well, guess what? Every life comes with a death sentence, so every few months I come in here for my regular scan, knowing full well that one of these times – hell, maybe even today – I’m gonna hear some bad news. But until then, who’s in charge? Me. That’s how I live my life.” – Walter White

This may be the most honest Walt has been the entire series, and it was to a total stranger in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. He is angry he has cancer, but that has never let him hold back in the two years we have known him. While it seems like an inspirational quote on the surface, Walt has lost the desire to live, and he really doesn’t care when the cancer comes back. At points in the timeline, Walt actually wishes that the cancer would come back; he has enough money to leave his family. Walt’s Heisenberg alter-ego is his way of coping with the cancer. He’s created this “big bad” persona that always has an answer to an issue that arrives, the anti-Walt, if you will, but it’s really just a coping mechanism that helps him feel in control of his cancer.

6. The Chemistry Must be Respected:

Walt: “You believe I have some proprietary kind of selfishness about my own formula? Some sort of overweening pride that you think simply overwhelms me, clouds my judgment?”
Gus: “But it doesn’t?”
Walt: “Absolutely not. I simply respect the chemistry. The chemistry must be respected.”

What a smug asshole. He could have been out of the game cleanly right here.

In this scene, Walt finds out that Jesse has been entrusted in taking over Gus’ operation and been manufacturing Walt’s signature blue meth. Offended by this, Walt convinces Gus that Jesse is nothing but a burn-out junkie that must be “supervised” during cooks and that a quality of “more or less that he has come to expect” is still not Heisenberg Level (although, technically, Heisenberg level is only 92%). Walt gets very snobby and denies that there is any conceit in his words, but simply that he is so in love with Chemistry that he could not bear to have this product cooked by anybody less-deserving. Gus cleverly sees right through all the bullshit, as he was just letting Jesse cook the product to lure Walt back. Gus shows Walt the lab and convinces Walt that he needs to be a man and provide for his family, forever setting Walt back on the bad path for the remainder of the show.

5. ASAC Schrader is Really the Smartest Guy We Know:

“You want me to beg? You’re the smartest guy I ever met, and you’re too stupid to see—he made up his mind ten minutes ago.” – ASAC Hank Schrader

It was silly for Walt to ever think that he could pay the Aryan’s off when they still had the opportunity to sack a DEA agent, who they know would have gotten them all arrested eventually.  Hank knew that with these types of criminals, when they have that chance and get 80 million dollars for free, they are going to jump on it.  And his words to Walt were the things we all have wanted to say to Walt.  He is so smart, but the entire show has been too stupid to see… well pretty much everything. His judgment has always been clouded by his family or his pride. And as we find out, he cannot have both.

4. You Knew the “Empire Business” Would Make the Cut:

“Jesse, you asked me if I was in the meth business or the money business. Neither. I’m in the empire business.” – Walter White

So back to the pride thing… Walt’s still butt-hurt that Gretchen and Elliott “screwed” him out of Grey Matter Technologies, a company that Walt helped build, but ultimately walked out on because of some weird relationship with he and Gretchen. Anyway, his own pride kept him from staying with Gray Matter and his own pride is what keeps him as Heisenberg. When Drew Sharp is murdered, it’s the end for Mike and Jesse. They want to sell the methylamine and be done for good, something that they are well-justified in doing after dissolving the body of a teenager. Walt has this delusion that the drug empire he has built will be a fair substitute for the one that he missed out on with Gretchen, and refusing to give up the methylamine to Jesse and Mike add one more crack to the mirror image of Walter White.

3. You Also Knew “Say My Name” Would Make the Cut:

Walt: “Now, say my name”
Declan: “Heisenberg”
Walt: “You’re God damn right.”

Who’s the bitch now?!

There goes that pride thing again! At this point in the series, Walt has a major hard-on for himself. He’s murdered the drug kingpin of Albuquerque and established himself as the all-powerful Heisenberg, with a ruthlessness as fine-tipped as his product. After convincing a hesitant Mike to make a new deal for the methylamine, Walt meets up with Declan, the kingpin of Phoenix. We don’t know anything about Declan, but we do know that Phoenix is supposed to be a bigger player than ABQ in the meth game, so this dude is a big deal. Walt doesn’t care; he’s taken on the Cartel for Christ’s sake. He nixes the original deal and tells Declan, a presumably-dangerous man Walt has never met, that he now works for him. When Declan laughs at the idea, not knowing who Walt is, Walt elaborates. “I’m the man that killed Gus Fring.” Ahhh, snaps! He proceeds to make Declan his bitch by making him say Walt’s street name.

2. It’s How We All Feel, Jesse:

“I am not turning down the money! I’m turning down you! You get it?! I want nothing to do with you! Ever since I met you, everything I ever cared about is gone! Ruined, turned to shit, dead, ever since I hooked up with the great Heisenberg!” – Jesse Pinkman

Jesse sees things more clearly, even if it’s through one eye.

It’s a surprise that this quote only comes half-way through the third season. Jesse had been through a lot up to that point, losing both Combo and Jane, not to mention having murdered a man. And while Walt saved him from Hank at the junkyard, there was nobody around to stop Hank from beating the ever-living crap out of Jesse at his own home. In what some could call a two-season long bitch-fest, Jesse breaks down in his hospital bed and refuses to work with Walt ever again. It’s a tragic statement so vivid that, no matter how you end up feeling about Jesse (we love him, btw), you can’t help but feel sorry for him. He has had everything taken away from him since beginning his time working with Walt. Unfortunately, money overrules foresight, as Jesse goes back to work with Walt. As everybody in Breaking Bad will eventually discover, this quote applies to more than just Jesse.

1. Knock, Knock. Who’s there?:

“You clearly don’t know who you’re talking to, so let me clue you in: I am not in danger, Skyler. I am the danger. A guy opens his door and gets shot, and you think that of me? No! I am the one who knocks!” – Walter White

If there was one line of Breaking Bad that sums up the entire show, it’s this one right here. Skyler wakes up Walt and asks him about Gale Boetticher, she is frightened at the notion that the people Walt work with killed Gale and may do the same to Walt. She is sincerely worried about Walt and her family, pleading with Walt to turn himself in, that he was obviously in need of help and in way too deep. Walt, not one to allow anybody to make him seem weak, barks back at Skyler and makes himself look like a cold-hearted killer. In essense, his own arrogance destroys a family dynamic that was barely there in the first place.

Thanks for reading our Top Breaking Bad quotes. There was so many more we wanted to add, but we didn’t want to double dip moments by mentioning them more than once in our Breaking Bad Week articles. Stay tuned tomorrow for our Funniest Breaking Bad Moments article in the meantime (isn’t it hard to remember a time when this show was actually funny?), but in the mean time, let us know what your favorite quote from the show was below!

All photos and videos courtesy of AMC Television

Breaking Bad Week – Character Defining Moments (SPOILERS!)

A greatness of a show is best defined by its characters. What they experience adds to the gravity of the situations they are in. Some characters in the show grow, while some characters simply show the same nature throughout the show. While we realize we could do this for many more characters, we wanted to the severity of each defining moment to really be one that makes you identify with the series just as well as with the character. Plus, we had to keep with the theme of sevens. Also keep in mind that we were very torn with some of these, and even crossed out a few that were the top selection but appear elsewhere in our Breaking Bad Week articles. Make sure you vote for your favorite Character Defining Moments in the polls below each character. In alphabetical order, here we go:

Gustavo Fring: Poisoning himself to kill Don Eladio

Gus has always been a professional, at and away from a deep fryer. Always cold and calculating, Gus seems to have a contingency for everything that goes awry. Which is why he clashes with Walt and Jesse’s reckless actions throughout season three and four. After managing to separate the two chaotic partners, he ends up putting Jesse under the wing of Mike, his right-hand man and prepares to take Jesse to Mexico to teach the Cartel how to cook the blue; when the Cartel says that they will be keeping Jesse in Mexico, Gus does not flinch. He then negotiates with Don Eladio to ease troubled relations in the fallout of the Juan Bolsa/DEA attack. Gus seems compliant, even toasting the mended relationship with Zafireo Anejo tequila (like $8000 a bottle, yo!). As the cartel celebrates their victory, Gus quietly excuses himself to the restroom, lays out a towel in front of the toilet and then vomits. It turned at that the tequila was poisoned. As Gus returns to the party, most of the Cartel members have already succumbed to the poison. Gus gets his personal revenge on Don Eladio, but, not completely evacuated of the poison, doubles over. In almost-Shakespearean fashion, he tells the remaining people to “fill your pockets and leave in peace, or fight me and die!” What a total badass.

