Breaking Bad 2.05 - Breakage

Pre-credits sequence: Here we get the introduction to the plot the whole episode is going to revolve around - how did Tuco's grills get into the nearby swamp? I know you are all on the edge of your seat.

Review: That may have been a little bit sarcastic, because Hank throwing his grills away because of PTSD over the shooting of Tuco is one of the least interesting and forgettable episode dominating plot points Breaking Bad ever did. There's really no depth to the story. Hank has a bit of a panic attack in the elevator, he breaks a bottle of Schraederbrau, and he throws Tuco's grills into the river. This is revealing to us that he hasn't gotten over the implications of the attack. And while it's nice that the show is willing to not back down from the consequences of the events that happen in it, and while this is the first episode that gives us a hint that "consequences" are going to be the main theme of this season, Hank's troubles just aren't very interesting. There's a nice scene with Walt Jr at the barbecue where Hank tries to answer the questions about the shooting while still trying to shut down the conversation. It's a nice bit of subtlety from Hank, who normally doesn't have much of a subtle side to him. Still, this isn't enough of a story to build the backbone of an episode around.

So, I'm going to go pretty much completely off script for this review, and not really talk about this episode at all. I'll cover a few things in the "other notes" section, but in reality there's not that much to this episode that we don't see in other places, and done better.

Instead I want to talk about the entire structure of Breaking Bad, and how Season 2 ties into the overall story it is telling. Hopefully that sounds way more interesting than a review of one of the most pointless episodes in the entire show.

Breaking Bad is ultimately a morality tale. In its simplest and most base essence, it is telling you the story of how someone can go bad, and then have to pay the consequences for it. And every character kind of fits into a neatly defined role in the story. Walt is our hero, our Macbeth, the man who gets corrupted and then has to pay the ultimate price for it. Skylar is the wife, and she exists to show how one man's corruption can forcibly drag the upright into the muck with them. This is kind of the reason that the writers don't know what to do with Skylar the first two seasons, because until she finds out what Walt is about she can't fulfill that role, and is kind of floating in space. Jesse is the one who had a chance to be on the path to good but is instead corrupted and used for the betterment of our hero's ego. Hank is the primary antagonist of the story, but also needs to function as the heart of the story and the ultimate consequence for our hero's decisions as we move towards the end game. Marie is mostly there so we have a reason to mourn that ultimate consequence at the end, which is why she seems so superfluous to the story until somewhere in the back half of Season 5. Walter Jr. and Holly are the excuses, the reason our hero gives himself to reach into such morally dark depths. And fittingly, Walter Jr ends up rejecting Walt at the end of "Granite State" (5.15). There's a lot of other characters introduced along the way, but they mostly serve as obstacles that force our hero to go darker and darker to escape his situation. Gus and Mike mostly serve this role.

The reason I'm bringing this up this episode is we have our introduction to Jane, who has possibly one of the most thankless roles in the entire series. Jane's role is "collateral damage." And not even the ultimate collateral damage, that would be Hank. No, Jane is just the appetizer collateral damage, the collateral damage used to ultimately show us what type of TV show this is. Because the purpose of Season 2 is to introduce to us the idea that this is going to be a morality tale. As soon as we see Season 2, we have a good idea of where the show is going to end up. Walt is going to get his comeuppance. Season 2 is the miniature version of the show as a whole. Walt does bad things and gets punished. Season 2 is ultimately about consequences, and the first 4 episodes of Season 3 are how Walt doesn't heed the warning of those consequences.

But we'll talk more about that during "ABQ" and the beginning of Season 3. I want to get back to the characters, and how a show with a pretty simplistic concept was able to introduce itself into the discussion of the best shows of all time.

The reason the show succeeds despite having a fairly shallow overall arc is the amount of humanity that is put into each and every character (though well executed tension certainly doesn't hurt it). Bryan Cranston absolutely deserves every piece of credit he gets for the acting job he does in the series. He is possibly the main reason for the success it has had. Walt could have easily been this unrelatable and unrecognizable monster, but he never becomes that. Walt is always a real person, he always keeps those empathetic characteristics that continue to distract viewers from the person he really is. He gives these (ultimately delusional) speeches about the importance of what he is doing and how everything he's doing he's doing for his family. And that underlying sense of sadness underneath him never goes away. Either there's the sense of despair because he's dying from cancer, or there's the sense of despair about the type of person he's made himself into. We'll get to "Fly" eventually, but the real reason that episode works so well is how regretful Walt is about everything, how much he's hurt by the things he's done. He almost never lets that regret or hurtfulness dissuade him from being a monster, but the fact that it exists makes him a real and relatable person, far more than he should be.

