Man, Interrupted

Hold on a minute here, Chip.  I can’t believe you’ve put me in the position of defending the manhood of, as you called him recently, a “major puss” like Ted Beneke. And I find it even more unbelievable that I’m about to do it.  I’ll get to Ted, but first I want to talk about your boy Walt.

As you pointed out, Walt was at first a mild-mannered family man who ended up cooking meth to take care of the family he loved.  Stricken with what he, and we, thought was a death sentence, he gave up precious hours and days with his wife and son to make money to keep them afloat after he was gone.  He initially planned to forego cancer treatment because he didn’t want to deplete the few assets the family had.  However, as his mode of looking after his family switched from being a dutiful and present husband and father to a moneymaker with a secret life, Walt began losing his capacity to connect with the family whose welfare he was ostensibly protecting by going into the drug business.  Now that Walt’s death isn’t imminent, thanks to the cancer treatment he paid for with his ill-gotten gains, he’s realized just how much this money-making venture has cost him and longs to be part of the family that Skyler’s doing her best to keep him out of.

What does this have to do with a major puss like Ted Beneke?  Ted and Walt have more in common than both being notches in Skyler’s bedpost.  Ted is Walt’s end.  Ted has everything, even a heated floor, yet he has nothing because he’s a loser in love.  Divorced Ted has twins, although we never see him with them, just pictures of them in his office and home.  When Skyler asked him what he would say if his children found out he was a white collar criminal, he said something along the lines of he was just trying to stay afloat.  (There’s that damn eyeball again.)  Ted seems to want more than a regular booty call from Skyler, yet at the same time he seems emotionally vapid.  He seems to want the connection, but is he still capable of making it?  Like Ted, how will Walt love when he's no longer capable of feeling?

And a totally unrelated thought I must toss out to see if you’ll bite......  A couple of weeks ago an astute observer of the show mentioned to me his theory that Elliott might be the puppet master who’s pulling Gus’s strings.  That one hadn’t occurred to me before his suggestion.  This theory might be gaining some traction after last Sunday's episode when Walt asked Gus how he knew how to pimp the meth superlab – Gus said he had some outside help.  Interesting.

Peace, Holly