Captioned photo courtesy of vh1.com

Honorable Mention: In “Hermanos,” Gus and his chicken partner (AKA gay lover) Max present their case to Don Eladio in Mexico to pitch the idea of cooking methamphetamine for the Cartel. When conversation turns sour and Max begins pleading for Gus’ safety, Hector Salamanca draws his gun and shoots Max in the back of the head. This callous act puts Gus on a trajectory that he might not have been on otherwise. Max was the cook and Gus was the “Chicken Man.” Now, with hatred in his heart, Gus became the heartless killer that took down the entire Cartel.

Hank Schrader: “My name is ASAC Schrader, and you can go fuck yourself”

Hank is the character that, in my opinion, experienced the most growth in the five seasons we’ve known him. From the guy who was the joke of the DEA, Hank has worked his way up the ranks to become a high-ranking officer and very capable detective. His life was his work, whether or not he was in the right of the law. Knowing that admitting to the office that his own family was the Heisenberg that had been avoiding him all this time, Hank was willing to give up his career to get the proof he needs to put Walt away for good. While he certainly avoids treading lightly, he goes out with such resolve that you actually end up hating Walt for it, even though he tried everything possible to stop it. Hank dies a hero and that’s more of an honor than any other dead person can say on this show.

Ain’t nobody put Hank in the corner.

Honorable Mention: When I say that Hank is ready to give up his career to catch the Heisenberg, I mean that Hank is willing to break the law in order to do so. He takes Walt, a civilian, on his ride-alongs to get evidence on Gus, not to mention the tracking devices he places (without warrant or DEA knowledge) on Gus and Walt’s car. He follows Mike around without a warrant, to the point where Saul has to intervene and remind him how illegal it is. And in the few episodes where he finally catches Walt at To’hajiilee, he: bugs Walt’s house without a warrant, lies to Huell and places an officer at his door to keep him from leaving, and stealing police evidence to work on at home.

Jesse Pinkman: Problem dog speech/NA blow-up

Quite the antithesis of Hank, Jesse has experienced the most decay throughout the series. Who was once a silly high-school burnout, Jesse has undergone so much personal tragedy. He’s been kicked out and abandoned by his family, he’s had one of his best friends killed and woke up next to his lover dead, not to mention that he’s had his ass beat several times. More damaging, though, he killed a man who was pretty innocent, in the scene of things. So going into season four, he is a fucking hot mess. His one release comes in the form of Narcotics Anonymous meetings. While he is also hustling recovering addicts to sell them meth on the side, he genuinely feels like he can talk about his pain. However, when he compares the murder of Gale to putting down a “problem dog,” the other members refuse to relieve him of responsibility, sending a hurting Jesse on the defensive and telling everybody that he is just there to sell them meth. In turn, he shuts down the one door he had towards emotional recovery and never really gets better.

You’re nothing to me but customers! I made you my bitch! You okay with that? Huh? You accept?

Honorable Mention: More tragedy… After the start of season five, Jesse looks to be bouncing back. He has come up with some ingenious plans with magnets, and the train heist. Down to all the tiny details (including the fluid density differences), Jesse is proving himself to be a valuable commodity. And it has to be noted that he does all of this without any violence. That is, until Todd AKA Toddfuck AKA Meth Damon decides it’s a good idea to shoot little 14 year old Drew Sharp for stumbling upon them in the desert. Jesse is crushed. Like Gonzo crushed. It’s this incident that gets Jesse permanently out of cooking, but unfortunately not out of the game. It’s fun to imagine what would have been if Jesse had continued growing with Mike believing in him, and not the snowball of shit that played out.

Mike Ehrmantraut: “No more half measures”

Mike is always the coolest cucumber in the room, but it’s not too hard to believe that he can lose his cool from time to time. In a speech to Walt about risking getting into business with Jesse, still on drugs, he tells the account of a domestic violence case. In the story, he speaks of his big man who would beat his tiny wife and every weekend, she would beg them not to arrest him and that she was afraid of him. One night, when Mike’s partner is out sick, he takes this man into the middle of nowhere and puts a gun in his mouth, threatening the man that, “So help me if you ever touch her again I will such and such and such and such and blah blah blah blah blah.” When he releases the man, he murders his wife two weeks later. The moral of the story is to take no half-measures. It’s the realization that Mike is inherently a good guy, but more so that he is willing to go to extraordinary lengths to ensure his job is complete – which we infer that Mike had, in turn, murdered the man and broke bad.

Honorable Mention: With Walt planning to murder Gus, he thinks he can still get Mike on his side to do it. Walt invites Mike to a bar to try to manipulate Mike and it does NOT work. As soon as Mike figures out what Walt is doing, he cracks him in the face and thanks him for the drink. It’s an ode to the loyalty that Mike has, as well as his consistency as a character.

Saul Goodman: Old Yeller

Always the sneaky scumbag lawyer, it isn’t until we see him part ways with Jesse that we see him for the opportunist that he is. While Saul and Jesse have never have a friendly relationship, I would like to think that the two of them have been through some pretty dangerous situations together. Jesse has grown under Saul’s tutelage, albeit only legally, but there should still be some type of personal connection. That’s why I was so appalled during “Rabid Dog” when Saul uses an Old Yeller euphemism to suggest that Walt simply put Jesse out after Jesse goes crazy and tries to burn Walt’s house down. It’s a despicable act that reveals Saul’s true nature. He is out for him, and while he may still show some loyalty to Walt, it’s 99% money and 1% due to the fact that if Walt goes down, so does Saul. He’s a snake, plain and simple, but he’s funny and witty enough to carry his own series. I’m looking forward to see what kind of character he begins as in Better Call Saul.

“I should have never let me dojo membership run out”

Honorable Mention: In true lawyer etiquette, Saul refuses to be Walt and Jesse’s lawyer without being paid for it. In the middle of the desert with strange men pointing guns at his face, he still has the balls to ask them to play along because something tells me (as we should find out in the spin-off) this isn’t his first rodeo. He’s a criminal lawyer, but more importantly, he will always be a criminal lawyer.

Skyler White: Pretending to be crazy to save the children

Oh, Skyler. Poor Skyler; everybody seems to hate her! In truth, I’m not crazy about her either, but she had been put into such a difficult decision, as a wife and a mother. Unlike Lady Soprano, though, Skyler is weak. She buys into the naive idea that she can control her ego-driven husband, and it works for a bit, until Walt begins masturbating to the fact that he killed Gus. Skyler, feeling trapped and with nobody to turn on, her last cry for help is to fall in the pool and drown herself. Looking entirely bat-shit crazy to her children and family, the goal of having the children moved out of the house and out of danger is accomplished. She also takes a lot of shit from Jr. the entire series in trying to keep Walt from being conspicuous. It’s a tough but necessary role and I commend Anna Gunn for being ready to play it.

Honorable Mention: Enough is enough. After being forced to live in a hotel when Jesse spills gasoline all over the house, Skyler tells Walt to “handle” it, because in her mind, “What’s One More?” When that one more turns out to be her brother-in-law, Hank, Skyler can’t handle it. As Walt rushes to finish packing the family’s bags, Skyler grabs a knife and tells Walt to leave; that was the final straw. She slashes his hand when he approaches her and then violently lunges at him. Walt’s motto may have been “family first,” but Skyler had made up her mind that Walt was no longer a part of it.

Walter White: “Ozymandias”

Oh boy; this was definitely the most difficult decision. Walter White has undergone so much change; he’s gone from the loser chemistry teacher to frightening drug kingpin to frail (but no less dangerous) cancer carrier. In all those changes, though, he has always put his family first. This is not illustrated any more truly when he gives up everything in “Ozymandias.” Ignoring the fact that he offers $80 million dollars to the Aryans, he walks away from the family after he realizes he can’t be with them ever again. He tries his best to absolve Skyler of any involvement in the meth empire. He takes all the blame, something his arrogance and pride wouldn’t have let him do earlier in the show. In the ultimate sacrifice, he leaves Holly in a semi-safe place that will allow Skyler to get her back, it’s sad to see Walt, leaving alone with his money and nobody to give it to.

Honorable Mention: The great thing about Walt in Breaking Bad is that he is always responsible for bad things that happen, but he never seems to find himself responsible for events that happen. There’s no greater example of this than when Walt watches Jane die. He did not, in the strictest sense, kill her. But his inaction, Jane chokes on her own vomit and dies – a death that makes her distraught father cause the crash of Wayfarer 515 and the death of 167 people. This isn’t the only time Walt causes somebody’s death without actually killing them, as the demises of: Tomas Castillo, Gale Boetticher, Victor, Hector Salamanca, Gustavo Fring, Tyrus, the ten of Mike’s men in prison (including a lawyer), Steve Gomez and Hank Schrader are all due to Walt rocking the boat. The list isn’t complete either, as there’s sure to be plenty more rockin’ to do.