You can say this sort of thing for every character on the show. They have a strictly defined role in the tale, but inside that role they are so much more. Skylar doesn't just do immoral things because of the hole Walt puts her in, she also gets to be deeply bitter towards him about it. Jesse doesn't just dive head first into the swamp of evil, we get to see where he could have succeeded and how much he does not have the emotional ruthlessness to serve the role Walt is making him play. The simplest stories can have real impact if it involves real people.

I want to get back to Jane, just so I can have some excuse for writing this particular review in this particular episode. I think Krysten Ritter does an amazing job with Jane. Basically, Jane becomes Jesse's girlfriend who uses him as an excuse to relapse and ultimately dies because of it, with some help from our hero. But never once did I see Jane as anything but a real human being. Her exchanges with Jesse have real chemistry. In this very episode she has some real personality and smarts as she realizes exactly what Jesse is, but can't ultimately fight her attraction to him, as much as she puts on a face otherwise. There's depths to this performance, that ultimately don't need to be there. Jane exists to die and to further the plot of the real characters in the story. But there's such care taking in her character and her performance that she feels such a part of the world, and like a real human being. That, in a nutshell, is how Breaking Bad succeeds. "Breakage" is not a good episode, but the introduction of Jane and the way she plays her scene is a glimpse into the reason that Breaking Bad is the show it is.

Other Notes:
- I really like the camera work for Walt's chemotherapy session. Seeing the tube fill up with blood is foreshadowing how the blood is going to start to flow from the direct and indirect victims of Walt's actions

- Skylar is pulling off some excellent silent treatment this episode. There's some more nice foreshadowing where Skylar is doing some family money balancing rather being at Walt's doctor appointment for support

- So Jesse goes back to the guy who he just drove the RV away from, breaking his fence, to try to cut a deal? And the guy agrees? How?

- The best parts of this episode are setups for "Peekaboo." Such as the discussion between Walt and Jesse about "acceptable loss" vs. "unsustainable business mode." More evidence Jesse's not cut out for this business

- Evidence Jesse is already smitten with Jane? Uses her "DBAA" term first chance he gets

Breaking Bad 2.04 - Down

Pre-credits: This is where the season starts to get ominous. We already suspected the burnt teddy bear indicated something bad was going to happen. Now we have evidence being collected for a major police investigation. Nothing good ever brings about a massive police investigation. The foreboding nature of the pre-credits leads nicely into what is a miserable episode for all characters involved.

Review: Somewhere around Seasons 3  and 4 of Breaking Bad, the story becomes less Walt's story and more about Jesse. There's a bit of a necessity to this, because as Walt starts to lose those qualities of empathy and basic human decency, the sympathies of the audience are redirected to his unfortunate partner. Walt threw everything he had away on his own, through his pride and jealousy. Jesse had everything thrown away for him by parents who just weren't prepared to deal with him, simply because he could not grow up fast enough for them. The true tragedy of Breaking Bad is that with a proper replacement parental figure, Jesse could have been led back on the right track and into a respectable life. Walt is not that proper replacement parental figure.

We saw a little bit into the relationship between Jesse and his parents in "Cancer Man." They practically had given up on him at that point. They were no longer willing to work with him, to listen to his efforts to get his life straight. They claimed they had been burned too many times and were done. That there is some Grade F parenting. Because as old as Jesse may have been at the time, he clearly hadn't matured yet and still needed some adult guidance to get him back on track. And the incident in the first few episodes where Krazy 8 and co. nearly murdered him was enough to wake him up, and suddenly, his parents aren't going to be there to help him.

