“Things have gone nuclear,” Saul Goodman said to Jesse Pinkman during Sunday night’s INSANE episode of “Breaking Bad.” Saul was not exaggerating, as he often does.
Things in the “Breaking Bad” universe have gone nuclear — and the stakes have never been higher.
For clarity’s sake, let’s start at the very beginning where that jerkoff Todd was bragging to his white supremacist uncle and his buddy about the train heist in a very public diner. Nothing good has come from Todd’s existence, but he actually managed not to kill anyone during this episode although he probably would have if he had had more screen time.
We finally saw what Jesse’s plan for dealing with Hank: say nothing except “Eat me.” Drug dealers really don’t like the police, huh? Now we know that (at least for now) he is not going to make a deal with the DEA for information about Heisenberg.
The camera flashes to Walt in his bathroom covering his bruise from Hank with Skyler’s makeup. I tried to come up with a metaphor for how Walt was concealing his true identity, but that’s as far as I got. Skyler then asks Walt if he is sure he wants to do this, and Walt says “it’s the only way” before starting in on a videotaped “confession.” Call me naive, but I was scared for a minute that it was a real confession, which was silly because OF COURSE it was so much more badass than that.
The confession is actually Walt admitting to cooking meth, but not for himself, not for Gus and not for Mike, but for HANK. He beautifully weaved in everything that has happened in his meth making and pinned it all on Hank as the brains behind it all. The looks on Hank’s and Marie’s faces were, as they say, priceless.
When Walt summons Jesse into the dessert, he rightfully assumes it is because he is going to be killed. He turns out to be wrong, and Walt seems to genuinely be on Jesse’s side and asks to let him help. Now, my viewing companion said that the hug between Walt and Jesse was insincere and was just Walt “working” Jesse, but I actually believed Walt there at least for a minute. If it was sincere, that was probably the last touching moment between Walt and Jesse we will ever see, because I can’t imagine that Jesse is going to live much longer.
Later, Jesse is just about ready to take Walt’s advice and get a new identity when he comes to the realization that Walt did take the Ricin cigarette and used it to poison Brock. (I thought that the Brock/ Ricin situation was well-worn territory, but Vince Gilligan did say that the final episodes were going to revisit the series’ most important characters and plot lines, so I am just going to have to trust him here.) Jesse busts back into Saul’s office, beats the crap out of him (poor Saul!) and steals his gun.
Now Jesse is 1) super pissed off 2) going into rage blackout mode and 3) has a gun. You know what Chekhov said about guns: they have to go off eventually.
The episode ended with Jesse breaking into Walt’s house and dousing it in gasoline. What have I said before about crossing Heisenberg? You’ll never get away with it. That goes for you, too, Jesse.
Other notable moments:
- Re: the Todd-related cold open: This is why you don’t try and flush toilet paper down the toilet — because it could later come back to be used to implicate you in a mass murder.
- Walt’s confession was so brilliant that I could spend 1,000 words just on that, but I won’t because nobody would read it.
- Notice that the Schraders were wearing dark navy and black during their meeting with the Whites, and the Whites were wearing White?
- Saul was a quote machine during this episode. I also liked “Some people are immune to good advice,” something my father has said to me repeatedly.
