Monsters of Television

“This whole thing could’ve been avoided.”

I was a little underwhelmed by “Say My Name.”  It’s unlikely that Breaking Bad can be legitimately bad — it’s too well-oiled at this stage — so it just settles with tiny missteps, whether it be the train heist (for some, not for me) or the end of this particular episode. For me, there was just something lacking, even while internally, I can justify the actual act the episode ends with.

It’s one of the problems of writing about television, or even thinking fairly critically about it. You burrow into the series, understand its ins and outs, and while it may still has the ability to surprise you, as Breaking Bad does for me, you also may see a crack or something askew, but decide that, hey, it’s supposed to be that way. This could just be, in large part, because you want the series that you’ve invested time and effort and labor (and unpaid blogging is labor, in a sense) to still make sense, otherwise what’s the point?

So, yes, I could say that I don’t feel the episode completely earns its ending, even though intellectually I can argue for it, make it feel consistent within momentum of the series. But it sits there, in my gut, wanting to be validated, like Hank’s obsession with the Fring case.

Here’s how I justify Mike’s death in a scenario that, ultimately, doesn’t feel satisfactory: It’s Walter’s arrogance. He may be the king, he may have bullied this other crew into becoming his distributors, but he’s losing little bits of his burgeoning empire and he’s becoming complacent. Before, Walter was attempting to out-think and out-maneuver others (season 4 is just a very long chess game between him and Gus). Now, Walter doesn’t even realize he could simply get the legacy names from Lydia until after he shoots Mike. It’s not something Walter would have never done before, and we’re seeing, perhaps, a breakdown in his mental game, the stress of building and holding onto things that matter to him like Jesse or his children (in one way or another, if they matter at all, and that’s debatable at this point) finally getting to him.

The episode does demonstrate that stress. His visceral takedown of Jesse’s empty life (video games and go-karts), his questioning of Jesse’s morality and willingness to take the drug money, and his final accusation that, without being able to cook meth (read: without Walter in his life), how long until he starts using again?, shows a man at the end of his rope, casting for anything to keep himself from falling.

But it’s also an episode that shows that people are also willing to challenge him. Yes, Skyler’s been doing it all season, and so has Mike, but to have Jesse question him is a step too far. He got into this empire building business, hell, he got into meth cooking, because it gave him something to live for, and dammit it all if he’s going to be questioned by others in a business-setting.

So when Mike refuses to give the legacy names, and cites Walter’s “pride and ego” and his impulsive acts (of which he just becomes the latest dead victim) as reasons why, Walter has had enough. It clouds his judgement and demolishes his reason. He’s, again, emasculated and questioned, and you know the drill by now. But unlike with Skyler, and unlike even with Jesse, Walter can make a fatal move against Mike and there be no repercussions to his business (hell, Lydia might even give him a medal).

Yet even with all of this, I’m left with feeling cold about this. It has all the markings of a “We need to kill Mike. Let’s work from that point and figure out how.” While that can feel well-executed (again, see season 4), here it feels less executed and more “This needed to happen, so we found an excuse.” Even Walter’s admission that he could’ve just gotten the names from Lydia feels like something someone said after during a read-through or even during shooting, and was worked in to help showcase just how far Walter has gone down his particular rabbit hole, even while still feeling like a “Oops, yeah, that’s a good point. What else can we work out?” In a weird way, I almost feel like the episode treated him with the same lack of respect many of the characters had.

Finale’s next week. Nick will be back for it now that The Newsroom has finished its apparently pain-inducing first season.  It may be a conversation format, a la our recent Bunheads talk, but we’ll see.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• “What I’m making is Classic Coke.” “Do you really want to live in a world without Coca-Cola?” I’m sure Coke just LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVED its product being compared to the purest of the pure blue meth.
• Jesse and Skyler continue to be delightfully awkward with one another. On the other hand, I’m starting to see them work with one another to escape Walter’s reach.
• “If you want me to read that, I’m going to need my glasses.”
• “Just shut up and let me die in peace.”  I may be annoyed with how Mike died, but I love the area he dies in. It’s so not a Breaking Bad locale, with its trees and lake and foliage. I love it. It felt like Mike. It really did.