Monsters of Television

“You can do this.”

If I hadn’t watched Breaking Bad before this episode, I would’ve started tonight. Because that’s how mind-numbingly boring the Emmys were this year. Luckily, Breaking Bad is just the thing to shake off boredom and wire you for the rest of the night, just before Monday, when you have to drag yourself to work after laying awake all night, staring at the ceiling and wondering how the hell things could get any worse for Walter White.

It turns out that they can get actually, maybe, get a little bit better for Walter White, as “Salud” puts things in motions to set up the last three episodes quite nicely (maybe a little too nicely), and gives him some nice time to bond with Walter, Jr., who has been seriously neglected this season in terms of writing and character.

Oh, and then there’s all the “HOLY SHIT” stuff at the end. Because, you know, we’ve missed that.

We’ll stay with the Whites for the moment. Skyler has the absolutely brilliant idea of channeling funds to Ted to cover his IRS debts through a distant relative, of course made up by Saul. Saul, as per usual, is correct in assuming that this is a horrible idea, and it is a horrible idea. Well, let me back up. Giving Ted money is a horrible idea, and it could have ended there. But, no. Saul has to go and give Skyler Ted’s financials, revealing what we all already knew: that Ted loves money, and had no intention using all the funds to cover his taxes.

So, of course, Skyler can’t leave well enough alone, and goes to confront Ted about it and then lets it loose that she’s responsible for Ted’s cash infusion, not some dead relative from Luxembourg (side note: Is Ted really that stupid? A relative from Luxembourg? I can only assume he also gave his account numbers to a deposed Nigerian prince).

I was pretty firmly hitting my head against the desk at that point. This whole thing, particularly Skyler telling Ted, feels forced, a way to give Skyler something to do when she’s not running the car wash. I’d like to hope that this isn’t going to lead to Ted blackmailing the Whites or, worst, muscling his way into the operation (such as it is), but I don’t see many other avenues for this particular plot to go.

Walter spends the episode recovering from the beating Jesse handed him last week, doping himself on painkillers and sleeping through Walter, Jr.’s birthday (and giving of a PT Cruiser). This, unsurprisingly, worked really well for me since it gives Cranston two excellent speeches (and he’s back in the whitey tighties!) and it finally gives Walter, Jr. some screen time.

Walter’s first speech, confused and disoriented, sobbing out his words, is perhaps the most interesting. It is, as is expected now, well-delivered by Cranston. Most compelling, however, is trying to determine if Walter is faking this to get himself out of a sticky situation by faking his way through crying and blubbering. And he could very well have been. Walter is will to fake a fugue state, after all. But then, as Walter, Jr. tucks his own father into bed (and before fixing his dad’s glasses), he mumbles “That’s good, Jesse.”

And the boom is lowered as Walter realizes just how foolishly he’s behaved toward Jesse and believes, in his painkiller-addled brain, that he’s talking to Jesse and not his own son. Indeed, the father-son dynamics between Walter and Jesse is something that’s been discussed and noticed since the show started. Walter pays more attention to Jesse, asks more of Jesse, tries to teach Jesse, in many more ways than he’s done of Walter, Jr. And to have all this confirmed is a genuine moment of honesty in what has become a life of lies for Walter. Indeed, as Walter, Jr. notes, his father’s blubbering was the first instance of his father being honest in over a year. Insightful, Walter, Jr. Well done.

South of the border, Jesse, Gus, and Mike are escorted to the cartel’s meth factory where, let’s call him Asshole Chemist, decides to get all snooty about this punk gringo coming down to his factory saying he’s going to show him how to make meth. I thoroughly enjoyed Jesse putting Asshole Chemist in his place not only with an excellent speech, as he channels Walter/Heisenberg (showing that Jesse, if he can keep a grip on his confidence, can be really very deadly), and then producing meth that is 96.2 percent pure (Asshole Chemist’s head hang of shame was classic).

But where Jesse does well in the lab, Gus decides to deal with the cartel once and for all, poisoning Eladio and his cappos with some classy tequila. I was, as you can expect, on the edge of my seat once Eladio opened the box (“WHAT’S IN THE BOX?!”). I was quickly convinced that Gus had poisoned the bottle given the pill he took before the carnage began and by the way that he spared Jesse from a shot.

And then I yelling at my TV as Gus began to vomit up the poison and as Eladio and his men began falling dead in front of the bikini-clad ladies at the party. It was pretty insane, the kind of big moments that I think some folks had been missing for a while (though this was no “One Minute” in its sheer intensity). And Gus calling out Eladio’s leftover minions was pretty cool.  The three attempt to escape, with Gus in less than good shape, only for Mike to get pumped in the gut full of bullets, leaving their fates in Jesse’s hands.

After the initial sheen of all this badassery wore off, I started realizing just how inelegant this last sequence played out for me, on a narrative level. It felt a little like board clearing, a bit of an easy out of the narrative corner the show had written itself into by putting both Gus and Mike seemingly on death’s door. While I suspect that Mike isn’t long for this world, I do believe that the show will still put Gus in the firing line of Walter or Jesse (I’d prefer Walter).

3 more to go!

FINAL THOUGHTS

• From tweep @digifreak642, this image indicates that the episode had a minor obsession with the number 8. Any thoughts?
• “I’m the guy your boss brought here to show you how it’s done.”
• “I had to spank you. But what choice did I have?”
• One reason why I ended up not being in love with the last few minutes of the episode was Mike getting shot. While it might have been some random mook, during my live viewing, it looked like the cartel’s pretty boy sniper Gaff had survived his garroting and managed to exact a bit of revenge on Mike. I remember thinking, “Boy. That was unprofessional of Mike not to put a bullet in the man’s skull.” And Mike, as we know, is the consummate professional. So it felt too motivated to me, too influenced, too inorganic.  If it’s a random mook, then it’s just as artificial feeling, but just for the sheer fact that this guy just showed up to shoot Mike.