Breaking Bad S05E11: When A Fire Starts To Burn, Right? And It Starts To Spread?
The episode opens with Todd calling Walt and leaving a message in order to tell him about the recent change in management. “You know, just in case you were wondering. Hah. Ahh. It feels weird that we’re not talking, right? Like, I still — whenever things happen, you’re still the first person I want to talk about it with. I mean, I think the change is good, I don’t think we should be back together, it’s just weird. Ah, anyway.” Then we see Todd recounting the train heist with two dirty dudes in a diner. He tells them how everyone went perfectly, conveniently leaving out the part where he MURDERED A CHILD. Lunatic. Handsome, kind-faced lunatic. In the bathroom, we see that one of the dirty dudes has blood on his shoe. Neat!
Then we’re back in the confessional (that’s what cops call these rooms, right? confessionals?) with Jesse and Hank. Hank tells Jesse that he knows about Walt, and wants only to put him away. He could protect Jesse, if he agreed to rat on him. “Help me out here, Jesse, I want to put him away. Don’t you want to talk?” “Not to you,” Jesse says, and just as I’m thinking “WHY IS THIS ENTIRE SEASON PRESENTED IN WHISPERS?” Saul bursts in shouting. Yay! Hi, Saul!
Jesse tells him to chill out, which is appropriate.
In a Mr. Show-like transition, we’re taken to Walt’s house where he is on the phone with Saul, telling him to fix the Jesse situation. Then Walt Jr. and Walt shout to each other. Ugh. YOU’RE IN THE SAME HOUSE, WALT JR., JUST WALK TO WHERE YOUR FATHER IS. Except don’t, because of the way he looks! Walt tries to throw on his quick one-minute face but has to give up when Walt Jr. shouts that he’s headed to Aunt Marie’s to help her with a computer thing and then have dinner. An expert manipulator, Walt uses this moment to tell his son that his cancer has returned. Oh boy. It is sad and rushed and scary, but it works. “Oh no, I’m staying,” says Jr. after Walt tells him to head to Marie’s.
Just as Hank tells Marie that he decided not to tell the DEA what he knows about Walt, we see Walt recording a confession with Skyler’s assistance. Uh-oh. A confession?! Whaaaat? Then they go out to dinner with Hank and Marie! Uh-oh. Out to dinner with Hank and Marie?! Whaaaaaat?!
What is more baffling than Walt and Skyler’s couple choice for their double date is this restaurant’s choice of hiring the same Chotchkie’s waiter that Jennifer Aniston flipped off in Office Space! Hahah. Was that intentional, do you think? If I could ask Vince Gilligan ONE question it would be, “Did you intentionally model the waiter in the Hank and Marie/Walt and Skyler dinner scene off of the over-eager server from Office Space WHATISAARONPAUL’SPHONENUMBER?”
The dinner is mainly for Walt and Skyler to tell Hank and Marie to back up off of their kids, which, if you can imagine, doesn’t go very well. Marie tells Walt that he should kill himself, hahahahahahah, (Skyler tells her that is not an option, which makes sense, as the whole discussion is about how best to mentally and physically protect their children, and being a child of a dad who killed himself is ah-not the best) and Hank tells him that his only option is to be a man and confess what he’s done. “Oh-ho-ho! Funny you should say so, Hank, because here is a DVD of my confession!” says Walt, who then drops the mic and struts out of the restaurant, flipping off his server.
Marie and Hank watch his confession while standing in their home and it’s all totally fine, normal secret drug empire and multiple murder DVD confession video, until Walt says that if you’re watching it it is because he is dead, “– murdered by my brother-in-law, Hank Schrader.” WHAAAAAAAAT?!?!?!!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Walt threads details we know — Gus Fring’s murder, Hector’s wheelchair bomb, the money he and Skyler gave towards Hank’s hospital bills — into a convincing narrative that pins the operation on Hank. He does it incredibly well. Walter White is a very good actor, and a very good writer! Five season condensed into one reasonable and entertaining lie, paired with what seems like real overwhelming emotion? GIVE THE CHARACTER OF WALT WHITE ALL THE APPROPRIATE EMMYS! (AND GIVE THE CHARACTER OF JESSE ALL OF THE KELLYS!) (THAT’S WHAT IT’S CALLED WHEN YOU MARRY ME!)
You’d think, “Oh, I’ll just say you did it?” wouldn’t work so well as a threat, but since neither of them have concrete evidence to support their theories, it seems to! Especially paired with Hank’s realization that Marie took their drug money to pay his hospital bills. “You killed me, here. That’s the last nail in the coffin,” he says. Uh. Excuse you, Hank. You put all the nails in the coffin except for one, and Marie’s the one who killed you? Give me a break.
Speaking of killing people, Saul and Jesse drive out to the desert to meet Walt. OUR OLD FRIENDS, BACK TOGETHER! Walt tries to convince Jesse to “leave all of this behind, just get out of town and don’t look back.” (He mentions that no one is here for Jesse now, anyway, which is funny, as the subtext is: “Because I murdered all of them.”) Which, to be fair, is exactly what Jesse should do. Everything Walt says is correct, but that doesn’t make it less correct when Jesse tells him to “stop working him for 10 seconds,” pointing out that he’s being disingenuous about his motive. He doesn’t want Jesse to disappear because he cares about him, he needs Jesse to disappear because Hank isn’t going to back off. “You need me gone. Just say so, just ask me for a favor. Just tell me it’s either this or you’ll kill me the same way you killed Mike. Isn’t that why we met all the way out here, in case I say no?” EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK! AHHHHHHHHH. Then Walt gives him a hug. Could Walt be feeling real emotion here? Is Walt hurt that Jesse would think he’d kill him, is he hurt that that is actually something that he could see himself doing? Is he merely continuing to manipulate? Did he kind of zone out when Jesse was talking, so he doesn’t really know what’s going on, but there was a pause and he needed to do something? Who knows!
Whatever it was, though, it worked — Jesse takes Walt’s advice and lets Saul set him up with the guy who’s going to give him a new life in, Jesse thinks, Alaska. (WHY NOT BROOKLYN? JESSEEEEEE!) Saul freaks out when Jesse lights up a doob in his office, and tells him to cut that out or the guy won’t take him. He gives him a Hello Kitty phone, some money, and sends him on his way. On his way out, he bumps into Huell.
Uh-oh. REMEMBER THE LAST TIME JESSE BUMPED INTO HUELL? Jesse does, as soon as he notices his remaining joints are missing. He looks angry and looks at his cigarettes over and over, so you understand what is going on, and then walks away from the van and right to Saul’s office. OH. SHIT.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He tells him he knows he stole the ricin cigarette and he knows Walt used it to poison Brock. It’s nuts! GUYS, DID YOU SEE IT? IT WAS NUTS! He steals Saul’s gun and his car and leaves to find Walt. When he leaves, Saul tells Walt. Then Walt gets his ice gun from under the soda machine. Then we see Jesse pouring gasoline all over Walt’s house, which we know did NOT burn down from the beginning of the season. AND THEN IT’S THE END!!!!!!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Is Walt going to kill Jesse?! OUR SWEET JESSE?! Is Walt Jr. home?! Is Hank going to show up at Walt’s house before Walt does, and are he and Jesse going to solve the crime together once and for all?! What’s going to happen!!! GUYS!!!!! WHAT! IS! GOING! TO! HAPPEN?!