I hope you all liked our character defining moments. Stayed tuned for tomorrow’s Top Quotes. Let us know in the comments if there are any other character defining moments for the characters we didn’t list here.

Written by Sherif Elkhatib

All photos and videos courtesy of AMC Television.

Breaking Bad Week – Most Shocking Moments (SPOILERS!)

Holy Mother of *@&#^$*!!!!  Today we dedicate our Breaking Bad week article to the Most Shocking Moments, or more simply put, “Oh Shit!”  The entire series has been chock-full of moments where we all found ourselves jumping off of our couches, yelling gibberish out of anger or confusion, or having to pause our Netflix to take a walk around the block because it got to be too much.  Because there are so many moments like this in the series, you can bet your bottom dollar it was hard to compile a list of only seven moments.  But these we all felt were the best of the best, or if you rather, the blue stuff of shocking moments. 

7.) Your best course of action would be to tread lightly:

Vince Gilligan could have played it safe. Breaking Bad could have spent entire episodes tip-toeing and the fact that Hank knew that his own brother-in-law, the timid ex-chemistry teacher, had been the Heisenberg he had been chasing around Albuquerque for three plus seasons – and the fact that Walt knew he knew. Instead, both characters’ arrogance sends them colliding towards the most epic collision in the series to date; Hank closes the garage door behind Walt, then gives him the murder look before clocking walt square in the face. If this show was a chess game, Hank just flipped over the table and stabbed Walt with his bishop. What’s even better is that once Walt knows for sure he’s been outed, he doesn’t cut and run or backtrack – he threatens a federal agent and his own family member, telling him to “tread lightly.” Classic! It was a move that set the tone for the rest of the series and Breaking Bad has benefited from not pussy-footing around the discovery we knew, as viewers, had to happen. By not returning to status quo, we had a very tragic and definitive ending to a great show.

Image courtesy of http://imorawetz.deviantart.com/ She has great Breaking Bad stuff!

6.) “One Minute”

Now, while what we officially voted on for this shocking moment was “Hank vs. the Cousins,” there’s no way to simplify this thrill-fest of an episode to that one minute. The episode picks up with Hank pulling up at Jesse’s place after Hank finds out that the phone call about Marie’s car accident was just a ploy to lure  him away from the RV scene. As Hank pulls up to Jesse’s house, Jesse is sitting by the door, mocking Hank and telling him he has nothing to say and that Hank can’t prove anything. But Hank didn’t come to talk, as we soon find out. He cold cocks Jesse in the face so hard that he flies back onto the hardwood floor, where Hank proceeds to pummel Jesse’s face until he is unconscious. I thought he might even be dead… but he wasn’t. What he was, though, was ready to bring Hank’s life down in flames and ready to rat out Walt if Jesse ever got caught again. The speech Jesse makes in the hospital bed is borderline frightening: “You’re my free pass, bitch.” Hank, meanwhile, is reeling from the realization that his career in law enforcement might be over. He is suspended from duty and relieved of his firearm.

All that happens before Hank is attacked in a supermarket parking lot by the two Salamanca cousins, Marco and Leonel. The suspense for these two crazy assholes had been building all season long and it came at a time when Hank was most vulnerable – both physically and emotionally. I was sure Hank wasn’t going to make it out alive, but the arrogance of Marco (and Gus for calling him in advance) gave Hank enough time to gain the advantage and take down the bad guys. Not only does this save Hank’s life and career, but it also serves as more personal motivation to complete the puzzle and take Gus down.

THEY”RE MINERALS!!!!!

5.) Jesse learns a valuable lesson about HF Acid:

Breaking Bad’s second episode (“The Cat’s in the Bag”) deals with the aftermath of a crazy-yet-silly pilot episode. Upon returning to Jesse’s house, they returned with an RV that had just cooked in it and two bodies (one being the head Albuquerque meth distributor) that needed to be disposed of. This is just the first season; there is no Mike to clean up the mess, no Saul to find a guy who knows a guy (who ends up being Mike, but he might have known other people, too!), and no empire to delegate a responsibility like this to. This is a truly frightening! How the hell would you get rid of a body in this day and age? Walt knows! You just dissolve it in hydroflouric acid, supplied by your local high school (I’m not even going to get into why a high school has that much HF Acid in the first place). Jesse, as per the coin, gets the job of dissolving his former partner, Emilio, but is S.O.L. when he can’t find a plastic tub big enough. So Jesse does the next best thing in his mind, and uses the upstairs bathroom. As an engineer, this was my immediate reaction:

As Walt explains, “hydrofluoric acid won’t eat through plastic. It will, however, dissolve metal, rock, glass, ceramic. So there’s that.” Yeah, Walt, so there’s that. Even when Walt sees drips of fluid coming from the ceiling, I had no idea that a maelstrom of acid-soaked Emilio-chunks would tear through the house. From that moment on, I was a Breaking Bad lifer.

So there’s that…

4.) “Face Off”

Going into the season four finale, we just knew that Gus had to go. At that point, there was no hiding that Gus wanted Walt dead and Walt wanted Gus dead, but we still had no idea how it was going to happen and if anybody else would be caught in the crossfire. The beginning of the episode is the aftermath of Walt’s failed bomb attempt on Gus’ car. Walt, through some difficulty, meets up with Saul and discovers that Hector Salamanca is somebody that Gus frequently visits to taunt and devises a plan to mutually benefit both he and Hector. In the mean time, Jesse is detained by two officers concerning the ricin poisoning but it turns out that it wasn’t rice poisoning, it was caused by the ingestion of the Lily of the Valley flower. When Jesse runs out the hospital to tell Andrea of the news, he is tased and taken hostage into a van. Again, Gus’ pride and arrogance gets in the way when he decides to personally kill Tio after snitching to the DEA (or so they had thought), even as Tyrus offered to do it himself. Hector, feigning fear with Gus is inches away from him, begins violently ringing his bell, which it turns out is rigged to Walt’s bomb! I had the same reaction Gus did, with the exception of my face being blown off. We turn back to Jesse, who is being forced to cook at gunpoint. The doorbell to the lab rings, where it turns out Walt has come to rescue Jesse and totally obliterate the lab after telling Jesse “Gus is dead. We’ve got work to do.” It’s an insane episode that leaves the entire fifth season in doubt. But what shocked me the most, is that while the credits are rolling, they should a beautiful white Lily of the Flower in the Whites’ backyard.

Seriously, I wish everything I did in life looked this cool.

3.) “Dead Freight”:

“Dead Freight” will go down as one of the best episodes of the series; heck, it already is touted as such.  It was nominated for an Emmy this past Sunday, so it had to be pretty good (even though the Emmys suck).  The entire episode is such a roller-coaster of stress on it’s own.  From Lydia just being a bitch, to the introduction of Todd into the group and not being too sure of his intentions, to the entire train heist itself.  The heist is one of the most suspenseful moments in the series.  I’m pretty sure that everyone was inching towards their television sets by the minute, especially when the train starts to move and the water to replace the methylamine isn’t done filling in the train car and two of our robbers are still on or near the train.  It’s pretty traumatic to watch Jesse lay down flat on the tracks to not get run over by a moving train.  And just when you breath a sigh of relief and feel like you robbed a train with these guys, Todd commits the most game-changing murder in the series.  The boy (Drew Sharp) from the beginning of the episode, who is really hard to remember after such a fantastic robbery scene, is watching the three men, Todd, Jesse and Walt from his motorbike.  He waves and then Todd shoots him.  Todd shoots a little kid.  For no reason.  If you didn’t jump out of your seat screaming obscenities at the TV as Vince Gilligan’s name flashed on screen, then you, dear sir, are not a good person.  You support child murder.  Yeah, I went there.  The aftermath of Todd’s decision is still being played out a week before the series finale.  What a Todd-Fuck (and yes that’s a shout out to good ole Derrick Comedy).  

Didn’t your mom tell you not to talk to strangers, Drew?!

2.) Walt saves Jesse by going GTA on two drug dealers:

Jesse doesn’t handle it well when children become part of the game.  It’s a fact.  I could go on about the psychology that goes on behind that, but then again, I don’t know much about psychology.  He finds out that his new love interest, Andrea, has a much younger brother, Tomas, who was forced into the neighborhood gang and also happens to be the boy who shot Jesse’s friend, Combo.  Tomas was killed when Jesse and Walt made the deal with the thugs, who happened to be Gus’s men, that they would not sell meth on their turf as long as they didn’t use kids in the game.  When Tomas dies, Jesse contemplates different ways to kill the two gang members who recruited and killed Tomas.  Jesse ropes his part-time lover and full-time meth head friend Wendy into delivering ricin poisoned hamburgers to the two men, but the plan is foiled.  In a last ditch effort to kill the men, Jesse waits in their neighborhood, smokes a lot of meth, and musters up enough courage to approach them in the same spot they killed Combo and Tomas.  Just when Jesse starts to raise his shooting hand, the great Heisenberg a.k.a. Walter White runs the gangbangers down with his Pontiac Aztec, jumps out of the car, shoots the live one in the head, and turns to Jesse only saying “Run”.  For Walt to do anything nice for anyone else was totally unexpected.  For him to kill anyone for something beyond his own personal means was beyond expectation.  This was the one time Walt deserved a “Father of the Year” mug.  Except that it was for murder….. oh, well.  It’s Breaking Bad.  

