No Mas ("No More")

At long last, Breaking Bad returns to the small screen!  And I do mean small screen.  I watched last night’s episode this morning on my phone.  Not one of my more inspired ideas.  Don’t try this at home, kids.  You can watch the episode here.

How bizarre was the opening sequence, with the people crawling on their elbows and knees to the temple of the skull?  Vehicles drove around them, people sidestepped them.  Just another day in the Mexican desert?

Okay, so what’s up with the two bad guys?  And why does everyone in this show shave their head?  I totally didn’t get what the two baddies were up to, other than that they were pretty serious criminals who hate Walt and for some reason would rather ride to America in a hay truck than a Mercedes.  Huh?  Must’ve been something I missed from the parts of Season 2 I still haven’t seen.  And I would definitely remember if I’d seen those boots before.  Oh my.  Those are one bold fashion statement.

There is so much identity confusion in this show.  It dawned on me that Walt Jr.’s alterego “Flynn” is not unlike Daddy Walt’s druglord identity Heisenberg, albeit an innocent one.  Walt (the older, bald one) can’t accept that he’s a “drug dealer.”  He makes the distinction to Skyler that he’s a “drug manufacturer.” That should really help everyone sleep better tonight, no?  Walt also tells Skyler that they, make that he, is happily married, despite the fact she’s trying as hard as she can to divorce him. He tells the guy at the chicken place, “I am not a criminal.”  And he goes to embarrassing lengths in front of the high school assembly to disassociate himself from any culpability for the plane collision, even though he's up for best criminal in a supporting role for this one.  Meanwhile, simple, drug addict punching bag Jesse has gone Zen and tells Walter what he’s learned in rehab, “It’s all about accepting who you are.”  When Walt asks Jesse who he is, Jesse says, “I’m the bad guy.”  Finally, Jesse is the smarter of the two.

Back for a moment to that awful high school assembly….  If this had been Glee, those poor kids in the bleachers would have broken out into “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.”  (For those of you who haven’t seen Spamalot, you can acquaint yourself with this timeless ditty of gallows humor here.)

Chip, do you get the idea someone on the writing team is a pyromaniac?  They are constantly burning and/or blowing things up in fireballs on this show.  Walt was throwing matches into the pool (so glad they repeated this sequence – it was as great this time as in Season 1), he burns the cash, then he catches himself on fire, Albuquerque is recovering from that fiery plane collision, and the really bad badasses blow the hay truck (and all the dead bodies) to smithereens.  Did I miss any pyrotechnics there?

Rampant speculation here.  The small aircraft that was involved in the collision was on its way to Mexico.  The two badasses are coming north with a jones to kill Heisenberg.  Any chance that plane was carrying a load of "blue sky" south of the border?  Wait till Hank starts picking that stuff up in the debris field all over the north side of town.

I loved this episode.  It’s setting up so many great storylines for the coming weeks.  Is Walt going to take the $3M for three more months of being a “drug manufacturer”?  Of course he is.  Have we seen the last of Saul? Gosh, I hope not!  Is that creepy eye from the stuffed animal going to keep staring us down?  I’ll be, er, watching to, ahem, see.

Peace, Holly