Breakdown

Wherein I (antialiasis) comment on Breaking Bad, episode by episode! I do not have a schedule but I am very determined to keep doing this, however slowly. See just the commentaries in order here.

[antialianalysis]

Thank you for posting these on the cave of dragonflies because I would not have found them otherwise and WOW they're solid. Excellent reads and breakdowns!

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed them! I need to get back on S2 when I can and still intend to, just ever have too many Things going on. (I was partway through rewatching and taking notes on the season.)

[antialianalysis]

Love your analysis, literally echoing thoughts I forgot I had watching it for the first time. Thank you for your work <3

Thank you, I'm glad you like it!

While I'm here, I am in fact still alive and have been taking notes on season two; it's slow going because I'm persistently juggling one million things, but I'm still working on it on and off and I still have many things to say.

[antialianalysis]

I found this blog and am absolutely loving the analysis and the breakdown of each episodes!! You have such a good understanding of the show, and it's been so much fun to just get to go through each episode and take a really impressive dive into the characters and their motivations and actions. Also, I too am a big fan of how everyone acts like jerks for believable reasons, and I love how you mentioned that. Massive thank you for making this, and all the effort you've put into it <3

Aww, thank you! Really hope to get to continue to do these deep dives soon; I've got a lot of other things on my plate but my passion for this show runs deep.

[antialianalysis]

S01E07: “A No-Rough-Stuff-Type Deal”

In this episode, Walt begins to fully embrace his criminality and learn in on how to work with Jesse, we explore some of the others' relationships to the concept, and we more fully learn the threat of Tuco. That and they do a break-in in silly knitted ski masks and try to cook meth while an open house is going on, because season one is just like that.

(This is an ongoing commentary on all of Breaking Bad. Follow this blog to keep up with future posts!)

Presumably on the evening of Walt's confrontation with Tuco, he and Skyler attend a meeting for parents at the high school. A representative of the APD assures them that they're taking the theft of school lab equipment for methamphetamine production very seriously and leaving no stone unturned in the search for the persons responsible, with a delightfully hokey sign on the whiteboard behind him that says "METH = DEATH".

One of the parents asks why they're talking like they haven't caught anybody. What about that janitor who was dealing drugs? In the natural course of rumourmongering, the story of a janitor who privately smoked pot in his own home has become that he was dealing drugs, because exaggeration and worst possible interpretations sure are a thing that humans do. Other concerned parents cut in as the head teacher attempts to explain, asking about background checks, why he was hired, didn't he steal the lab equipment?

As the discussion goes on, Walt sits there stonefaced, bored. He's the one who stole the lab equipment, and not long ago he would have spent this meeting terrified and on edge, especially when they bring up how they're looking into who else had access to it. But right now, after the high of last episode's confrontation, Walt is feeling very sure of himself. Look at these bumbling idiots chasing each other in circles, with no idea that it was him, who's sitting right there. Why should he even listen to this ridiculous back-and-forth? Last episode, he felt pretty guilty about his crime being pinned on Hugo, but if he's feeling any of that right now, he's managed to mostly suppress it.

His eyes slide down to Skyler's skirt, beside him, and he sneaks his hand under the table to stroke her knee. She stops him, at first, but their sex life hasn't been much to write home about lately; there was that time the other day, of course, but that wasn't exactly focused on her pleasure, and there's something kind of weirdly, illicitly thrilling about the fact he's just doing this right now, at a meeting for their son's school, where anyone could theoretically notice.

(In the background, somebody says they heard about a school in Canada where a groundskeeper was arrested for drugs, and then they found out half the kids were on LSD. Someone goes "Why didn't you tell us about the LSD?!" Carmen desperately tries to clarify that there was absolutely no LSD involved here. Humans gonna human.)

They are snapped out of it when Carmen asks Walt to go over the list of equipment that was stolen. Skyler looks incredibly awkward, can't quite believe what they were doing. Carmen thanks Walt for making a special effort to be there with them as the head of the science department even though he's on medical leave, and everyone claps, oblivious to the fact they're clapping for the very man responsible for the theft, who's just been feeling up his wife instead of listening to any of this.

As Walt begins to read out the list, we flash forward to them having sex in their car after the meeting. Skyler asks, "Where did that come from, and why was it so damn good?" Walt responds, "Because it was illegal."

To Skyler, he just means the naughty nature of public sexuality, and that's pretty much the appeal for her. But of course, on Walt's end there's a whole lot more to it. He's bathing in the thrill of criminality right now, high on his success with Tuco. He feels smart, invincible, untouchable, and this is just one more way to ride that high and hold on to that feeling. Walt likes breaking the law. And that's something we'll be exploring more facets of for the rest of this episode.

Overconfidence

The next day (or later), Walt goes to see Jesse. It turns out Jesse has made good on the claim from episode three that he doesn't want to spend another night in his house after flushing two liquefied drug dealers down the toilet: as Walt arrives, a realtor is showing the house off to a couple, brushing off the shoddily repaired hole in the ceiling, inviting them to imagine all the things they could do in that big roomy basement where, unknown to them, a man was recently murdered.

(A thing I wondered rewatching this, which a first-time viewer might too if they remembered Walt mentioned the house belonged to Jesse's aunt in episode one, is whether Jesse is actually able to sell the house when he's not actually legally the owner. I checked and season two clarifies he had an agreement with his parents that he would find a buyer for the house and they'd split the price. It's ambiguous whether that's an agreement that always existed and Jesse's just sort of hoping/assuming he'll be fine looking for buyers and worrying about getting his parents to officially sign off on the sale later, or if Jesse actually contacted them offscreen about it after getting out of the hospital - bet that would've been a weird, awkward phone call, after how they parted in episode four.)

Jesse himself is out in the RV, ribs still bandaged. Walt asks how he's doing, and he says about as well as Walt looks - this is the first time Jesse's seen him since he shaved his head, and he thinks he looks like Lex Luthor. Walt says he visited him in the hospital when he was unconscious, still feeling a bit guilty and wanting to assure him he cared enough to do that, but Jesse says yeah, Skinny Pete told him Walt had been there asking for Tuco's address, acting like he was out for blood. "But you are alive. Obviously you wised up."

So Walt gets to make his grand reveal: he did go see Tuco - and he gives Jesse an envelope of money, his half of the $35,000 for the meth plus the entire extra $15,000 that Walt extorted out of Tuco (for my partner's pain and suffering), because "You've earned it."

He wants Jesse to be grateful, impressed. Jesse clearly thinks Walt actually going after Tuco would have been suicide - but no, he confronted him and won. He got all this money. He even got $15,000 extra just for Jesse, to make up for the beating he took. Surely, he imagines, Jesse will praise him, ask how he pulled it off, listen to him explain with the kind of awe that he showed when he saw Walt's meth for the first time.

But instead, Jesse is suspicious. Tuco just gave him that money? And when Walt says they made a deal, Jesse gets angry, to the point of dragging himself out of bed. Walt made a deal with Tuco? The insane drug lord who put him in the hospital for the crime of expecting to be paid for the product? Walt says they came to an understanding, and tells Jesse to look at the money in his hand, to imagine making that much every week - they'd be making two pounds a week at $35,000 a pound. (This'd make Jesse's share $35,000 per week; what he's holding right now is $32,500.) Surely Jesse has to appreciate--

But no, Jesse is even less happy with that. Without even talking to him Walt made a commitment to this dangerous lunatic that they would scale up their operation to two pounds a week? Where's he even going to get that amount of pseudoephedrine? "You think the meth fairy's just gonna bring it to us?" Jesse drives 200 miles to Las Cruces to meet up with his 'smurfs' who buy him the pseudo and back. "That's the bottleneck in your brilliant business plan. Of course, you would've known that if you would've just asked me."

At this point Walt is finally out of words to argue with him, realizing creepingly that he may have acted a bit hastily, again. We don't see how this meeting concludes, but we can take a wild guess that it was awkward.

This scene is a fun kind of reversal of what happened at the cook site last episode - Walt comes to Jesse bringing money, feeling like he's done good, and done a favor for Jesse in particular, expecting approval, only for Jesse to viciously dress him down instead. Unfortunately for Walt, though, I find myself decidedly on Jesse's side of the argument again here: Walt really did just announce to him that without consulting him he's made a commitment for the two of them to keep working for the guy who just put Jesse in the hospital, and made wildly unrealistic promises about their productivity in his continuing ignorance of how the drug trade functions, having learned nothing about not making bold assumptions about what's possible or feasible. Jesse has every right to be angry about this.

I really enjoy the way this plays out on a first viewing, though, because last episode made Walt's victory feel so triumphant and easily sweeps you up with it, and yet now here's Jesse just excoriating him for it, refusing to act even slightly grateful for either the fact he did it or even the $15,000 that he added on top of Jesse's share, angrily going over why actually this was an incredibly dumb thing to do. It feels like such a rough slap in the face not just to Walt but the viewers (probably most of them!) who were unquestioningly cheering for Walt doing this. I remember actually disliking Jesse for this, first time through! That's kind of a wild thought to me now because he's right: as viscerally satisfying as it seemed to watch Walt order Tuco to buy two pounds off them every week, it absolutely was an incredibly rash and stupid move, and it was inexcusable to do it without Jesse's consent when Jesse will have no choice but to be involved. But when you're swept up with Walt, you can really feel how he feels here, and feel a kneejerk almost defensiveness on his behalf. Or at least I did that first time! This show is good at showing people feeling and acting in irrational ways that you can nonetheless understand.

It's worth noting that Jesse is angry about Walt making the deal with Tuco before he comes up with a concrete reason this won't work in the pseudo thing. Mainly, the idea of continuing to deal with Tuco in any capacity just thoroughly freaks him out, and that fear becomes anger when Walt is there trying to push him into it. The fact they can't currently make that much meth is very correct too, but in the moment, it's a convenient rationalization; it wasn't the original reason he got angry, but humans always love to come up with more concrete reasons that justify the emotional reactions they're already having.

Doctor's visit

Walt and Skyler go to a checkup with Dr. Delcavoli about the cancer treatment; Walt mentions they have a baby shower planned next week, and it'll be nice to have a day that's just about Skyler, which makes her smile. The doctor asks how Walt's feeling, and he says he's actually feeling pretty decent; Skyler adds that his energy is better, that he's even gotten more sexual, frisky (Walt looks awkward about her talking about it - understandable in any case, but probably particularly so given the real reasons for it). That means the chemo is working, right? She's taking it all as a hopeful sign that he's simply physically doing better, which makes a lot of sense - timing-wise this is happening not long after he started the treatment. But really, of course, his sudden sexual energy has very little to do with the treatment and everything to do with Walt riding that criminal high.

The doctor is cautious about concluding anything from this - maybe they've just got the antiemetics tuned right. Skyler's face falls a bit, but then she brings up whether there's anything else they could be doing to help the treatment along, like alternative medicine? She really wants the treatment to just work, one way or another, for Walt to just recover from the cancer and be okay and have his better energy and libido and raise their daughter with her - so when the doctor isn't sure this necessarily means he's recovering, she reaches for something else that could help, miracle cures she's heard of, any hopeful avenue that could mean Walt just beats cancer and they live happily ever after.

Dr. Delcavoli very diplomatically tells her that anything that helps the patient have a more positive outlook is good, so long as it doesn't interfere with the treatment, but it's important to manage expectations. Skyler picks up on the obvious subtext that he doesn't have a high opinion of the efficacy of alternative medicine, and her face falls again; she wanted to learn good news here, some sign that things really are looking up or that they can do something more to ensure Walt's recovery, but as a professional Dr. Delcavoli can't give them false hope: they must realize that cancer is cancer, and there are no simple, easy solutions.

This is a very low-key little scene that I initially wasn't sure I'd get into in the commentary, but on a closer look it is doing a fair bit - for where Skyler's character is at at this point, clinging to the hope the treatment's just going to work and everything's going to be fine; for establishing Walt really is feeling better since becoming Heisenberg; and of course setting up two different things for later in the episode: the upcoming baby shower... and Skyler's interest in trying out alternative medicine, which Walt, ever practically-minded, has carefully filed away as useful. Everything serves multiple purposes.

Supply problems

When Walt and Jesse head out for their first meeting with Tuco, Walt dons the iconic hat and sunglasses look for the first time. Off-screen, Walt has been doing a bit of planning for the future, with more time to think than before his impulsive decision to confront Tuco, and among other things, he's realized he should try not to be recognizable as his regular self: the Heisenberg identity can't look plainly like Walter White the high school teacher, or he'll wind up getting found out sooner or later.

Jesse is nervous as hell, and after some tense silence he starts to distract himself by frustratedly grilling Walt about why he arranged to meet in a junkyard, "a non-criminal's idea of a drug meet". Walt, also irritated, asks where he conducts his business. Without a pause, Jesse says Taco Cabeza - a nice public place, open 24 hours, nobody gets shot there. Or even the mall. "Skip the part where psycho-lunatic Tuco, you know, comes and steals my drugs and leaves me bleeding to death." In other words, being here, somewhere discreet and out of the way, where Tuco could easily just murder them with no witnesses, has Jesse extremely on edge after his last encounter with Tuco. But as usual, Walt didn't consult with Jesse on this - he just picked out a location that sounded to him like where a drug deal would take place. The notion of coming to Jesse for advice, in an area where Jesse legitimately has more experience, is still something that just does not occur to Walt.

As Tuco's car approaches and Jesse is obviously agitated (he does this anxious gesture of grabbing his head as he takes a shaky breath, then winces in pain and touches his side as the stretch puts pressure on his cracked ribs, then sort of plays it off like he was just kind of casually stretching, and I love it), Walt tells him he doesn't have to be there for this. He hesitates for a moment but then says "Nah. I'm no pussy. I'm good." Toxic masculinity, ladies and gentlemen, stronger than fear of literal murder.

Tuco is all smiles as he comes out of the car, even casually apologizes for roughing up Jesse. Hilariously, he also comments on why the hell they're way out in some junkyard ("They close the mall or something?"). Walt hands him a bag of meth - only just over half a pound, which he explains as being due to "production problems". Tuco is unhappy and only hands over $17,000 for it - half the agreed-upon price of $35,000 per pound, minus $500 for wasting his time. "Hey, come on," Walt begins to say, but when Tuco raises his voice, asks if he's got something to say, they're silent.

"You're doing business like a couple little bitches," Tuco says, turning around to leave. And the taunt pushes through Walt's hesitation, to the plan he'd been turning over in his head but not told Jesse about yet - probably he wasn't quite sure he'd go for it, but manages a little blaze of determination here to cast the dice and regain control. Last time, after all, he probably recalls, Tuco responded better to Walt being forceful about getting his way, pushing as far as he could.

So, as Jesse stares, Walt coldly insists he wants the full $70,000. "You like this product and you want more. Consider it a capital investment."

Tuco is clearly annoyed but offers $52,000 with 25 points vig; Walt doesn't know what that means, so Jesse has to explain that it's weekly interest. Walt calculates on the spot that that means they'll have to pay it back in $65,625 worth of meth, 1.875 pounds. (This number seems to be calculated as $52,500 * 1.25, so I guess Walt is including the $500 that Tuco knocked off for wasting his time.) Tuco says no, he wants two full pounds next Friday and no production problems. Walt one-ups that by asking, "Can you handle four pounds?" Jesse actually lifts his shades to stare at Walt.

Tuco tells Walt that talk is talk, and owing him money is bad, before throwing a wad of bills at them and pouring the rest of the money on the ground, making it clear he's not happy. But he did agree, just like Walt thought.

As Walt begins to pick up the money, Jesse mutters, "What did you just do?"

New plan

Back at Jesse's house, as Walt calmly scribbles something on a piece of paper, Jesse paces agitatedly, ranting: there aren't enough smurfs in the world to get the pseudoephedrine to make four pounds of meth in a week. Walt, though, finally explains that they're not going to need pseudoephedrine - they're going to switch to a new method, one that uses methylamine instead.

Jesse looks at him in disbelief. No pseudo? Nope. And he breaks into a grin, sudden relief after a while of steadily growing anxiety. Walt actually has a plan, explaining a method patiently like it's the simplest thing in the world; he's about to pull off some new genius thing and just make this impossibility possible after all, and then maybe Tuco isn't going to murder them both, and it'll all just work out after all. One thing he actually likes about cooking with Walt is this idea of getting to do something awesome that he never could've imagined before, and while Walt keeps being ignorant when it comes to the world of dealing drugs, Walt's powers of chemistry still seem magical enough that it actually feels like it checks out that if he has a cool chemistry plan, it really might just solve everything. "Yeah, Mr. White! Yeah, science!"

(It doesn't quite make sense that they made it all the way home with Jesse ranting for a while without Walt at any point just explaining what he's thinking until now, but the way this plays out is fun, so I'll give them this.)

What Walt has been writing down is a shopping list of everything they need to perform the new cook. He tells Jesse obtaining some of these items may be challenging - not in a concerned, this could be hard sort of way, but in a teacher giving a student a tough assignment sort of way. Jesse tries to read out the list, awkwardly mispronouncing its contents (he reads mm, as in millimeters, as M&M the candy, which is adorable, I will be taking no questions), which quickly sours his enthusiasm; now he just feels kind of stupid and in over his head, and last time he asked Walt about chemistry didn't exactly get a great reception. He gets up and says forget it, he's out, he's just going to move to Oregon or something.

But Walt grabs his shoulders (Jesse: "What are you doing?") and starts giving him a motivational speech. Last episode, Jesse was so reluctant to try to do the cook on his own - but he responded well when Walt told him he could do it. That's what works on Jesse, he's realized: teacher mode, encouraging him, making him think this is a tough, worthy challenge but a thing he can do. Today is the first day of the rest of Jesse's life, he says - but will it be a life of fear, of never thinking he can do things or believing in himself?

"I don't know!" Jesse says, defensively.

"Listen. These things, we need them. And only you can get them for us."

It's not only Jesse who can get them, of course. It's just a shopping list; it's not like Walt couldn't buy these things, probably more easily than Jesse could if anything (as a chemist he would probably kind of have a better idea how to obtain all these chemicals and equipment that Jesse is clearly completely unfamiliar with, right?). Walt is saying this to make Jesse feel special and needed and important, so that he will stick with him and they can keep doing this.

He does, in a sense, need Jesse: he's unlikely to get lucky again with such a convenient partner for the drug trade. Which is not a real need, of course; he could let Jesse go and simply quit and take Elliott's job offer like he's always been able to since episode five. But Walt is happy and confident right now in a way he hasn't been since the series began. He doesn't want to lose that. And so, he's going for pushing the right emotional buttons to coax Jesse into staying and going along with his plan. He probably doesn't think of it as manipulating him, exactly - but that's what it is.

Originally, when Walt took up cooking with Jesse, he blackmailed him into working with him; now he's found another way to keep him on his side - one that's a lot more effective and functional, and probably feels less sinister. I'm sure Walt thinks of it as just a good kind of encouragement for a student who needs some coaxing. Whether it actually is, though, is another matter entirely.

Baby shower

Walt Jr. films a baby shower video at the White house, where an enthusiastic Marie asserts that twenty years from now when Holly (who Marie insistently wants to name Esmeralda) watches the video her Aunt Marie will look exactly the same - a joke, of course, but definitely a tongue-in-cheek expression of Marie's genuine vanity. She also tells Walt Jr. to turn the camera around to show 'Esmeralda' her older brother, only to be scandalized that he has it pointed "right up the nose" and quickly force him to turn it back to her instead - projecting a bit of that vanity onto him, too, even though he clearly couldn't care less.

When Walt is asked to say hello to his daugher on camera, he hesitates. By the time Holly sees this video, he fully believes he will be dead (unlike Skyler's relentless need to stay optimistic), and she'll never have known him; this will be one of his only chances to speak to his daughter. He tells her he's very proud of her, thinks about her all the time, and to always remember she has a family who loves her - things he imagines he'd want to say to her every day of her life, that he won't have the chance to tell her. It's starkly different in tone from the rest of this video, bordering on awkward, but he means it. And... while he can't actually say it, part of what he means by always remember you have a family who loves you is that he hopes he'll have left a bunch of money behind that she'll reap the benefits of, even if she'll never know what he did to get it.

Skyler unwraps presents. Hank and Marie have inexplicably given them a white gold baby tiara (but Marie makes it pretty obvious this present was all her). Skyler awkwardly tries to act impressed - "You spent too much on this! You shouldn't have! You really, really shouldn't." As a present it's ridiculous - something likely very expensive, tacky, and with no practical use whatsoever. But Marie is the sort of person who gets excited about status symbols, things that she thinks project wealth and class, so this is exactly the sort of thing she would legitimately appreciate and be into. Skyler doesn't want to offend her, so she feigns excitement and gratitude, while internally horrified at the thought that Marie spent that much money, money that they could actually use, on something like this.

Meanwhile, Hank, tired of watching the unwrapping of endless presents, takes Walt aside and asks if he's got anything stronger than beer. As they sit together over drinks he brings out fancy cigars, but falters when he realizes it might be insensitive to Walt's cancer; Walt, however, asks to try one himself. "I've already got lung cancer."

Walt notices the cigars are Cuban and comments that he's pretty sure they're illegal. Hank chuckles; "Yeah, well, sometimes forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest, doesn't it?"

That rings interestingly true to Walt right now, in his current stage of embracing criminality. Hank isn't such a diehard stickler for the law either, when it comes right down to it, and in this moment he dares to feel a sense of kinship with him on it. He muses casually about how we draw that line, what's legal and what's illegal - alcohol used to be illegal too, after all. Who knows what'll be legal next year?

...By which Hank thinks he means pot, of course. But Hank, DEA agent and all, is not as willing to go there as Walt perhaps dared to hope for a moment. What, cocaine? Heroin? "I'm just saying it's arbitrary," Walt says after a pause, guard back up a little. Hank says a lot of guys in lockup talk like that - and sometimes it goes the other way, too, with things being legal that shouldn't be. "I mean, friggin' meth used to be legal." Used to be sold over the counter at pharmacies! "Thank God they came to their senses on that one, huh?"

After a moment, Walt says, "Yeah." Not quite the validation that he wanted. Hank absolutely wouldn't take kindly to Walt's new business, cigars or no. But he won't let that stop him.

In the evening, when everyone's gone, he's already making plans for how he's going to make four pounds of meth for Tuco. He tells Skyler he's been thinking about what she said about alternative medicine at the doctor's visit. She quickly tells him not to worry, that she's not going to talk about that anymore - she picked up what the doctor was putting down, and she always knew it was the sort of thing Walt would scorn, after all. But Walt says no, maybe there is something to it. Skyler's brow furrows; I love how obvious it is that she would have thought Hell would freeze over before Walt would say that. (Bringing it up at the doctor's office was a hopeful grasp for the doctor to maybe agree it could be a good idea, which would probably have been the only way she figured Walt might have agreed to try anything like that.)

