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