Who knew that the Pontiac Aztec was a cooler weapon than that gun?

1.) Hank finds Leaves of Grass while sitting on the shitter:

In BrBa fashion, it was only appropriate to culminate one of the most anticipated show-downs in television history by starting the domino effect with Hank taking a shit in Walt’s bathroom.  The series leaves no loose end untouched, and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass was one of those loose ends.  It was a book long forgotten by the time season 5a came about (other than when we see a glimpse of it when Walt grabs a towel), but the conversation Walt and Hank had regarding the initial’s “W.W.” from the Gale Boetticher investigation was still fresh in our minds.  But I don’t think anybody really believed that Hank would figure out who the Heisenberg was by looking for something to read while being indisposed for a few moments.  So simple, yet so classic.  And it definitely left the viewer in a moment of disarray and mouthing the words, “Oh, Shit…”

As Hank begins to shit and stink, he takes a moment to sit and think.

I hope you all liked our most shocking moments. Stayed tuned for tomorrow’s Top Character Defining Moments. Vote below on your Most Shocking Moment in Breaking Bad!

Written by Sherif Elkhatib and Adrian Puryear

All photos and videos courtesy of AMC Television. 

Awesome emotional clips courtesy of Donald Glover and the good folks at NBC’s Community.

Breaking Bad Review – “Ozymandias” S5E14

Spoilers ahead

Agreed.

That shit was bonkers.

But before we get to that… let’s start off with the teaser. Enter the RV. And may I say, I’m so glad we get a glimpse of the RV one more time. It has been such a symbol to represent the show and I for one have truly missed it. We are at the first cook, as made clear by Walt’s lack of clothing and tighty whities. Jesse asks Walt questions about the cook and Walt says “The reaction has begun.” A great use of dialogue to sum up what that first cook really was. The reaction began for everything and everyone else in the series. Walt and Jesse step out of the RV and we get a close up of Walt calling Skyler with the background of the desert, the RV and Jesse practicing his karate moves. Walter tells the lie that starts all the lies that Bogdan has a “bug up his butt” and is making Walt stay late. The use of the “bug” in this episode is a nice little twist on the symbol. Meanwhile, Skyler is packing up ceramic crying clown that is dressed in blue and white, just like how Walt is dressed in the shootout from last week. The clown is also creepily crying red tears. The tears of the clown is usually an expression for someone realizing truths of their own life and it becomes too hard to handle for them. Once we come back to the shootout scene, it becomes clear the situation is too much for Walt. The fading of the first cook scene to present day is so well done. First Jesse and Walt fade, then the RV fades and then we just have the desert. From then until now has been quite a journey.

We join our BrBa buddies with the big shoot-out behind us. The gun smoke has cleared the air and we see that Steve Gomez lies lifeless on the desert floor, with Hank having a rather painful bullet wound in his leg – this guy just can’t catch a break. As Hank army-crawls towards Gomey’s shotgun, Uncle Jack and his crew find out that Hank and his partner are indeed law enforcement. The apathetic reaction that Grand Dragon Jack has to this news suggests that it wouldn’t have changed the initiation of their encounter a bit. As Jack reaches for his pistol to finish off Hank, Walter pleads with Jack to spare his brother-in-law, and everybody can just go on their separate ways, pretending that none of this ever happened. Walt even tries to buy Hank’s life by offering up the 80 million. Fat chance, Heisenberg. Walt also insists upon Jack using Hank’s name when before he was referred to as “fed”. Respect is a big deal to Walt and using one’s name is the utmost sign of respect. In what might have been his most heroic act of the series, Hank recognizes his fate and looks death straight in the eye, telling the head of the Aryan brotherhood to go fuck himself and taking back his name by not just being called Hank, but dying with his life’s work, ASAC (Assistant Special Agent in Charge) Schrader. Hank is a proud man, too, and decided to take control of his title directly tying it to his life’s work. Walt expects that Hank will want to save himself and in what will become one of the most memorable lines of the series, Hank looks up at Walt and says, “You’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met and you’re too stupid to see he made up his mind ten minutes ago.” And then Jack shoots Hank point-blank in the head. It was so hard to watch, and the scene cut away before we even see Hank really fall. It wasn’t nice, but it was the what had to happen for the rest of the story to continue. Hank spent the entire time we have known him trying to take down the Heisenberg, and seemingly, he actually did it, because his own death is what set in motion Walt fleeing town at the end of the episode.

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

After Hank is shot, Walt falls to his knees. He lays on his side and cries uncontrollably. Todd looks at him and wipes his nose. Again, Todd is a reflection of Walt and feels bad for Walt’s loss, as he says a few minutes later. The similarity between Walt and Gus crying over the death of a loved one must be noted. Through the broken glass of Hank’s suburban, we see a shovel being pulled out of a car. Jack tells Walt that his directions were so specific. He knows the money is buried at those coordinates because Walt was too specific on where to go. He goes to look for Jesse by Hank’s car, but says there is no sign of him. I find this odd because we find out that Jesse is under the car. Who wouldn’t look under the car for someone? One man is sent to look for Jesse and the others uncover Walt’s money. They pull out the barrels and move Gomez’ and Hank’s bodies into the grave that Walt dug. Amazing imagery of the place that once held Walt’s money now holds his family. Jack tells a catatonic Walt that he is leaving Walt a barrel of his own money. Jack then tells Walt that Todd would be unhappy if anything were to “go the other way.” In this scene, Jack leaves Walt little choice to accept his terms, and in the same way that Walt embraced Jesse when he asked him to “start over” in “Rabid Dog,” the handshake here is a symbol of submission. Walt better accept that the two parties are even, or the Neo-Nazis will murder him and his family with the same reckless abandon that they just dusted two highly-ranked lawmen. Walt then does something unexpected; amongst all the calamity of watching his family member die in front of him, he reminds Jack that the deal is not complete until they kill Pinkman.

Why the importance of ending Jesse’s life? It’s evident that Walt holds Jesse accountable for Hank’s death (although it was Walt that figuratively and literally dug Hank’s grave), but why is it so paramount that Jesse is the last loose end? Even as they brush off his request with a “sure, if you find him, we’ll do it,” Walt has already spotted him underneath the Chrysler 300 and orders they end his life. The drag Jesse who is kicking and screaming from underneath the car. After a season of spiraling out of control and being lost in the abyss all fifth season, it was gut-wrenching to see Jesse finally fight to live. As Jesse kneels on the ground before Walt, he looks up at two black birds flying free in the sky, almost poetically, to explore the unknown blue, wild and free. I was almost convinced they would end his life there, until Todd saves the day, suggesting that perhaps they should find out what Jesse has told the feds before “doing the job.” Todd says that Jesse and he have “history,” which should somehow help him get information more easily, I guess. Having a history with Todd hasn’t been too much help for anybody thus far in the series and it no doubt insinuates torture and death for Jesse, a fate that Walt agrees with. As they drag Jesse’s defeated body away, Walt has one last anecdote to share with his former partner. “I killed Jane. I was there and I watched her die. I could have saved her, but I didn’t.”

I could have saved her…

I am not sure he said this line just to spite Jesse. The look in his eyes and the tone of his voice say that he is saying it to make himself feel better. It is something Walt has held in for a long time and this is his moment to get it off his chest. Jesse is put in the Aryan’s sedan and they drive away leaving Walt in the desert. The scene pulls back and we get a long shot very similar to the end of the teaser, this time Walt alone in the desert.

By the time we come back, the episode is at his halfway mark, but we just now get the credits. It doesn’t mean much for the episode, but it is worth noting. Walt looks at his reflection in the rear view mirror and quickly turns the mirror to look behind him at the desert. Not only does Walt not want to look at his reflection (reflection is a common theme in this episode), but he is looking at the scene behind him where Hank now rests. As Walt drives away, his car makes strange sounds and he sees he is out of gas. He gets out of the car and looks under it to see a gas leak. The next shot is so great because it is exactly the cinematography that matters in Breaking Bad. Walt stands to look at the bullet hole in the side of his car. The sole intent of the scene was not to show that we know why the gas is leaking, but we see Walt’s reflection in the car several times over. The most obvious reflection is Walt’s face with the bullet hole in his forehead. And for me, this confirms that Walt dies at the end of the series.

