"Please don't let me have done all this for nothing."- Walter White
It seems as though whenever this show has a one word title, they do everything in their power to hammer home how every character on the show fits into that title. Sometimes, it's too on the nose. Sometimes, it's so subtle that making the connections feels like a sort of conspiracy theory, trying too hard to make thematic resonance where there is none.
Tonight, we have another of these episodes, one with maybe the most apt and chilling one word title yet: Buried.
Jesse is buried. Our cold open begins with an unknown man, presumably leaving for work in the wee hours of the morning, coming across one of Jesse's discarded wads-o-cash. Then he comes across a few more. Then a few more, until finally, he comes across Jesse's car, abandoned in a park. Then he sees Jesse himself, idly spinning himself on a roundabout. The camera tracks him as he stares blankly into the sky. He is, for lack of a better term, the walking dead. Buried.
Walt is buried. After the credits, he walks out of Hank's garage and, after turning around to have a good old fashioned stand-off, gets in his car and immediately calls Skyler. After being told that she's already taking a call and will not be disturbed. As Walt demands to be heard, Hank's garage door re-opens, and ASAC Schrader struts out, holding his cell phone. Walt asks Mariano (apparently someone who works at the car wash) who, exactly, Skyler is on the phone with, before hanging up and peeling out. When he gets to the car wash, he is told that Skyler has already left, without saying where she was going. His wife might be about to turn on him. Walt is done. Buried.
Skyler is buried. Walking into a diner to meet with Hank, she is greeted with an awkward hug. Hank's never really been able to...connect with Skyler, so when he starts things off by explaining how "everything makes sense now" and that she is "done being his victim," she asks if Marie knows, only to be rebuffed by Hank, her self-appointed savior. Then, he pulls out a tape recorder, and asks her to go on the record. Hank tells her that he has to get something concrete before Walt "runs out the clock." When Skyler asks what he means, he tells her that Walt offhandedly mentioned his cancer's return. After this, Skyler shuts down and asks if she should get a lawyer. On one hand, she's trying to protect herself from Hank finding out about the things she's done. On the other, she sees a potential escape vector, perhaps a way to get away. So she turns the tables on Hank and his good cop routine, asking him if she's under arrest, which before long evolves into Skyler screaming and panicking, a long time Skyler White fall back plan in periods of crisis. It has yet to fail her. Hank is desperate, and he overplayed his hand. He doesn't have anything. Skyler has everything, but she doesn't know what to do with it. Buried.
Saul is buried. After the break, we're treated to Huell and Kuby at the storage facility, uncovering Mount Money and almost immediately "channeling Scrooge McDuck," (maybe the best pop culture reference this show has ever had). Huell suggests Mexico, Kuby suggests Heisenberg having ten men killed in a two minute window. We cut to Walt and Saul in the latter's office, commiserating over what to do with Skyler's perceived turn. Saul suggests that she doesn't have any real evidence outside of the money, which is being taken care of. Saul suggests, in the most Saul way possible, that maybe they should give some thought to "sending Hank on a trip to Belize," where Mike went to. Walt flatly refuses, stating that Hank is family, and family is off limits. Huell and Kuby show up, with Walt's money in plastic barrels in the back of a van. Walt inspects his haul, fills a tote for Saul and his men, and tells him to find Jesse. We don't get much out of Saul, here, but what we do get is the portrait of a man who always has a way out slowly realizing that his way out was buried with Gus Fring.
Marie is buried. At the White residence, Skyler is trying to get in contact with either Saul or Walt, when Marie shows up and demands to come in. Skyler lets her, and Marie asks if what Hank says is true. She wants to know when, exactly, Skyler knew, and the farther back she goes without a reaction, the more their sisterly bond is destroyed. Marie finally asks is Skyler since "before Hank was shot," and Skyler apologizes. Marie slaps her, and what was once a heartbreaking slow burn of a scene erupts, as Marie accuses her sister of trying to ensure Walt gets away with it, storms out, and grabs baby Holly in the ultimate payoff to the old "Marie is a kleptomaniac" storyline from seasons past. Marie pounds on the window, and Hank runs into the middle of an out and out shouting match between the sisters, with poor baby Holly screaming in the middle. Eventually, Hank gets his wife to stop and return the child, and as they go to leave, Marie tells her husband that he "has to get him," meaning Walt. This is all too much for Marie to take (her status as the most in the dark character on the show now surreptitiously passed to Walt Jr), and it is burying her.