And this episode, they are there to take the rug out from under him because he's been inconveniencing them. I'm not usually one to stand up on my pulpit and start lecturing the characters, but everything about this scene where they call the lawyer in to take the house from Jesse is despicable. The parents pretend this is about Jesse, and about trying to get him to get his life back together. It's not about the fact he's lowering the value of his aunt's house with his cooking and taking money away from them at all, in their mind. Nope, the best way to get Jesse's life back together is to leave him with nowhere to live, no money, no stuff to sell to give him some time to get his feet under him. They basically try to relegate him to being a homeless person. That's not tough love. That's not caring anymore and giving up on your child. Giving up on him because he didn't grow up and mature fast enough and they could not deal with him. This is the root of all Jesse's problems. The problem isn't Jesse connecting with adults, either. He connected with his Aunt Ginny, who decided that he should have the house, and he connects to some extent with Walt, even though Walt is an awful person. The blame fully lies with Jesse's parents in being unable to put in the effort to understand their son, and give him the support he needs.

So the parents leave Jesse with an awful episode for him. This episode kind of suffers from not having a lot of lead up or carry through from the events of it. In terms of the overall second season arc, this episode doesn't really contribute anything, other than Jesse to get him out of his aunt's house so he could move in beside Jane. If you told me that the writers just came up with the plot just to justify using the title "Down" for the title endgame, I wouldn't be shocked. But there's a lot of Walt and Jesse depth for this episode with a special parenting theme throughout.

This episode is all about "explaining" Walt and Jesse. Why do they continue in a relationship that is so toxic? Why doesn't Jesse go back to trying to start a career and get back on a legitimate path? Why doesn't Walt find a partner who is less incompetent? The answer is because they need each other, because they act as replacements for things they are losing or lost. Jesse has matured, mostly as forced by the near death experience he had in the first few episodes of the series, and wants to get a real life started and he needs guidance for how to do that. Typically, that role falls to the parents, to impart their life experience and be there when the young person has questions or feels a little lost. Jesse's parents have completely burned that bridge with him, so it's not going to be them. So it falls on Walt, who acts as a father figure. He provides guidance, he's willing to get in Jesse's face and let him know when he's acting like an idiot. There are times when Jesse needs help and Walt is sitting there willing to give it to him.

But there's times where Walt is not there, and that is what makes the relationship so toxic. Because Walt is not a good father either. Walt doesn't have the patience, or the ability to forgive when Jesse screws up. He instead beats down on Jesse for mistakes when Jesse is already beating on himself. And then, at the times when Jesse needs him the most, Walt can shut Jesse straight down. There's a scene in this episode where Jesse drives to Walt's house in the RV because he has nowhere else to go, and Walt starts berating him for his stupidity until Jesse starts a physical altercation. This is not the person Jesse needs in his transition to adulthood and responsibility. Unfortunately, it's the person he's stuck with.

The one thing Walt has on Jesse's parents is that he never fully gives up on Jesse. He never fully ostracizes him and just stops caring about them. However, this is not because Walt is a better parent or a better person, but because Jesse fills some need Walt has. Walt has a strong need to be in control, he needs to be the one calling the shots and making the decisions. He needs people around him that make him feel smart, that will listen when he bosses them around. Jesse makes Walt feel superior, like Walt is a mastermind with pawns to order around.

Note that the Walt/Jesse relationship takes off right as Walter Jr. stops taking crap from his dad. He picks a new name, so that he no longer has to be solely identified as being the Walt's son. While Walt is trying to teach him driving, Walter Jr. comes back with retorts that indicates that he knows better than his father. Walt can't be in control with his son any more, as his son doesn't see him as the genius he needs to be seen as. His son makes him feel out of touch and powerless.

His wife doesn't improve matters for him either. This is an excellent episode for Skylar and Anna Gunn, who gets to be the sympathetic one for once. She knows Walt is lying to her about the second cellphone. The audience knows Walt is lying to her about the second cellphone. But instead of further alienating herself and being a screaming, annoying harpy, she takes a step back and instead completely distances herself. It's such a cool reaction (in more ways than one), because she forces Walt to come to her. And when he does try to come to her, but continues his really poor lying skills, she is perfectly able to put him in his place and make him seem every inch of the pathetic, desperate man he is. It's exactly what we needed to see from Skylar at this point. It calls to mind the episode "Fifty-One," the best Skylar episodes and one of the best episodes of the series full stop, where Skylar cooly checks herself out of Walt's life and focuses solely on her children, the people who really matter. If Skylar stops caring about Walt, if she stops reacting to him, then nothing he can do or say can hurt her.

