Pre-Credit Sequence
Breaking Bad
decides to give us an eyeball floating in a pool to open the season. In hindsight,
we can tell the eyeball stands in judgment of Walt for his actions. It's not a
coincidence that the plane crash in "ABQ" is caused as a direct
consequence of Walt's worst moment in the season, and for quite a while his
worst moment in the series. If Season 1 was all about Walt's decision, then
Season 2 is all about Walt facing the consequences caused by that decision. I'm
not just talking about the plane crash at the end of the season, though that is
what forces Walt to momentarily quit in "No Mas", but consequences
are strewn throughout the season. The teddy bear introduces that theme by
showing the final result.
Review
The first episode of Season 2 presents us with a curious
conundrum: How do you start up a new season without having really finished the
last one? While I argued in my review of "A No Rough Stuff Type Deal"
that Season 1 works as a particular character arc for Walt, from a plot
perspective it left us completely hanging.
So, how do you form an arc for a season when you are forced to open
mid-thought?
"Seven Thirty-Seven" bypasses the idea of forming
an arc for the season in this episode. Instead, it focuses on forming the main
underlying arc for the rest of the series: the DEA's hunt for Heisenberg. Hank's dramatically ironic search for his own
brother-in-law forms the backbone of the entire series. Even though the final
showdown and payoff doesn't actually happen until the last half of the final
season, even though there is always much more pressing matters for Walt to deal
with, Hank looking for Walt dwells in the background of the series like that
pit dwelling in your stomach. And even though there is no doubt from the onset
that this plotline is of utmost importance to the series as a whole, it is
introduced in a completely unassuming way, played more for humour than anything
else.
This is only fitting, because a humorous side point was how
Hank himself was introduced to us, and it is only in this episode we begin to
get a real grasp of who he is. For me, the most notable scene in this episode
is the scene where he's talking to Skylar about Marie's problems. For Skylar,
it is another negative scene piled up on top of all the others she has received
to this point. It is hard for the viewers to sympathize with Skylar's issue,
when Walt is dealing with a life threatening mad man at the same time. It is
hard for the viewer to accept Skylar's complaints about Marie's kleptomania
when Hank is taking it all in stride. On the other hand, the writers do a very
good job with Hank in this scene. He clearly is the type of guy who has trouble
just going out and stating something confrontational, and instead relies on
crude jokes and metaphors to get his point across. We saw that in that terrible
plotline in "And the Bag's In the River", where instead of just
confronting Walt Jr. about the weed he and Marie thought Jr. was smoking,
instead went on a roundabout mission to show him the dangers of drugs. We saw
it again in "Grey Matter", where in the intervention for Walt he
framed his whole argument in a baseball metaphor. In this scene, he starts
talking in roundabout, crude language until eventually we see him snap out of
that and start being very straight with Skylar.
This is how things work for people who like to avoid
confrontational conversations. It's not that they never say anything of
importance, it's that they need to get to the point where they're comfortable
saying what's on their mind. That is exactly what happens with Hank in this
scene and what we will see from him in the rest of the series.
Turning to humour is clearly how he deals with his job, as
well. The scene at the scrap yard is grisly, as there are two dead bodies: one has
been mangled by Tuco, and the other done in by a scrap pile moving at the wrong
time. Yet instead of cringing, Hank finds reason to laugh at it. Hank's dark
sense of humour permeates through the entire episode. There's a playfulness at
work in the irony at the end of the episode, when Jesse and Walt are put in
fear of their lives by a complete coincidence. The show finds a sort of a
sadistic streak when it has Walt too busy fearing for his life to take a phone
call from Hank; a phone call that would assuage his worries considerably. The
episode is laughing at the horror occurring, just as Hank laughs at the
bumbling criminals who are going to introduce literal tons of meth into the
community and as he laughs at the misfortune of Tuco's dead lackeys.
The main story has less of note to discuss, as this episode
basically acts as a middle episode in a three part story. We had the build-up
in "A No Rough Stuff Type Deal," where Walt's addictive tendencies
put him and Jesse in a precarious position with a madman boss, and next week we
have the conclusion in "Grilled", where they finally deal with said
boss. This episode acts as the moving pieces episode, where we have to take
Walt and Jesse from the point where they realize the danger to the point where
they deal with the danger. As such, it's a little bit of a lighter episode in
terms of material for our protagonists.
There are still a few interesting scenes to explore, though.
The first is Walt's near rape of Skylar. This is taking his newfound knowledge
that he can break any boundaries he desires to its tipping point. Walt had
become addicted to danger, yes, but more than that he became addicted to doing
those things he previously believed he couldn't. Once he came to the
realization that there was nothing preventing him from cooking meth, he
realized there was nothing preventing him from breaking into a chemical
facility, he realized there was nothing preventing him from having sex with his
wife in the back of her car, and eventually he realized there was nothing
preventing him from having sex with her wherever and whenever he wanted. This
moment acts as kind of the peak of that attitude, and works as kind of slap in
the face to Walt to show him that there are still boundaries. Those boundaries
are just wider than he previously thought. After this, he becomes less
impulsive and more calculated in the risks he takes for the most part, though
this caution does continue to have a tendency to break down under great stress,
such as when he goes after Gus with a gun in "Thirty-Eight Snub."
Meanwhile, we see our most clear picture that Jesse is not
cut out for the criminal lifestyle. When trying to indicate how to take out
Tuco, he shows that he isn't able to fully visualize killing a person. His plan
is brought forward in broad strokes, taken more from someone who has watched
movies than someone who can immerse himself fully in the mind of a murderer.
His inability to operate the gun only adds the naivety he shows. He understands
on a rational level that Tuco needs to be killed, but the thought of actually
killing him repulses him enough that he's not willing to put the required
thought into it.
"Seven Thirty-Seven" doesn't stand on its own as
an episode nearly as well as the great episodes of Breaking Bad, but serves two important functions. It starts the DEA
arc of the show, and properly balances the tone of the humour centred Hank with
the terror that is occurring in the other sections of the show. It also
reinforces some deep seated character traits that are beginning to become
manifest: Hank using metaphor and humour to cover up a desire to avoid darker
conversations, Walt reaching a breaking point with his addiction to rule
breaking, and the innocence and emotion of Jesse contrasted with the
ruthlessness he requires in his situation.
Other Thoughts
- It is an interesting decision to begin this episode before
the last one ended, and repeat that final scene. It must have been really tough
on the director to get the lighting for this scene the same as it had been at
the end of the last season
- Speaking of the director, it's the first episode directed
by Bryan Cranston himself, which probably explains why the episode is a little
lighter on Walt
-A lot of those weird camera angles are used in the initial
scene after the beat down of Tuco's lackey, looking at both Tuco and Heisenberg
from the perspective of the ground. In this case, I found those angles
distracting
-The kid with the remote control car Marie drives over has a
little bit of a Drew Sharp feel to him, no?
-First mention of the ricin, which though is only ever used
once, and in a slightly anticlimatic fashion, becomes important multiple times
- Foreshadowing for the plotline where Skylar finds out
about Walt's second cellphone, as we're given clear indication that Walt has
two of them when he tries to figure out which one to answer when called by Hank
- This episode has (arguably) our first major cliffhanger of
the series. It will not be the last.
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