He shows her a website about a Navajo sweat lodge healing ceremony that's supposed to be good for the lungs; he'd drive up on Friday and come back on Sunday. "I'm not saying that I believe in it, but it might be an experience."

Really, of course, Walt is planning to spend the weekend with Jesse cooking up a new batch of meth. And Skyler is all for Walt wanting to try it after all, as he'd predicted. Everything is going according to plan.

(Tuco explicitly wanted the four pounds by next Friday; possibly he just meant Friday next week, and not the actual next Friday, which would have been the one Walt's planning to head out on.)

The heist

Presumably the next day, Walt looks through what Jesse has gathered in his garage, makes sure to praise him for getting the correct things (Jesse affirms his praise, Damn straight, talks about how it was hard to get, successfully feeling like he did a good job - he got exactly what Walt said to get, too, eager to prove himself after the bathtub incident in episode two).

One problem, though: he did not manage to procure methylamine. He couldn't just buy that like the rest of this stuff - the only real way to get it is to steal it from a locked-down chemical supply place south of town. (Get ready for methylamine to be the writers' go-to supply problem in the series from here; I don't know how accurate that is to real-life methamphetamine synthesis, but for the purposes of the narrative, it's the one ingredient of the new cook that is singularly problematic to obtain.)

Not willing to leave it there (he wanted to do a good job!), he did find some guys who'd be willing to steal it for them - but they wanted $10,000 for it, and by this point, after buying everything else, Jesse didn't have enough money left to pay them. What Jesse is presumably after here is just for Walt to give him some more money from his own share to pay the thieves - they must surely have enough, after the Tuco deal, and both he and Walt talk about it in terms of how much money he has, not how much they have collectively. (Really, surely the supplies shouldn't all be bought out of Jesse's share anyway, so Walt owes him at least half the cost, right? Maybe Walt already gave him extra money for half of what he estimated it would cost, but I'm not super convinced.)

But Walt's not thrilled about the prospect. It's a lot of money, and it's involving more people who could be a risk. Who knows how competent these thieves are, or if they might get caught and point the police towards them? He asks Jesse about the chemical facility - and then notices an old Etch-a-Sketch in a box on a shelf behind Jesse. He picks it up, shakes it for the familiar sound of the powder inside, and smiles. "So why don't we just steal it ourselves?" He waits for the inevitable how, and then smugly presents the toy. "With this."

Walt takes great pleasure in explaining his plan to Jesse - the powder inside the Etch-a-Sketch, thermite, is a substance that was used in World War II to destroy otherwise indestructible weapons, because it burns unusually hot, allowing it to melt through several inches of metal. Using his chemistry genius to do something like this and sneak in to steal the methylamine themselves sounds exciting, like another challenge for him to solve with his intellect - certainly more exciting than paying some criminals ten thousand dollars.

For the break-in, Walt buys hilarious knitted ski masks with colorful pom-poms on them for them to wear for concealment; "It was all they had." (Jesse: "Then you go to another store! If this is all they had, you're in the wrong place!") When a guard who was meant to leave stays to go to the bathroom, Jesse, thinking quickly, comes up with tying a rope around the port-a-potty, trapping the guard inside to give them more time (once again Jesse is actually pretty creative and ingenious with plans). They manage to get inside, but not without setting off loud, ringing alarms, and there are no simple gallon jugs of methylamine to grab - they're forced to carry an entire barrel that they can only barely lift together.

All in all, it's all pretty goofy and not exactly smooth sailing - they're clearly not competent supercriminals - but by a combination of quick thinking and luck, they do manage it, successfully making it home with a full barrel of the methylamine without being seen or followed. And as a side-effect of being forced to take way more methylamine than they expected, they now have much more than they need. This should last them a good long while.

The tiara

Skyler heads to the jewelry store to discreetly return the baby tiara in the hope of getting something more useful for the money, only to be detained at the store as the manager recognizes that it's stolen and calls the police. She tries to tell them it was really a gift from her baby shower (she indicates her visibly pregnant belly to help her case), but when the manager asks who gave it to her, Skyler refuses to implicate her sister and just says she doesn't have to tell him that.

The manager, unimpressed, tells her she can talk to the police, and he'll tell them his daughter-in-law saw a tall blonde woman with it who disappeared when her back was turned - which must be a lie to whatever degree, given Marie is decidedly not blonde. Skyler, distraught, counters by threatening to talk to the news about how they illegally detained an innocent pregnant woman in a dank storeroom ("This is my office!" protests the manager), then dramatically fakes going into labor until they figure this is more trouble than it's worth and let her go. Damn, Skyler.

As soon as she's out, she leaves a pointed message on Marie's answering machine. Marie dodges all of Skyler's attempts to contact her, though, until finally Skyler manages to corner her at another jewelry store to confront her about it - and about the efforts to avoid her, including sneaking out the back when Skyler came to her office. Marie scoffs, claiming she was just going to lunch; "Skyler, what are you, the paranoid police?"

Rather than chasing after Marie's obvious avoidance, Skyler moves on to the bit about how she was accused of shoplifting the tiara at the store. Marie immediately seizes upon what she was doing at the store, and taking offense at Skyler trying to return the tiara, dodging the shoplifting bit. Skyler doesn't take the bait and just asks what is wrong with her, why she would do such a thing. (Skyler never exactly expresses surprise at the notion she might have shoplifted it at all; I suspect she's well aware this is a habit of Marie's from when they were younger, and she'd merely assumed Marie wouldn't give expensive shoplifted jewelry to someone else as a gift.) At which Marie just shrugs, claiming she has no idea what Skyler is talking about, and awkwardly sticks to that bizarre claim until Skyler gives up and leaves.

I find this reaction fascinating and revealing. Marie isn't really trying to convince Skyler she didn't steal it here. She isn't trying to fake being the kind of upset that any regular person would be at being wrongly accused of stealing, or suggesting alternative explanations (unlike how she explained away the sneaking out of her office), or even precisely stating she didn't do it. She's just weirdly refusing to acknowledge it, because the thing Marie really can't deal with is not precisely being caught, but the idea of herself having to actually confront it. Marie's kleptomania is directed toward stealing things that feed her vanity and lofty self-image, but being a kleptomaniac and having to steal them itself clashes terribly with that self-image in a way she can't reconcile - so she doesn't. She has a firm mental barrier in place where she just refuses to examine or confront her shoplifting habit at all, and the defense she employs when Skyler tries to force the issue is just this flimsy, transparent refusal to even acknowledge the accusation until Skyler gives up.

And Skyler is loyal to her sister. She's deeply angry and frustrated, but she's not going to report her, or let the store report her, or tell Hank about it. I'm going to want to bring this up again later.

Open house

As Walt and Jesse prepare to head out to the desert to do the cook, the RV is again refusing to start, like it was early in episode two (setup!). Like back then, the two of them are frustrated and hostile at each other, but this time they're a bit more functional about it; Walt lets Jesse try it when he asks, and when Jesse does get it to start and gloats a bit ("Eat it, okay? I'm the king!") Walt says, "Yeah, okay", choosing to just let Jesse have this one.

Only then there's a worrying sound. The engine's shot; the RV's just not going anywhere right now. Instead, they're going to have to cook in Jesse's basement.

They bicker a bit more over maneuvering the heavy barrel down the stairs, but successfully get it there and upright. Walt asks about the real estate agent, whom Jesse had completely forgotten about; as he prepares to call her, he says, "Good call, yo," swallowing his pride to acknowledge that Walt may have saved both their skins there. For better or worse, our duo are figuring out how to get along and work together as partners.

Unfortunately, though, the real estate agent is already there, phone left ringing in the car as she puts up an "Open house" sign. They go ahead with the cook despite not getting an answer, which seems unwise, but I suppose they don't have a lot of time or options, and probably they figured leaving a message on the answering machine would be enough - they hadn't guessed she was already here. Walt's upped the ante for the cook yet again - they're making four and a half pounds, not just four. With the amount of methylamine they have, they'll be able to do that much every week for the foreseeable future.

"How long is that gonna be?" Jesse asks, thinking of the cancer. "I mean, in your situation? How much cash do you need?"

"More." This is a very telling answer - Walt's first thought isn't some goal, some purpose he wants more money for (pay for the cancer treatment, for his children's college...), but just the kneejerk impulse for more. The idea of scaling up their production like this is not really about having enough cash for anything in particular, but about the thrill he gets out of it. But it does put into his head that he should try to come up with a figure, some rationally justified target to go for.

Jesse doesn't question it, though - or at least he has no time to, because that's when they hear people: a bunch of potential buyers are here to check out the house. After a goofy comedic sequence where they awkwardly try to keep doing the cook and just keep people from coming into the basement ("It's occupied!"), Jesse finally just orders everybody out, yelling that the house is not for sale. This whole bit is pretty silly, and there's no real reason Jesse didn't just immediately walk out to cancel the open house when they realized people were there (maybe he was still holding on to the hope of selling the house, but he easily could have just canceled this open house without deciding not to sell the house if he really wanted to, so that doesn't seem terribly convincing), but on the other hand this was hilarious, so I'll allow it.

Walt finally returns home after they've finished the cook, collapsing onto a sofa after a tense and exhausting couple of days. Skyler collapses as well after getting him a glass of orange juice; she's also had a pretty exhausting weekend. Walt asks if she's okay, and she tells him about the shoplifted tiara, that she nearly got arrested trying to return it, that Marie refuses to acknowledge or apologize for it, that she doesn't know what to do.

"People sometimes do things for their families," Walt suggests after a long moment. He, after all, also committed a theft this weekend, so he can't help but feel vaguely defensive at Skyler's indignation. And what he'd like to tell Skyler about why he did it is that he did it for the family. Technically maybe Marie did, too; maybe she just really wanted to give them something nice, whether they technically wished for it or not, the way Walt hopes to earn them a bunch of money even if they probably wouldn't precisely approve of how he's doing it?

Skyler gives him a baffled look. "People sometimes do things for their families? And what, that justifies stealing?"

"Well..."

"Wow. That must've been some sweat lodge. Are you even listening to the words coming out of your mouth?"

Skyler is not having any of his little justification, especially as a response to Marie's behaviour, and it makes Walt self-conscious. He asks what she'd do if it were him. Would she divorce him, turn him in?

"You don't want to find out," she says after a pause, moving closer; he smiles, and she does too, and they kiss. She looked a little suspicious of this weird line of questioning there, but for the moment, they were just talking about Marie, and there's no real reason to think it wasn't just an idle hypothetical from a husband just back from a weird mind-expanding experience.

The biggest overarching theme of this episode, I think, is that Walt, Skyler, Hank and Marie all find themselves confronting criminality in different ways here, and we get an interesting, revealing look at their relationships to the concept. Walt is becoming ever more comfortable with his own, embracing and finding a thrill in applying his intellect toward criminal purposes, even when it's not even necessary or the wisest choice. Hank casually comes to a party with illegal cigars - an illustration of the same hypocrisy that led him to overlook Walt's pot-smoking while arresting Hugo, this silent implicit assumption that yeah, it's illegal but they're not real criminals. Marie's shoplifting habit is picked back up on after first being shown in "...and the Bag's in the River", giving a glimpse into the way that she simply mentally refuses to even acknowledge that she's engaging in criminal behaviour at all. And Skyler is scandalized by Marie's actions and Walt's tentative testing of the waters - but she still covers for Marie at the store, and when she finds herself accused, rather than betraying Marie despite her anger with her, she turns to lies and blackmail in her desperation, and is actually pretty good at it, thinking on her feet and successfully wriggling out of it despite her obvious distress. All of this is pretty relevant to their characters in the seasons to come.

But also - Walt really is already kidding himself about doing it for the family, and his actions in this episode have demonstrated that over and over, making it decidedly hollow and ironic when he invokes it as an excuse here. The choices he has been making here are, again and again, to push harder to earn more faster and do the risky thing that might get him caught or injured but is personally satisfying to him, despite that what'd be best for his family would be to play it safe the moment he could cover the cancer treatment. The idea of doing it for his family makes him feel good about doing it - but that's not why he promised way more meth than he needed to Tuco, or why he wanted to personally steal the methylamine, or why he just wants more.

Tuco's rage

Walt and Jesse bring 4.6 pounds of meth to Tuco at the junkyard (once again Walt pushed a bit further, to do just a little more than planned). Tuco complains that the meth is blue in color - a result of the new cooking process, Walt assures him, but it's every bit as pure. (I'm not convinced this makes much sense in real life, though I'm no chemist, but the show will make repeated good use of their particular meth being identifiable because it's blue, so I'm happy to suspend disbelief. Let's imagine it's structural coloring, like the wings of a morpho butterfly - rather than containing some kind of blue chemical, which'd contradict the idea it's still just as pure, something about the crystal structure is such that it causes interference with light that results in it appearing blue.)

After trying it, Tuco is thrilled, whatever the color. He compliments Walt, says he's all right. Tuco's men hand them the money originally agreed on plus extra for the extra 0.6 pounds. "We're gonna make a lot of money together," Tuco says, smiling.

"Just remember who you're working for," adds one of Tuco's men, No-Doze - trying to keep them in check, make sure they don't get cocky and still respect Tuco as their boss. And... Tuco flies into a rage. "Like they don't already know that? Are you saying that they're stupid?" Or, if not, that he's stupid? Why's he speaking for him, like he can't speak for himself?

Walt suggests they all just relax. And after a laugh, and repeating, "I'm relaxed," Tuco without warning knocks No-Doze down and begins to beat the shit out of him as Walt and Jesse watch in horror. Tuco proudly shows off his bloodied fist, then leaves them with a laugh and a "Next week."

Walt and Jesse are left staring after him, with a cold reminder that regardless of them learning to work better together and having the materials to make and sell a lot of meth without the previous bottlenecks, they are currently tied to a ticking time bomb. Tuco is violently unstable and completely unpredictable, and there is no way to be sure to stay on his good side - and they've committed to selling him four pounds of meth a week for the foreseeable future. (Once again, Jesse was entirely right to be angry about Walt making a commitment to Tuco.)

We could see this in Tuco already last episode - he waved off Jesse's meth being a little light of a pound, but then got really threatening at, of all things, Skinny trying to assure Jesse that Tuco was good for the money. It's a deeply strange, unexpected thing for him to take issue with - and yet there is definitely a coherent common element there and here. Tuco hates to have anyone else try to back him up, and I think it's essentially rooted in Tuco having this warped self-image where he wants to imagine more or less at all times that the notion of anyone defying or distrusting him is simply absurd. And when people try to vouch for him or remind people they're working for him, it implicitly suggests his position isn't completely secure after all, that they think there was some kind of chance the other person didn't trust him or didn't regard him unquestioningly as the boss, and that really drives Tuco mad.

Just the same, though, it's a backwards logic that's unintuitive to puzzle out and pretty detached from reality, and who knows what else might set him off; there's no way to just figure him out and be safe from there. That unpredictability, I think, is what makes Tuco a great villain for this point in the series. He's pretty lightweight in terms of character depth, but he's a credible threat and his presence easily creates tension. We, and Walt and Jesse, simply have no idea what Tuco might do next, no reliable way to steer clear of angering him, and that's pretty scary, especially for a high school teacher who only just started to fancy himself a criminal and his former student who already got put in the hospital by Tuco once. Walt thought that blowing up Tuco's headquarters had him tamed - but that couldn't be further from the truth. They're trapped in the lion's den now, with no easy way out. And that's the ominous note on which we end the first season.

Famously, season one was originally meant to be longer, and Jesse was meant to die at the end of it (this would be a very different show if that had happened), but the 2008 writers' strike cut it short here. As a result, this definitely doesn't feel all that much like a season finale, in terms of structure and overall stakes (ironically less so than "Crazy Handful of Nothin'", which did have a pretty season finale feel to it), but it does work better as such than it could have, I think - it does in its way mark the end of an era and beginning of a new one as we've made our way through the rocky beginning stages of Walt and Jesse's working relationship, done a big heist for materials, and established the iconic blue meth, while demonstrating the presence of a larger threat going into the next season.

Even so, I think this is my least favorite episode of the season, at least on measures other than humour (it is pretty hilarious, and definitely stands with "Cat's in the Bag..." as one of the show's funnier episodes - I prefer the latter myself because its humour is darker and interplays in a more fun way with the sheer fucked-up awfulness of what's going on, but that's more a matter of taste, and the goofy ski masks are definitely pretty iconic). Ultimately as an individual episode it's just a bit scattered and silly overall, compared to most of the rest of the show; I found myself making more nitpicks here than for any of the previous ones, and there aren't quite any really standout memorable bits aside from the purely comedic.

That said, there's still some good and important stuff going on here for the overall arc of the show - the exploration of what criminality means for all four of Walt/Skyler/Hank/Marie, Walt's power trip as he begins to embrace how much he enjoys this for its own sake even if he still justifies it with his family, "How much cash do you need?" "More" - and very significantly, Walt figuring out how to manipulate Jesse.

With season one out of the way, I will be watching my way through season two and taking notes on each episode before I write further commentaries (it helps me have a fresh memory to be able to connect things together better for the season). This one took quite a while already; I've been having trouble getting into a good rhythm with working on these after the long commute/lunch hours that I would use for them vanished from my schedule, but I think I've got something going now that more or less works, so hopefully I can make more steady progress. I will report back on how it's going.

[antialianalysis]

S01E06: “Crazy Handful of Nothin’”

In this episode, Walt and Jesse start cooking together again and try to get an in with a new distributor - our next antagonist, Tuco.

(This is an ongoing commentary on all of Breaking Bad. Follow this blog to keep up with future posts!)

Proceeding from shortly after we left off last episode, we start with Walt and Jesse carrying boxes of equipment back into the RV. Walt sees the sorry state of things after the fight with Badger, the dubious magazines that he left. He probably doesn't even want to know what happened here, and Jesse has no interest in telling him.

Rather than comment, Walt just lays down new ground rules; this time, this time, things are going to work out like he originally envisioned it. The chemistry will be his realm, and he will be in charge of the cooking. But: "Out there on the street, you deal with that. As far as our customers go, I don't want to know anything about them. I don't want to see them, I don't want to hear from them. I want no interaction with them whatsoever. This operation is you and me, and I'm the silent partner. You got any issues with that?"

"Whatever, man," Jesse says, a bit defensive. He had no plans to repeat what happened with Krazy-8 and Emilio anyway; Walt doesn't have to tell him twice. Although he doesn't enjoy Walt's accusatory tone, he needs this enough he's willing to put up with it.

"No matter what happens, no more bloodshed. No violence."

Only this speech is intercut with the aftermath of an explosion, a bald, cold-faced Walt, blood leaking from his nose, holding a red-stained bag, walking down a street full of shocked bystanders as sirens blare.

I mentioned in my commentary on the pilot that when I first watched the show, I assumed the cold open there was showing something that'd happen in the series finale. I did not learn my lesson, because when we got here, to this, I was convinced that no, this flashforward must be to the series finale. After all, it seems like Walt's become some sort of ruthless terrifying crime boss! But surprise, this one was also later in this very episode, and the show was going to cheerfully get us there in forty-five minutes. This is such a great opening; it's impossibly intriguing and really prepares us to anticipate the intensity ramping up again after the quiet stretch of the last two episodes, even if we can't quite fathom how quickly it's going to happen.

Therapy

Walt goes to chemo. He tells Skyler she doesn't have to be there, but she says she wants to be; she's determined to be extra there for him, knowing how reluctant he was to do this treatment. But he insists no, really, it's fine if she wants to leave - and then switches to actually, he'd feel better if he knew she'd be there when Walt Jr. got home from school. It's obvious he just wants her to leave, and Skyler doesn't buy it for a second; she's clearly a little affronted, by the fact he made this sorry excuse instead of just telling the truth if nothing else. But if he does want to be alone, she'll respect that and give him his space (once again, Skyler keeps trying to be considerate of him in this).

As she stands up, she asks if he's been in touch with Elliott, since she hasn't seen a check from him yet. Walt says it already arrived and he took care of it. She's clearly still very surprised at how well he seems to be taking this in the end, and I think she's still not quite entirely buying it - she looks at him for just a bit too long here. But she leaves anyway; the worst she can imagine, after all, is Walt's just reluctant and dragging his feet on talking to Elliot, but obviously he will have to get it done sooner or later, right?

The real reason Walt wanted her to leave before him, of course, was that he didn't receive a check from Elliott at all, and really he's going to write a $1900 check for the clinic and tell them not to deposit it until Monday, when he plans to have some meth money in his account.

We get another suspiciously apropos chemistry lesson from Walt, a triple combo of outlining one of the themes of the episode, foreshadowing, and immediate relevance (because everything serves multiple purposes). It's on chemical reactions, change, and how they can happen at different speeds. It can be so slow you don't even notice, like rust on the underside of a car (like the slow shift in Walt over the course of the show) - or it can be nearly instantaneous, like an explosion (like the seemingly sudden change Walt's about to undergo in this episode). He takes mercury fulminate as an example of an explosive (foreshadowing), but becomes nauseous during the lesson and tells the kids to start reading while he runs to the bathroom to throw up. The school's janitor Hugo is there, asks if he's okay, and insists he'll clean up and Walt shouldn't worry about it; Walt's got kids to teach, after all.

Walt, Skyler and Walt Jr. attend a support group for cancer patients and their families, where Skyler voices her feelings about the sense that Walt sometimes doesn't want her around (which he denies), and about him not telling her what's going on with these recent afternoons when he's come home late and they're left wondering where he is. Of course, what he's actually been doing is cooking meth - but he explains he just likes to take walks after work to be alone sometimes, that it's not about her, just that sometimes it's better not to talk at all, to anyone, about anything, which is definitely not entirely a lie. Just focusing on the chemistry, quiet, in the wilderness, with somebody who doesn't even know he has cancer, who can't start talking to him about it and probably keeps the words exchanged to an absolute minimum generally, is a really, really welcome relief, compared to his family fussing over him, checking in with him, taking him to therapy.

Cooking

Cut to Walt, working on the cook, becoming nauseous and rushing out of the RV. Jesse's sitting there on a lawn chair reading a magazine (one of Badger's?) - presumably Walt insists on handling at least some of the trickier parts of the process on his own - but as soon as he sees Walt's unwell, he jumps up to support him, asks if he's okay, and tells him to sit down and get some air while he awkwardly fans him with the magazine. I love how we see Jesse's basic nature here - Walt's not exactly his favorite person in the world but his absolute first straightforward instinct seeing him suffering is sympathy and proactively trying to help and make him feel better, in whatever way he can think of, beyond the bare minimum.

When Walt zips down his protective suit, though, Jesse notices the mark on his chest used for targeting radiation therapy, which he recognizes, because his aunt had cancer. He asks when Walt was going to tell him, says it's not cool he didn't. Then... "What stage are you?" "IIIA." "Gone into your lymph nodes."

