Monday, September 16, 2013

Respect the Chemistry: A Breaking Bad Recap, Episode 60- Ozymandias

"I warned you for a solid year: you cross me, there will be consequences."- Walter White

We open with a meth cook in an RV. Walter and Jesse are there, different than they are now. They don't look quite right. Was Walt's hairline really that far up (probably not, but the wig doesn't detract. It actually makes everything more surreal). After what we've been through the last few weeks, it's hard to tell if this is a welcome retreat or a terrifying one. This is their first cook. Jesse asks Walt what's next. Walt begins to teach him chemistry. Jesse lights up a cigarette and Walt scolds him. Everything is as it was back when things weren't so insane. Walt begins to go over what he'll say to Skyler as he dresses himself. He leaves his pants behind and calls Skyler. She picks up the phone while wrapping a package at the island in the White's kitchen, next to the knives. He gives her his spiel. She believes him, because she has no reason not to. She asks him to bring back some pizza and regales him with her tales of eBay profits. Then she asks him about Holly as a name for the baby. "It's a frontrunner for sure," he admits. They make plans for "family time" that weekend and he hangs up with a little smile on his face. Slowly, he fades out of screen. Then Jesse, then the RV.

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

We cut to the same shot, of the same desert, gunfire ringing out all around. We can't see anything. After the last echo rings out across the barren desert, Jack and Hank's cars fade into view. Hank and Gomey's last stand is done. Jack and his crew wait, guns at the ready. Hank clutches a bleeding leg. His gun is spent. Gomez lies motionless in the dust. Hank stars crawling towards Gomey's shotgun. Jack reaches it first. Todd checks out Walt's car and reports that he can't find Jesse Pinkman. Jack sends a couple guys to look for him down in the gully. Kenny checks Gomez's corpse and reports that they are, in fact, DEA. Jack cocks his pistol and Walt springs into action, pounding on the shattered window. One of his men lets him out, where he immediately starts begging him not to kill Hank. Walt insists that he's family, and Jack wonders why this particular familial bond was never brought up. Walt says that they weren't supposed to be here. Jack asserts that it doesn't matter now, and that he wants to know what went on. Walt tells him that it's between the two of them. Jack asks if the cavalry is coming. Walt says no. Hank says yes. Walt begins pleading with Hank, telling him that while nothing can change what happened, he can still walk out of here alive. Neither Jack or Hank seem to think much of that idea, and Walt busts out the big guns. He tells Jack that there are 80 million dollars buried in this desert, which certainly gives Jack pause. Walt tries to sell Jack on what he can do with that much money, and all he has to do is let Hank go. "What do you think, fed? Would you take that deal?" he quips to his captive, to which Walt adamantly states that his name is Hank. "My name is ASAC Schrader," Hank snarls. "And you can go fuck yourself." Walt again pleads with Hank to work this out. Hank, not yet defeated, scoffs at the idea. "You're the smartest guy I've ever met, and you're too stupid to see: he made up his mind ten minutes ago." He looks up to Jack, nods, and begins to tell him to do what he's gonna do before he's interrupted by a bullet. Hank always wanted to be a cowboy, and he went out like every cowboy should. One final gunshot echoes through the desert. Walt collapses. 

Near them, on the sand, 
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command