Good thing this show doesn’t ever use foreshadowing… oops!

We then see Walt rolling his one barrel of money through the vast desert. Several things are of note here. 1. Walt has finally learned to roll the barrel, unlike his grand theft of the barrel of Methylamine with Jesse. 2. He passes by the pants he loses in the Pilot episode, the same episode “Ozymandias” flashes back to. 3. The song playing to the epic rolling. It is called “Time’s a Gettin’ Hard” by Eddy Arnold. In the lyrics played, we hear the chorus of the song, “Take my true love by her hand/Lead her through the town/ Say goodbye to everyone.” The rest of the song that we don’t hear is just as interesting, mentioning being happy a year ago, having a house, the money being scarce and having no place to go. My question is, who is his true love? It isn’t Skyler. Is it the money or the blue? This will most likely be answered once we find out why Walt comes back to Albuquerque.

Walt rolls the barrel to a man’s home on the To’hajiilee Reservation. The man looks out his window and sees Walt’s reflection coming up to his property. Walt offers to buy the man’s truck, and the man says its not for sale. But Walt is actually able to buy his way in this situation offering the man a stack of cash. Walt has the truck and loads up the barrel of money.

In the next scene, Marie enters the carwash to talk to Skyler. I love the production’s attention to detail. Marie is wearing black in this scene, a very rare occurrence when she normally wears her signature purple. The death of Hank touches everything. The two sisters sit in Skyler’s office. The shot of them sitting across from each other, Skyler wearing white, Marie wearing black and a purple orchid sitting between the two is striking. With a smug look on her face, Marie gloats that Hank had won, “dead to rights,” she believes was the way Hank put it. As much as it pained us to see Hank go, I was personally satisfied to see Skyler’s world turn to shit by it. Marie corners Skyler, telling her to give up the fake videotape she and Walt made and give up everything she knows to get herself off the hook, on the condition that Skyler tell Walt, Jr. everything. Of all the things I dislike Marie for, the prospect of making Jr. find out the truth from his family before a random officer was the closest endearing moment she’s had this season. Skyler goes from kingpin’s wife and accomplice to total victim in five seconds flat. In my opinion, she’s a total wuss and is willing to sell her husband down the river to save her own skin, using the children as a shield to hide behind.

The scene shifts to Jesse, who is chained like a dog in an empty cellar and has had the utter shit beaten out of him. Again. It seems as though the Aryans have already interrogated him for information, or fun, when the gate opens suddenly, sending Jesse whimpering and crawling into the corner. The right side of Jesse’s face is so beaten in that his eye is swollen shut, and it almost looks like it is missing. The symbol of “one eye” has recurred throughout the series and particularly in this season.

Eye See You.

In total gentlemanly fashion, Todd lifts Jesse out of the grated pit and shows him their super secret meth hideout. Classic Bond villain mistake. Which brings the comparison of Jesse and James Bond in last week’s episode a little more to fruition. After chaining Jesse to a sliding ceiling pole, it becomes apparent that Todd’s plan all along was to have Jesse teach Todd to cook the blue. Now, while the words “Todd” and “plan” are seldom mentioned in the same sentence, it shows that Todd is not just a pawn in his uncle’s scheme, but is capable of his own actions outside of Jack’s posse. It can be assumed that he’s keeping Jesse a secret from the rest of the Aryans and we predict that, since thinking is not Todd’s strong suit, his journey will end in death during the next episode, in the way of some good old fashion Red Phosphorus to the face via Jesse, especially since Jesse sees a picture of Andrea and Brock hanging in Todd’s lab. This would give Jesse even more reason to kill the guy who either has a creepy obsession or is planning a future hit.

Back in the carwash office, Jr. is visibly upset and calls Skyler and Marie out on lying. But really, who is telling the customer’s to have an A1 day now that no one is manning the cash register? Anyway, Jr. calls them out and demands to talk to Walt. After realizing that Walt is supposed to be in jail, he wants to call Hank. Hank and Marie have always been better parents to Jr. than his own parents have been. Back at the house, Walt frantically packs his clothes and his family’s clothes. In the car, Jr. tells Skyler she is “as bad as he is.” It’s about damn time someone told her that. The shot of them in the car is also ominous. It’s usually not a good thing when the camera is following someone from behind, because they usually die soon after. We see the back of Skyler and Jr.’s head and Holly faces the camera. Is Holly the only one to make it out alive?

As the family comes together in the house, Walt yells to everyone to pack the things that are most important to them, Jr. wants to know if what Skyler and Marie told him was true, and Skyler is bent on why Walt is there and what happened to Hank. Walt tells her he negotiated and Skyler becomes increasingly angry demanding to know what happened. Walt says, “everything’s going to be fine,” the same thing Hank told Marie on the phone in their last conversation. Walt also tells Skyler that he “needs” her to trust him, just like he needed Jesse to trust him regarding Mike. No one trusts Walt anymore. Continuing the reflections of past conversations, Walt also tells Skyler that he has 11 million dollars and they can go and do whatever they want, very similarly to the conversation Jesse and Jane have when they want to take their money and go to New Zealand. Skyler then calls Walt out for murdering Hank. He yells that he didn’t but that he tried to save him. Walt will never blame himself for anything.

Skyler turns and in the same shot from the flashback, we are facing Skyler and into the hallway of the home. The phone and the block of knives are sitting on the kitchen island. Skyler grabs a knife, enters the hallway and puts her hand on Jr. to block him from her future attack. She tells Walt to leave and when he refuses she slices the palm of his hand. In a very dramatic scene, Skyler and Walt wrestle to the ground with the knife. It was terrifying to think that either one of them could be mortally stabbed in the fight. Due to Jr.’s abnormal forearm strength, he is able to put his dad in a headlock and save his mother. Jr. then calls 911 and lies that Walt attacked Skyler with a knife. Walt gets his bags, grabs Holly and goes to his new truck. Skyler realizes he has taken Holly and runs out of the house screaming. Walt backs out of the driveway, pushing Skyler’s car out of his way while she chases after the truck screaming. It’s a scene that the neighbors definitely overheard, as is the Amber Alert then put out on Walt for baby Holly.

Walt takes Holly to what we assume to be a restaurant bathroom (Koala Kare stations are usually only found in restaurants and airports) and changes her, taking an intimate moment out of his frantic life to be the father that, up to that point, he has not been. In large, Holly has been but a prop to Walt – a means to justify the monstrous acts committed throughout the series. Holly begins saying “mama” repeatedly, showing Walt that Holly is indeed not his, but Skyler’s. He has effectively missed the very precious moments that he hoped to cherish by making and selling meth in the first place. With his terminal cancer back and currently a fugitive on the run with no place to turn, Walter White commits the single most selfless act throughout the series. He calls Skyler and berates her for being a terrible person, mother and accomplice, implying that she could not follow instructions and that she should “toe the line, or end up just like Hank.” While viewers can follow that he is upset with her, he is uncharacteristically violent in his words towards her. It’s not until you see tears streaming down his face that the audience realizes that he knows he is being recorded and that he is going out of his way to clear her name of all charges, an act that Skyler would never do for her husband. He fights back the sorrow as he explains to Skyler that they will never see Hank again, sending Marie into hysterics and, in turn, accepting responsibility for his murder. Accepting that a lonely and shameful end is not one to be shared with his estranged infant daughter, Walt leaves Holly inside of the cab of a firetruck with what can be considered the least-attentive fire-fighters in the world.

Yes, I’d like one Hoover Max Extract PressurePro model 60 and a piece of my soul back, please.

As Walt takes his last barrel of money to meet the disappearer the following day, it brings up the question of where Walt was the previous night. It’s a pretty big blank page to fill; we know that he had to have called Saul to arrange for a new vacuum cleaner because he meets at the same spot Jesse met Saul’s “guy,” but we don’t get many answers as to what links this moment to the flashbacks in the beginning and mid-season premieres. It’s great symbolism that the viewers don’t even get a glimpse of who the guy doing the disappearing is. What we do get, however, is a closing season of the van driving away, likely to the Granite State of New Hampshire, and a dog running across the scene – noticeably without a leash. This has been a symbol for Jesse, the “Rabid Dog,” a “Problem Dog” and now a dog on a leash while Walt is the stray dog with no place to go. The news of Jane’s death being a play of Walt’s hand will not be taken without vengeance. We both firmly believe that Jesse will follow Hammurabi’s Code, taking a lover for a lover and, gulp, a son for a son.