This, too, says a lot about Jesse. He's not stupid, or even generally bad at retaining things; when he really cares, and he clearly cared about his aunt, he's quite observant, pays attention, and has a good memory even for highly specific knowledge. Walt is clearly baffled by this - he'd pretty much written Jesse off when he taught him in high school, and nothing since they got reacquainted has moved him on this, until now.

He asks how bad it was when they caught the cancer in his aunt, for the first time showing something resembling interest in Jesse; she lasted seven months, a grim prognosis. And, unprompted, Jesse says, "That's why you're doing all this!" - it's to earn money for his family before he dies, isn't it? Walt's a bit defensive, asks if he's got a problem with that - but no, Jesse just asks if he's feeling well enough to finish the cook.

Walt never planned to tell Jesse he had cancer - but now that he's found out anyway, Jesse's reaction is actually exactly the kind of reaction Walt would have wished for. Jesse doesn't pity him or condescend to him or want him to share his feelings, and he doesn't pressure Walt about his motivations - all on his own he assumes Walt's doing it nobly for his family (just as Walt likes to think of it), doesn't question it, and still fully intends to help him with it and appears to care only insofar as it affects their partnership. Even Jesse being mad that he didn't tell him - briefly but then dropping it - is probably kind of reassuring, a sign Jesse isn't coddling him or holding anything back. If this were how everyone reacted to the cancer, Walt probably wouldn't have quite so much of a problem with people knowing. Jesse is surprising him on multiple levels.

Walt automatically says of course he can finish the cook, he's fine... but after a moment can't quite deny that no, he's really not. And right now, in this moment, it actually seems like maybe Jesse isn't an irredeemable clown. "You do it." (Of course, nothing that just happened actually says anything about Jesse's competence at this - Walt just likes him more now, and thus is more inclined to give him a chance.)

Jesse stares at him. "Me?"

"What happened to your 'mad skills'?" Walt asks, sarcastically, because usually Jesse sure acts like he can do anything. Jesse just stands there awkwardly, not even responding; he knows perfectly well that he's faking that, that it's not actually going to be any good if he tries. Walt throws him a gas mask. "Go on. Here. You do it." Pause. "You can do it." Jesse is very, very hesitant, but when Walt says he'll be there if he has any questions, he's finally convinced he's serious about this and heads towards the RV.

First, though, as a sort of reciprocation, he drops a tip from his aunt: putting an ice pack on your head during chemo helps with the hair loss. (A fun way to make sure the viewer is aware of this for later, too, without having to explicitly point out on-screen that that's why Walt's about to be losing his hair. Everything serves multiple purposes.)

We don't see followup on how the cook went, which is a bit of a shame; my assumption since we don't is that it was perfectly okay and up to par, but I wish we got to see Jesse's reaction to that (I figure he probably chalks it more up to Walt's prior efforts than his at this point, but still), and whether Walt acknowledged it at all in his current more charitable mood towards Jesse. I think he possibly might have.

Downslide

We get a montage of Jesse selling their product to what we can presume are some of his usual customers (some of them at the motel from episode three). He is clearly pals with them (i.e. wants to think he's pals with them), fistbumps everyone, even smokes up with some of them even though he eventually has to excuse himself to sell more and this means he's high and has trouble focusing from there. It's not like he can just say no; they might think he's no fun!

Jesse returns to the desert the next day to meet up with Walt, in good spirits despite Walt's complaint that he's late. He's gone and bought Walt a prepaid cellphone for easier communication - a favor, saving Walt the trouble - and proudly presents him with two wads of cash. "Twenty-six big ones." Walt responds, "$26,000? That's all?"

No, Jesse explains, good feelings abruptly gone, twenty-six hundred, of which Walt's share is thirteen minus the phone. Walt is outraged; he asks how much Jesse sold (about an ounce), if he smoked the rest or what (no, it just takes time to sell a pound of anything in small quantities to individual customers), why he's selling it in small quantities and doesn't just sell the whole pound (to whom?), then as his logic runs out just turns to empty outrage with "This is unacceptable! I am breaking the law here! This return is too little for the risk!" (as if Jesse isn't taking on way more risk by being the one actually selling it, but Jesse's risk is immaterial, right?).

Jesse is obviously right and making perfect sense, and Walt's showing his complete ignorance of how any of this works with every additional protestation. Maybe Jesse could have sold a little more if he'd spent less time with each customer, but clearly not the whole pound. But of course, the unseen motivator here making Walt so angry and insistent about this is the fact that he told the cancer clinic to deposit his check on Monday - a check that isn't covered by Walt's half of the night's haul. He needs that money in his account by that time or the check will bounce and his family might find out, and that's a very, very stressful thought. (People being dicks to each other for human reasons.)

Once again he really has nobody but himself to blame for this; it was he who just kind of assumed that he'd have the full amount on Monday without even asking Jesse if that'd work out. Not that I exactly blame him for not thinking through the logistics there; it's entirely understandable human error, when you don't fully understand a system, to just abstract it into, "We'll make this much meth, and then sell it for this amount of money," without thinking through exactly what the selling it step is going to involve or how long it might take. But it's clearly Walt's own human error, and yet again he's scapegoating Jesse as if this is somehow his fault, because finding someone else to blame in a stressful situation is what people tend to do.

Walt could just explain what's actually wrong to Jesse right now. He already knows about the cancer, and Walt's seen that he's sympathetic about it. Jesse would definitely want to help if possible, and there's no way Walt doesn't realize that. From Walt's point of view, Jesse might know somebody that could discreetly loan them money with interest until they've sold the whole batch, or something like that. But that would require admitting to Jesse that he made a miscalculation (when he's already just been embarrassed in this argument), that he's desperate and has no money and needs help to make this work out. And Walt is not doing that.

So, instead, when Jesse tells him he may know chemistry but he doesn't know jack about slinging dope, Walt doubles down. "Well, I'll tell you I know a lack of motivation when I see it." Walt's only mistake was assuming Jesse would be properly motivated to get this done, like any proper drug dealer would be, right? Jesse reacts with appropriate incredulity. But Walt presses on: Jesse's not being imaginative enough! Can't they just sell it in bulk, wholesale?

"What do you mean, to a distributor?"

That actually got him somewhere, and Walt latches onto it for all he's got. "Yes! Yes, that's what we need. We need a distributor. Now, do you know anyone like that?"

"Yeah, I mean, I used to, until you killed him."

Womp womp. Jesse says it in the manner of a frustrated jab, but then sinks down to a seated position by the side of the RV, looking down, fiddling; bringing that up just made him feel worse. Walt's silent for a little while, considering his options. He's still not telling Jesse why he needs money quick. "So who took Krazy-8's place?"

Jesse reluctantly explains that it was some guy named Tuco. "Badass, from what I hear" - i.e. someone pretty scary that Jesse would very much prefer not to have anything to do with. He's still sitting, uncomfortable with where this conversation is headed; the balance is shifting, Walt gaining ground now that they've come around to an option that's technically possible, but he doesn't like it one bit. Walt goes okay, well, then why don't you just talk to Tuco? Jesse tries to explain that no, that's not how it works - a guy like this is not going to just trust and buy from some random dudes he doesn't know. They'd need someone to introduce and vouch for them - like how Emilio vouched for Jesse to Krazy-8, because they'd known each other from third grade. "And we can't talk to Emilio, because..." "All right, all right, all right."

Jesse reiterates that trying to get in with Tuco is too risky (you know, like how Walt was just earlier complaining about the risk; like how Walt was talking about no more violence). They are making money; why can't he be satisfied with that? And Walt snarls, "Oh, come on! Jesus! Just grow some fucking balls!" before climbing back into the RV, ending the conversation. (Again, please remember that Walt could just tell Jesse why he needs the money now.)

Jesse mouths "Wow", as if reaffirming to himself that Walt is being a ridiculous asshole (which he is). But underneath, it's gotten to him anyway; he can't quite help it. Just yesterday Walt was actually trusting him with a part of the cook; now he's fallen out of favor again, isn't selling fast enough, needs to grow some fucking balls. And it's just in Jesse's nature to be bothered by that, to want to prove him wrong.

Investigation

Walt has another course of chemo (he does not take Jesse's advice about having an ice pack on his head), writes another check to be deposited on Monday. The line items we see add up to some $6500 (oh my god). The pressure increases. He throws up at school again and is again assisted by Hugo the janitor.

Later, Hank pays him a visit after class (and makes a lewd comment about Walt's coworker, because of course he does). He shows Walt a gas mask - the one they left in the desert. Walt plays dumb; Hank explains that they've discovered it came from the school's chemistry lab and was used to cook meth - and was found near a car belonging to one of their snitches. It only takes Walt a moment to piece together what that means. (Hank casually explains they haven't found a body but think the snitch was killed, "Probably chopped up into little pieces and fed to the buzzards." Walt looks incredibly uncomfortable.)

Hank asks if they've had any respirators go missing, and Walt says not that he knows of, but then invites him to check the inventory - starts off trying to deny it altogether, but realizes quickly that there's no way the police won't be able to confirm the equipment he stole went missing, given they've got the inventory hanging on the wall. He's lost this one.

Hank asks who has keys to the storeroom, and Walt lists them. Hank suggest the thief might be a student who found out where some of the keys were kept, tells Walt not to underestimate them. Walt is incredibly on edge as Hank goes through the inventory, points out some flasks are missing. His new burner phone starts ringing in the middle of it; when Walt doesn't pick up, Hank assumes it's because he's there and tells him not to ignore it on his account, so Walt reluctantly picks up the phone and answers.

Of course, it's Jesse, who informs him that actually it turns out his friend Skinny Pete was in a cell block with Tuco - so they've got their in, someone who can vouch. And the two of them are on their way to speak to him now, with a pound of meth to sell.

(Implicit in this: Jesse talked to his friends about the notion of approaching Tuco, Skinny told him about their connection and convinced him he could get them an in with him, and Jesse actually went ahead with it. He could have just never told Walt any of this, or called him asking about it while still trying to talk him out of doing it. But he didn't; despite himself not wanting to do this at all and being perfectly satisfied with their current arrangements, he's still determined to try to do this when he sees an actual chance to. He knows Walt was being an ass, and yet he can't help but feel restless and inadequate and want to live up to those unreasonable expectations after all.)

Hank doesn't ask about the phone call (which sounded innocuous on Walt's end), but Walt, still not a great liar, feels compelled to needlessly explain it anyway: "My doctor is very solicitous." Hank just tells Walt he doesn't want to get him in trouble, but clearly somebody got into the storeroom and he needs to look out for it better. "We don't want people to start worrying about you, right?" Walt stares at him, dead silent, for a couple of seconds before Hank grins and laughs. Walt chuckles along awkwardly. Hank still very much can't actually imagine Walt doing anything criminal and easily brushes off all of Walt's suspicious behaviour here; Walt benefits a lot from being someone nobody can imagine manufacturing drugs. Make a note of this.

Tuco

Meanwhile, Jesse and Skinny Pete are about to see Tuco.

On the phone call with Walt, Jesse managed to sound casual and confident, but now, only seconds of in-universe time later, we can see as they step out of the car that he looks incredibly tense and nervous. He asks, clearly not for the first time, if Skinny is sure he's tight with this guy. Again, Jesse for his parts would clearly rather stay far away from Tuco, and is doing this because he feels like he has to. Skinny insists that yeah, "Like two nuts in a ballsack, yo." He's greatly exaggerating, but whether he genuinely naïvely believes it or has just convinced himself this'll go fine in his deep eagerness to be pivotal in helping Jesse out like this, he's fully committed to treating it as truth.

As they enter Tuco's headquarters through his multiple security measures, Skinny acts like everyone there should know exactly who he is and afford him the proper respect, but Tuco's henchmen are clearly very unimpressed and have never heard of him. Jesse notices immediately and gets cold feet, suggests this wasn't a good idea and they should just go, but Skinny's confidence doesn't waver for a moment, and so Jesse follows anyway.

Skinny immediately cheerfully offers Tuco a fistbump as they step into his room. Tuco sits there, entirely unamused, holding a large, intimidating knife that he was just using to pick his teeth. Skinny awkwardly lowers his arm. Every sign is screaming this was a terrible idea, but one way or another, they're here.

Tuco gets straight to the point, asking if Jesse's the guy Skinny told him about. Jesse brings him the bag of meth, and Tuco immediately opens it, takes out a crystal and crushes it with the butt of the knife (please make a note of this for later). Tuco tries the meth, though only after making Jesse do so first - Jesse assumes he wants him to prove he's not a cop, but I think it may (also) be paranoia that it could be poisoned, which you should definitely also put a pin in. He's thrilled with it, and agrees to make a deal - which has Skinny already celebrating victory.

Jesse is a lot more wary, well aware they're not out of the woods yet. He tells him they want thirty-five thousand dollars for the pound. Tuco weighs the bag, says it's a little light of a pound, and Jesse looks terrified, guessing that the slightest thing off might anger him - but Tuco brushes it off, says it's all good, and tells them to get out of there. What about the money? "You'll get it."

When Jesse objects, Tuco lowers his voice: "You don't trust me?" Jesse senses danger - no, no, no, it's not that at all, it's just not the way he does business. (Once again, he's quickly, automatically guessing at what kind of thing might work on the guy in front of him, what he'd like to hear, and honestly doesn't do a half bad job of it, especially considering he's stressed out of his mind.) Skinny Pete tries to assure Jesse that he will get the money, but this of all things really sets Tuco off, and he thrusts his knife an inch deep into his desk. "I don't need your punk ass to vouch for me!"

As Skinny's face falls, that confidence vanishing, fight or flight kicks in for Jesse. He makes a futile attempt to bolt, but is immediately caught and shoved back into his chair, where he sits, paralyzed, as Tuco stacks bills into a bag. When Tuco makes as if to hand it to him, he's not buying it, stands up very slowly waiting for the other shoe to drop. Nothing happens; Skinny gives him an encouraging nod. Tuco didn't mind the meth being a little light earlier. There's no obvious logic to this guy. Maybe somehow he is just giving it to him?

And then, of course, the moment he reaches for it, Tuco whacks him with the bag and savagely beats him into the ground. Skinny Pete looks on awkwardly, silent - it's clear to him by now that he has no actual sway over Tuco, and any objection might mean he will be next. Jesse is left coughing blood on the floor as Tuco yells: "Nobody moves crystal in the South Valley but me, bitch!"

Card night

At the end of the schoolday, Walt and Walt Jr. witness Hank arresting Hugo the janitor, the one who's been helping Walt throughout this episode.

That evening, they have a card night with Hank and Marie. Walt excuses himself to call Jesse (ridiculous answering machine once again), who he hasn't heard from. He sounds both worried and angry asking where the hell he is - probably both conscious that things might have gone wrong with this guy Jesse had insisted was bad news, but also wondering if Jesse might have just sold the meth and run off with the money.

When Skyler comments on how she's been trying to convince Walt to take some time off work, he explains actually he just today asked for a substitute for three weeks, and just hadn't had a chance to tell her; Skyler looks surprised and kind of suspicious, but carries on without comment. He probably actually got a substitute now at least in part so he could address his looming money problem, one way or another, though the fact he's been feeling so sick lately can't help (he almost definitely has not told Skyler about the fact he's been having to run out of classes to throw up).

Walt Jr. asks Hank about Hugo's arrest. Hank explains they figured it was him who stole the chemistry equipment from the lab because he had a key and "fit the profile", and then they searched his truck and found a blunt, and it turned out he had a record for drug possession. In other words, they basically just searched his car because of his race, and concluded they were right and he'd committed this crime because he'd committed the entirely unrelated offense of smoking marijuana. My contempt for Hank's police work here cannot be overstated. (This is another telling instance of Hank's black-and-white thinking - the blunt makes him A Criminal, so if a crime has been committed, probably him, right.)

Walt, feeling guilty that someone who's been extra-kind towards him is taking the fall for him, speaks up to say Hugo doesn't strike him as a thief - which is to say, he's bearing character witness in private, to placate his conscience, without actually helping Hugo in any material way. Hank makes a quip about how Walt couldn't recognize a criminal if he was close enough to check him for a hernia, and Walt gives him a bit of a stare when he's looking away: if only he knew. Hank adds, as an afterthought, that they searched Hugo's house and actually didn't find any of the chemistry equipment, only that he was a "major-league pothead" (Skyler makes a noise that I'm pretty sure is directed at Walt and his almost-entirely-fictional pot habit). So they know it wasn't even him.

Hank looks back over at Walt, who's still staring at him, and asks if he's hiding something; it takes Walt a moment to realize he's talking about the game. He asks what's going to happen to Hugo, and Hank says he'll lose his job, "as he should" (you know who you know has also smoked pot in his off time, and is also still working for the same school, and also is the one who actually stole the chemistry set??), and will probably get jail time too because it's not his first offense.

Here, as Hank is gloating about arresting an innocent man for Walt's crime, all while he obliviously laughs at the very idea of Walt and crime in the same sentence, something comes over Walt. It's not just Hank's lazy policing, or the unfairness of what happened to Hugo, but also the infuriating fact that to Hank it's inconceivable that Walt could have done this. Stone-faced, he bets all he has on his current hand. Hank is convinced he's too bad of a liar to be bluffing and folds, only for Marie to reveal as she turns over Walt's cards that he actually was - "A handful of nothing," she says, smug, a partial title drop.

Hank is baffled as he looks over at Walt. He can't ever know that Walt stole the chemistry equipment. But at least Walt could show him that he can fool him.

Objectively, it's a good thing for Walt that Hank can't possibly conceive of him as a criminal. The pure rational move here would be to keep capitalizing on that, let Hank continue to think of him as a bumbling innocent who couldn't lie his way out of a paper bag, and thus better ensure his suspicions will never turn Walt's way despite being already connected to the school's chemistry lab. But Walt is not a pure rational actor; he is driven by pride and ego and bitterness. The way Hank thinks of him grates on him, and on some deep level he wants him to know. And this drives Walt to actually go against his best interests in moments like this. This one's very small, and not too much of a risk at all - beating Hank in a poker game is unlikely to make him seriously consider the possibility of Walt as a drug manufacturer - but this is a distinct impulse that Walt has here from the very beginning, and which he'll continue to have.

The tipping point

Since Walt has gotten a substitute teacher assigned now, he has the next morning to himself. He should have taken Jesse's advice about the ice pack on his head: his hair's coming off his head in clumps in the shower. He tries calling Jesse again on the burner phone, and this time, at last, it's not the answering machine. But it's not Jesse either: it's Skinny Pete, who's with Jesse in the hospital.

Walt hurries over there. Jesse's unconscious, in a neck brace, looking like hell. Skinny asks, "You the guy?" Implicitly, the guy that he was doing this for. To Walt, Skinny maintains that "I was all, like, 'Damn, Tuco, chill, ese.' I don't know what got into him, seriously." He clearly feels very bad about this, can't admit to Walt that in reality he was too scared to stand up for Jesse in any way.

Skinny asks Walt's name, but he doesn't answer, just sits down silently on a chair. This is exactly what he didn't want to happen. He was going to never have anything to do with the client side of this, to have no more violence, but here he is, responsible for Jesse being put in the hospital by some thug, with some friend of his who's seen him now and wants to know who he is. And as if the guilt he feels over Jesse, another person suffering hard in his place, weren't enough, he still doesn't have the money that he needs. It's not like he could send Jesse out to sell more even if it'd be enough. If this is going to get fixed, he has no choice: one way or another he's going to have to get involved, again.

"Tell me about this Tuco," he says, as the gears turn in his head. He already beat out two thugs by being clever. It wasn't pleasant, and probably isn't going to be this time either, but this time at least he can be prepared. And what has he got to lose anyway? He already has cancer and is on the verge of his family learning that he refused Elliott's money. What else is he going to do?

The next morning, Walt swallows a huge regimen of pills, fiddles with his thinning hair, and then shaves it all off. It's practical at this point, but it also lets him feel a bit like somebody else - like that other, compartmentalized Walt, the one who committed two murders. He needs to be that Walt today.

And so, he drives over to Tuco's with a bag of mercury fulminate. It's time.

Confrontation

Walt starts by just walking up to somebody intimidating-looking outside the address Skinny gave him and asking, "You Tuco?" Silence. He's projecting absolute cool confidence, has slid entirely behind the numb emotionless mask that he's already practiced at, but the fact he obviously has no idea what Tuco even looks like rather undermines it. As the man doesn't answer, he gives just the tiniest nod to himself, an okay, yeah, that was a bit stupid, before going for a better line: "I want to talk to Tuco, and I'm not leaving until I do."

He's searched roughly once inside; we don't see his face very well, but it shows nicely in his body language how tense and unused he is to being handled in this kind of way, in contrast to Jesse and Skinny Pete earlier. Tuco's henchmen find and take the bag of what appears to be meth inside his jacket and give it to Tuco, who examines a large crystal of it on the blade of his knife before asking his name.

"Heisenberg," Walt says. It's clear from the way he says it that he decided on the alias before he came here, was prepared for this, having probably started thinking about it when Skinny asked his name. This Walt, the meth cook Walt, the murderer Walt, is now a proper underworld secret identity.

Tuco asks Walt what he wants. "Fifty thousand dollars." Thirty-five for the meth that he stole, and fifteen for "my partner's pain and suffering". Walt delivers his terms coldly, without visible nerves. This feels very righteous: a way of seeking justice, for himself and for what happened to Jesse. Earmarking a sizeable chunk of money for Jesse feels good, soothes his conscience. He may have gotten Jesse hurt, but he's going to very literally make Tuco pay for it.

Tuco puts out a cigarette on his tongue, because that's just who Tuco is, and laughs at Walt for coming here to bring him more meth after what happened last time.

"You got one part of that wrong," Walt says, gingerly picking up the crystal Tuco'd been examining. "This is not meth." And without warning, he hurls it towards the floor, causing an explosion that blows out the windows. A surprise handful of something.

Walt picks up the rest of the bag in the confusion. "Are you fucking nuts?" Tuco yells; "You wanna find out?" Walt growls in response, holding the bag threateningly in the air. Tuco's men aim guns at Walt, but Tuco tells them to stand down, acknowledges Walt's got balls, agrees to give him the money, and tells him to bring another pound of meth next week.

"Money up front," Walt snarls, and Tuco agrees. As Walt is about to leave, Tuco adds, "Sometimes you gotta rob to keep your riches. Just so long as we got an understanding."

And Walt, sensing that Tuco's actually trying to placate him, keeps pushing, after a brief furtive glance around the room. "One pound is not gonna cut it. You have to take two."

Tuco's amused but agrees, and asks what's in that bag anyway. Walt doesn't need to tell him, but he does anyway before he backs out of the room: "Fulminated mercury, and a little tweak of chemistry." Once again, Walt's won out with his intellect and chemistry genius - and he wants someone to know.