As Jack holsters his gun, he remarks at how specific Walt's directions were. He has Kenny use his "fancy phone" to pinpoint the exact location, and they use the shovel Hank and Gomez brought to dig up Walt's treasure. After a bit, they uncover their booty, and Jack allows himself a little smirk. Time passes. The barrels are gone, removed from their hole, and in their place, Gomez and Hank's bodies go, swallowed by the desert sands. Walt looks on, still stunned and handcuffed. As he stirs a bit, he stares under his car, seemingly fixated on something in the darkness. Todd and Jack commiserate, and Jack orders his guys to take one of the barrels off and put in Walt's car. Jack snaps his fingers in Walt's face and tells him they're leaving it for him. Todd uncuffs Walt and stoically apologizes for his loss. Jack explains that since Todd respects his former boss, Jack's willing to let him go with at least some of his money. Walt hesitantly shakes his hand, and as Jack walks away, Walt utters a single word. "Pinkman," he says. "You still owe me Pinkman." Jack agrees and tells Walt that if he can find Pinkman, they'll kill him. "Found him," Walt creaks, as the camera pans in on Jesse, hiding underneath Walt's car. Jack's men pull him out, kicking and screaming, pat him down, and put him on his knees. Jack levels his pistol and asks if Walt is "good to go." Walt nods, and Jesse prepares to die. But not yet. Todd intervenes, explaining that if Jesse was working with the feds, maybe they should check and see what he told them, and that he, himself, could get it out of Jesse. "We've got history," he says ominously. Jack's fine with it, and so is Walt. Jack's man drags Jesse away, and Walt tells him to wait. Leveling himself to face his former protege, Walt tells him the last thing I ever thought he'd say. The thing that he very nearly came to say in the first episode Rian Johnson, the director of this episode, ever participated in. That he watched Jane die. His face is concerned, almost fatherly at first, and as he explains the story, that he was there, and he could have saved her, his face twists into something more animal and terrifying. He's lashing out at Jesse for his role in this, for bringing Hank there to die, and for stepping out of line and not just going away like he was supposed to. The men take Jesse away, and they leave, he stares out of the back window at Walt, who is now alone in the shifting sands.

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare.

After the break, Walt gets in his car and goes to leave, but not before training his rear-view mirror on the spot where Hank, Gomez, and all his hopes of getting out of this peacefully now lie. He starts his car and pulls away. Soon after, his car starts acting up and beeping. It's out of gas. He parks, gets out, and checks underneath. Fuel is dripping. There's a bullethole in the gas tank. Looking around, with no one in sight, Walt makes a decision. He's not about to leave this money behind. Cut to Walt keeled over his barrel, the last evidence of his glorious empire, rolling and rolling and rolling it like Sisyphus through the same desert where the empire was born. Sure enough, almost as if on cue, he passes a discarded pair of khakis. No particular attention is brought to them, but they're almost certainly the same pair he never put on in the pilot, the same pair from the very first image of the show. Soon after, we cut to a frontal shot of an old Indian man, watching Walt roll his barrel up to the edge of a fence. Walt says hello. The old man responds in kind. Walt asks if the pickup truck belongs to him, and then asks if he can buy it. The man responds that it's not for sale, and Walt pulls out a stack of bills.

I met a traveler in an antique land 
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
Stand in the desert

At the carwash, Skyler calls Walt's phone while Marie walks in and says hello to her nephew, who's working the counter. Marie wants to talk. In Skyler's office, Marie tells her sister that Hank arrested Walt three hours ago, with the help of Jesse Pinkman. Marie doesn't know if she can ever trust Skyler again, but she remembers how upset Skyler was, and that "whatever he did to you can be undone." She asserts that they are still sisters, and that she'll support her, with conditions. First, that Skyler give her every single copy of the video she and Walt made. Skyler agrees. Second, that she tells Walt Jr everything. Skyler refuses, but Marie pushes on. "He needs to know, and he needs to know," she demands, pushing her advantage and doing the first decent thing anyone's done in this entire episode. Suddenly, we cut to concrete hole in the ground, where Jesse Pinkman lays battered, bloody, and chained. He hears footsteps coming and starts scrambling for somewhere to hide. A ladder is lowered down. Jesse starts pleading. He gave them what they wanted. "I told you where to find the tape," he says, trying to defend himself from blows that never come. Instead, Todd pulls him up the ladder and drags him to the cook warehouse. He pulls a lock, hanging from the ceiling over and latches it to the chain around Jesse's torso. Then he unlocks one of Jesse's cuffs and walks away. Jesse, stunned, starts wandering around, before the lock he's attached to catches on the dog run it's connected to on the ceiling. Pulling his prison with him, Jesse makes his way to a post at the other side of the makeshift lab, where a picture has been clipped. A picture of Brock and Andrea. The rabid dog has been chained. Todd emerges from the shadows, donning a hazmat suit. "Let's cook," he says, almost amused. Todd really is a sociopath. 