Predictions for the rest of the series are wild in theory, but one thing is for certain – the secret is out. Marie, by way of Skyler and the confession tape Jesse made for Hank and Gomez, will out Walter White as the notorious meth kingpin of Albuquerque, and Carol will lose her oranges somewhere in the process. We believe in a future where Jesse or the Aryans murder the remainder of Walt’s family, save for little Holly, and spray “Heisenberg” sarcastically in yellow. We also predict a ricin-flavored cup of tea for Lydia, who is really the only loose end that needs to be dealt with subtlety. And we believe an epic showdown between the Whites and the whites are going to bring the series to a close.

Hush Comics gives Breaking Bad‘s “Ozymandias” an A+(++…+). A beautifully shot and written episode that tugs at the heart-strings and makes you cheer for others’ misfortunes. After watching the episode, the viewer feels like a true Heisenberg. There’s no going back now, as we are two weeks away from ending this tragic journey. Thanks to The Heisenberg Chronicles and AMC for the pictures in this week’s review.

written by Adrian Puryear and Sherif Elkhatib
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Breaking Bad Review – “To’hajiilee” S5E13

Spoilers below! Be warned… if you have yet to watch “To’hajiilee” the following will absolutely ruin it for you. Do not read if you don’t want to be spoiled. I highly suggest you do not read this if you have not watched the episode because the thrill of it will be lost on you once you do watch it… that being said… here is my recap and review.

So the above is pretty much my face after watching this episode. But before I get to that epic-ness, the rest of the episode is pretty darn important, too.

We start off in the meth lab the Aryans have made. Lydia is with Todd, his Uncle Jack and the other creepy white guy. Todd tests the meth he just made and it is at 76%. The best part of the two older Aryans interactions are their references to pop culture. They tell Lydia that the best the “Wolverine” look-a-like made was less than 70%, referring to Declan. I notice that Lydia is always wearing her blue jacket now-a-days. She represents “the blue” that she so desperately wants to attain again. Apparently she is dressing for the job she wants, not the job she has. The men all discuss that they believe the meth is tinted blue, even though Lydia has made it clear the product needs to be blue and it is not. The Aryans suggest they add food coloring to the mix, just like it is done to salmon. This just shows how little these men care about quality. Later on, Todd makes Lydia tea, addressing her politely as Miss Quayle, and then he tries in a very uncomfortable manner to hit on Lydia. Isn’t Todd like 18? It’s just gross. When she leaves, he rubs her lipstick on her cup and then drinks out of it. Before that, he receives the call (with the ringtone, “She Blinded me with Science”…is this only Walt’s ringtone on Todd’s phone, or everyone’s?) from Walt to kill Jesse. Todd asks no questions and offers to set up a meeting with his uncle.

Hank and Gomez meet up in a tunnel. Gomez then says that Jesse is safer behind bars than out in town in “open season”. I only note the importance of this because it becomes open season later in the episode. The tunnel they are in looks exactly like the one Jesse picks up his meth money from Victor. Oddly enough, Jesse then tells them his brilliant plan is to go after Walt’s money. That is where he really lives. I promised I would give a shout out to my friend Evan Lowe for getting that one right last week.

Back at Hank’s house, Gomez comes in with a brown paper bag. They have a cryptic discussion about another DEA agent not asking questions, but agreeing to “babysitting”. Gomez also lets Hank know that if “he” (at first I assumed he meant Jesse, but now I realize it is Huell) gets a lawyer, Gomez will put a stop to the whole thing. It is the first time Gomez has really stood up to Hank. It will probably be the last time. Hank takes out a brain (animal) and puts it on the kitchen floor. He turns to Jesse and says, “You’re up.” ‘What the hell does that turn out to be?” were my initial thoughts. Hank and Gomez go to an apartment where Huell is being babysat. They let Huell know, in a very large ploy, that he is on Walt’s hit list. They bluff and say Kuby is already missing. Hank also shows him a picture of “dead Jesse”.

You spilled something.

Huell easily gives up that he moved the money to the barrels from the storage unit. He lets them know the details of the van, its dirt, where it came from, the shovel, and the exact description of the barrels. It seems that all this questioning of Huell and keeping him in the apartment is illegal. Even if it all worked out for Hank, would Huell’s testimony mean anything to a judge?

At the Aryan’s house, Walt, Todd, Uncle Jack and the other white guy discuss the price for killing Jesse. They assume Jesse is a rat and Walt states very clearly that “Jesse is not a rat.” Little do any of them know. He tells them that Jesse is “angry.” Again the Aryans and their pop culture references, asking if Jesse is The Hulk, Rambo or James Bond (ummmm is James Bond angry???). Walt tells Uncle Jack that Jesse is like family, so he can’t do it himself. When he says this Todd looks at Walt like he is hurt that Jesse is considered family. Uncle Jack agrees to the hit, but the price isn’t money, no matter how much Walt is willing to throw out there; it is to be their cook. Walt is very reluctant to agree, but eventually says he will do one cook after the hit is done. It seems strange that they would be so trusting that Walt would actually do a cook for them after the fact. They offer to do it that night, and Walt tells them he has to “flush him out” referring to Jesse. The tic-tac-toe game is in full swing. Who will flush the other one out first?

Walt goes to Andrea’s house and gives her the story that he can’t find Jesse. Andrea invites him in which seems odd because of her problems with Jesse and that she has only met Walt once at Jesse’s house. Walt greets Brock and Brock gives him one of these:

Da fuk you doin’ here?

I think it is clear that Brock recognizes Walt as someone more than just Jesse’s friend. Andrea calls Jesse’s phone and leaves a message. Walt tells her that he will call her later because he has her number. If I were Andrea, I would wonder why he had my number. She seems pretty cavalier about it all. Walt then goes to his car and instructs Uncle Jack and crew to wait for Jesse and not to alarm Andrea or Brock.

Hank listens to Andrea’s message on Jesse’s Hello Kitty cell phone. I know I mention this phone in every recap, but who thought it would become the symbol of season 5b? It is a reminder of the pink teddy bear; a cute children’s toy that has its innocence destroyed. After Hank hears the message he says, “Nice try, asshole,” mimicking Jesse saying the same thing to Walt in “Rabid Dog.” Hank doesn’t tell them about Andrea’s message, but does say they are going to continue the game by making Walt think there was a GPS on the van he used to bury the money.

Walt Jr. and Skyler are at the carwash. Skyler is teaching him the cash register, but she is really keeping him away from the house in case there are more problems. Saul Goodman enters the car wash. Skyler is freaked out that he is there and Jr. is starstruck. Walt approaches Saul as to why he’s there. They discuss that Huell is missing and that Jesse is still AWOL. Saul tells Walt that Jesse isn’t as dumb as Walt thinks. Walt has yet to find this out for himself.

Better call Saul!

Walt goes back inside. He lightly touches his jacket pocket checking for his gun. He looks on at his family in deep thought. And then the beginning of the end happens. Walt gets a picture message of a barrel of his money, or so he thinks. Immediately he gets a call from Jesse saying, “Did you get my photo, Bitch?” Yes! A bitch moment! Walt runs out of the car wash and gets in his car. Jesse tells him he is burning the money unless Walt comes to him. It is surprising Walt fell for this. He believes the van had a GPS and that Jesse has found the money. It is strange that Walt never realized on the way there what was really happening. But it shows what Walt really cares about and how blinded he is by the money. In this moment when Walt is speeding like a maniac to the desert and Jesse is playing him on the phone, Jesse pulls out one of the best “bitches” in BrBa history, “Fire in the hole, Bitch. There goes 10 G’s. Ah, nice orange flame.” Walt later confesses on the phone pretty much everything he has done, including killing Emilio and Krazy 8, killing Gus and poisoning Brock all the way down to how he did it. He never mentioned cooking meth or Gale. If this conversation is tapped, it still wouldn’t be admissible in court. Hasn’t Hank watched The Wire!? Walt arrives to To’hajiilee and realizes it was a set up. Walt lets out his own “son of a bitch.” He takes the battery out of his phone and drops it. He runs to the top of a cliff and then when he sees a car in the distance he runs back down, gets the phone, puts the phone back together, and calls Uncle Jack. When Walt realizes that it’s not just Jesse, but his brother-in-law and Gomez he tells Uncle Jack to forget the hit and hangs up. Hank looks all around Walt’s car and calls out his name. And for once we see authentic emotion from Walt.

You have something in your eye, Mr. White.

After the last commercial break, the shots of the desert linger on screen. It is very reminiscent of when the cooking was happening out there. Walt shows himself. He drops his gun and walks to Hank with his arms up. This moment reminded me so much of when Gus walked right towards the cartel with his arms in the air. And then the moment that we have all waited for since the first cook, Walt is arrested. It seems like such a moment of relief, yet we all know that it can’t end like this. It is too easy. And illegal still because Hank and Gomez don’t have a warrant for the things they have done. But it still felt good to see it.