(Incidentally, the Mythbusters tackled this scene once! In their test, pure mercury fulminate would not explode when thrown at the floor in this way, though Vince Gilligan, who made a guest appearance in the episode, suggested Walt's "little tweak of chemistry" was mixing it with more volatile silver fulminate. Even when they forced the explosion, this small amount of the material did not actually manage to blow out the windows in the room, and if it had done so it would've also significantly injured the people present. That vague "little tweak of chemistry" is a nice bit of ass-coverage by the writers, though - too bad they didn't do the same with the hydrofluoric acid in episode two, which the Mythbusters very quickly established is actually kind of a weaksauce acid and would by no means have managed to even fully dissolve the body, much less eat through the bathtub and floor.)

Aftermath

Outside, people are staring, car alarms blaring; we're back to the opening. The explosion seems to have ruptured a blood vessel in Walt's nose; he wipes it, stone-faced, as he walks through the crowd, not looking at any of them. He gets into his car, checks the bag of money Tuco gave him with a trembling lip, to be sure it's all there. And then... his face twists into a grimace. All the suppressed stress and terror and adrenaline of the past minutes comes out in intense, wordless growls, until he stops to catch his breath. That's it. He did it. He got through it.

And with that, he smiles as he prepares to drive off. Once again, that felt good, an exhilarating high of confronting danger and coming out on top, of just for a moment being not a bumbling middle-aged high school teacher but a stone-cold ruthless badass that even someone like Tuco didn't want to anger. The entire Krazy-8 and Emilio debacle was an awful, traumatic affair - but this time, he liked being Heisenberg.

Everything about this outing went pretty swimmingly for Walt, minor awkwardness aside. But while Walt does deserve credit for pulling this off, he also got very lucky. Walt gets to leave without ever finding out just how lucky - but we, the viewers, have more insight.

Remember how when Jesse met with Tuco, the latter started by crushing a crystal of meth with the butt of his knife?

It simply happened that this time he didn't do that. But he so, so easily might have. And though the show does play a bit fast and loose with the physics of the actual explosion here, I think working from what we're shown it seems likely that if he had, it would probably have exploded - and the concussive force of that explosion might have also set off the rest of the mercury in the bag, given it would have been right beside it on the table. So all in all, it's quite likely they'd all be dead right now if not for the pure coincidence of Tuco choosing not to try a sample (or make Walt try it) this time around. I think this implication is very intentional - on a rewatch, the close-up shot of Tuco balancing the crystal he picks out on his knife, very delicately, is suddenly tense, knowing that's an explosive material that could go off if handled roughly, just daring us to remember how roughly he handled it last time and wonder exactly how much control Walt really had over the end result here.

Up to this point, the show has appeared to be largely premised on Walt as this mundane everyman, who wants to just quietly make some meth for money but gets unwillingly dragged in over his head in the process. Here, there's an evolution, a shift: Walt takes proactive action to get personally involved in shadier dealings, and it turns out he's surprisingly good at playing that role. (It's less surprising when you really look at what's come before, though, which has carefully set up absolutely every aspect of what happens here: Walt's not great at actively lying but he can stay stone-faced under pressure, trained by years of detaching and suppressing feelings; he's a methodical planner who can improvise chemistry-oriented solutions to problems; he has the capacity to make cold, ruthless decisions, when he feels that he must; as meek as he usually is in his personal life, he very much has an aggressive and domineering side and relishes taking control and commanding respect from people he disdains; he gets a visceral thrill out of criminality. Despite the chemistry lesson setting up the theme of change, he doesn't actually change all that much here, in the end: things we've already established are just coming together in a more dramatic sort of way.) Here on this first "official" outing as Heisenberg, he manages to be cool, confident, intimidate career criminals, make demands, and get exactly what he wants; he feels great about it, and on a first viewing you're probably swept up to cheer for him pretty wholeheartedly as he avenges Jesse and shows Tuco what for. I certainly think I did.

But today I'm more drawn to all the mistakes that he makes; there's so much else going on here than just Walt emerging as a bit of a badass when he wants to be, and it's almost all bad news. Walt begins the episode resolving that there will be no more violence, only to go on to egg Jesse into meeting with a violent gangster and then blow up a building; he makes a serious naïve miscalculation about his money because he doesn't know how these things work and pathetically scapegoats Jesse for it again; his theft from the school chemistry lab is easily traced and exposed, and for it he inadvertently gets an innocent man that he liked and owed a debt of gratitude to arrested; his pride goads him into showing off to Hank and eroding his own cover, however slightly; his final plan only narrowly avoids disaster by a stroke of luck; and rather than counting his blessings when Tuco's agreed to give him the money and buy more meth off him, he orders him to accept even more - having still not learned his lesson about committing to things without first checking with Jesse whether they are at all realistic.

Jesse is less of a focus in this episode, but what's there is some very high-quality Jesse. I love his love for his unseen aunt, how much information he's effortlessly absorbed about cancer because it mattered to him, the way that he reacts to Walt's nauseous episode and then to learning about his diagnosis. His reluctance to try to cook on his own after last episode, but still agreeing to try when Walt encourages him and assures him he can. His apprehension about Tuco, followed by going ahead with meeting with him anyway, all nerves and caution, because Walt told him to grow some fucking balls. And of course, the entire Tuco visit is just full of him being visibly terrified and manhandled and beaten up and it's great because I enjoy that. My silly personal favorite line here: "Hey, no, no, hey, it's not... it's not that, man. It's just, you know, I don't... I don't do business that way." The fact his mind instantly scrambles to put together a response that makes it into just a principle of how he does business just builds in such a lovely way on the several times we've now seen him do a similar flavor of bullshitting with lower stakes, and I love it.

Walt and Jesse have both been set on their paths for the rest of the show here, in large as well as subtle ways, and I can't wait to sink my teeth into more of it. See you for the season finale next episode!

[antialianalysis]

GUESS WHAT, this blog is not dead, COVID just kicked my routine’s ass again. I’m editing the episode six commentary, it’s coming, HOPEFULLY tonight or tomorrow, I’m sorry for the absurdly lengthy wait

[antialianalysis]

When Walt looks around at the Grey Matter things on the wall, it mentions they worked on “molecular switches” Do you think this has relevance in the same way as Walt’s lecture on chirality, or is it just a background prop?

Hmm! Interesting thought. You could definitely connect that to the idea that this episode marks a major shift for Walt, yeah!

I’m not 100% convinced that connection is necessarily intentional, though, while the chemistry lectures definitely are. It’s one headline, and a bit more of a stretch - the kind of thing that strikes me as something that could easily be simply a coincidence, though it also might not be. Meanwhile I would bet large amounts of money that my reading of the chemistry lessons is exactly what the writers were going for.

[antialianalysis]

S01E05: “Gray Matter”

In this episode, we explore Walt's motivations leading up to his decision to return to meth-cooking while Jesse tries to move on without Walt.

(This is an ongoing commentary on all of Breaking Bad. Follow this blog to keep up with future posts!)

We open with Jesse, dressed up in a suit and tie for a job interview. With Walt gone and no one to cook with, and the array of trauma resulting from his last meth venture, he's momentarily determined to get a real job - perhaps also hoping to show that he's not who his parents think he is. As he hands over his résumé, he explains it has "Curriculum vitae" written on it (you can tell he's reading the term off the paper) because he thinks it sounds more professional, "but, you know, same thing, pretty much". He almost definitely used some kind of template with that on it, went "What the hell is a curriculum vitae?", looked it up, figured whoa, okay, that does sound totally professional, I should keep it - but then feels like he can't actually be sure anyone else knows what that means, so he feels compelled to add this immensely awkward clarification. What a dork.

Even when the interviewer, who clearly wasn't expecting any kind of résumé, says this is a no-experience-necessary thing, Jesse continues to try to boost his credentials. It's not really on the résumé, but he's got experience in sales, he says, obviously thinking of his experience in drug sales. His eyes are super wide and his breathing is audibly tense; his nerves are obvious, but the actual words he's saying are clearly an attempt to play up a confident, professional image - calling himself a "self-starter" and that "I really feel I could be a major asset to your sales force." This makes a lot of sense, because this is basically what Jesse does all the time when he wants people to like him - trying to present himself in accordance with whatever he thinks whoever he's talking to will respect and respond well to, and confidently talking himself up, regardless of how terrified he's actually feeling, how far out of his depth he is, or how ill-suited he actually is for the situation.

The interviewer explains that well, their actual sales positions require licenses and college degrees, and instead this position is more along the lines of the guy in a ridiculous mascot costume waving a sign outside. And Jesse... is not that desperate. Taking a job like this might make him money, but it'd also be tantamount to an admission that he's a pathetic loser with no self-respect, skills or real value as a person, and for someone like him, who desperately wants to be respected and valued and tries to project being more respected and valued than he is, it's just not even a choice.

He walks out, upset and angry to even have been duped into applying, immediately starts pulling off the clip-on tie and unbuttoning the stupid shirt...

...and that's when the guy with no self-respect in the mascot costume recognizes him and stops him. It's the introduction of Badger! He's doing this job because he's on probation, presumably for a drug charge; he appears to have no real qualms about it, even talking up the skills required to do it, but Jesse of course remains unconvinced. They share a joint in an alley, and Badger asks if Jesse can hook him up with some crystal. Jesse says he's been out of the business for a while, thinking about retiring - once again making it sound like this was totally his own choice and nothing bad happened. Badger is mortified: "That stuff you made is unbelievable!" Jesse looks away as he says, "It was pretty awesome." By all appearances the two of them haven't seen each other in a while, so I'm kind of tempted to conclude Badger must be actually referring to Jesse's old 'Chilli P' product - but that's definitely not what Jesse is thinking of.

(If Badger really is talking about the Chilli P, I don't know if this is him genuinely thinking it was that great or just him being very supportive and enthusiastic about anything his friends do, but either one is pretty cute.)

When Badger presses him, Jesse admits he had a partner who helped him cook - "I mean, I was doing most of the work", he adds, lest it sound otherwise - but "he was an asshole, so." So he quit? Why would he, if he was doing most of the work? This sounds pretty flimsy, and Jesse knows it. He quickly adds, as a better explanation, that it's getting harder to find pseudoephedrine - only for Badger to offer to get him some and partner with him sometime. Back in his car later, Jesse sighs, reexamining the job postings he's circled - it's probably all more of this kind of humiliating crap. Cooking with Badger. It'd be so much easier, wouldn't it? What Walt did can't be that hard. Jesse was there for the whole process, after all. Surely he can just... do it himself? Right?

Gray Matter

Meanwhile, Walt's on his way to Elliott Schwartz's birthday party with Skyler.

Walt's got a lot of pent-up feelings about Gretchen and Elliott Schwartz. Elliott was his partner in founding Gray Matter; Gretchen used to date Walt back then but he left her and sold them back his share in the company for $5000, and she got with Elliott instead. And that by itself might be innocuous, except for the fact that in the time since, Gray Matter has grown huge and made Gretchen and Elliot rich and prestigious, while Walt ended up stagnating as a high school teacher. Gray Matter has become a bit of a symbol of Walt's bitterness; it's what Walt should have had.

The buyout was Walt's own shortsighted choice; he really has no one but himself to blame for this. But of course it stings in hindsight that he could have been rich and respected when now he's struggling and forgotten, and in a mixture of simple jealousy and those defense mechanisms grasping for someone else to blame for a huge mistake instead of himself, he kind of resents them for it - for still profiting off his work, building on the foundations of his contributions from all those years ago.

But for now, these are buried feelings, and they're still in contact, still inviting each other to birthdays. At the moment, in the car, he's berating himself for the present he brought - what was he thinking? Why did they even bring a present, when the card said no gifts? He's self-conscious about the gift being small and stupid when Elliott can buy anything he wants and he'll probably think it's trash, but also just generally on edge about the idea of going to Elliott's birthday party at all - seeing these people basking in their success.

Skyler reassures him the gift is fine and Elliott'll love it - but then, when he keeps going, she just says, "Walt. We have to go." Because Skyler knows her husband, knows that even though he's going on about the gift right now he doesn't really want to be going to this party at all, and that's the real problem, more than the gift. I kind of doubt Walt's ever properly told her about his feelings regarding Gray Matter and the Schwartzes, but over the years of their marriage she's definitely picked up what's up and knows why this is a bit difficult and stressful for him.

There's a pile of huge gifts at the party, despite the 'no gifts' stipulation. Walt and Skyler look out of place, dressed differently from everyone else: there's clearly some beige rich-people fashion trend going on that they've not been privy to. Walt congratulates Gretchen and Elliott on a patent the company secured, calling it "your company", and Elliott responds that it took "hard work and a lot of luck". The Schwartzes don't stop long as they have to meet other guests, but promise to catch up later. Walt goes inside their mansion of a house, looks at the framed magazine covers about Gray Matter on the walls, and has a coughing fit in there, a cruel reminder of his position: while they prosper, he is dying in obscurity.

On his way out, as Walt notices Skyler talking to Elliott, he bumps into a friend from back in the Gray Matter days, who eagerly wants to tell some of his newer acquaintances about a time that Walt solved all his problems, and how Walter White is the white in Gray Matter. He asks Walt to tell them about it, which he does, awkwardly - White + Schwartz (black in German) = Gray. "So you run the company with Elliott?" asks one of the friends. "No, I... gravitated towards education," Walt responds. "What university?" asks the friend, simply assuming that "education" in this social circle means being a respected university professor and not a high school teacher who until recently had a second job at a car wash. Everything about being here stings.

Elliott starts unwrapping his presents, most of them absurdly expensive - someone's gotten him one of Eric Clapton's guitars, signed with a personalized message. Skyler mutters, "Why is he doing this? What is he, like, eight years old?" She knows exactly how uncomfortable Walt is watching this, especially with the gift discussion earlier, and makes sure to let him know that she's on his side and thinks this is ridiculous (but make no mistake, that's definitely her actual opinion and not just trying to make Walt feel better).

Elliott gets to Walt's present... a packet of ramen. People at the party look around at Walt with questioning smiles; Walt's too humiliated to even say anything. But then Elliott bursts out laughing and explains how the two of them lived on these for ten months straight while they were working on their thesis, jokes about how they were the secret to their success, asks how Walt even got them since he thought they'd been outlawed years ago. (I guess Walt just still had a packet lying around somewhere - that or Elliott was fibbing on his behalf there to make it sound more elusive than it is.) It's a nostalgic, sentimental gift - honestly, my favorite kind. Walt had second-guessed the idea endlessly: probably Elliott had long forgotten about the good times they used to have back in the day - why would he even give a shit about Walt anymore, there with his millions of dollars? But Elliott loves it, and he makes sure everyone knows it and doesn't just assume Walt's some penniless weirdo.

This lightens the mood at last - finally Walt feels, cautiously, like Elliott wants him here, like he's not quite so much of a pathetic outsider.

The offer

Soon the two of them are talking about old times together, laughing. Elliott says he misses this, and so does Walt - he suggests the Schwartzes should come over for dinner sometime. But instead, Elliott suggests Walt should come join them at Gray Matter, work together again. Walt's flummoxed and disbelieving: this was not where he expected this party to be going. He says no way he'd have anything to do there, all he does is draw atoms and try to teach kids the periodic table - but Elliott presses on: he's brilliant, he'd be a new set of eyes, he may be exactly what they need. Walt still doesn't quite believe this, stares at him for a moment... but then he starts to smile as he imagines it. He feels a bit weird about it, what with all his emotional baggage regarding Gretchen and Elliott and Gray Matter. But really? This kind of sounds like the dream. He could be working on problems befitting of his education and his intelligence again, for much better pay. He could really go back to the old days, when he was doing real, groundbreaking work.

Only then there's a very particular moment as Walt stares into the middle distance, the smile fades, and he looks down. He stiffly starts to explain that there's something Elliott should know, that he has some personal issues. Elliott says it's fine, there's nothing they can't work out, then presses on when Walt says it's complicated: "We can help you. We have excellent health insurance."

And that's when Walt realizes that Elliott knows. Someone told him about the cancer - Skyler, earlier when he saw him talking to her.

Everything twists around in his head. Elliott didn't offer him a job because he misses working with Walt and thinks they need a new set of eyes. He did it out of pity. The poor cancer man, in need of a swooping millionaire guardian angel to graciously hand him a well-paid job with health insurance that covers his treatment on a silver platter. Was that why Elliott deigned to explain the present and talk to him, too? Pity, charity?

We see the realization play out silently on Bryan Cranston's face, then cut to Walt and Skyler walking out, Walt almost slamming the door behind them (not that hard, but it's a very noisy door). Skyler can clearly tell something's wrong; she awkwardly starts praising the food while the valet comes over, trying to make their early exit seem a little less pointed. When the valet is well out of earshot, she drops the pretense and prompts Walt for an explanation of why they're leaving in a huff. He finally turns towards her: "What the hell did you say to Elliott?"

Skyler, defensive, says Elliott asked how Walt was doing, and she doesn't have the best pokerface where that's concerned these days - he could tell something was wrong and pressed her on it. This is almost definitely true; we saw that lack of pokerface first-hand last episode. But Skyler probably did dare to hope, when she explained it, that maybe Gretchen and Elliott would want to help them somehow. They need money for the treatment, and Gretchen and Elliott have it. She wouldn't ask for it, or put him up to it, knows that Walt wouldn't want to accept anything he saw as charity - but she probably didn't go all that far out of her way to avoid explaining it, either, because being here, with Elliott asking about Walt, perhaps it all felt like this just might be the stroke of fortune smiling upon them that they needed.

They argue about it. Walt is very angry about her talking about his private affairs with "people who are not even in our lives anymore". Skyler asks what on earth Elliott said to him that offended him so. "He offered me a job." "What?!" "Yes! Kind of like some fig leaf, you know. Some face-saving bullshit that allowed me to generously accept his charity. And then when I turned that down, he flat-out offered to pay for my treatment."

The fact Walt says this so angrily kind of says everything there is to say. He's very concerned with his family's finances after he's gone, enough so to venture into manufacturing illegal drugs - but not enough so to accept charity. He'd rather leave them in trouble than accept the help of a rich friend who has plenty to spare. The very idea offends him. His pride, his singular conviction that a real man doesn't just accept help and especially not from them, leaves him boneheadedly refusing the happy, secure future he could have had.

Because Walt could've been happy, too. He would have flourished in the Gray Matter job - working in chemistry again, on something that properly challenges him, with people who'd respect his brilliance and expertise, absolutely earning the pay and the health insurance that come with it (it isn't even charity!). We could see him smiling as he imagined it - even the fact it was Gray Matter wasn't insurmountable. But the moment he realized Elliott knew about the cancer, and instantly convinced himself Elliott was only offering it to him because of the cancer, he rejected that future, and thereby sealed his fate.

In reality, I expect Elliott really does miss working with Walt a bit, and really would love having him back at Gray Matter. Normally he might perhaps not make an offer like this without Walt expressing interest first, given how he left - but there's no sign Elliott bears any ill-will towards Walt whatsoever, and no reason beyond Walt's own emotional hangups to think he doesn't sincerely believe Walt's a brilliant scientist who'd make valuable contributions to the company now just like he did back in the day. But of course, the reason Elliott does happen to go out of his way to make this offer out of nowhere now is to help Walt, and there's no escaping that. He makes sure to offer him the job first without mentioning the cancer at all, though - Elliott knows Walt well enough to be aware he's unlikely to accept a straight-up offer of financial help and instead first goes for something that'd be more palatable to him, and avoids presenting it like it's meant to help him at all. He really does care about Walt, and wants to actually be able to help him, and that's why he chooses this way and tries not to let on that he knows about the cancer - in the hope that then maybe Walt won't turn him down, not because he wants to deceive him about anything. But then he says just a bit too much, and the game is up. Walt is a difficult person to help.

Skyler asks what Walt said; there's a long silence, as it perhaps fully dawns on Walt what he just turned down, before he says, "What do you think I said?", and turns to get in the car. Skyler asks why, but he doesn't answer, won't even look at her.

If I recall correctly, when Vince Gilligan was asked in an interview when Walt crosses the line for good, he said it was here, in this episode, when he turned down this job. And there's definitely a real sense in which this is that moment. He could have lived the rest of his life happy, intellectually stimulated, working a good, respected job and earning his pay while making valuable contributions to his field, getting the best available medical treatment, without ever having to worry about money again, either for him or his family. And he just chose not to. The part of the show where Walt is in some sense forced into the drug trade by circumstance ends here; from this point on, it will always be the case that he could simply not be doing this, if only he'd just swallowed his pride and taken this job that he would've loved.

However, despite this, this isn't an incomprehensible choice. Most of us have in us the capacity to reject an offer with no downsides on paper because it seems to violate some deep principle we have. Most of us have some sense of pride in us, and can imagine feeling insulted by a patronizing offer for help. In this case, given his situation, he's definitely being a stubborn fool, but this isn't morally alien; it's a more extreme version of feelings most people can relate to to one degree or another. It's an important establishing character moment, but on a first watch, without the benefit of hindsight or knowledge of exactly where the show is going... this probably isn't the moment you stop rooting for Walt. I know it wasn't for me. It was just a moment that made him more flawed and interesting and solidified his character and motivations. The true weight of it only quite hits when you reflect on the whole series and remember that he could just not be doing this.

Perfectionism

Meanwhile, Jesse and Badger prepare to head out to do some cooking. Badger asks about the bullet holes in the door of the RV; Jesse awkwardly brushes them off as being for ventilation. (He definitely has not at any point been in danger or suffered trauma and is a cool guy unfazed by everything who has everything under control, at all times.) Jesse also says he used to have twice as much glassware before his dumbass ex-partner drove the RV into a ditch and wrecked most of it - combination talking up how cool his operation was and making a disgruntled jab at Walt. Like most people, Jesse gets a visceral satisfaction out of relating stupid-sounding stories of someone who's been a dick to him, without bothering to provide whatever context might make their actions sound more reasonable.

When Badger comments on a "big-ass beaker", though, Jesse corrects him: it's a boiling flask. He picks up different pieces of glassware and explains what they're called one after another - a funhouse mirror version of the scene in the pilot where Walt explains different flasks to a hostile, defensive Jesse. He was absolutely listening back then, for all that he acted like this was stupid and he didn't care. (Jesse does not enjoy feeling like a fool or knowing he's not doing something right, even if he stubbornly acts otherwise.) And not only that, he wants Badger to get it right. He's showing off ("It's just basic chemistry, yo"), but the reason he initially reacted was just that he wants to do this properly.

This meth-cooking montage is quite a contrast to the one in episode one. There, Jesse was casual, going through the motions with a bit of fooling around; here, he's pure intense focus, desperate to replicate Walt's success, while Badger goofs off. When they're done, Badger is psyched about their success, raving about how much money they're going to make - but Jesse mutters, "It's not right." They've got big crystals, sure, but they're cloudy-looking - Walt's were clear as glass. Jesse failed.

