Monsters of Television

“Marie, you want to go home?“

I like vegetables. Especially in the current state of climate affairs, I’ve been eating more salads and raw veggies (I love me some carrots, guys) to avoid heavier, hotter meals that just make me want to lapse into a food coma. This isn’t to say that I want vegetables all the time, as I do like a nice piece of chicken or fish along aside it, but I like to have some vegetables.

And the same is true of narratives. Episodes like “Open House” are narrative vegetables. They’re good for the story and for you, and help set up plot points and keep other things moving along (much like veggies provide you with fiber, if you get my point). So while my initial reaction to “Open House” was, “Wow. That was kind of boring.”, Breaking Bad has established this narrative pace that I shouldn’t at all have been surprised or bored by it.

With further reflection (and dodging conversations and reviews about it on Twitter, which was fairly easy (perhaps due to the lack of OMGWTFBBQ type of moments in the episode)), the episode is a solid one. It’s by no means the most exciting one, but it does important work, just like vegetables tend to do.

I do wonder if my “boring” reaction to the episode is that it focused on Skyler and Marie, two characters who have been existing in only a limited capacity at times (particularly Marie) to the show’s larger interest in Walter’s descent in villainy, and decided to really hit home some themes that, at this point in the show’s run, some general variations are required to keep things fresh. It does provide variation by applying what pride, when twisted and coiled around, can do to these two women while it hobbles the two men in their lives, pushing them to largely weakened positions.

Skyler, of course, drew herself into Walter’s plans of her own accord, between confronting him about the money and then making sure she was heavily involved with that poker story from last season. She is now fully implicated in whatever happens. She is breaking bad, and it’s a study in contrast to how the two came to a life of crime. While Walter simply assumed that the meth would magically sell and trusted his fate to people in positions above or below home to make sure that money was made, Skyler is, really, more like Gus.

She is methodical and organized, crafty and extra-cautious about drawing attention to herself and the little meth making enterprise  that is paying for everything around them, even going so far as to wait for unemployment checks to arrive in the mail to pay bills. She is the caution person that Gus would have happily dealt with a while back. Certainly we were set up for this when we saw how thorough she went through the books of her old firm, and why would she be any different here?

But she likewise disrupts the masculine world that Breaking Bad has shown the drug trade to be. Her insistence on the car wash, sensible though it may be in the grand scheme of not garnering attention from the IRS, undermines the niches of authority that men like Saul have managed to carve out for themselves. Walter could give a damn about how the money is cleaned, trusting in Saul and the general indifference of various regulatory and judicial arms to keep him safe. Walter is reactive, as he often is, electing only to do something when threatened. Skyler would prefer not to be in a position where she has to react at all, which allows her greater control over a situation.

Marie, on the other hand, also has to be in control, somehow. She controls the household, her wardrobe is always purple, and she does whatever she can to nestle Hank into a routine that allows her to know that things click into place and that she, herself, was the one who put it there. But with Hank refusing to follow her patterns, being downright belligerent toward her, she can’t control the house any longer, and now moves to other people’s houses, l exercising some control over her life by stealing and lying to feel in control.

Her lies cannot be contradicted since these people do not know her, and they’re moving anyway so what’s one less item to pack up when the house sells? She’s able to construct and control little fictions and actions for herself. But she’s not cautious enough to not get caught (always check to see who is showing the house, Marie), and her lies, much like her actual house, come crumbling down, ruining her sense of control.

And that’s where their tales differ. Marie prides herself on a facade of happiness and bliss, wrecked not only by Hank’s disability but by his refusal to play along with it now. Skyler’s pride in her professional acumen gives her a desire to control the world around her, a refusal to allow her fate to be trusted to incautious men (Walter) or seeming buffoons (Saul). Indeed, if she’s like Walt in any way, it’s that she assumes the smartest person in the room. The only difference is is that no one else thinks she is. And that makes her pretty dangerous.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• Another reason why the episode might’ve felt off for some viewers: Nothing new was really done with Jesse in this episode. We see him trying to reach out to Walter, only to be quickly cast aside. Sure, he gets to screaming while racing go-karts, but it’s a the missing human connection he needs. So his return to his meth den of a house, where his sense of control is dominated by money and a never-ending party, is of increasingly little solace.
• “And I didn’t retaliate because he’s a much older man.” “You were in a bar fight?” Here we see Walter clinging to his pride (and lying about it, too). Indeed, he’s not even on board with the car wash idea until he’s informed that his masculinity has been questioned, and then he’s all for proving himself. We know this about Walter, so it’s not exactly an exciting bit of action, but I do love me some shorthand character consistency.
•  “Saul. Bogdon’s Romanian.”
• “Aw, jeeze, what now? She rob a bank?”
• “What, I’m Nixon now?”
• I can only assume that Walt, Jr. has died. Rest in peace, my friend. I can only assume that his breakfast last week was his last meal.