Heisenberg is buried. Walt spends what appears to be the rest of the day painstakingly digging a hole big enough for a half dozen barrels, shoving them in, covering them up and memorizing the coordinates (in a manner oddly similar to how the man in the cold open peered at the money he'd found: with the headlight of his vehicle), before destroying his GPS tracker, buying a lottery ticket with the numbers, heading home, and collapsing in the bathroom as Skyler questions what happened. One of the biggest potential pieces of evidence against him is now, well, buried. He wakes up the next morning, Skyler babying him on the bathroom floor, and his wife asks him if the cancer really has come back. "Does that make you happy?" he asks, and Skyler responds that she can't remember the last time she was happy. He tells her that he knows she made a deal, and that he'll give himself up if she promises to keep the money and leave it to their kids. She asks how this happened, how Hank found out, and Walt admits that he "screwed up." Skyler, seemingly emboldened by this, tells her husband that all Hank has is his suspicions, and that if Walt gives himself up, no one will get the money. She finishes by saying that perhaps their best move is to keep quiet. To bury it.
Lydia is buried. After being driven, blindfolded, to a meet with Declan at some sort of junkyard, she demands to inspect his meth cook. He signals for his men to move a beat up truck, revealing the meth lab he had buried. Lydia scoffs at the shoddiness of his operation, which looks like a nastier version of Walt and Jesse's Crystal Ship. Declan scoffs right back, saying that the Heisenberg standard doesn't matter anymore, and Lydia argues that while quality might not matter his customers, it matters to her Czech buyer. Declan says that without Heisenberg, there's nothing he can do, and Lydia retorts that they still have Todd, whose experience cooking with the master himself led to a slightly higher quality than what Declan's guy is currently pumping out. Declan flatly states that he doesn't trust Todd, and as one of his guys yells down from above that they've got a problem, Lydia mutters that she wishes that he'd given Todd a chance, and surreptitiously sends a text message. Gunfires erupts from above, and casing start raining down through into where Lydia is buried. Seconds later, Todd calls down and tells her it's over. After climbing back up, Lydia admits that she doesn't want to see her handiwork, and Todd helps her away while she clasps a hand over her eyes, while his uncle Jack and his goons execute Declan and begin raiding the cook site. Lydia is dangerous, just as Mike told us last season, and while her twitchy refusal to look after she's ordered the murder of a dozen men is amusing, but it's also a sign that while she's ahead of the game now, she still doesn't know exactly what she's doing. She's like Walt in the early seasons, except instead of Tuco Salamanca and Krazy-8, she's got a sociopath in Todd to deal with. She's clever, but not nearly as clever as she thinks she is, and that's probably going to end up getting her buried for good.
Hank is buried. Going through the evidence he has in his kitchen, Marie staggers out and says that he has to go back into work and tell the DEA his suspicions. He refuses, at first seemingly out of pride, and then out of fear. "The day I go in with this is the last day of my career," he admits. He's not going in until he has proof, he says. "At least I can be the man that caught him." Marie almost immediately retorts that if he waits, and someone else catches Walt, they'll find out that he knew and didn't say anything. Cut to the office, and Hank's slithering, avoidant return to work (complete with Epic Mustache Guy Who is Obviously Going to be the One to Catch EVERYONE). Hank's ruminations are broken up by Gomez, who welcomes him back and tells him that they have a budget meeting in an hour. Hank asks for that meeting to be rescheduled, and for Ramey (his boss) to be brought in on a conference call. We know where this is going, but before it gets there, Gomez asks if Hank has heard about the "money thing" with his old pal Jesse Pinkman. Hank's interest is piqued, and we cut to Jesse being interrogated by our old FBI friends about why he was chucking millions of dollars around the streets like Robin Hood. Jesse, essentially catatonic at this point, doesn't see Hank sidle into view behind him. Hank gestures for the agents to come out, and asks them if he can jump in with Jesse for a couple minutes. They agree, and Hank walks in. The door closes, and the episode is done. Buried.
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