"So what?" Badger says. "Cloudy, not cloudy - it looks good enough to me." And... Jesse takes the entire batch, walks out of the RV and throws it out as the horrified Badger yells at him. "Look, it's not for you, it's for our customers," Jesse says, again mirroring Walt's insistence on the same. Then: "They're gonna demand a certain standard."

Because Jesse knows if he goes back to selling people his old stuff, or even this, they'll be disappointed. They'll know it's not as good. Jesse knows it's not as good. He can't go out there and have people figure it was just his partner that made it so well last time and Jesse's just the Chilli P guy that, for all Jesse liked to pretend otherwise, nobody took all that seriously. He can't. He has to be able to do this right. He was right there! He watched it all happen!

They make another batch. As Jesse examines it, Badger is fidgeting, agitated. "We can do better," Jesse says (like a certain teacher of his once said) - and Badger stops him. "Three entire pounds of pseudo wasted! Do you know how long I had to spin that stupid sign?!" He attacks Jesse, and they fight; Jesse, thinking on his feet, grabs what I think is the red phosphorus from the table and throws it in Badger's eyes, enabling him to push the much bigger and stronger Badger out of the RV, close the door and drive off.

Jesse really was being an ass here. For all his personal desperation to replicate what Walt did, Badger is his partner now, and he invested a bunch of his own money into the raw material; he did not agree to gamble it all on satisfying Jesse's sudden perfectionism (and also, throwing stuff in people's eyes and leaving them in the desert is kind of a dick move, even if they attacked first). All in all, Badger had every right to be mad, and this episode did not help me warm up to Jesse on my first time through. It's hard as a first-time viewer to immediately appreciate why he's quite so obsessed with this all of a sudden, and the most obvious thing to read into it without later context is just Jesse imitating the way Walt acted with him in the pilot (which is definitely an influence on his behaviour here, but that's not the main thing going on here; this is not a 'monkey see, monkey do' situation). I enjoy anxious perfectionist Jesse now, but I'm not surprised my 2013 self remained decidedly unconvinced about him at this point. Patience!

Intervention

The morning after the birthday party, breakfast is awkward and pointedly silent at the White house, and Walt Jr. once again insists on taking the bus, having presumably heard one way or another that Walt's still refusing treatment. That evening, Walt Jr. tries to get a stranger to buy beer for him and his underage friends, but the stranger is an off-duty cop, who makes him call his dad - only he calls Hank instead.

Once Hank picks him up and the other cop is gone, Hank says, "Not cool, man, not cool" - not about him breaking the law, but about him calling Hank instead of his actual dad. "How do you think that'd make him feel?" (The cancer's making Hank really not want to pile any more troubles onto the poor guy - something Walt would hate if he knew about it, of course.) When they get home, and Walt Jr. has been sent to his room, Hank asks Skyler to not tell Walt about this, that Walt Jr.'s just acting out because his dad's sick - "first the pot, then this." (This doesn't actually add up, timeline-wise - the whole pot misunderstanding happened before any of them learned about Walt's cancer - but Hank's probably not really thinking about that; it seems to add up into a narrative at a glance, and that's definitely something humans do.) This lets Skyler finally correct the record and tell them that it's Walt who's smoking pot.

Marie is scandalized; Hank laughs. "Shit. I didn't think he had it in him." (Hank still applies very different standards to people he knows and cares about than to people in the street.) Skyler repeats Walt's line about how he hasn't been himself lately - who would refuse treatment even when it's completely paid for? They need to stage an intervention, er, "family meeting", where everyone can voice their concerns and be heard.

So, when Walt gets home the next day, they're all sitting in the sofa. It's time for the talking pillow!

To Skyler, Walt's stubbornness here is simply born of a dangerous irrationality that she's well aware of in her husband - his distaste for accepting charity or help, ever. This seems a reasonable assumption: after all, last episode Walt justified being reluctant to get treatment on the basis of the fact it'd put the family deep in debt, which he didn't want - and then, at the birthday party, Elliott's offer would have resolved that problem entirely and Walt still rejected it. It seems like the only obstacle stopping Walt from getting cancer treatment is this pointless, stubborn pride of his that he's somehow determined to die for. And who wouldn't be upset and desperate seeing their spouse make a choice like that? Ultimately Walt should have the right to have the final say on his own health care choices, and ganging up on him in this manner is unfair and coercive - but it's easy to understand why Skyler would turn to something like this when all else seems to fail, when it seems so clear to her that Walt is just letting his foolish pride get the better of him, and he's so dismissive and won't really listen when she tries to convince him otherwise. (People being dicks to each other for human reasons.) The way she's organized this with the talking pillow is probably quite considered; she knows that usually Walt would kind of shut her down, make some argument that sounds reasonable, and not properly hear her out or consider what she's saying - so she's tried to arrange a situation where he'll have to at least listen, and hear many opposing perspectives that might persuade him to see sense. She doesn't see this as forcing him into anything, just giving it her absolute best shot to convince him not to die.

The way she presents her case to him begins very careful, clearly rehearsed, obviously trying to be sensitive to his feelings. She says she wants to understand his thought process; she makes a point of using "I" language; she emphasizes that she understands that it's hard for Walt to accept help, that maybe it's the way he was raised - but it's okay to lean on people now and again. But at the end the "I" language slips: "You need this treatment, and nothing can stop you from getting it - except you."

Hank speaks next, clearly kind of awkward and uncomfortable in this setting; open, honest emotionality and vulnerability and "I" language are pretty far from the way he's used to communicating. After assuring Walt he cares about him, he couches his message in a lengthy gambling analogy. When Marie asks what the hell he's talking about, he shifts into baseball instead: Walt's up, he's got a bum arm, does he let the pinch-hitter take the shot or hold on to his pride and lose the game? "You get what I'm saying?" Walt says, "No," even though the baseball analogy was actually pretty transparent even to me, an Icelander with only a cursory understanding of how baseball works - I suspect he did get it and just doesn't like it. But Hank explains anyway, that if Elliott wants to chip in, "take the money and run, man." (He's still not talking entirely plainly here - describing it as "taking the money and running", ironically for a cop, is more palatable than talking about accepting Elliott's help, which honestly feels kind of unmanly to him too, even if he can reason his way around it.)

Hank awkwardly offers the talking pillow up to somebody else, depositing it in Walt Jr.'s lap. Walt Jr. says he's pissed off - "Because you're being... you're a pussy." Kind of revealingly, this is the first thing said here that actually seems to be getting to Walt a bit; Skyler painting his motivations as stubbornness because of the way he was raised is fair enough, but his son questioning his manhood over it and making it out to be a kind of cowardice really stings. "You're like, ready to give up. You're... God. What if you gave up on me, huh? All the stuff I've been through, and you're scared of a little chemotherapy?" Notably, Walt Jr. has a pretty different perspective on this that doesn't touch on Elliott's money offer at all, instead focusing on the fact that he's dealt with his disability all his life and then his dad just wants to give up and die instead of fighting. That's what he fundamentally doesn't get about Walt's worldview here: as far as he's concerned, when you're sick, you just deal and fight it, and money's irrelevant (of course, it probably helps that he's a teenager who's never really had to worry about money himself, but nonetheless). Walt making it out to be about money last episode was just some kind of pathetic excuse, and Walt Jr.'s not buying it.

Marie gets the pillow at last. And... she thinks Walt should do whatever he wants to do. Skyler blanches, only now realizing that they might not all be on the same page; she took for granted that any sane person would think Walt's being pointlessly self-destructive and want to persuade him. But Marie, a radiologist, says she X-rays people in chemotherapy all the time, and some of them are miserable, but got talked into this by their families; she doesn't want Walt to be one of them. Marie can be very blunt about her opinions in the face of conventional politeness, which often results in her being unpleasant - but it also means in situations like this she's willing to stand up for Walt's right to make his own choice in this rather than go along with Skyler's efforts as she was obviously expected to, and for all that I get and sympathize with Skyler's motivations, I really appreciate Marie here and this is definitely her best moment this season.

In this moment, though, Skyler isn't in any mood to appreciate Marie standing up for patients' rights. It feels like a sudden slap in the face, as if Marie wants to get Walt killed, like she's sabotaging their last chance to persuade him to live; she's immediately upset and accusatory. And then Hank suddenly speaks up to say actually he agrees with Marie, too (he, unlike his wife, did initially just automatically take Skyler's side because she called this meeting and wanted their help and he couldn't really fault her reasoning, but really he sees Marie's point as soon as she's made it). "What? Maybe Walt wants to die like a man." Not too far off, Hank!

But Skyler doesn't want him to die at all. She starts arguing with Marie, with Hank cutting in too, until Walt whistles to shut everyone up and grabs the pillow out of Marie's hands. (Another delightful season one comedy moment as Walt stands kind of threateningly, glaring, holding a pillow, and says, "All right? I've got the talking pillow now.")

Walt starts by acknowledging that they all love each other and that they want the best for him - of course they do. But what he really needs is a choice. "Sometimes I feel like I never actually make any of my own choices, I mean. My entire life, it just seems I never... you know, had a real say about any of it. Now, this last one, cancer... all I have left is how I choose to approach this."

"Then make the right choice, Walt," Skyler says. "You're not the only one it affects." And doesn't he want to see his daughter grow up? Of course he does, he answers, but what good is surviving if he's too sick to do anything beyond survival - helpless, in bed, nauseated, for the rest of his life? And the worst part is that that's how they'd remember him, as a pathetic, bedridden wretch who needs to be cleaned up after. He doesn't want that; it's the last thing he wants.

(Skyler's in tears by this point - Walt's monologue here that I just summed up really is pretty moving, and of course fantastically delivered. There was more to this than just the money, and now that he's explained that, her righteous desperation to persuade him to do it anyway is gone. She gets it. She's not happy about it, of course she's not, but we can see she's done arguing, looking away, just trying to come to terms with this.)

And thus, Walt says, "I choose not to do it."

The choice

We cut to next morning, Walt lying awake in bed, turning around to reach into Skyler's empty space. And, after burying his face in her pillow and fiddling with her bedtime reading - books on pregnancy, plus now "Healing Gourmet: Eat to Fight Cancer" - he goes down to the kitchen, hugs her from behind and tells her, "All right. I'll do the treatment."

This seems almost like it renders most of what came before it a strange detour - the episode spends a lot of time on Walt refusing treatment, and climaxes with him saying he chooses not to, then immediately moves on to him changing his mind anyway. Structurally it feels a little clumsy, like there ought to be at least one more scene in there in between. But either way, the real point of all this has been getting Walt to a point where he'd properly articulate more of the reasons he's reluctant to do the treatment; there, at this family meeting, with everyone there squabbling back and forth about what he should do while he sits there, it properly brought out this angle that Walt would normally be reluctant to discuss, the angle of his feeling helpless and without agency in his own life and fearing that's how he'll die, too. Ultimately the family meeting did help him express himself in a more honest and vulnerable way!

But in the end, after sleeping on it... he's seen how much Skyler cares now, how desperate she is, and he does love her and not want to hurt her. He does want to see his daughter grow up. He doesn't want his son to feel like Walt's just pathetically given up in the face of less than he's had to suffer through himself.

And... perhaps he can at least make one choice. He can choose to do this on his own terms, and make the money he needs for himself, instead of accepting Elliott's pity. Sure, his last foray into meth-cooking didn't go awesomely... but he knows Jesse is willing, not just willing to do it at all but apparently actively wants to now and might be more willing to follow his lead. And this time it can be different. He'll make it different. Krazy-8 is gone, after all. This time, it'll all work out the way he first imagined - no fuss, nothing threatening the life that he has, just a bit of chemistry and money in return. Money to cover the treatment, but also more to leave to the family when he's gone.

Perhaps, even if he spends the last months of his life in abject misery, that'll be what they remember him for - this mysterious cache of money that he secured for them to provide them with everything they need, through his own ingenuity, through the secret daring badass side of him that they never knew about. And that's not a bad thought. (In this fantasy, perhaps, he imagines Skyler would be impressed and grateful rather than deeply alarmed at such a revelation.) And just the thought that he'll have done that would be something to keep him going through the pain and the humiliation of it all, something to hang his dignity on and make him feel like a brilliant, self-sufficient genius who did what he had to for the sake of his family against all odds, instead of a man who died pathetically of cancer, dependent on others' pity, having accomplished nothing.

A new beginning

At the cancer clinic for the first treatment appointment, Skyler explains they can pay with a credit card and then Elliott will send a check. Walt says he'll take care of it; her gaze lingers on him, clearly surprised and kind of suspicious that Walt hasn't been trying harder not to accept Elliott's money in the end, but she doesn't say anything. If Walt's actually decided he's doing this, she's not going to be the one to question it and make him reconsider.

Later, Walt reluctantly heads to Jesse's house once again. He clearly hates being here, the fact he'll have to rely on someone like Jesse, but that can't be helped; if he learned anything from last time, it's that he really does not want to be involved in any part of this but the actual chemistry. As he's about to step out of the car, though, he gets a phone call. His expression darkens at the caller ID, but he answers it with fake cheer. "Hey, Elliott!"

It's actually Gretchen; this is even more awkward, but again, he pretends to be thrilled, talking about how great it was seeing them the other day at the party. She's not buying it; she says Elliott told her about the cancer and implores him to accept the money for the treatment - another person who knows him well enough to know why getting him to accept help like this is a problem, and there's no way it's quite this easy. She says as far as they're concerned, this money belongs to him (once again, Gretchen and Elliott themselves are under absolutely no delusions about the part Walt played in their success and are eager to share it with him). As Walt says nothing, she asks, "Is this about you and me?"

After a long silence, Walt says he appreciates it but actually their insurance came through and they're fine. He'll let Gretchen and Elliott think the insurance is paying while his family thinks Gretchen and Elliott are paying. This really isn't terribly thought-out; any contact between the two would easily expose that nobody knows where this money is actually coming from. Walt isn't great at making all this hold up to scrutiny at all.

He takes a moment to collect himself before he exits the car. Jesse seems to be in the middle of covering the lab equipment in his garage when he sees Walt approaching; presumably he only just got back from the trip with Badger. He's immediately wary, curses that Walt's seen him, but comes out and spreads his arms, expecting another unpleasant confrontation where Walt thinks he's a snitch or tries to blackmail him some more or something.

Instead, Walt says, "Wanna cook?"

All Jesse can do is stare. But while if Walt had approached him again earlier he might have said no out of spite, this is the right moment. Jesse's now painfully aware that he can't do what Walt did alone. He needs Walt - at this point, as far as he's concerned, it's basically him or getting a job as a sign-spinning mascot. And so, we know he'll accept even though we cut to the end credits before Jesse can answer. Everything leading up to this has led them here, to partnering again despite everything.

In a way, this episode explores both Walt and Jesse's pride: although there's a very wide gulf between the job offers they consider here, both of them reject a job they find insulting to their dignity, go on to alienate the people close to them by irrationally prioritizing the standards in their own heads to the point of being willing to throw away large sums of money without regard for what their decision means for others, and instead they both ultimately end up back here, reluctantly getting together for another meth venture. The two of them are very different people, and it comes from very different places and means very different things to them, but ultimately the core nugget behind the shared arc here is something that they both have. And that little shared core is something that helps their partnership just about work for as long as it does, abusive as it is; I doubt Walt and someone like Badger could ever have put up with each other for very long.

The other really important thing that's set up here is, of course, Gray Matter. While it plays a significant role in why Walt is who he is, the show doesn't overindulge in connecting everything to it; as far as I can remember, it doesn't actually even explicitly come up all that often over the course of the show. In this episode, it's treated almost as a background mystery - we don't really learn about why Walt isn't part of Gray Matter anymore here, and it's kind of tantalizing after the out-of-context scenes of Walt with Gretchen in episode three. But what really matters is shown implicitly through Walt's actions and reactions, and that's enough.

I originally typed up more about Gray Matter here but on reflection I think I'll save it for the later episodes where we learn more about it, for the sake of any first-time viewers following along and more relevant context. Look forward to it, sometime in a few years probably I'm sorry I'm very slow.

This is the latter of these two slow setup episodes; we're kicking into gear in style next time. I confess this isn't one of my personal favorite episodes of this season overall, but it's an extremely important one, particularly for establishing Walt's character but also as the pivotal point turning both Walt and Jesse back toward each other and the meth trade after their miserable first outing. We’ve established why they feel they need this - and why they need each other.

[antialianalysis]

I am neeeearly done with episode five (no, I didn’t forget about this blog!). Have done a couple rounds of edits, am writing the conclusion, still need to flip through the episode to rewatch a select few bits I want to double-check and take screenshots. At least so far it’s under 6500 words! I told you it wouldn’t be another episode four!

I can’t wait to get started on episode six. I took the most notes on it by far and obviously it’s got a lot going on, so that’ll probably be a lengthy one. Episode seven, at a guess, will be shorter. And then I can get started on rewatching season two, which I love a lot, so that’s exciting.

[antialianalysis]

Me: The episode five commentary isn't going to be as long as episode four, there's not as much to talk about in it

Me: *proceeds to write nearly 3000 words about just the first fifteen minutes*

[antialianalysis]

Apologies for the lengthy silence! I hope you’re all doing okay given the circumstances. Best wishes to anyone who’s sick or has lost someone.

I’ve had a lot on my plate, and while working from home during the pandemic I lost the bus rides/lunches I was mostly using to work on these - but happily, since we’ve got things pretty much under control over here and the restrictions are being loosened, I’m back to the office, and today I finally got properly started on episode five (and proceeded to immediately write several paragraphs about Jesse’s one-minute job interview, because that is what I do). Don’t know how long it’s going to take exactly, but at a guess I think there’s a lot less to talk about here than last episode, so I’m hoping for something manageable (I say, before probably writing like 10,000 words on it).

[antialianalysis]

S01E04: “Cancer Man”

In this episode, we start to explore Jesse’s character and what makes him tick, while Walt deals with his family’s reactions to learning about his lung cancer.

(This is an ongoing commentary on all of Breaking Bad. Follow this blog to keep up with future posts! Or just read this one for thousands of words’ worth of rambling about Jesse Pinkman, if that’s your thing.)

Keep reading

[corgoship]

You’re really doing the Lord’s work here omg. I recently got into the show (I finished by now) and I love it so much, I literally cannot shut up about it. Your analysis was spot on and so focused in the details (imo one of the best things about BB) and the characters. Quite possibly the best insight I’ve seen!

So thank you very much for doing this, I really enjoyed reading these so far! Is this still ongoing? (Can you even check the time something was posted on tumblr??) Either way this was excellent and I could talk and think about this show for days so this was a sweet treat for me!

[antialianalysis]

Thank you, glad you enjoy it!

This is very much still ongoing! The S01E04 commentary was posted this February 12th. I’ve got some other stuff I need to be prioritizing right now, but I’m still itching to get back to the rest of S1 once that’s done. Episode five’s probably coming sometime in April. I’m hoping to cover the entirety of the series, although it might take me a while.

[antialianalysis]

S01E04: “Cancer Man”

In this episode, we start to explore Jesse’s character and what makes him tick, while Walt deals with his family’s reactions to learning about his lung cancer.

(This is an ongoing commentary on all of Breaking Bad. Follow this blog to keep up with future posts! Or just read this one for thousands of words’ worth of rambling about Jesse Pinkman, if that’s your thing.)

Keep reading

[myonlypen]

My thoughts are slightly too long to put in a comment response:

1) in the conversation at the beginning when they’re telling the stories of how Hank and Marie, and Walt and Skyler, met, it demonstrates how the two guys approach things in general. Hank is direct whereas Walt prefers to manipulate events or people to get his way.

2) I don’t think it was the reminiscing that got Skyler crying but rather talking about Walt Jr growing up, and thinking how Walt will likely miss it

3) It didn’t occur to me that one of the reasons Jr was upset was because it seemed like “giving up” and related it to his disability. I just interpreted it as being upset that Walt was seemingly okay with dying.

4) The bit when Skyler is talking to the doctor on the phone about putting a bill on their credit card is likely meant to be a callback to the first episode (I think) when she chastises Walt “the credit card is the one we don’t use.” To emphasise that despite the family’s financial situation it is not a factor at all in her wanting Walt to get treatment.

[antialianalysis]

Some neat things here I didn’t mention!

I just rewatched the barbecue conversation and I still disagree on #2 - if you watch Skyler’s expressions throughout that scene, the biggest emotional reactions happen precisely 1) when Walt coughs, as she’s looking at him, and then 2) when Walt is talking about how doing the crosswords got them talking, by which point they haven’t been talking about Walt Jr. for a while; Walt’s just been telling the story of how they met. They also weren’t quite so much talking about him growing up as about the fact he doesn’t have a girlfriend, which sort of relates to that but if the intention were to show her thinking about him growing up without his dad, I’d expect the conversation to be a bit different, actually talking about the future one way or another rather than just Hank giving him dating advice. All in all, I’m still pretty sure she was reacting to the story of how they met.

I’m basing #3 off what Walt Jr. himself says in the talking pillow scene next episode, where he explicitly relates it to himself and his disability! “What if you gave up on me, huh?” It probably wouldn’t have occurred to me here without remembering that.

[antialianalysis]

For anyone who missed it, my episode four commentary is finally done and posted (can’t be assed to get the link on mobile, but just click the blog name). I’ve got some other stuff to work on before I proceed to episode five, though; can’t say exactly how long it will take, but I also expect episode five won’t be quite as ridiculously long as episode four, so hoooopefully it won’t hurt too much.

[antialianalysis]

S01E04: “Cancer Man”

In this episode, we start to explore Jesse's character and what makes him tick, while Walt deals with his family's reactions to learning about his lung cancer.

(This is an ongoing commentary on all of Breaking Bad. Follow this blog to keep up with future posts! Or just read this one for thousands of words’ worth of rambling about Jesse Pinkman, if that’s your thing.)

We open with Hank going over the findings from the investigation of the cook site from the pilot with other DEA officers... or, well, we actually start with office banter about the name of the operation - Gomez thinks "Operation Icebreaker" sounds like a breath mint, Hank fires back saying every time he's on a stakeout with Gomez is Operation Breath Mint because his breath is so bad he could knock a vulture off a shit wagon. We've been getting little tastes of the sort of crude, macho environment of constant ribbing and one-upmanship the Albuquerque DEA office is, which will have some relevance later.

Hank explains that Krazy-8, full name Domingo Gallardo Molina (he gave Walt his real first name, in other words), was "way smarter than your average cheese-eater" - he used to be a street-level dealer, but moved up in the business thanks to snatching up customers from dealers that he turned in. Hank also confirms that it was Krazy-8 specifically who turned in Emilio, his own cousin.

Now, however, both of them are missing and presumed dead. "Normally I'd say someone did the world a favor" (see what I mean about Hank's utter disregard for the humanity of criminals) - but the cook site and the meth they found in the car, as well as traces of the same meth on the gas mask found at the scene, make it clear there's a new player in town, someone who cooked up the purest meth their lab has ever seen (99.1%).