The plotting and thematic connecting in this episode is wonderful. The way that Walt gets humiliated by Skylar and then turns around to his pet dog Jesse and trying to humiliate him to prove his masculinity so perfectly dovetails everyone's story together. We see Walt's need for control; we see Jesse going to the one person who he thinks cares about him and is willing to be his father figure. And we see how imperfect a father figure he really is. The aforementioned Walt-Jesse fight scene is great, it oozes with both the chemistry between the two actors and the way it addresses all the issues between them that had been building to that point.

"Down" is an over-the-top episode. Too much bad stuff happens to Jesse and his no-good-very-bad-day doesn't end up having any lasting relevance to the story being told. But the way the episode subtly lays the entire foundation of the series in front of us makes it one of the more important offerings in the season nonetheless. Everything you need to know about Walt and Jesse is in this episode: Jesse's lack of true authority figures, Walt's need to be in control and be recognized as the man, and his hatred for any form of humiliation. This is what the Walt-Jesse relationship is built on, and that foundation is not strong enough to withstand the storms ahead.

Other Notes:

·         Hank and Marie take the episode off. It works, because it is hard to see how they would be able to fit into this episode thematically

·         The Walt-Jesse convenience store scene leaves so many questions: Why do they think moving down aisles at the same time looks inconspicuous? Why does it matter which one of them leaves first, as long as they don't leave at the same time? Why was the policeman necessary in this scene, he serves no purpose except to add a contrivance?

·         Walter Jr breakfast update: He'll have some grapefruit juice. It's good for you.

·         "That was before my housing situation went entirely testicular on me!"

·         If Jesse smells so bad, why does Badger's friend want him to drive away upwind?

·         Whoa! The Aztec crashes! That never is going to happen ever again.

·         Walt asking Jesse whether he wants some breakfast is the absolute perfect capper for this episode. The best ending of an episode to this point by far.

Breaking Bad 2.03 - Bit By a Dead Bee

Pre-Credit Sequence: This is the first time where a pre-credits scene basically just kicks off the episode, and doesn't do anything special such as the constant in media res of season 1, or show some spectacular scene. That said, the pre-credits is achieving something; it's showing the origin of the plan that would dominate the episode. Jesse and Walt are still in a pickle, as they have to explain their absence as well as the fact Jesse's car is at the crime scene. They had a lot of time to make this plan, and for one of the few times in the series, it works almost without a hitch. I'd also like to note that the opening camera angle, showing the camera being in the hole uncovered by the dirt that Walt and Jesse are digging, is nonsensical and I don't like it.

Review: We are getting into a stretch of episodes I generally consider to be the worst of the show. We are done laying the foundation for Walt, we know what makes him tick and the writers have put us fully on his side. We have finished dealing with his first threat in Tuco, his life is not in immediate danger, and while there's some minor danger about him being found out, we don't really have any reason to believe that is going to happen. We haven't entered the part of the show where Jesse and Walt have really kicked off dealing meth on their own, and don't really enter the issues that come with that until "Peekaboo." And even when the good part of Season 2 kicks off, that's really not driven so much by overarching plot as much as making each episode deal with something special and interesting. There is an overall theme to Season 2, and I'll get to that in one of these next two reviews, (because I'm not sure how much else I'll have to talk about), but it's much more of a conclusion driven theme and not a theme you can clearly see as the season is going on.

This episode for instance, from a plot perspective, is basically only about Jesse and Walt explaining what happened to them while being kidnapped by Tuco. Walt showing up naked in the supermarket is such a memorable image, that I remembered this episode as much better than it actually is. It has its moments from both Walt and Jesse, and we'll get to those shortly, but overall there's not as much of either depth or tension that Breaking Bad has at its best, and the show needs one or the other to be successful.

All that said, there are two fantastic scenes in this episode that is Breaking Bad  in top form. The first one is the kickoff to Jesse's section of the plan, where he's waiting in Wendy's motel room. The way the scene is staged makes it look like Jesse is on some sort of drug. The camera focuses on the sun through the blinds and is alternating between focused and unfocused. This continues until the police team breaks into the motel room and starts yelling and taken Jesse in. It becomes pretty clear afterwards that the fading camera was not a symptom of Jesse on drugs, but more displaying the tension Jesse felt because he knew what was about to happen. It's a great piece of camera work, a great piece of misdirection, and it still manages to put the viewers in Jesse's mindset. He's going to get hassled, it's not going to be easy, and he'd rather not do it, but he has no choice in the matter and his freedom depends on how he acts.

