Monday, April 5, 2010

Dead Man Walking


Wow, another tense episode of Breaking Bad last night.  The list of people with a stake in Walter’s demise lengthens.  We knew going into this episode that Don Salamanca/Tio and Tuco’s cousins were after Walt.  Now we learn that Skyler is biding time, just waiting for lung cancer to get Walt so Walt Jr. won’t find out his dad was in the drug biz.

But enough about Walt, let’s talk about Skyler.  Unable to get Walt out of the house after his “break-in,” she calls the cops.  They want to work with her, as does her lawyer, and she has the goods on Walt that would seal the deal, but in the end she can’t pull the trigger because of what it would do to Walt Jr.  Not the type, however, to sit around idly with an unwelcome houseguest, she reveals what “I.F.T.” (the episode title) stands for and deals Walt a devastating (fatal?) blow in his bid to be the family man again.  In Skyler’s world, revenge is obviously a dish best served cold.

Chip, did you notice we didn’t see the eyeball this week?  Its absence, and the many real eyeballs in devastating moments, was prominent to me.  I especially loved Walt’s frozen stare when Skyler dropped the bomb, then went to serve salad to Walt Jr. and his friend, as well as Tortuga’s look of sheer terror when he realized he was about to meet his maker.  And Jesse and Hank seemed to have their wide-eyed moments, as well.

Chip, after your notice of the shine on last week's ax intended for Walt, I noticed that the glare off that machete the cousins used on Tortuga was almost as bright.  And the blood spatter on the otherwise impeccable suit of one of the cousins was some great, albeit gruesome imagery.  BTW, have you noticed the cousins are men of few words?

What’s going on with our DEA man Hank?  Was that barroom bust-up a manifestation of PTSD after the recent gory incidents in El Paso and Tio’s lair, or is he about to break bad himself?  Now THAT would be a story arc!

I can barely bring myself to mention Jesse. His house, like the boy himself, is empty inside.  He’s so lost without Jane that he calls her voice mail incessantly just to hear her voice, until her phone is disconnected and she’s really, finally gone.  After being pestered by Saul to get “the maestro” cooking again, and enduring a few of Saul’s barbs nominalizing Jesse’s role in his former partnership with Walt, he takes the RV out to the desert and begins a cook by himself, looking bewildered over the process.  Was that foreshadowing in Walt's wearing rubber gloves to remove the pizza from the roof and apron when whipping up a pot roast?  He looked more like a meth cook than a family man to me.

Mike the Cleaner has an interesting life.  Last week he was visiting a little girl on the playground, then went to plant bugs at Walt’s house and somehow dispatched the badass cousins just in time to save Walt’s neck, literally.  This week we found out that Mr. Clean, who seems to be on the payroll of both Saul and Guy, has a higher loyalty to Guy because he agrees to keep Saul out of the loop on the near-miss goings-down at Chez White.  Is Saul just a dope in this operation?  Or has he somehow stepped out of line, like Walt, and is now unknowingly biding time till his usefulness to Guy is over?

How soon till the drug war starts?  That meeting at the chicken plant was just seething with barely contained hostility between the two cartel factions.  Interesting that the guy who lured Tortuga into the back of the bar (and his demise) was the same person meeting with Guy about the Walt Problem. I don’t believe for a minute this guy can’t control the evil twins. I loved the brief scene of the hundreds of chickens, pecking away till their deaths, all for the benefit of Guy.  You know how they slaughter chickens, don’t you, Chip?

Peace, Holly

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