And as Hank tells them Albuquerque might just have a new kingpin, we cut to Walt in his underwear, brushing his teeth like the world's biggest middle-aged dork. Such kingpin.

Revelations

In the afternoon, Walt and Skyler are having Hank and Marie over for a barbecue. Walt zones out staring at the meat he's barbecuing, having some uncomfortable flashbacks to the last time he dealt with meat, until Hank snaps him out of it.

They talk casually over food, although Skyler seems distracted. After Walt offers wine to Marie, Walt Jr. says he wants a beer, but Walt just pats him on the back, and Hank says that ain't happening. Put another pin in this. (God, there's a lot of foreshadowing and setup for things in later seasons that I never noticed before watching all this for the fourth and fifth time. I'm guessing it's not necessarily always the case that it was originally written to be setup so much as that they wrote later episodes with these earlier scenes in mind, but I actually could believe this one was written as setup; I'll probably talk about why when we get there, assuming I remember.)

As the discussion around the table goes on, Walt coughs lightly and Skyler is silently alarmed. Hank is telling Walt Jr. that he's got the looks of a movie star (I enjoy the way that Hank keeps casually trying to make Walt Jr. feel good about himself), but what he really needs to get a girl is confidence and persistence. He explains how he and Marie got together; he nagged her endlessly about a date while she kept on saying no, and she makes a joke about how it was before they tightened the stalking laws. (This is, of course, very not okay. Don't be Hank. They seem reasonably happy together right now and all, but don't be Hank.)

This leads into Walt telling the story of how he met Skyler; he used to frequent a coffeeshop where Skyler was a hostess, and noticed she was always doing the New York Times crossword, so he started deliberately coming in when she was there and doing the crossword as well, using it as an excuse to talk to her. He proudly recalls how much better she was at it than he was. As Walt talks, Skyler grows more emotional in the background, and finally after he finishes she breaks down crying. As the puzzled Hank and Marie ask what's wrong, she tells them to ask Walt and retreats inside.

Walt glares after her. He'd told her not to tell anyone else about the cancer, but it's been 48 hours, and of course it was incredibly difficult and upsetting for her to know this and not be able to talk about it. Even then, after she has this involuntary breakdown, she doesn't actually tell them, just tells them to talk to Walt while she composes herself - which gives him a chance to lie if he really wants to, though obviously she hopes he'll just admit the truth (and he does, reluctantly). She really is making a best effort to respect his choices in this, given that of course she can't help being upset and emotional when reminiscing about how they got together while she's the only other one there who knows he's dying. The contingent of fans that hate Skyler really tend to miss the extent to which she keeps trying to accommodate him and be mindful of what he's going through and the way he feels for most of this and the following episodes; I'll be pointing out more of this as the season goes on.

Hank and Marie stick around until the evening as they talk about it. Hank asks why he didn't tell anyone; Skyler adds, "Walt, don't you see? Everybody just wants to help you." But Walt looks intensely uncomfortable. As Hank asks how he got lung cancer when he doesn't even smoke, Skyler theorizes that maybe it's all about inadequate safety at the lab twenty years ago, that this one time Walt was complaining they didn't give him the right kind of ventilation hood. She's clearly just been desperately grasping for a reason, something to blame for this other than sheer accident - yet another very human reaction to tragedy. But Marie steps up and is on top of this, talking about next steps, getting a second opinion, talking to her radiologist friends and getting the absolute best doctors on his case, which calms Skyler a lot.

All this is exactly what Walt didn't want, and feared would happen if he told them about his diagnosis. He doesn't want help; the very idea of people believing he needs help grates on him. And he certainly doesn't believe any such thing as that he got cancer because of the wrong ventilation hood at the lab or whatever. He has a very rational, scientific worldview and has already accepted that he was just unlucky - but he also doesn't want to just be a victim of inadequate safety measures, a victim of anything at all. For him it's just supremely awkward listening to Skyler emotionally trying to argue they should get a lawyer on it, and he looks like he'd rather be anywhere but there. But Walt loves his family, and he knows they mean well, so he tries to just smile and nod.

Even Marie's suggestions about getting him the most amazing oncologists aren't nearly as reassuring as he'd like: the best doctors, thanks to the American health care system, tend to be expensive.

As Skyler and Marie go to talk to Walt Jr. (who's been brooding in his room listening to loud music since the barbecue), Walt is left alone with Hank, who very sincerely tells him that "Whatever happens, I want you to know that I'll always take care of your family." And Walt looks so, so bitter and exasperated. The last thing he wants is Hank taking care of his family. Hank, his son's cool uncle, the one who's made it somewhere in life instead of teaching high school, the one who doesn't have cancer, rubbing it in his face by saying he'll be the one to support his family while Walt wastes away. All he can will himself to do is the barest hint of a nod.

Walt's reactions and expressions and body language throughout this scene are really good (Bryan Cranston, guys), and also incredibly revealing, especially this last part. What Walt desires isn't that his family be cared for and supported after his death; Hank and Marie have money and would make sure they get by okay, and he knows that. What he really wants is to be the one who cares for them. He needs to feel as if he has provided for them, as the man of the house. This isn't really, and never has been, about his family so much as his desire to provide for his family, which isn't actually quite the same thing. He considers himself to be doing things nobly out of love for them, for them, but his actions increasingly don't actually quite rhyme with that idea, as we will be exploring in the next few episodes (and throughout the entire series).

At this point we've got all the pieces of the big fundamentals about Walt's basic character and what makes him tick. He's ruthlessly smart and pragmatic and reason-over-emotion on the small scale of how to achieve his goals, but on the larger scale of his motivations that form those goals, he bubbles with suppressed bitterness and pride which is what really drives most of his important decisions. For now, though, we're largely reading this off Bryan Cranston's face. Next episode will be showing this much more clearly.

Paranoia

Meanwhile, Jesse has Combo and Skinny Pete over at his house, the first time we see the two of them. (It feels funny today that it's not Badger and Skinny Pete together - we don't meet Badger until next episode, and in season one he's not associated with Skinny Pete at all. They may not even know each other yet; I can't for the moment recall if they're established to already be friends in season two, which I haven't rewatched again yet.)

Combo sees the giant hole in the ceiling of the hallway and asks about it; Jesse tells them the house is just settling, it's caving in left and right, some of it even hit him in the eye (sneaking in a mundane explanation of the black eye, which is a lot better now but still there; he must have been a little worried they would ask about it and grabbed this chance to make it sound totally uninteresting). Skinny Pete suggests his dad could fix it; he's "a contractor or something" - implying Skinny has an okay relationship with his dad.

Just when Jesse thinks he's smoothly skirted around talking about any of the horrible traumatic experiences of the last week, Combo asks Jesse if he still cooks a little crystal. Jesse tenses a little, but says yeah, maybe, from time to time. Skinny Pete says he heard he lost his partner Emilio; Jesse freezes, eyes wide. "Didn't he get locked up?"

Combo answers before Jesse has to: "No, man, he's out. His cousin bailed him out. I think he skipped town or something." They have no idea Emilio and Krazy-8 are dead.

Jesse quickly says he doesn't know anything about any of that; he's just kind of been doing his own thing these days. (He leans forward in the chair and clasps his hands together in a totally casual but actually super nervous and on edge way. Jesse's body language is also very good.)

Combo and Skinny start asking if he's got any meth and they could really go for some right now. Jesse's silent for a couple of seconds, a tiny little exhale... but then he smiles as he starts talking. "Well, maybe it just so happens that I just recently cooked the best batch ever." He says he came up with a new recipe - more like a formula. "It's like, way, way more chemically..." And then he realizes no, he has no actual idea how to bullshit about whatever it was that Walt did, and also Combo and Skinny Pete would probably just think he's a huge nerd. So instead he just says, "Shit, you know, it's just the bomb, so."

This episode is where we start to properly establish Jesse's character, after he's largely taken a backseat to Walt for the first mini-arc. We saw a bit of the small scale in the first couple episodes: that he's more emotionally driven, tries to act like he fits in with people like Krazy-8 when he really doesn't as well as he'd like, really does not like dead bodies or killing people, and is addicted to meth and uses drugs under stress. Here, though, we start to see his real driving motivations coming through: Jesse is desperate to be wanted and liked and praised and validated, by anyone. (This is why he tries so hard to fit in, to cling to the idea someone like Krazy-8 is totally his pal, right, even though he's actually kind of terrified of him.)

He made something really cool with Walt. Okay, meth-cooking isn't most people's idea of high art, but as far as he was concerned it was breathtaking and he's so proud of it and he wants his friends to know about it. There are obvious reasons to absolutely not tell them about Walt under any circumstances, so it's to be expected he doesn't mention him, but specifically talking about the formula and the chemistry while making it sound like that was all his own doing is very much him just wanting his friends to be impressed and think he's cool.

As much as he'd like to have done it all himself, though, he has very much not forgotten about Walt. Walt, who blackmailed him, and murdered a man, and just last episode kicked him and wrestled him and chased him down for using their meth. "It's worth nothing if you smoke it all!"

...So he transitions that awkwardly into saying actually he's been thinking about laying off the meth for a bit, because it's kind of been making him paranoid lately. (Paranoia is an actual symptom of meth use, it absolutely did contribute to his paranoia last episode, and we're about to see it give him full-on paranoid hallucinations, so he's not exactly lying about that bit... but he's really saying this because he's worried Walt's going to have his head if he wastes any more of it.)

Combo and Skinny pick up on how goofy it is to wax poetic about how great his meth is and then immediately move on to claiming he's laying off it for health reasons so they can't have any. "Yo, if you're not into sharing, man, just tell us to piss off, it's cool." Jesse goes no, no, that's not it at all! He's got plenty of pot? Do they want some pot? But they just stand up preparing to leave, and... Jesse immediately, frantically plays it off like he was just joking about that whole thing. Ha-ha, like he'd ever be paranoid! Maybe Walt's going to have his head later, but his friends not wanting to hang out with him anymore is immediately terrifying. It's a ridiculous, obvious lie, but Combo and Skinny don't care.

Cut to Jesse, later, in the morning when they're gone, sitting curled up on the floor by his window, restless, smoking more meth, staring outside, and managing to see some innocuous Mormons as armed motorcycle gangsters come to murder him. The way this is presented is a bit silly and over-the-top, and it's not something the show ever does again in this way, so this scene sticks out, but on the other hand this is some excellent terrified Jesse so I will give it a pass. In his panic, he grabs the big bag of crystal from where he was hiding it, jumps out of a window with it, and runs the hell away.

(He does not go for his car, but that's probably because he's hoping to escape unnoticed - he also crawls under the RV rather than going around it and potentially becoming visible from further out. Given last episode I'm not sure Jesse has the sense not to drive while extremely high. Jesse no.)

Money problems

Walt's morning routine now involves disinfecting and changing the bandaging on the multiple stab wounds on his leg; it doesn't go awesomely, some blood seeps through his pants, and he ends up with his pants in the sink, trying to get the blood out with a toothbrush. The small annoyances of the criminal lifestyle. (Has someone made a gifset yet of all these moments in season 1? There should be a gifset.)

While he's doing that, he starts coughing; Skyler hears from outside, asks if he needs any help, and when he waves it off, says she's right there if he needs her (Walt tries to cough quieter). Skyler continues to really make an effort to be considerate of him - reaching out to help, reassuring him she's there, but still giving him space and privacy when he wants it. For the moment, she's prepared to assume all of the Walt acting strange recently was because of the cancer diagnosis, which is a fairly reasonable hypothesis.

When he finally emerges from the bathroom, Skyler is on the phone with the office of one of the top oncologists in the country; Marie pulled strings to get him to see Walt. He overhears her quietly asking to pay by credit card, despite her best efforts to not worry him with the money; she reluctantly admits it's $5000 for just the first interview (what the actual fuck, American health care). She tells him not to worry about it, that they can always borrow from Hank. ("Absolutely not.") Or maybe his mother? But Walt hasn't even called her to tell her about the cancer yet. (This will be coming back.)

Skyler emphasizes that money should not be an issue here, and eventually, he relents and says he'll take care of the deposit, that he'll borrow some money from his pension. Obviously, this is an excuse; he's going to pay it with Krazy-8's meth money from the first episode, which he stored in the air vent inside the baby's room.

Just as he's trying to deal with the money accidentally getting sucked into the vent as he's trying to retrieve it (the little indignities of the criminal life, again), Walt Jr. walks in, probably speaking to Walt for the first time since he revealed his diagnosis, and asks what the hell is wrong with him, why he's acting like nothing's going on, and then leaves again as Walt stands there in stunned silence. Just to underline Walt's bad feelings after all this, this is when his eyes happen to fall on the crib, reused from when Walt Jr. was a baby, which is indeed from Tampico Furniture, Krazy-8's dad's store. He may very well have killed the person who sold it to him.

(Walt Jr. insists on taking the bus to school rather than being driven by Walt, but by the end of the day he's feeling a bit less mad and lets Walt take him home.)

Walt really does act like nothing is going on. It's just not in his current nature to be openly emotional or worried or scared, even when he's got cancer - he's spent all his life bottling things up, pretending there's nothing wrong. And so, even as everything that's happened is absolutely taking a toll on his emotional state - the murder, the reactions of his family, the looming money issue - he continues to act normal; it's all he knows how to do.

He sets out to make that deposit, tense and on edge; apart from the tow truck person from episode two, this is the first time he's about to actually use his drug money. And as luck would have it, as he's driving along, he hears police sirens behind him, despairs, and tries to hide the money before pulling over - only for the police car to drive right on past (of course; how would they know?). Walt laughs breathlessly in relief, almost crying.

As he arrives at the credit union, an asshole lawyer steals the space he was going to park in, then talks loudly on the phone while in line about how $40k isn't even a proper bonus and how some woman his interlocutor likes is a cow. Walt gives him a silent death glare from his spot in line. Here he is, desperately depositing the drug money he almost got killed for so he can pay for his cancer treatment, while this pure douchebag is swimming in money and doesn't even think that's enough. But he stays quiet and ignores him and has the teller write his check. Bottling things up, pretending there's nothing wrong. That's all he can do, right?

Family

Jesse arrives at his parents' house and immediately gets his leg stuck in a lawn chair, leading to an awkward hello when his family comes out to check on the commotion. His parents have just been showering his little brother Jake with praise and attention, but seeing Jesse, his dad just says, "What the hell are you doing out here?"

We get to see a couple of Jesse's childhood drawings hanging up on the walls of his old bedroom, still there, untouched alongside photos of him as a kid. Would Jesse have chosen to decorate his room with drawings and photos from when he was little? Seems kind of unlikely; it's tempting to conclude his parents have turned his room into almost a shrine to the sweet, talented son that they used to have in his absence - though they could also just have put up these pictures when they were made and Jesse was just never quite embarrassed enough by it to want to take them down.

(He really was very talented; Jesse was born in late 1984, so these drawings from 1991 and 1994 are from when he was approximately six or seven and nine or ten respectively. The 1994 drawing shows the Hindenburg in flames, in complex perspective, with the words "Oh, the humanety!" [sic] written below and the silhouetted, writhing shapes of people falling from the blazing ship; it's both technically incredibly solid for such a young kid and quite evocative. There's a recurring theme of horror and danger to these drawings as well as some of the later ones we see a bit later in the episode. We're getting into pure speculative headcanon territory now, since this is never addressed again and we only see a few drawings, but my own interpretation of this is that Jesse's high empathy makes him naturally strongly affected by people dying and suffering, and especially as a kid, before developing more of a filter, he'd just be morbidly captivated learning about something like the Hindenburg, and specifically the tragedy of it, the loss of life, the sheer horrible idea of people jumping out of an airship in flames to meet a quicker but no less certain death on the ground below. I think the emphasis on the quote and the helplessly falling figures in the image suggests that's the bit that stirred him to draw it, compared to your typical kid drawing of explosions and violence. But disclaimer, coincidentally this also describes me, so feel free to dismiss this as flagrant projection on my part and move on.)

Jesse is exhausted enough when he gets there to just plomp down on the bed in all his clothes to sleep, and sleep all night and through the entire next day. (It's evening when he arrives, but was presumably morning when he fled his house; wonder if they live a while away or if Jesse just stopped somewhere else on the way that we didn't see. Or potentially the continuity people just weren't thinking very hard about the times of day here.) While preparing dinner, his parents discuss why he's sleeping so long, assuming it must be drugs one way or another, though they don't know or want to know much about exactly what drugs he might be on or what effects they would have. His mom suggests checking his arms for needle marks. His dad asks if they should let him stay; his mom suggests maybe if it's on condition that he attends NA meetings.

Jesse finally makes his way downstairs as they're talking and asks what time dinner is, as if nothing were more natural; they answer. His mom offers to wash his clothes, but he says maybe later - I think she may have offered as a way to get a look at his arms without outright asking about that. His dad objects when Jesse's left the kitchen, saying they're not doing this again, that they need to be consistent in laying down the law, and they follow after him - but hesitate when they see Jesse is laying the table for them. His parents silently return to the kitchen. Jesse stops, too, for a moment, obviously having noticed them coming after him - but then continues laying the table anyway.

The dynamic between Jesse and his parents is pretty interesting here. They obviously still love him, but they don't trust him at all anymore; he's On Drugs, and they can't just enable him, they need to do something. They want to set firm boundaries, but it's pretty hard to actually tell your kid who's returned to your home for unknown reasons that he can't have dinner or stay the night - especially when he's being sweet and helping out.

Jesse knows exactly how precarious the situation is and how close his parents are to kicking him out, but he's desperate - so I suspect he acts kind of oblivious because it silently nudges his parents to err on the side of their love for him and just let it go. If he came down the stairs asking if he can stay for dinner, they might say no or start to lay down conditions; when instead he just asks what time dinner is, they go along with it because they feel weirder about it if Jesse seems to have no conception that maybe he shouldn't be able to have dinner with them. Similarly, he knows that if he starts helping out laying the table as if nothing were more natural, it dissuades his parents from just kicking him out then and there, and that's why he went straight to do that before they could talk very long, and why he determinedly keeps doing it like he hasn't noticed them while they're looking at him and then breathes easier when they're gone. But then he still continues, with more diligence if anything. He does want to help out in return for staying, and he's not trying to use them. He just knows that they're really suspicious of him, he really needs a place to be right now, and in order to have one he has to stay far on the safe side of this delicate teetering balance - and, well, if they really don't want him there, all they have to do is say so.

Inadequacy

Later, Jesse pays a visit to Jake's room. He looks at all the awards and trophies on top of Jake's set of drawers (he clearly hasn't really been here in a while) - "Most Distinguished Mathlete", "Environmental Consciousness Award". Did he get the latter by recycling cans or something? Nah, by writing to the Albuquerque Journal asking about the chemicals used to bleach their paper, which prompted an article about it in the paper. Jesse responds with great enthusiasm, not entirely genuine but clearly trying very hard to be: Right on, little bro! Making mad inroads with the business community! But then he adds, pointing to his head, "Now, remember, not all learning comes out of books."

This scene is one of my favorite bits of Jesse in season one. Clearly he's feeling pretty outclassed and inadequate next to Jake's array of achievements at half his age, redoubled by the constant looming awareness that his parents adore Jake and shower him with praise and support while being inches away from kicking Jesse out of the house. As he looks at all this stuff, he's jealous of Jake, for being so perfect and amazing and good at everything. But despite this, it doesn't occur to Jesse for a moment to react by bringing his brother down, or dismissing his achievements, or resenting him, or even just not being super enthusiastic about it. (Mad inroads with the business community!)

Instead, all he wants is just for Jake to still think Jesse is cool. He tries to talk himself up - there are other ways to be smart, and Jesse's got that! He's not a total loser even if he doesn't have twenty trophies to show for it! - but he will not take his jealousy out on Jake; Jake deserves all his accolades, and Jesse just wants the best for him and to be a good brother that Jake could like and look up to (again, being liked and wanted is one of Jesse's core motivations - very likely significantly rooted in the way he's entirely lost that from his parents, or at least feels that he has). The very next thing he says is that they should hang out more, like if Jake ever needs advice - in the midst of Jake triggering all of Jesse's insecurities, he wants to spend more time with him, not less. And from there he proceeds to excitedly ask if Jake can play some Jethro Tull on the piccolo. He so wants to just have something in common and bond with him and be best bros, and it's precious.

(Unfortunately, Jake doesn't appear to have a lot of interest in Jesse and spends most of this scene working on something on his computer. Jesse doesn't let that stop him.)

They're interrupted when their mom opens the door and asks how they're doing. She makes a point of asking Jake after Jesse answers that they're good, obviously implying Jesse might have been up to something or making him uncomfortable one way or another; Jake confirms that yeah, they're fine. She pointedly leaves the door wide open as she leaves.

Jesse looks towards the door silently for a moment, then glances at Jake. "You know, what the hell. You see this? What am I, some criminal or something?" Which, I mean, he is. But this isn't so much him being in denial about that - he just hates, hates that his parents are treating him like one in front of Jake, and is hoping Jake will at least agree that this is silly, that Jake doesn't think of him that way.

"Whatever," Jake mutters.

"Whatever? You think that's okay? Like, 'Oh, we can't let that scumbag warp the mind of our favorite son.'"

The 'favorite son' remark isn't meant as a jab at Jake. Jesse figures surely Jake is aware he's just kind of obviously the favored son, not that he'd normally be mentioning it when it's not like that's Jake's fault. This statement is all about the way their mom is acting, not about Jake; he wants Jake to be his ally in this. But Jake blanches. "I'm the favorite? Yeah, right. You're practically all they ever talk about."

Jesse opens his mouth but doesn't say anything, looking back towards the door. This is presumably why Jake's really been kind of aloof this whole time they've been talking; he feels like his parents are just constantly thinking about Jesse, and it makes him a little jealous and resentful of Jesse - like nothing he does ever makes him as important as his older brother who's not even around anymore.

We don't really get to see exactly to what extent that's true. In the only scene we see of their family without Jesse, they are talking about Jake and paying full attention to him, with no mention of Jesse - but that's also because it's an introductory scene where the writers don't want to reveal this is Jesse's family quite yet, until he barges into their yard. So maybe they really do go on about Jesse all the time (I can picture them reminiscing a fair bit about when Jesse was younger, before the drugs; maybe half of the time Jake does anything these days, they'll start comparing it to what Jesse was doing when he was his age), but maybe Jake's perception just kind of exaggerates it when they do talk about him; it's hard to tell. Either way the important bit here is the way the two brothers feel here: they're both kind of jealous of each other - and Jesse, who's been pretty convinced his parents pretty much wish he didn't exist at this point, abruptly learns otherwise.