Gotchya, Bitch.

Jesse mentions that this is the first place they ever cooked together. Every episode of season 5b has allowed the audience to come full circle with the first season and particularly the first episode. During this whole scene suspense builds. It isn’t quite clear what we are supposed to be anxious about, but with Jesse hanging out in the background, it was hard not to wonder if he would be sniped by Uncle Jack. Gomez searches Walt and takes his car keys. I feel that this will be very important next week if anyone ends up getting out and using Walt’s car to do so. As Walt is being read his rights he is staring at Jesse like he is filth. He finally calls Jesse a “Coward” with hate in his voice. Jesse approaches him and does what everyone else has wanted to do at some point…

You have something on your face, Mr. White.

Finally, someone spit on Walt. It must feel awful to have a drug addict spit in your face. After their confrontation, Hank and Gomez take Walt and Jesse to different cars. Walt is in Hank’s truck and Jesse is in Walt’s car. Hank gives Marie a call to let her know he got Walt. Marie answers the phone and says the best Marie line of all time, “Hank, why is there what looks like brains in our garbage can?” While Hank is on the phone with her, he foreshadows the outcome of the end of this episode. “It’s gonna be a rough couple of weeks, but it’ll get better.” He also says “It may be a while before I get home.” Does Hank die? Or does he get seriously injured like he did at Salamanca twin incident? I find it interesting that Hank is wearing an orange shirt here, similar to the one in the Tuco Salamanca shootout scene.

Bad Ass orange shirt.

As Walt is looking out the car window, he sees the Aryan’s cars pull up. He starts to yell for Hank, but Hank ignores him. Unfortunately, this could have probably been avoided had Hank gotten the hint and they hit the road. But they don’t and the Aryan’s pull up. Uncle Jack, Kenny (the guy I’ve been calling “the other white guy”) Todd and really another white guy point their guns at Hank and Gomez. Hank has a pistol and Gomez has a rifle. They are outnumbered and outgunned, as the main two Aryan’s have assault rifles. Walt attempts to yell for Jack to stop, but Jack ignores him. When Hank and Gomez don’t show their police badges, all out war begins. The Aryans are not afraid to use their ammo.

Holy bejeezus.

They go for the car Walt is handcuffed in because it is the car Hank and Gomez hide behind. Jesse seemingly starts to get out of Walt’s car. Walt is forced to weasel his way in between the seats of Hank’s car. It seems dumb for the Aryan’s to shoot up the car that their new cook is in, but they haven’t ever been for details I suppose. And then it ends. What?! Why?! Who lives? Who dies?

I truly believe that Gomez will die at the least. Of course Walt doesn’t. It is getting so close to the end and even harder to figure out how all these loose ends will tie up.

Hush Comics gives Breaking Bad‘s “To’hajiilee” an A+. It was great to see who could outsmart each other better. Jesse and Hank are worthy adversaries. Walt finally was cuffed and cried. A likable moment for Marie And the cliffhanger ending was b-a-n-a-n-a-s. I have nothing to fault this episode for.

Before I end, did anyone else notice that Todd had the sissy gun??

written by Adrian Puryear

Breaking Bad Review – “Blood Money” S5E9

Warning!  Major Spoilers ahead…

The long awaited (a whole year!) 9th episode of Breaking Bad‘s season 5 premiered on AMC tonight, and opened where we left off at the beginning of the episode 5.01 “Live Free or Die” prologue.  We hear loud noises and see skateboarders.  As the camera pans out, the skaters are using the White’s now empty family pool.  Walt, with hair and new glasses (proving this starts from where we left off) gets out of the car he was given the keys to at the Denny’s.  He is parked in front of the White home, which is now gated, boarded up, and obviously abandoned.  He opens the trunk and we get a glimpse of the gun he illegally bought at Denny’s (and who hasn’t seen some crazy shit happen at Denny’s?) and pulls out a crow bar.  Walt then breaks into his own home.  As the camera pans out, we see that someone has graffitied on the main wall in the living room in bright yellow “Heisenberg”.  The house is empty, yet trashed.  None of the furniture is there, but there are papers scattered and the home has been vandalized.  Where did the furniture go?  And clearly, it is well known who the Heisenberg is, since his name is so glaringly scrolled across the wall.  Walt looks through the blinds after hearing laughter and sees the teens skating in the pool.  He slowly walks down the hall, and in a symbol that has appeared throughout the series, flies are seen and heard in the kitchen.  Walt continues to the bedroom and the door has been been knocked off the hinges, is laying on the floor in the room, and what seems most odd is that it is really bashed in.  Walt then heads for the outlet, unscrews it with a quarter, and pulls the ricin pack off that he left there after bringing it to his Czech Republic meeting with Lydia.  He closes his eyes and seems to reflect for a moment.  On what? Perhaps on everything that we don’t know that has happened to get to this point.  Maybe on what he is about to do with ricin?  Who does he plan to use it on?  Is it for himself?  Is he ready to go out, guns-a-blazin’ and then end himself with the ricin?  He then goes back outside, puts the crow bar back in the trunk and turns to see his old neighbor.  She is holding bags of groceries.  Walt says, “Hello, Carol.”  She drops her groceries (Trivia: When Carol drops her groceries, oranges roll out of the bag and down the driveway. This could be a shout out to The Godfather, where oranges often symbolize death. Earlier in Breaking Bad, when Ted puts himself in the hospital, several oranges fall on his body when he slams into the kitchen cabinets).  And it was almost as if she had seen a ghost.  Why would the house be in this condition?  Number one, shit has hit the fan.  Heisenberg is not only caught by Hank, but he is outed by other people in the biz, and they are mad.  Where are the kids?  Where is Skyler?  My guess is that Skyler is dead, and most likely, the kids are either being taken care of by Hank (if he is alive at this point) and Marie, or also dead.  And more than likely, people either know that Walt fled, or that he may have faked his own death.  Perhaps the reason for Carols’ reaction.  EIther way, he is now back, and it looks like he is out for vengeance.

Coming back to present day, we come back where we left off at the end of 5.08 “Gliding Over All”.   Hank leaves the restroom, his breathing is labored and he is visibly upset. He puts Leaves of Grass in his bag and stares at Walt through the sliding glass door.  When he finally opens the door, we hear Marie jokingly tell Walt, “You’re the Devil!”  Not only is this what Hank is thinking, but it is a continuation of a Breaking Bad theme: God.  It seems odd that in a story about meth and many an un-Godly thing, that God could be a theme, but here he is.  In the past, we have heard Walt say he prayed to God the RV wouldn’t crap out and that if Jesse believes in Hell, they are both going there.  We will hear more about God in this episode, but I’ll get to that in due time. Hank goes out to the patio where the family is having a fun time and tells them he doesn’t feel 100%.  Hank and Marie leave and the White family walks them out.  Walt asks Hank if he is alright to drive, which we will find out he’s not.  As the White’s go back up their driveway, Walt turns and greets the neighbor, “Hello, Carol.”

Hank and Marie’s drive home does not end well.  Not only is Hank tuning out Marie’s surprise at Skyler’s idea of going to Europe, which she apparently mentions on the patio (is this where the White family is in the future?) but Hank is having tunnel vision.  He Is mad.  He is mad at Walt.  He is mad at himself.  And he is afraid.  Because he knows who The Heisenberg is and what exactly he is capable of.  Hank crashes, and then is taken to the ER for a possible heart attack.  Hank and Marie return home and Marie is warned to not tell Skyler about the incident.  Then Hank goes to the garage and pulls a single manila envelope off a top shelf with the label “Boetticher, Gale.”  Isn’t it odd that this file is at Hank’s home and not the office?  He has continued to obsess over it because he knows the story doesn’t fully add up.  He pulls the copied notebook of Gale’s and matches the handwriting to the inscription in Walt’s book, confirming something we have long known.

