This week’s Breaking Bad, “Half Measures,” separated the men from the boys. Roll call!
Jesse Pinkman – MAN
Jesse showed all the o.g. gangsters how it’s done! He stood up for himself at every turn. It began fairly benignly with Walt, when he didn’t let Walt get out of going for a beer after work. Pretty soon he was staring Gus down, when Jesse had everything to lose and nothing to gain, by refusing to make nice with the drug dealers who ordered the hit on Combo because they use children as pawns in their grown-up drugs-and-gangs enterprise. For the first time, Gus seemed to recognize Jesse as a man with some cahones, rather than a hopeless meth-head boy. However, when Jesse realizes he’s been played, whether by Gus or the guys who killed Combo, he goes all in and heads off to a death that is all but certain to come his way, but for the surprise intervention of Walt. And now? He’s still facing down a death that’s all but certain to come his way. Jesse will not let it be written on his tombstone, “Here Lies A Man Who Believed in Half Measures.”
Gus Fring – MAN*
*I think.
All along, we’ve been programmed to believe Gus was ruthless, but in a different and far more chilling way than the loose cannons that were Crazy 8 and Tuco. But then, as it begins to crystallize (Get it? Crystallize!) that his warning to Walt last week about making the same mistake twice was probably about Jesse, we see him take a half measure when he orders Jesse to make nice with Combo’s killers. Then, even more inexplicably, when Jesse gets in Gus’s face about Combo’s killers using children in their street activity, Gus orders them to keep the kids out of it and then orders Jesse to keep the peace. This looks like a couple of half measures not adding up to a whole. So what about what happens next? Andrea’s 11-year-old brother Tomas, the gunman and pawn in the Combo assassination, is killed while riding his bike. Is this Gus’s doing? Are we seeing a full measure being played out here? Perhaps Gus is pulling Jesse’s strings to see what he’s really made of? Or maybe this a Gus headgame to force Walt to prove his loyalty? Or did the two gangbangers who are on Gus’s payroll go full measure and pull this one off themselves? For now, I’m going to go with Gus showing us a full measure, and for that, I list him a man. I think.
Walter White – BOY, Heisenberg - MAN
From the beginning of this series, Walt has shown us a new kind of passive aggressive. He has no problem cooking meth, lying to his family, or killing his rivals, so long as he’s forced into the situation. Even if his own actions put him in that situation in the first place. Walt’s life has been built on half measures. Even his ostensibly ballsy appearance at Jesse’s showdown at the OK Corral, while appearing at first blush a full measure, was really just another half measure where Walt was reacting to a situation he’d gotten himself (and this time, Jesse) into by taking the earlier half measure of narcing Jesse out to Gus. Chip, did you notice that Walt looked a bit green behind the gills at the end of the handshake scene? And I must disagree with you that Walt’s intervention in the massacre was a full measure. In support of my position, I give you Walt’s apples-and-oranges speech. It reveals that Walt’s running in to save Jesse was just a half measure. As he said in the apples and oranges speech, Walter White can’t justify killing anyone over a turf war, but he can justify murder when the victim was threatening his (or Jesse’s) life. Walt has never been able to take ownership of his bad-guy status, even going so far as to create his other persona, Heisenberg. One thing I’ll say for Heisenberg -- that dude is no stranger to full measures. Interestingly, though, we haven’t seen Heisenberg all season, corresponding with the time that Walt’s been “working for the man” aka Gus. Heisenberg’s re-emergence in the previews of next week’s season finale signaled that those days are over.
Hank Schrader – MAN
Aside from the obvious, I don’t really know what to say about Hank. On the obvious I’ll defer to you, Chip. Okay, maybe one thing. Anyone else remember the episode in Season One, perhaps even the premiere, when Skyler gave Walt a handjob? Remember how shocking that was? How did they manage to shock us just as much a second time? I think I need to listen to Gus. Okay, back to Hank. His pity party over, and Hank's man enough to live up to his end of the bargain when Marie won their bet. We’re about to see the old badass Hank rise from the ashes. As you’ve pointed out in the past, Chip, Hank’s got more of what it takes to be a man than Walt, any day of the week.
Okay, so enough of separating the men from the boys. Let’s talk about some other interesting points:
To answer your question, Chip, the true difference between letting someone die vs. running them over with your compact SUV and then blowing their brains out with their own gun is less in the facts and more in the lawyer you hire. Better call Saul!
As an aside, I truly love the cars in this show. I’d give my eye teeth for that vintage Wagoneer of Skyler’s. And I love how all our “hiding in plain sight” crew drives cars that are each more hideous than the last – Gus’s station wagon, Walt’s personality disordered Aztec that can’t decide if it’s an SUV or a minivan, and whatever that pathetic thing is Jesse’s got in his post Cap’n days. And we haven't even had a proper mourning for our beloved RV meth-lab-to-go. I miss it.
And yes, Chip, it was not lost on me that this was the second crushing by vehicle this season. However, I do give AMC style points for coming up with a mashup (or should I say "combo") of crushing by vehicle and the Mad Men lawnmower scene. Oops, they got us again. What would Gus say?
Is Walt the new Hank? Last season, Hank finished the job of killing Tuco that Walt started. This week Walt finished the job of avenging Combo’s death that Jesse started. When the next round of would-be ax murdering cousins show up, whose blood will they want to spill first, Jesse’s or Walt’s?
I’ve learned that there’s much imagery in the costuming on AMC. I repeatedly rewound and freeze-framed the back of Jesse’s shoes in his walk to the OK Corral, but I couldn’t make out the word before “paid” on the back of them. “Get paid,” perhaps? These shoes are the Jesse Pinkman version of the silver skull boots that opened the season. Nice touch, wardrobe department.
Chip, were you ROFL when Saul was playing games on his computer while Walt balanced paper clips on Saul’s scales of justice? Did you find it as funny as I did that Saul's scales don’t balance? And what else besides selling your co-conspirator up the river is included in Saul’s “premium service package”? Dare we ask?
Great, great performance by Aaron Paul this week! When Jesse looked out the window of Hank’s car after the handshake scene, it was obvious he was about to fall off the wagon. Aaron Paul’s Jesse conveys so much silent emotion. This was just the latest example from a talented young actor.
Here’s Holly’s conspiracy theory of the week..... Do you think Mike the Cleaner will end up joining forces with Heisenberg? He seems to like and respect Walt. It’s a little hard to believe after that wrenching story about Mike the Cop’s half measure that Mike the Cleaner is really thriving as Gus’s lackey. I see more man than boy in Mike. And while it seems that Gus is clearly and unequivocally at the top of the food chain in which Walt is no more than a mid-level player, that’s probably what we would have said about Crazy 8 and Tuco, had we been blogging back then.
Looking forward to Sunday’s “Full Measure.”
Peace, Holly
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