Jesse can't sleep that night, thinking of Jake and his parents, and ends up getting out of bed and opening the big chest by the foot of his bed, still full of all his old stuff. Some toys he used to play with, a stack of more drawings from when he was a bit older (still very good, but now featuring more busty women, because he was a teenage boy). And then, a crude, doodly caricature of Walt with a flask up his butt, drawn on the back of a failed chemistry test where Walt had written "Ridiculous! Apply yourself".

(Let's talk about that test for a moment! Conveniently, someone on Reddit has managed to transcribe the whole thing (though I'm pretty sure he answered question 10 with "A. Gas B. (blank)", rather than actually calling it "Gas B"). The entire thing is pretty much obviously wrong non-answers, many of them something smartass like "1. I 2. Don't 3. Care"; he clearly hadn't really studied for this at all. But there's a bit of a progression to it: in the first question he sort of starts writing up some kind of formula that he vaguely thinks he remembers, but then loudly gives up. Question two, he writes up what would be the beginning of a real answer, but then just draws a blank when it comes to the actual definition. Then we move on to just really visible frustration with the whole thing in questions 3-6, from realizing he's going to fail this to immediately deciding well he doesn't care why does he even need to know any of this, then he runs out of juice for even that and just writes whatever the first half-assed thing he can think of is. Then he just doodles a shiny cube and leaves it at that. Oh, Jesse. Also, I enjoy that he knows the formula H2O, but still writes down that H2SO3 is water.)

The caricature, originally just a crude disgruntled doodle of a disliked teacher, brings back a lot of memories of simpler times, the Walt that he remembers from high school. And he lingers on that big, red "Apply yourself". Implicitly, you can do better. (He had another teacher who told him something like that once, long ago.)

That's when Jesse's phone buzzes. It's Combo, asking if he's got any more of that excellent meth from the other day. Jesse says pretty firmly that he's done giving out freebies. But no, Combo's cousin is in town with some rich friends, and they want to buy everything he's got.

Touching base

Walt is trying to clean the rest of his money out of his vents when Jesse rings his doorbell. Having had the idea that Jesse is a snitch planted in his head by Krazy-8, he's horrified - and livid. Who sent him? Walt shoves him, grasping at his shirt, trying to feel for wires (Jesus, Walt), and Jesse calls him a homo (I understand the general sentiment of 'why the goddamn fuck is he groping me', but Jesse please stop). As Walt presses on about who he talked to, Jesse responds with such aggressive incredulity that Walt actually tentatively believes him and asks why he's there.

Jesse is there for a few reasons. He sold the meth, so half the money is rightfully Walt's, of course. And hopefully, once he gets it, then they'll be square. They've been in a pretty tense position ever since Jesse made off with the drugs after their argument last episode - if they just finish this, and Walt gets his money, and learns Jesse didn't smoke it all, then that should clear the air, right? Jesse would be able to breathe a lot easier if he could know that Walt was cool. And... Walt just killed someone. Is he, like, okay? Remembering him from high school again makes it a lot weirder to picture him murdering anyone in cold blood. Jesse hasn't heard from him at all; maybe he kind of needs someone to talk to and would appreciate him coming by? Heck, Jesse would kind of like to talk about it.

But also... Combo calling him about how great their meth was and how his cousin wanted to buy all of it with his rich buds that could get any drugs in town that they wanted, just after Jesse'd been looking at that old chemistry test, just stirred something. Jesse really made something awesome with Walt. And... he wants that again. To be proud of something, praised for something. He wasn't exactly burning to spend more time with Walt before, but... if he gives him the money it'll be fine, right? And Walt was just his dorky old chemistry teacher, right? He's... it's not like he's been afraid of the guy he drew that caricature of, right? That'd be silly. Walt told him to apply himself; well, he will apply himself to this. Maybe if he does, Walt will acknowledge his efforts and not be such a dick, even!

Of course, he wasn't expecting Walt to come right out of the gate incensed and accusing him of telling people more things and wearing a wire (where did that come from), and it all messes with him a bit, even after Walt calms down; Jesse's not sure he should actually have come here anymore. He's awkward and guarded as he answers Walt's question with, "I don't know. To, like, touch base."

"Touch base?"

"Yeah, you know. What they call a... debrief?"

Walt's deeply hostile and condescending, openly scornful that Jesse could possibly think they have anything to talk about. Jesse suggests it just seemed like the thing to do, that it's not like they can talk about what happened to anyone else. And... he just wanted to tell him how much everybody digs that meth they cooked.

Walt looks very unimpressed. Jesse hesitantly, hedgily suggests that you know, if he ever saw his way clear to the two of them cooking a little more... (Jesse's face here is so tense, wincing, already braced for rejection. Aaron Paul is also very very good.)

Walt goes, "Wow," like that's the most pathetic, desperate thing he's ever heard. Jesse takes a small, awkward breath. Walt tells him to get the hell off his property and not come back.

Jesse gathers himself. Who was he kidding? Of course Walt still thinks he's dirt. It hurts, but Walt is wrong, he's the asshole here, and Jesse's feelings of rejection are easily turned into righteous indignation. He tells Walt, finally, that actually he came there with Walt's share of the money, four thousand dollars. "Yeah, yeah, that's right. Hey, I didn't smoke it all." He throws the money into the air as a final fuck-you before he leaves (Walt has to awkwardly fish a bunch of it out of the pool afterwards). Fine, good riddance. What a dickwad. He didn't want to keep working with him anyway.

As a first-time viewer, you don't actually learn Jesse came here to give him his share until this point, replicating Walt's experience where you may just assume he's there to try to drag Walt back into cooking, and you probably go along with Walt in thinking Jesse is way out of line coming there at all. In hindsight, the fact Jesse actually gives him the money after Walt's assaulted and yelled at him and shows no sign of actually wanting anything from Jesse at all other than being left alone is pretty noteworthy - there's every indication Jesse would've gotten away with just leaving at this point, like Walt asked, without ever even mentioning the money. But Jesse's hurt and angry about Walt treating him like scum (much like his parents, really, only so much meaner about it), and he'd rather prove his integrity than keep the money - even when all he gets out of it is the moral high ground in his own head.

Walt might have reacted somewhat differently here if Jesse had opened by giving him the money. To him, Jesse was barging in to bring the seedy criminal enterprise to his home, where it could have endangered him (though Jesse waited for Skyler to leave), and then trying to pull him back into this world he'd hoped to just leave behind and forget about; knowing he was there to give him his share probably would've mellowed his reaction a bit, and indeed, when Jesse reveals that, Walt actually looks a bit awkward and like he's realized he may have been wrong.

But a lot of Walt's harshness here isn't really about that. He's had a really bad week; first there was cancer, then nearly getting murdered, then murdering two people, then having to tell his family about the cancer and the constant awareness that cancer treatment will cost astronomical sums of money. Perhaps worst of all are his family's reactions to the cancer: his son yelling at him, the rest coddling him and wanting to help him as the poor suffering cancer man.

But then Jesse appears, this pathetic kid wanting to talk to him, asking things of him, and once he's over the initial stab of anger and paranoia, Walt feels a kind of power and satisfaction in shooting him down with open disdain and ordering him off his property; there's an unmistakable sense of patronizing superiority to his reactions, those almost theatrically condescending wows. Finally he feels like he's actually in control of an interaction, asserting power and making and enforcing choices that are purely his own, for the first time in a while. And relishing having power over and saying no to people you don't care for when everything else going on in your life is kind of shit is unfortunately a very human thing. This continues to be a show about people being dicks to each other for human reasons.

Taking the fall

Jesse returns to his parents' house, but when a cleaner discovers a marijuana joint hidden in a potted plant in his room, his parents call him down to the kitchen and ask if he's got anything to say.

Jesse looks silently between the joint and his parents. He knows that it is, in fact, not his - which is to say, it's definitely Jake's. They're just assuming it was him because, well, of course they do. (Jesse is probably also learning for the first time here that his brother is dabbling in marijuana; his expressions are subtle but he looks down at the joint just long enough to seem to be putting it together.)

He tries to tell them he knows nothing about it, but his dad says that won't fly this time; his mom makes a little speech about how many times they've sat there like this and Jesse has said whatever he thinks they want to hear, only for them to feel like fools when nothing changes. And maybe that's fair. But it's not fair right now. It's not his.

His dad tells him to leave; his mom can't look him in the eye. They don't want to be doing this; they see this as the moment where they must finally take a stand, and Jesse knows that. After a moment he stands up and takes the joint, then leaves without saying anything. He's not going to admit to a thing he didn't do, but neither is he going to let his brother take the blame, even when it really was him. And at that point it'd be pointless to argue. They don't want him anymore, nobody really does, and that's that. (Fun fact: Jesse experiences some form of rejection from literally everyone he interacts with in this episode! He managed to save it pretty quickly with Combo and Skinny Pete, but nonetheless.)

As Jesse's taxi is about to pull up outside, Jake quietly comes out to join him and thanks him for not telling on him. And then... he asks if he can have the joint back.

Jesse chuckles, takes it out of his pocket and makes as if to hand it to him, only to crumple it, throw it down onto the sidewalk, crush it with his foot, and then kick the remains away for good measure. "It's skunk weed anyway," he says. And he gets in the taxi and drives off.

Jesse really could have told on Jake. Maybe his parents wouldn't have believed him outright, but it would've made them at least consider it, planted the idea in their heads if nothing else. He could've not only seriously argued for his innocence, but knocked Jake off that pedestal that Jesse's so intensely aware of - established to their parents that he's flawed and imperfect, too, and it's not just Jesse who's a fuckup. It must have occurred to Jesse that he could, in these burning silences as he's being kicked out for good for something Jake did, not him.

But Jesse would never actually do that, because he loves his brother despite everything, and Jake deserves to have the love and support from their parents that Jesse's been barred from. And so, he not only chooses to silently take the fall instead, but destroys his joint too, because man, he doesn't want Jake to follow him down this path. Jake's only twelve; he deserves to just be a kid right now, loved unconditionally, and not get dragged into any of this. Jesse can't really stop him or control him, and he'd probably be the world's biggest hypocrite if he tried - but at least he can do what he can by not helping him along. He just wants the best for Jake until the end, even when Jake doesn't want much to do with him. And this is why Jesse is good, thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Jesse's parents aren't villains here. I can't imagine how hard it must be to watch your kid spiral off into drug addiction and increasingly alarming company; they're in a really scary position, trying to do what's right and reasonable, but Jesse has essentially become an alien to them, and they just no longer have any real understanding of what's going on in his head or in his life in general - and they don't really want to ask, either, because they're afraid of what they'd hear even if he did actually tell them. To them, he's their kid and they love him, but he's also potentially dangerous, and he can't be trusted in any way with anything at all. And of course they assume if there are drugs in the house it must've been him. Who wouldn't? They're doing their best with what they do understand, and Jesse probably really has burned them before, several times.

But just the same, in actual fact Jesse is not an alien, he didn't do anything wrong here, he would never hurt Jake in any way, and his parents did the wrong thing. Sometimes that's what happens when people are people, each flawed and only incompletely understanding each other.

Seizing power

At Walt's appointment with the new oncologist, Dr. Delcavoli, they're informed that the cancer is stage 3A: it's spread from the lungs to the lymph nodes. It is treatable, and the suggested treatment has been successful, but of course no promises can be made. Walt asks about side-effects; Dr. Delcavoli says they can be mild to nonexistent, but lists off the typical effects as Skyler takes careful notes, determined to help Walt through this: hair loss, fatigue, intestinal issues, muscle pains, bleeding gums, nausea, kidney or bladder irritation, increased bruising and bleeding, sexual symptoms... and Walt just kind of slowly zones out, imagining spending the last months of his life in sickness and agony and helplessness.

After they get home, Skyler unrelentingly tries to stay positive about the cancer - but when she suggests starting the treatment next week, Walt's reluctant and thinks they should discuss it. $90,000 out of pocket? (Jesus Christ, American health care.) Skyler offers to go back to work, says there are options, but Walt asks what if they pay all that money, do the treatment, and... (He doesn't quite want to say 'it doesn't work' out loud.) Is he just going to leave her with the debt? Maybe treatment isn't the way to go. They shouldn't let emotions rule them. (There are clearly no emotions involved in Walt's feelings about this, obviously.)

From across the room, Walt Jr. yells, "Then why don't you just fucking die already? Just give up and die." (There's a line that comes back, oh boy.) Walt Jr., of course, is particularly angry about the way Walt's reacting to this because he himself has had to live with a permanent disability all his life, and he can't help but see himself in Walt's place - if Walt had just decided it was too expensive or too difficult to treat him - but for now, he doesn't say any of that. Walt's just left to emotionally deal with his son telling him to fucking die already.

When Walt drives to the pharmacy later, he has a bad coughing fit in the car and coughs up some blood. He pulls into the parking lot, stares at his bloodied hand and despairs, confronted by his looming mortality in a more immediate way than ever - and then he's interrupted by a honking car horn as the same asshole lawyer from earlier in the episode drives up and leaves his convertible open while he goes inside.

And after a moment of looking darkly out the window, Walt gets up, pops the hood on the lawyer's car, and short-circuits the engine with a wet window wiper, then coolly walks away from the resulting explosion, like an action-movie hero. As he gets back in his car and drives away while the hysterical lawyer yells, Walt actually smiles. Breaking the rules, feeling like a rogue badass, exerting power, is a way of wrestling control back from the world when he feels shitty and powerless. Another choice to hurt and humiliate someone he thinks deserves it, because it feels good and gives him a sense of much-needed power and control, only taken a bit further - and into actual criminality again. He'd been determined his initial foray into crime was a mistake best forgotten about, but here, in the moment, this just feels good.

The first time I watched, this episode was where I... reluctantly decided maybe Jesse was okay. Fine, he's got a soft spot for his little brother, that's kind of cute. In hindsight, most of this episode is one big Jesse character study exploring who he actually is and showing him as fundamentally decent and sympathetic (even the opening of the episode ends on Walt but starts with the conclusive revelation that Jesse had nothing to do with snitching on Emilio). But the most important scenes here, taking the fall for Jake and touching base with Walt, are both structured with late reveals: you go into the scene likely interpreting his actions from a more cynical POV and only towards the end learn what was really going on, which makes it take another watch to fully appreciate how Jesse knowingly covered for Jake even when that meant he'd be kicked out, and that Jesse's visit to Walt's house was really reasonably motivated (remember, Walt already chewed Jesse out for calling him; the alternative was ditching Walt and keeping the money). Or at least it took the second time through for me; I'm sure others who didn't go into this episode thinking Jesse was bad and annoying probably had an easier time with it the first time around.

Having closed out the opening arc of the season, we're now doing a couple more introspective, character-focused episodes before the action gets going again. I know first time around I was a little underwhelmed by how quiet and seemingly meandering they were on the whole, compared to the first three episodes. They're chock-full of really important character stuff for both Walt and Jesse, though, and arguably do the real work of fully setting up their motivations for the entire rest of the show.

[antialianalysis]

Partway through editing, my episode four commentary is nearing 8000 words. Welp, I guess this is what happens when an episode is Jesse-centric. Prepare yourselves for me overanalyzing nine-year-old Jesse’s drawing of the Hindenburg disaster that’s on screen for literally two seconds and going on about exactly why he does literally everything he does.

[antialianalysis]

S01E03: “...and the Bag’s in the River”

In this episode, Walt grapples with murdering a guy in cold blood while Hank and Marie have a comic misunderstanding about Walt Jr. smoking pot. (This show is extremely consistent in tone.)

(This is an ongoing commentary on all of Breaking Bad. Follow this blog to keep up with future posts!)

As the episode opens, Walt and Jesse are painstakingly cleaning up the remains of Emilio's body and flushing them down the toilet. Walt's using a different kind of gas mask as he works than Jesse, because they left that one mask in the desert (love that attention to detail) - this means they must have noticed one mask was missing by now, but don't seem to have realized this means the other mask might still be out there as evidence.

As they scrub the bloody pulp what was once a person from the floor, Walt's thinking of a memory: a younger him and his ex, Gretchen Schwartz, enumerating all the elements that make up a human body and in what proportions. "There's got to be more to a human being than that," Walt said, back then - but as current Walt flushes yet another bucket of red slush down the toilet, it seems abstractly appropriate to just think of it as that mechanically enumerated list of chemicals, a formless, meaningless soup.

(Walt and Gretchen puzzle over why, when Walt quickly sums up all their percentages, they end up with 99.888042%. This is probably because their numbers vary widely in precision - they start with whole numbers, 63% hydrogen, 26% oxygen, 9% carbon, only to then move on to nitrogen at 1.25%, calcium 0.25%, iron 0.00004%, sodium 0.04%, and phosphorus 0.19%. Setting aside the fact that actually these numbers only add up to 99.73004% - I'm guessing we didn't necessarily see them mention all the trace elements included in their calculation on-screen - surely the missing 0.111958% can simply be found in the rounding errors on the numbers that don't have several digits after the decimal point. Walt, brilliant scientist, really should know that when you add together different measurements, you need to add up the error margins on all the numbers too; you can't just pretend an unqualified 63% is precisely a 63.000000%. But this is a TV show, and the point it's trying to make with these flashbacks is a characterizational one about Walt's scientific worldview and his ability to do very quick mental arithmetic, plus establishing his prior relationship with Gretchen, so mystery of the missing human element it is.)

While Walt and Jesse are cleaning, some of the acid-mixed blood leaks between the floorboards and slowly drips down into the basement, where Krazy-8 watches. He says nothing, but he must be able to make a pretty good guess that this is what's left of his cousin Emilio.

Krazy-8 is easily forgotten next to Breaking Bad's other, more colorful antagonists who stick around for more than three episodes - but I think he's somewhat underrated. This is a very good episode, and Krazy-8 in particular has a lot more going on here than he seems to the first time you watch it. He is pretty smart, in a way you can't quite appreciate on a first viewing because the calculated thought that must be behind what he's doing and saying doesn't really start to become clear until the very end of the episode/opening of the next, and I don't really see anyone talking about this. Good thing I'm about to talk about it, a lot!

The wedge

After the whole grueling affair of the cleanup (and that glorious bit with Walt and Jesse standing opposite each other in kiddie pools taking turns spraying the blood off each other with a garden hose - season one loves these juxtapositions of something horrific with something very goofy and mundane, and I very much love them too), Walt goes to look after their prisoner. He flushes the sanitary bucket down the toilet (...why is there a toilet in the basement, just standing there, on its own, in the open? Is this an America thing?), disinfects it, and slides it back to Krazy-8. K8 watches him silently as he sprays his gloves with disinfectant as well and disposes of them (Walt's so careful and clean, so incongruous with this entire murdering and criminality thing).

Walt, Krazy-8 has realized, is clearly the weakest link here. He's obviously not a criminal - he's just some high school chemistry teacher, with a family and a normal life. He's obviously reluctant to kill him - reluctant enough to have given him water and a sandwich and basic accommodations, even. And he obviously still doesn't like this at all - he's barely looking at Krazy-8 even while he's down here. Krazy-8's best shot at getting out of this alive is to get to Walt.

So, when Walt prepares to head upstairs, Krazy-8 finally talks - to force Walt to actually confront what he's doing, make him fully feel that discomfort. "Hey, look at me. Turn around and look at me."

Slowly, Walt turns and looks. Indicating the bike lock he's still attached to the pole by, K8 tells him that he wouldn't do this to his worst enemy - it's degrading. Walt pauses, fiddling with his sleeve, rolling it down, and then just says he's sorry, preparing to leave again. Krazy-8 presses on and says he should either kill him or let him go - but that he knows Walt's hoping he'll make it easy and will just drop dead on his own (almost definitely true). Then: "You don't have it in you, Walter."

And that's when Walt pauses on his way up the stairs, tensing as it immediately dawns upon him. "How do you know my name?"

Krazy-8 says Jesse told him. Walt walks back down the stairs, approaching, almost intimidating, and asks if they had to threaten or beat it out of him. K8 says not even close. That Jesse freely told them Walt taught him chemistry in high school, that his son is "retarded or in a wheelchair or something". "That partner of yours? He's got a big mouth." And again, he tells Walt he doesn't belong in this business.

Walt can't quite respond to that. "So I should just let you go, then?" Well, it's that or cold-blooded murder, K8 points out - "besides, your real problem's sitting upstairs."

It's easy for Walt to buy this as a genuine warning, and for a first-time viewer. We might remember that, back in episode one, Krazy-8 and Emilio were actually getting pretty threatening towards Jesse before we cut away - but we didn't see exactly how he started talking, and there, too, Krazy-8 confronted Jesse about whether he'd been the one who ratted Emilio out to the police, so at the very least it seems very consistent and reasonable that Krazy-8 seems to have some persistent suspicions about Jesse and might express that, whether out of spite or pragmatism. First time through, we're meant to be suspicious of Jesse too, wonder if he really did turn in his previous partner and might betray Walt.

But actually, as we learn at the tail end of this episode (and more explicitly in the next), Krazy-8 himself was the police snitch that tipped the DEA off about Emilio. So he knows perfectly well that Jesse didn't snitch on anyone, and always knew that; he doesn't actually suspect Jesse of anything. So why would Krazy-8 just go and tell Walt that Jesse told him stuff? Because he is telling Walt this to manipulate him into distrusting Jesse. Because Walt, he thinks, is his ticket out of here, if he can just get to him - but Jesse knows the business a lot better, he's scared and emotional and kind of paranoid, and Jesse knows him. He has a shot with Walt, but Jesse, for all his squeamishness about the idea of actually murdering him, would pretty much never agree to just trust him and let him go free. So what he really needs is to get Jesse out of the way, or at least for Walt to free him without consulting Jesse, and to do that he needs to damage Walt's trust in him. And if he succeeds at that, well, then Krazy-8 will start to seem trustworthy for telling him not to trust Jesse, right?

So there's no way mentioning Walt's name back there was anything but very deliberate on Krazy-8's part. He wanted Walt to notice so he could start to drive in that wedge between them, without it coming off like he's just randomly offering "helpful advice" out of nowhere (which'd just seem highly suspicious). And he correctly deduced that Walt would notice if he just referred to him by name.

(In part, though, calling him by name is also a way of making it more personal, creating a tiny hint of a human connection to make Walt less comfortable with killing him.)

The gambit works; Walt already didn't trust Jesse very well, and this seemed to be all the confirmation it took. Without knowing Krazy-8 is actually the snitch, Walt can't reconstruct the line of logic that I outlined above - to him it just seems like Krazy-8 doesn't trust Jesse and is making use of this fact to tell Walt he has bigger problems. He might suspect Krazy-8 wants to earn his trust by telling him, but not that the suspicions he's planting are largely false. (Obviously the actual bit where Jesse told him about Walt is true - but Walt comes out of this very much having picked up on the implication Jesse is likely snitching for the police too, which is not.) Krazy-8 is pretty good at this.