Walt comes to work at the car wash and opens the garage.  And then something happens that hasn’t happened in SEASONS.  Skyler greets Walt.  And they are nice to each other.  And they are working together.  When did Walt start actually working at the car wash?  He has obviously quit being the cook.  And something else of note, yet another symbol.  The color they are wearing.  In the past, Walt has been notorious for wearing green (money) or red (blood) and Skyler wears blue (pure, her name is Skyler, or the reason in the first place for cooking the blue stuff) but here, at the car wash, with all their niceties, the Whites are wearing… White, to keep up with their lily-white facade.  The facade that Walter White is a good man.  The facade that Walter White still really exists.  And that Skyler is just as innocent.  But then Walt tells her, “The story is”.  And he ropes her into the facade again with the car wash (even though the car wash was all Skyler’s idea) because Skyler has been and always will be Walt’s greatest alibi and he trusts her more than anyone.  But why this moment to talk about what their story is?  Walt doesn’t know that Hank is on to him.  Walt has been out of the business for a little while.  What is he scared of that he reminds Skyler of the “story”?  TIme will tell.  Enter Lydia, the lovely basket case who is Walt’s old connection to the Czech’s and all that money.  She tries to speaking to Walt about coming back because the product is only at 68% pure rather than the 99.1% that Walt used to make.  So who is making the new stuff?  Todd?  The people from Phoenix?  My bet is on Todd.  And Todd knows too much (The train, the kid at the train, the meth recipe, and Mike).  More than likely, he will be a liability later.  The best part of Lydia pleading for Walt to come back to fix things, because she is scared for her life, is that Walt has an extremely Gus Fring attitude toward her.  She talks meth business, he talks car wash business.  Not too long ago, Walt was talking meth business and Gus was talking fried chicken business.  Skyler realizes something is amiss because Lydia brought a rental car to be washed and Skyler sees an ulterior motive.  When Walt admits who she is, Skyler gains the upper hand over everyone and tells Lydia to never come back.  Not only is Lydia Skyler’s bitch right then, so is Walt.  As much as Walt can suggest moving soda cans, or buying another car wash, Skyler is running the show right now.

Hello! We’re the White Family and we are upstanding people wearing our white clothing!

At the Schrader house, Hank has the DEA bring him boxes of evidence, much to the dismay of Marie, as Hank should be “recovering.”  As he opens the boxes and files, we see a lot of things we haven’t seen in a long time bringing many things full circle.  Here are some things I noticed: a picture of the DEA and Gus shaking hands over a check for an anti-meth program, a close up of Gus, a Los Pollos Hermanos bag with the Madrigal serial number, The Salamanca brothers, the cars at the Hank/Tuco shoot out, including Jesse’s license plate “THECAPN”, Combo’s dead body and his grade school picture, Tio Salamanca young and old, Mike Ehrmantraut, Chow close up and Chow dead, gas mask found in desert, close up of Gale,  Ron (the guy Lydia gives up the DEA), Gus’s guard Tyrus, the burnt meth lab below the laundromat, the guy who was cut in half at the junkyard who Hank poses with, the video of Walt and Jesse stealing a barrel of methylamine, which is too grainy for Hank to see who it is, and of course, the sketch of Heisenberg himself (For the full list of case files, click here).

About halfway into the episode we finally see Jesse sitting in his living room and high.  Skinny Pete and Badger have really funny banter about Star Trek and Badger’s screenplay he wrote for it.  In the middle, Jesse gets up, goes to the bedroom, comes back with the two bags of money Walt gave him not so long ago, and leaves the house.  As a side note, who thought that Badger and Skinny Pete would be Trekkies?  And to know the difference between the original and Voyager?  Impressive.  Jesse takes the bags to Saul Goodman’s office.  After finally making it into the office (after blatantly smoking weed to be let in ahead of the packed room) and catching Saul at a bad time with a lady friend, Jesse gives Saul the money to give to two people: Albert Sharp and Kaylee Ehrmantraut.  Albert Sharp turns out to be the father of the little boy, Drew, who was killed after the train robbery.  Again we see Jesse’s affinity for children, proving Jesse’s moral compass compared to the rest of the characters and maybe even how feels about himself, a misguided child.  Saul strongly advises Jesse not to give the money away as it may tip people off as to why.  He also asks Jesse if he has had contact with Mike.  Walt and Todd still are the only people to know what happened to him.  Jesse leaves Saul’s office and tells him to take care of it.  But as always, when Jesse is in trouble, Saul calls Walt to clean Jesse up.  As a side note, when Saul opens up his drawer of phones, does anyone else notice that one of his phones has Hello Kitty on it?!  When Walt talks to Saul and assures him he will take care of it, we find out for sure that Walt’s Cancer has returned.  This is something I have predicted for a while as we have never found out the test results of Walt’s MRIs.

Badger gets all philosophical-like with Skinny Pete about Star Trek.

Jesse looks at his reflection in his dirty coffee table and another bug crawls across, this time a cockroach.  Walt knocks on the door and brings back Jesse’s money.  This is one of the most important scenes of the episode.  Walt asks Jesse if he has an explanation to which Jesse replies, “It’s like you said, it’s Blood Money.”  And now we know the meaning of the title of the episode.  But then Walt says a curious thing, something i don’t believe Walt has ever said before.  He admits he said it was blood money in the heat of the moment and that … wait for it… that Walt was wrong.  Since when has Walt admitted fault?  The scenes layers unfold as Walt begins to tells Jesse to let bygones be bygones.  He places his hand on Jesse’s knee and calls him “Son”.  Jesse isn’t looking at Walt.  For a long time, Walt has been a very twisted father figure to Jesse, giving him guidance in a world that Jesse knew, but Walt recreated.  Is this why Jesse has such empathy for children, because he still is one?  Has Walt been more of a father to Jesse than to Walt Jr.?  Walt tells Jesse that he has been out of the business for about a month and Jesse looks at him.  Then Walt does something he has always done: push buttons.  He asks why give the money to Kaylee Ehrmantraut.  And then short dialogue, very common in Breaking Bad, leads to Jesse letting Walt know that he thinks Mike is dead and he thinks Walt did it.  Walt is adamant that he did not kill Mike.  Again, Walt is not lying to Jesse to protect Jesse, but to protect himself and his newly adopted pure persona.  Walt tells Jesse he needs to believe him, that Walt needs this to happen, placing Jesse as his partner, his son, and his friend again.  But the silence that Jesse gives Walt fills in the blanks.  Jesse knows this is Walt’s classic way of manipulating him.

Jesse doesn’t believe Walt anymore.

During a rare family dinner, Walt runs to the restroom; the effects of the chemo are hitting him.  As he sits on the floor by the toilet throwing up, he notices the Leaves of Grass book missing (Trivia: Walt places a towel under his knees while vomiting, an act that Gus Fring did while at Don Eladio’s home to expose of the poison he ingested. Walt’s behavior is consistently imitating Gus’ even in subtle ways.  And this is not the first time this has happened.  Since season 1, Walt has eaten crustless sandwiches, like his first victim Krazy-8 and now drinks scotch on the rocks like Mike.).  Later he asks Skyler if she has seen the book.  Walter puts it together.  In the middle of the night, he goes out to his car and finds a GPS device attached the back passenger wheel.  He knows Hank knows.  Jesse, presumably high, is passed out in his car in a parking lot when a homeless man begs for change.  Jesse gives him a stack of cash from the bag.  He then drives down a street that looks similar to the street Andrea used to live on and throws stacks of cash onto the lawns of the neighborhood and crying as he does so.  Is he now the Robin Hood of the meth business ala Omar from The Wire?

In the last scene, (which happened a lot sooner than expected) Walt comes to Hank’s house to “check on his health”.  They have small talk about the other one’s life, and again as so often, the silence fills in the blank.  They both know why Walt is really there.  Walt even makes it apparent by resting his hand on one of the boxes of evidence.  As Walt leaves, he stops himself and confronts Hank about the GPS.  He chooses his language carefully to note the bond Hank and Walt had chasing Gus Fring.  He asks if it is the same device they used on Gus when it was “just the two” of them.  Hank closes the garage and then does the best thing Hank has done since collecting minerals.  He punches the shit out of Walt’s face.  I mean he reared back and that fist smashed hard.  He picks him up and lists all the things he could think of that Walt had done to throw Hank off and ends by declaring he knows that Walt is the Heisenberg.  Again with God, Hank says “I swear to Christ, I will put you under the jail!”  Walt then uses his manipulative tactics to choose this time to tell anyone, much less Hank, that he has cancer again.  Hank doesn’t sympathize that easily, though.  Walt declares he is fighting like hell and then let’s Hank know he has 6 months to live, and therefore will have no way to be ever put behind bars as he will be dead before it happens.  “I am a dying man who runs a car wash. My right hand to God, that’s all I have.”  Hank tells Walt that he doesn’t know who he is.  And Walt, or rather Heisenberg, tells Hank, “If you don’t know who I am, then maybe your best course would be to tread lightly.”  As Hank looks at him, it becomes clear he can’t look at Walt and see this monster, all he sees is the brother-in-law who betrayed him.  Will Hank tread lightly?  Or will he be looking for revenge?

Walt tells Hank he’s the Heisenberg without saying much at all.

With all the classic Breaking Bad devices used in this episode, the flash forward and the inevitable Hank/Walt confrontation I give “Blood Money” an “A”.

written by Adrian Puryear (with mad props yo to Sherif Elkhatib, Taylor Lowe and Evan Lowe)

*All pictures and video content courtesy of AMC TV.