Monsters of Television

“Someone has to protect this family from the man who protects this family.”

The contrast between a “normal” episode, filler, and a breather boils down to the WTF moment within the last five minutes. Last week, even if the episode itself was pretty low-key, it had Hank putting some pieces together that makes him one step closer to realizing who Heisenberg really is. Well, kind of. Baby steps.

There really wasn’t breath-taking intensity, though, unless you count the cringing anxiety I suffered watching the dinner scene. So you wouldn’t expect a breather episode to follow. And, yet, here we are. Fleshing characters out and not really pressing the story forward.

While there were some interesting scenes, for a series that can probably count its filler episodes on one hand, it’s almost disappointing when one comes around. This is especially true when the filler episode comes on the tail of a week with so much momentum. The ball started to roll and this episode totally forgets about the ball. Instead, we focus on stuff we kind of already know and (probably, hopefully) set the table for oncoming, rapid-fire WTFs. Probably preceded by an OMG and followed by a BBQ. Because barbecue is delicious. And so is Navajo fried bread.

Basically, this is an episode to check in with the major players and see how they’re doing, maybe lock in on their emotional directives more — directly.

Walt has his masculinity checked several times throughout the episode, whether it’s by Skyler trying to find out if he’s in any real danger to the former car wash owner teasing him about his wife having to make his deals for him to Gus castrating him professionally by stealing Jesse away through Mike (and, really, by allowing Walt to exist). These challenges make Walt stand up for himself but only as long it doesn’t hurt other people. His gambit to use laundry workers to clean his equipment blows up in his face (when Gus sends them back to Honduras) and, suddenly, Walt is reduced from a on-the-edge vicious dog to an apologetic mess. He’s constantly in the throes of being carelessly prideful and a whimpering snot. Although the whimpering snot is seeing fewer days, he’s still a far cry from the “one who knocks.”

Jesse is also caught lost between worlds even when he has purpose. He’s losing himself, or at least the version of him that we know. No longer is he the bumbling idiot that doesn’t use his potential. He comes up with plans, he acts accordingly, he uses his skillset. Even if he’s emotionally a husk of his former self, he’s progressed in his wayward time and it’s kind of perfect for a hatchet man. “Why me?” Jesse confronts Gus (as much as one actually confronts a dude that slaughtered a man in front of one). “I like to think I see things in people.” This couldn’t have been Gus’s plan all along. Could it? In any case, the point of building up Jesse’s ego, if we are to believe this is all being orchestrated (even Gus’s admission of believing in him contributes to a master plan), is to purge the boy of the one thing that ruins his chances of being or even surpassing Mike: his utter rejection of being told what to do. You have to earn the the ability to be a bossy pants with Jesse and that’s with respect. Gus is improving upon what Walt did for Jesse ad hoc.

And, for the love of good things, Skyler: when are you going to learn that demanding a “no more secrets” policy is going to do nothing because you don’t want to know everything? He merely hinted at the fact that he ranks highly in this operation and it sends you to the Four Corners to, I assume, allow a flung quarter decide to where you might abscond. What starts off as maybe something meaningful is completely dashed by her pulling the quarter back into New Mexico. Call it an inability to really escape from Walt or self-destructive intrigue in Act II of Walt’s tragedy, but the fact that she clearly isn’t ready to do anything rash makes the scene feel like the whole thing is a bout of drama, a story she can tell Marie later. If I heard about that in real life, I would call that Baby Games. We’ve talked about the show being “writerly” before — here’s an example to me because no one really benefits from this scene: the same effect can be drawn from her disappearing for the length of the episode and returning that night, no exposition as to how she spent her time.

I want to say this episode is lazy but I think that sells it short. It’s one of those episodes we need to get through, one that was inevitable with all the near-soliloquy story-recapping we’ve had in the last couple of weeks. Clearly, the team at Breaking Bad needs for us to fully understand all the politics happening right now without ambiguity. The episode itself isn’t written, acted, or produced lazily by any means. It’s filler. Slightly substantive filler but nothing that really pushes anything along.

Other things:

• The thugs that are robbing the Los Pollos Hermanos trucks are getting smarter at the same rate that the thugs protecting the trucks are getting stupider. If you know the gas is filling up the truck, why not shoot air holes in the thing earlier?
• “I am the one who knocks!” Well, kind of. You have knocked. No one is calling on you to continually knock.
• The brand new car: I think even the writers are spoiling Walt, Jr. because they know they’ve neglected him.
• I am in love with how self-centered Walt is. Everything is about him because nothing was about him for so long. It’s so deluded and, yet, leads him to the right (or at least a plausible) conclusions. “It’s all about me,” he comes right out and says. Jesse just fumes because it totally sums up his recent history. Brilliant no-line.
• Did Walt really not think there would be repercussions to innocent lives when he invited laundry workers into his den of mystery? The Meth Cave? Is there a quaint name for the lab?
• Navajo fried bread is really good.
• “Don’t worry. I brought sandwiches.” It’s a sincere moment from Mike. Hearts and stars.
• “TUCKER!”
• Way to take advantage of a meth addict’s natural predilection for digging holes. Maybe Jim from The Walking Dead really was just on the blue.
• Skyler’s line at the end caps off a good interaction of a problem that would probably occur even if Walt didn’t have mountains of drug capital. Their issues would still be present even if Walt hadn’t started making glass, events would still transpire, and they would still be at each other’s throats. Walt would still try to spoil his boy and Skyler would still try to take it away. Really, the money laundering and keeping up appearances are excuses; these are two people that still have vitriol for each other and Walt, Jr. is an easy pawn.
• Quick housekeeping note: Noel is locking himself in for the weekend to work his thesis so I’ll also write next week’s review. It’ll arrive much sooner than Wednesday evening, I promise. And I’m 80% sure I’ll keep it.