The other scene is Walt talking to the psychiatrist. The type of scene where someone lies by revealing a lot of the truth isn't unique to Breaking Bad by any means, but almost any time a show is clever enough to use this technique it works. Here it works particularly well, as this discussion with the psychiatrist also informs Walt's decision in the rest of the episode. The reasons that Walt gives for running away for a couple days are pretty much the exact reason he starts cooking meth in the first place. It's so cathartic to hear him finally give his real reasons for doing the things he is doing, even if it's just as part of another lie he's telling.

At the end of the episode, Jesse believes that this is the end of the road and that their cooking adventure is over. It's a reasonable thing to assume, given that they nearly were sent to Mexico and/or killed by a crazed lunatic. But Walt's reasons for cooking, the same reasons he gave to the psychiatrist, are as strong as they've ever been. As much as he repeats the 737,000 dollar number to himself, the real reason is that for the first time, he feels powerful. He feel like he's in control. He feels like his chemistry expertise is finally not being wasted teaching high school students. And he's still got that addiction to danger that drove so much of his actions in "A No Rough Stuff Type Deal." At the moment, Walt is in this for the long haul. Is there something that will change his mind, at least for a while? Absolutely, but it's not the threat of death from Tuco. It's actually a pink teddy bear.

Also driving Walt to continue in spite of the danger? That view of just his wife and son, on their own, while he thinks he's in hospital. It allows him to keep up his lie that all he is doing is for them, and to keep them well enough off without him there. The interesting thing about this scene is that there isn't actually anything special about how Skylar and Walter Jr. were interacting when he saw them. There's nothing he sees here that would be different than what he knew, or would have seen before to change his perspective on things. I really believe Walt is looking for excuses to continue, and a glimpse of his family that shouldn't be meaningful, he elevates it to very meaningful levels in his mind.

One thing that's surprised me writing these reviews is how prominent Hank has been this early in the season. He gets two episodes focussed on him later in the season in "Breakage" and "Negro Y Azul", and in the episodes leading up to that, he's definitely been the third most important character on the show. It is sort of impressive that the show commits this much this early to developing someone they had originally outlined as a joke caricature. In this episode, we really start to see the fringes of how the Tuco shootout affected Hank. It's pretty easy to tell in hindsight that he's really not comfortable with what went down. He is initially taken aback by Junior asking him about the shootout, though just for a moment before he recovers. This same sort of hesitation happens when he gets awarded Tuco's grills, though once again he recovers quickly and acts as he thinks would be appropriate for someone who should be proud of his "catch." It's subtle writing, and only really can be seen after watching "Breakage" and knowing the truth about Hank's  PTSD.

The other small sign of the effect of the Tuco shootout on Hank is how ineffective he is in his interrogations. Jesse was clearly not comfortable, but he's unable to really push the issue with him. He has Wendy where he wants her, and then blows in on his cheap "Windy" joke that he had previously used when seeing Wendy with Walter Jr. in "...And the Bag's in the River." He's been shown to be a pretty good cop, both before and after this point, and is really not good at all in this episode.

This episode is about 25% really good deep stuff and about 75% fluff. That's not a good ratio for Breaking Bad and a sign that the show really isn't quite ready to take the next step it wants to take. This season was built backwards, where they knew the ending and had to build to it, so it is possible that they didn't have enough story to fill the 13 episodes they were given. The show really shouldn't be spending a whole episode on the execution of a rather straight forward plan by Jesse and Walter. The show still has its flashes of brilliance, and the execution is still at a really high level, but for a show that needs the plot engine to be churning to be successful, "Bit By a Dead Bee" is not the episode the show needed to follow up its Tuco arc.

Other Points
- The writers still aren't being very careful with Skylar. In this episode, she's made to look dumb by supporting Walt's lie by complaining about cancer drug side effects, like this is something new to a doctor

-  Badger is on a roll this episode, especially clearing out the basement. "You are Willy Wonka and I have the golden ticket!"

- Speaking of Badger, if Badger was vouching for someone to you, does that really impact anything at all? I'd be less likely to trust that person.

-My favourite part of Walt's naked gag with Skylar is that he wears the porkpie hat

- And we have the continuation of the all time great second cellphone storyline! I really thought I liked Season 2 better than this going in to these reviews