(My really hot take on Krazy-8: it's possible he may actually genuinely have faked unconsciousness for a bit of episode two, or at least one way or another was not as unconscious as he seemed. Between them first leaving him in the basement after Walt recaptures him and when they later hear noises and go back down to investigate, Walt and Jesse just so happen be to pretty loudly discussing some of the very things I've just explained Krazy-8 seems to be keenly aware of in this episode: Walt was hoping he was a man of business who might listen to reason and come to a mutually self-interested agreement, while Jesse was adamant that no, he doesn't have high hopes Krazy-8 won't murder their entire families if they let him go. That conversation would also have shown him that Walt and Jesse are already kind of at each other's throats and it probably wouldn't take too much to tip the scales - though he could also potentially have heard the argument at the end of last episode, or Jesse yelling about how terrible Walt is while melting Emilio, which happened after he woke up. Either way, it sounds like pure paranoia when Jesse suggests maybe he's faking it and biding his time there, but it'd actually make a lot of good sense if he just so happened to be right, and Krazy-8 really was listening in to that conversation, and the unexplained noise that they heard really was him consciously moving around. I'm not going to say this is definitely true; it does feel very crackpottish, and Krazy-8 is also just good at getting a sense of people either way, so he may just have made some very good educated guesses as to Walt's state of mind. But it's a hilarious thought and fits better than it has any right to.)

And so, when Walt heads upstairs, he immediately breaks into Jesse's bathroom (where he's smoking some of their meth) to confront him about telling K8 about his name/occupation/family, call him a damn junkie, and try to flush the meth down the toilet. (This is where those glorious "Get off the toilet!" "No!" [ridiculous kicking match] gifs come from.) Jesse retrieves it from the toilet without hesitation before Walt can flush it, throws it out the window, and then runs down the stairs to retrieve it from the flowerbed, while Walt chases him. (This is part Jesse being an addict and part, as he notes, "That's worth forty grand, you stupid shit!" - though judging from the meth prices later in this season, he's exaggerating the actual number here.)

While running down after Jesse, though, Walt has a coughing fit and collapses. By the time he's gotten back on his feet, Jesse's opened the gates and gotten in his car and is about to make off with the drugs. Walt drags him back out and says they've got work to do, and they argue viciously; Jesse says he didn't ask for any of this, that he can't even live in his house anymore, and insists the coin flip is sacred. He did his part; Walt's job is waiting for him in the basement. And with that, Jesse drives off to escape all this - Walt's verbal abuse, Krazy-8, the murder that has to happen but that he simultaneously dreads and doesn't really want to know of, the house where he just spent hours scrubbing the remains of someone he once considered a friend off the floors. This isn't a very thought-out decision - but right now he just can't stay here.

Walt's on his own now - or, in other words, everything is going exactly as Krazy-8 would have hoped for.

Marijuana misunderstandings

Meanwhile, Skyler and Walt Jr. are painting the baby's room, while Marie sits and talks, establishing some of her less than pleasant personality traits - her shoes "make me look like I should be changing bedpans, like I should be squeaking around bringing soup to some disgusting old person, then take the bus home to my sixteen cats". (This is largely a classist sort of thing, tying in with her thing about trying to appear glamorous and wealthy - but also, please note specifically her distaste for the idea of caretaking for the bedridden, and put a large pin in that for way, way later. I actually love Marie and think she's fascinating, and will get into that more later, but this does not preclude her being kind of a shitty person a lot of the time and frequently extremely infuriating.)

Walt Jr. answers his phone with "Yo, what's up?", and Skyler tells him to please not use the word 'yo', which now just reminds her uncomfortably of that kid who's dealing drugs to Walt.

Marie nitpicks Skyler's paintwork after Walt Jr. leaves and asks if she should really be up on a ladder in her pregnant state; Skyler would love to switch places, but Marie ignores that (she's not dirtying herself with manual work!) and just asks why Skyler didn't get Walt to do this. Skyler sardonically goes "There's an idea." This, of course, is the painting that she was trying to get Walt to do in episode one, but he never got around to; apparently she chose to take matters into her own hands after discovering her husband apparently didn't have any time for painting but clearly had plenty of time to befriend some drug dealer and get into recreational marijuana.

Skyler uses working on a short story about a stoner character (her writing hobby was also established in episode one) as an excuse to ask Marie about what smoking pot in college did to her mood, hoping to figure out if this is the reason for all of Walt's weird behaviour recently. Marie says it made her more serious, but Skyler remarks offhandedly that it just made her lightheaded. (I like this mention that they both smoked a bit of pot in college, particularly since they seem to know this about each other - or at least Marie doesn't react to Skyler mentioning her own (Skyler's) weed habit, though she's somewhat scandalized Skyler would bring up Marie's because obviously she'd like to think she is above that sort of thing - but Walt probably didn't know this about Skyler or I expect he would've brought it up in the hospital conversation last episode. Skyler had a life before Walt, and of course there are things her sister knows about her that Walt wouldn't.) As soon as Skyler probes further, though, Marie sees through the writing excuse - and assumes that she's asking because Walt Jr. is smoking pot. Skyler has no problem telling her, right hand to God, that he's not, as far as she knows... which to Marie just sounds like a confirmation.

So Marie ends up calling Hank (or, well, he calls her back a couple of hours later) to encourage him to scare Walt Jr. straight. Hank is initially reluctant; shouldn't his dad be doing this? Marie's response is an exasperated "Hank, he respects you"; the implicit "unlike Walt" says a lot. (After the phone call, she casually shoplifts a pair of shoes and leaves the ones she was wearing, the ones she complained about earlier, in the shop in their place. There's something especially audacious about that.)

Thus, under the pretense of going to get ice cream, Hank drives Walt Jr. to the "Crystal Palace", a seedy motel full of Albuquerque's less fortunate citizens, to gawk at the drug addicts and lecture him about gateway drugs. Walt Jr. is understandably confused but takes it in stride, chuckling at Hank's crude, over-the-top scaremongering descriptions. Hank comes close to possibly admitting he tried marijuana back in the day himself - he starts to talk about having been young once and how the world's a messed-up place and "just this once" - but then abruptly pivots to calling over minor recurring character Wendy the sex worker as she's minding her own business.

He shows her off like some kind of lurid spectacle, condescendingly chastising her for talking, ordering her to show her diseased teeth. To Hank, she is subhuman, a cautionary tale and nothing more. As far as he's concerned, criminals and drug addicts just lose their people status somewhere along the way and become something gross and contemptible. Hank has various unsavoury traits including a bunch of more surface-level casual bigotry, but I think this is the very worst of him, this utter dehumanization of people he judges to be disgusting. He just has no trace of empathy or even sympathy for someone like Wendy, and it's just deeply unpleasant to watch.

(When Hank tells Wendy to go over to Walt Jr.'s side of the car and asks how much she charges, she's revolted; "Hey, I'm not doing him, he's a kid." Obviously, he was not actually about to hire her at all and is just wasting her time, but I really like the use of this line to establish the basic humanity and morals that she has, in contrast to the way Hank's treating her right now. All in all, out of the two of them Wendy distinctly comes off as the better person in this exchange, and I appreciate that.)

But for all of Hank's awfulness here, he is very human and not just a designated shallow asshole character. Unfortunately, people dehumanize other people all the time, and even people who treat designated others with horrible cruelty usually still love their families and friends. When Walt Jr. asks him why he's telling him all this, his first response is "Because I love you, you little bastard" - and when Wendy asks if Walt Jr. is handicapped, Hank immediately jumps to say he broke his leg playing football and turn the subject to his beefy arms, clearly hoping to divert the sort of negative attention directed towards his disability that Walt Jr. must deal with all the time. Hank genuinely cares about him, and you get a real sense of that too.

(Before they leave, Hank asks, "So what did you think?"; Walt Jr. responds, "Cool." Good job, Hank, you definitely turned him off drugs forever.)

Unknown to them, Jesse is hiding out in Wendy's room at the motel, watching them leave from the window. As Wendy returns, he frantically urges her to close and lock the door before asking about who that was and whether they were after him - after he and Walt parted on such bad terms earlier, it's started to sink in for him that leaving might have been a really bad idea. Walt had previously blackmailed him, threatened to turn him in to the cops if he refused to work with him; what if he made good on those threats and actually went to the police? That or, you know, Walt let Krazy-8 get away and now he's after him.

Anyway, Jesse's there right now because he's hired her (they're previously acquainted but this looks extremely transactional) - but judging from his lack of interest in the actual sex and the fact he keeps staring out the window the whole time, he almost definitely did so mostly as an excuse to lay low at her place for a bit. There isn't a lot of Jesse in this episode (alas), but he is not having a good time, is what I'm saying. Next episode, which does contain a lot of Jesse, will be following up on this.

Pros and cons

Walt, since Jesse left, has been constructing a pros and cons list for murdering Krazy-8, as one does. The list looks like this, as best we can see:

LET HIM LIVE

It's the moral thing to do

Judeo-Christian principles (that is a super-weird way of putting it on a list, Walt)

You are not a murderer (right? That's Other Walt)

Sanctity of life

He may listen to reason

Post-traumatic stress

Won't be able to live with yourself

Murder is wrong!

KILL HIM

He'll kill your entire family if you let him go.

It's a pretty clumsy list. The "Let him live" list is literally half just different ways to state that murder is wrong (it's the moral thing to do/Judeo-Christian principles/sanctity of life/murder is wrong), three points about how it'd be psychologically difficult and scarring (you are not a murderer/post-traumatic stress/won't be able to live with yourself), and then that stray "He may listen to reason". May. Walt tried really hard to fill out that left side, persuade himself that he shouldn't kill this guy - but none of this is really at all persuasive, as much as he'd like it to be. Abstract moral principles just don't hold all that much weight to him; next to the risk to him and his family (after all, Krazy-8 knows who he is), none of that really matters at all. Those are real, tangible, terrifying consequences. How can he decide this based on anything else?

But it feels so bad to decide actually you are a murderer after all, to imagine actually going down there with the intent of personally taking the life of another human being. He pretty much already knows he is probably going to end up doing it, one way or another - he has to - but he recoils away from the thought, stalls, makes this pointless list, hopes some way, somehow, he'll discover some magical way to get out of this without doing it.

It's late in the evening when Walt finally remembers Skyler and calls her to tell her Bogdan's keeping him late at the car wash again. He actually tells her she's right and he really needs to learn to say no. The thought that he let Bogdan walk all over him like that already feels frustrating, like he should never have put up with that in the first place - he's technically eroding his excuse by saying this, making it less believable next time, but he can't not say it at this point.

Eroding his excuse doesn't actually matter, though, because Skyler is already on to him, because she's the best and she does things offscreen while we're watching Walt, almost as if she's a real person and not a convenient prop. She already called Bogdan to ask about Walt when it got to be late, and she learned that he quit the car wash job two weeks ago. Wherever he is, she says, he might as well stay there for the night - and she hangs up. Things are crumbling.

Bonding

As Walt stands there with the phone, Krazy-8 calls out to him again, asking for more food - calling him Walter again, of course. Dutifully, Walt makes him another sandwich, and he even cuts the crust off - almost parental. Taking care of someone helpless like this is, in a twisted way, kind of like taking care of a child. A sort of reversed, parental form of Stockholm syndrome.

On the way down the stairs with the sandwich, though, Walt has another coughing fit, worse than it's ever been before - Krazy-8 watches evenly, his face expressionless - and then actually faints and collapses at the bottom of the stairs, sending the plate with the sandwich flying to the floor and shattering.

When Walt comes to, Krazy-8 says he's been out for ten or fifteen minutes. He asks about the coughing; "Were you on the same shit you used on me?" That doesn't really make any sense; I'd read it as a joke if he didn't look dead serious while saying it. Either way I think odds are Krazy-8 knows perfectly well that's not it; he's just trying to prompt Walt to correct him, tell him what's really going on. And he does. The first person Walt tells about his cancer is the prisoner he's holding captive and contemplating murdering.

Walt gathers up the sandwich and plate shards and goes back to the kitchen to throw them in the trash and make a new sandwich. But this time, he grabs a sixpack of beer as well. He's alone here for the night with Krazy-8, apparently, and in a weird way telling him about his cancer has created a smidgen of a strange, precarious intimacy between them. Might as well make the most of it.

(By the way, note this is Jesse's beer; they're at his house. Walt, do you always just freely raid the cupboards when you're at someone else's place. Making Krazy-8 sandwiches, sure, the guy needs to eat. The beer? Totally didn't need to take that.)

As Krazy-8 examines the sandwich, Walt assures him it's safe and he didn't poison it; Krazy-8 says that'd be the way to do it if he was going to, him being a chemist and all. I think what he was actually looking at there, though, was the cut-off crust. Krazy-8 is pretty sure Walt is still waffling about killing him, and this extra consideration for his sandwich preferences only confirms that.

Walt rolls a can of beer across the floor to him, still careful not to come anywhere within reach - and asks him his real name (Domingo) and where he's from. Krazy-8 points out that getting to know him isn't going to help Walt kill him - which is very true. But at this point Walt kind of wants to be persuaded to let him live. "I sure as hell am looking for any reason not to [kill you]. I mean, any good reason at all." Krazy-8's always been telling him he doesn't have it in him - but at this point Walt's more concerned that he totally does have it in him and is going to do it, and that's a disturbing thought. Walt asks K8 to sell him on releasing him.

(Note how "Murder is wrong" just does not qualify as "any good reason at all" to Walt, even when he's written it out in four different ways. Again, Walt is incredibly pragmatically-minded and consequentialist in thinking; the idea that murder is wrong is something he knows, sure, and could tell you, but it just doesn't actually mean much of anything to him by itself, not really, not when push comes to shove. He has the same basic human aversion to violence and murder as your average person (now), but he can't actually persuade himself of anything with "Murder is wrong".)

Krazy-8 evenly makes his appeal. He says he'd promise to leave them alone, pretend all this never happened. "What's best for both parties is we forget about it." Note that this is exactly what Walt was proposing last episode about whether Krazy-8 would be willing to act out of mutual self-interest, just in slightly different words. (Again, K8 may just have picked up that this would be Walt's kind of reasoning, but this is another blip in favor of him potentially listening in when Walt was talking about this.) But he also notes that anyone in this situation would make promises like that, and of course Walt can't know if they're true. This probably actually makes him more trustworthy to Walt - both this and the fact he pointed out getting to know him better wouldn't help. Krazy-8's got a pretty good grasp on Walt's thought process - rather than gunning straight for that chance at increasing Walt's sympathy for him or acting like Walt totally can trust him and hoping he just buys it, he's frank about what's going on and what the situation really is from Walt's POV. This is how to actually make Walt like him: be on his intellectual level, voice what he's thinking, make him feel like he's not being manipulated.

But that's not going to do it by itself. After a silence, Krazy-8 asks what else he can tell him, and Walt doesn't know. Eventually he stands up, preparing to leave, and says K8's going to have to convince him because he's not going anywhere until he does. So Krazy-8 quickly turns back to Walt's earlier question and tells him that he's from here in town. He's got a degree in business administration, but he originally wanted to study music, only to be discouraged by his dad because there's no money in it. His dad owns a furniture store; Walt remembers the store's commercial jingle, and they sing it together. Walt realizes he bought Walt Jr.'s crib from that store, and Krazy-8 might even have rung him up for it. K8 worked at the furniture store as a kid "until the day I said 'Fuck you' and quit" - Walt can relate.

It's a funny, natural, honest conversation, a quiet bonding moment. Walt gives Krazy-8 another beer - not by rolling it across the floor this time, but by just directly handing it to him, an implicit sign of growing trust (Walt still doesn't come any closer than he needs to, though). Krazy-8 asks if Jesse knows Walt has cancer, and Walt tells him not even his family knows. Why? Because it's not a conversation that I'm even remotely ready to have. Krazy-8, yet again quite perceptive, guesses his family's why he's doing this - that he wants to leave money to his folks. Chuckling, he offers to just write him a check if Walt lets him go. If this line of work doesn't suit him, he should get out before it's too late.

"I don't know what to do," Walt says after a moment of silence, his voice shaking.

"Yeah, you do."

And after all this, after they've had a couple beers together and talked about the furniture store and their stupid jingle and the jobs they hated and the paradoxes of their situation, Walt believes him. Domingo's a good kid, right? He seems so normal and honest and relatable - turned to drug dealing after quitting a shitty job, has a degree that should make him far too good for this, used to have dreams once but gave up on them. There's no way he'd actually walk out of here and hurt Walt's family, surely. It'd be so much nicer, so much easier, if Walt can just let him go now and everything can be normal again - or as normal as it can be, when he's still got cancer.

So he goes up to the kitchen to get the keys. He finishes his can of beer, crumples it, and throws it in the garbage with the plate shards...

...and then he pauses. Opens the garbage again, takes out the shards, pieces them together on the counter. There's a long, sharp piece missing.

And he knows exactly what this probably means. "No." He digs through the trash again, looking for it, but nope; it's still downstairs, in Krazy-8's pocket. "No. No, don't do this. Don't do this. Why are you doing this?" he says to no one. He liked him; he trusted him. He told him he's got cancer. And all the while as they were singing the stupid jingle and reminiscing and bonding, Krazy-8 was carrying a weapon to murder him with, probably hoping to gut him as soon as he's released. This is a cruel business, and those who trust too easily end up dead.

The murder

There's another shot of Walt silhouetted against the entrance to the basement. This time there's no plastic bag - but we know he has just made the decision to kill him nonetheless, simply because of the parallel to the previous episode, and it's brilliant.

The tension of the ensuing scene is absolutely grueling. Krazy-8 reassures Walt as he slowly, slowly descends with the key: "You are doing the right thing, Walter" - reassurance that probably emboldens him a bit even though K8 means it the exact opposite way.

Walt's movements remain slow, hesitant, as he tells Krazy-8 to turn around so he can unlock him. He needs to confirm his intuition, because he just can't do it without it; he probes for a reaction, trying to flush out the murderous intent that he knows is there.

"So you're not angry?"

"Angry at you?" Krazy-8 shakes his head. "Nah. Live and let live, man."

"That's very understanding."

"Whatever, man, I just wanna go home."

"Me too." He's not lying. This hurts. All he wants is to not be here.

He pauses for a while, until Krazy-8 actually looks around and tells him to unlock him (he's definitely already suspicious, though he doesn't quite want to show it for fear of giving Walt more second thoughts at this precarious point). Walt reaches for the back of the bike lock, hand shaking. And then he sees Krazy-8's hand going for his pocket. It's that horrible confirmation he needed. A tear falls down his face. "The moment I do, are you gonna stick me with that broken piece of plate?"

And as Krazy-8 reacts, pulling out the plate shard, Walt pulls on the bike lock with all his might, choking him against the pole. They struggle for an ugly, horrifying while - some thirty seconds, long enough for the scene to just be intensely uncomfortable to watch, as it should be. Krazy-8's jerky efforts to stab blindly behind him eventually hit Walt's shin, but Walt keeps pulling, and in the end K8's struggles become limp, feeble flails and he collapses, and Walt with him, muttering shocked apologies. Back when he first came down here with a plastic bag, he was hoping this would be easy and peaceful. Instead his first premeditated murder ends up a violent, brutal, traumatic affair, made so much worse by all of Walt's previous efforts to persuade himself not to do it.

But ultimately, Walt can deal with that. Fundamentally, it's just a bunch of chemicals. He takes a sick day to recover and dispose of the body overnight, and the next morning he sits in his stationary car on a bridge, reminiscing again about that time going over the elements of the human body with Gretchen. "Doesn't it seem like something's missing?" says Walt's younger self, folding his arms at the blackboard. "What about the soul?" Gretchen suggests. Walt chuckles and turns around before realizing she's actually serious. He leans in to kiss her and says, "There's nothing but chemistry here." Whatever the missing 0.1% is (error margins, Walt!), it's not an immaterial soul. Krazy-8 was there, but now he's gone, and nobody has to ever know any of this ever happened, and that's all there is to it. Walt composes himself and drives home.

Aftermath

When Jesse returns the next day, he stares anxiously at the house from his car for a moment before approaching it, afraid of what he'll find there. He checks the RV first and finds it spotless, the glassware gone. The basement is empty, bike lock neatly put away. One way or another, Walt presumably did it, and there's no more Krazy-8 to worry about. And yet somehow he doesn't feel all that great about it.

Worse, now Jesse's partner is the guy who murdered Krazy-8 and then disappeared without a word, and it's hard to feel entirely reassured by that. Jesse saw none of Walt's struggle this episode; all he knows is Walt chased him around trying to flush his drugs and then killed a man and cleaned everything up and left. Is Walt still angry? If he was capable of murdering him, what else is he capable of? All in all, Jesse's overall paranoia is not all that soothed.

Back out in the desert where the climax of the pilot happened, Hank and Gomez are investigating what they've clearly identified as a meth cook site. They figure there was some form of mobile meth lab there, a fire started probably by accident, and then the cooks left - "So why'd that little hair-gelled shit leave his car?" It's Krazy-8's car they're talking about, of course, since that's the one that was left behind (they find a sample of Walt's meth in it) - and the fact they're talking about him means they know who he is. And then, just before they're called over to check out this gas mask, they conclude this means their snitch has been killed, presumably because they figure K8 would've at least taken the meth with him otherwise. Ergo, Krazy-8 was a police snitch all along.

When Walt arrives back at his house, he finds Skyler sitting on their bed; when she looks up, she's crying. And finally, finally, Walt decides to tell her about his cancer. If he was ready to kill a man, then he can suck it up and have that conversation.

Hank and Gomez's conversation is fairly opaque and I know I didn't properly understand it on my first viewing; I'm pretty sure I originally thought they were talking about Jesse. We're going to hear it stated more clearly in the opening of the next episode that it was Krazy-8 who was the snitch, but I'm really fond of the fact Breaking Bad will put in a scene like this where you can absolutely piece something significant together just from what's said in it, but it's pretty subtle and will probably just fly over a lot of first-time viewers' heads. (It'd be bad if they didn't reveal actually important information more explicitly at all, of course - part of the writers' job is to make sure you can follow the story without having to solve puzzles to do it - but here it doesn't matter since it's information we're going to see more explicitly too before anything else relevant happens.)

But nonetheless, I think on my first time through, this was the episode that absolutely convinced me this show isn't just up my alley, it's ridiculously good. The entire second half of the episode, with Walt's conversation with Krazy-8 and the murder, is just perfectly built up - the human connection, the small world, Walt's evolving mental state through it all and Bryan Cranston's incredibly nuanced performance, the eventual betrayal, the tension, the sheer undiluted awfulness of the actual death. This isn't just a show about a middle-aged chemist using chemistry to outwit drug dealers; this is a show about people, and how a particular, real, carefully built-up person might approach a genuinely horrible moral dilemma, and the drug dealers are real people too, and the protagonist has to really, actually grapple with the idea of murdering a person. It's so good and I just knew this was something really special.