Monsters of Television

“Just because you shot Jessie James, don’t make you Jessie James.”

You’d think that, with all that cash, Mike could get a pair of pants that does a little something for his figure.

Skyler says less than fifty words the entire episode, depending on whether or not you count non-lexical vocables as words. My pleas to the universe that she have fewer words than that during previous seasons notwithstanding, it’s important to note what’s happening to her, now that she has become a woman with her life stolen from her.

Since the beginning of the season, her part has been dominated by the overwhelming fear she feels in Walter’s presence, the boot-quaking nightmare that is having no control over the monster in her bedroom. While she’s also had her Heisenberg moments this season (particularly while ensuring Ted keeps his big, stupid mouth shut), it’s nothing compared to the speechlessness she feels while Walter tries to mitigate his farce of a family life with his increasingly powerful role.

Whether you believe Walter is actually living two compartmentalized lives, is pretending to live one as a cover, or is desperately grasping at the last ounce of humanity left in him is irrelevant. The sum of his introspective and forward-facing action is the same: Walter is become the antagonist and everyone else on the show could be the hero that contributes to his demise.

Skyler, a woman living on the edge, is just as primed as anyone to eventually break down and be the person that ends this dystopia for everyone. Jesse, Mike, Hank, even Badger could contribute to the downfall Walt so desperately needs. She conveys this during three scenes at fifty words total. Give or take. Two of them repeated several times to sweet, cheer-worthy relief.

Those words are “Shut up.”

Marie has been a thorn in my side from the beginning of the series. She’s been hateable from day one, only to be make likable briefly so we could all feel bad for her when Hank was the worst, and, when Hank got better, Marie became the worst again. She tries hard and is good to Hank (when she’s not stealing things) but she’s the most painful character to watch on the show.

Outside of Walter, Jr, and the baby, she also has the least to do with Walter’s rise to power. Ol’ Purple has successfully stayed out of the mix as Skyler has been brought in and brought down by it. Hank is clearly involved as the man voted “Most Likely to Be Batman to Walter’s Joker” but his wife has stayed blissfully unaware, lapping up the lies and putting her two cents into everything that doesn’t matter. Somehow, she’s the only person that isn’t a White offspring that isn’t ready to bring down Walt whenever s/he wants. Which kind of makes her the Big Mike of Breaking Bad.

What “Hazard Pay” does is contribute to the mythos and the vulnerability of Walter White (not so subtly emphasized by an actual viewing of Scarface in the show). While Mike sorts through the aftermath of Gus’s collapsed empire, we see the pitfalls that are to become in Walter’s burgeoning one. He classically moves Marie around the board so she can avoid any contact with reality but everyone else is in place to crush him on his hubris.

Skyler knows too much and can’t survive living in fear forever. Hank is getting a scent. Jesse will drop Walt (maybe reluctantly) if/when he finds out about poisoning Brock. Mike has wanted to kill him since day one. Saul is spineless so he’s an instrument for anyone to get back at Walter. But, of course, the biggest threat to Walter is himself.

It’s the ego. Within the same episode he says about Mike, “He handles the business and I’m the one that handles him” and then, by the end of the episode, gives us an Icarus analogy. We can’t really assume his line about flying too close to the sun has any reflection on him (there is no sun in his eyes) so it’s either an out-of-character aside for us or he thinks someone else (Mike?) has wax wings at 10,000 feet. The bruises to his ego that come with running a smaller scale operation in the ruins of Gus’s mighty empire will probably be his downfall since it’ll force him to grow dangerously.

What’s important about Gus’s death isn’t that Walter was afraid for his life so much as Walter didn’t think there would be room for the both of them.

With all the lies that Walter has provided over the years, he’s at a point where no audience can trust his motivation. He sits on the couch with Jesse with a beer and you feel his “sage advice” and admissions of trust are all part of is game. Watching Scarface with his children is research and/or investment in a cover. It’s one thing for a protagonist who is an anti-hero but quite another when that same anti-hero no longer has narrative bias on his side.

The poisoning deal was the end of Walter being the protagonist of this show. To start, there is no return to stasis for him. It’s curtains any way you look at it. No one can root for his cause anymore since his cause has no inkling of redemption. And he flouts our perception of story (poisoning the child while lying to Jesse) in a way that doesn’t allow us to trust his position. We no longer look for him to overcome obstacles to chase a goal. He is the obstacle that destroys everyone around him. He’s teetering on a line between tragic hero and full-blown villain.

Not that any of this is a surprise. Since making the decision to cook, he’s been a destroyer of lives.

What his episode does is consider the things that’ve been bandied around in the press and criticism surrounding Breaking Bad and contribute those sentiments to set-up and foreshadowing. While the episode itself wasn’t jaw-dropping, it makes the casual viewer (one that doesn’t sit on Twitter all day with people that analyze everything about the sow) aware that this isn’t a joke. Walter is Heisenberg almost all the time and Heisenberg has a one-way ticket to Doomed-sville via the Scarface Memorial station.

Other Stuff:

• “Made whole” — I’ve never heard this before but I like it, even if I can’t use it because I’m, how you say, the wussiest wuss that ever wussed.
• That Leaves of Grass has to be incriminating somehow. $10 says there’s a library punch card in the front with Gale’s name on it.
• WALT: “Saul, Mike threatened me. He threatened Jesse. He probably threatened someone before breakfast this morning. It’s what he does. Come on. Grow a pair.” Saul’s line about doing this “under duress” sounds a lot like Mozzie when he’s helping the suits on White Collar.
• That moment where Jesse takes the tortilla.
• Saul loves him some lazer tag.
• I wasn’t sold on the exterminator idea. Moving around seems too fraught with problems to be a better than finding the right factory to work in. Mobility is a plus but moving around all the equipment, having to depend on a bunch of strangers to keep quiet, the logistics of going in and out of a house with neighbors at differing levels of nosy — it all seems like the risks would counter the rewards. Maybe this is an example of Walt trying to institute something to get out of the shadow of Gus or just a general way for him to assert his authority. Either way — I’m not buying.
• Pete and Badger make me happy but I’m also impressed by how far Jesse and Walt have come over the years. Badger being anywhere near Mike feels wronger than anything that could happen.
• Todd is almost as overly eager here as he was on Bent. I miss Bent.
• “So, Brock, guess you survived that poisoning. Awk-ward.”
• Walter may be evil but he has a point about the legacy cost. That’s Mike’s problem. It’s admirable but that’s Mike’s problem.