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read 
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things

After the break, we return to the carwash, where Flynn is not taking the news we've been waiting two seasons for him to hear as well as his mother would have hoped. First he accuses them of lying, then he asks what might be the most mature and pertinent question anyone on this show could have asked: why did you go along with it? "I'll be asking myself that for the rest of my life," Skyler responds, tearfully. He calls her a liar, and when Marie tells him to calm down, he storms out. Marie tells Skyler to go home, and that she'll stop by later. Cutting to the aforementioned home, Walter has arrived and is throwing whatever clothes he can find into whatever suitcases he can find. Cut to Skyler and kids in her car. Walt Junior thinks that if his mother knew about Walt this whole time and did nothing about it, she's as bad as he is. Another astute observation. Skyler and the children arrive, unsure who the strange pickup truck in the driveway belongs to. Before they can wonder, Walt appears, telling them to come inside and pack. As his son insists to know what's going on, Walter demands that they pack whatever is important, and that he'll explain on the way. Skyler asks to know he's here. Hank just wouldn't let him go. Walt begins to stammer an excuse about negotiating his release. When she asks what that means, he says that it means they're fine, but that they need to leave now. They keep asking questions. Skyler demands to know where Hank is. Walt says that he has eleven million dollars, and that they can have a fresh start if they leave right now. "You killed him," she whispers. Walt adamantly denies it, yelling that he tried to save him. Junior is understandably apoplectic, and follows his father down the hall after Walt again demands that they leave now. The camera shifts to the same kitchen island and the same phone Skyler answered in the flashback in the cold open, complete with the same set of knives. She grabs one. As Walter passes her, with Junior still on his heels, she stops her son, and brandishes the knife at Walt, telling him to get out. Walt, exhausted and seemingly not in the mood, approaches her. She swings the knife at him, slicing his hand and stunning him into the first action he's taken all episode. Walt and Skyler begin wrestling over the knife, and Holly starts screaming. Junior begs them to stop. They fall to the floor, and Walt eventually pries the weapon from his wife's hand, pinning her to the ground and staring at her. Before he can do (or not do) anything, his son tackles him from behind and throws her aside, putting himself in front of his mother. Walt scampers to his feet and begins screaming. "We're a family," he bellows, even if he knows that's not the case anymore. Junior pulls his phone out and dials 911, telling them that his father attacked his mother and may have killed someone. Flynn, now Walter White in name only, was the last one. The last person who believed the bullshit that spewed from Walter White's mouth. Throughout the entire series, Flynn always had his dad's back, defending him from his mother's unfair, cold judgement. Five minutes after officially meeting Heisenberg, he turned his back on his dad, showing himself to be twice the man than the man whose name he shares. Flynn tells the dispatcher that his dad's still in the house, and Walt bolts, but not before scooping baby Holly out of her crib. Skyler chases him outside and pounds on his car window as he starts up and backs through her car, out of driveway and down the street, and all she can do is fall to her knees.

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

Somehow, we come back from the break, where Walt is changing his now hostage daughter. And he coos at her and smiles, she says one word. "Mama." She keeps saying it, and the smile disappears from his face. He knows he can't keep her. Sadly, almost ruefully, he holds her close and rubs her with the hand he's now duct-taped. We cut to the White's living room, where a cadre of police officers are confirming what is now an Amber Alert. Marie is there, shell shocked and muttering about how Hank had him in handcuffs. The phone rings, and as it goes to voicemail, Walt begins droning about how he knows she's there. The police tell her to pick after they begin a trace. She demands to know where Holly is. Walt wants to know if there are any police there. Skyler says no, and again demands to know where Holly is. Suddenly, almost as if on cue, Walt begins snarling about Skyler not being able to do "one thing." At first, I think he's upset about her not doing as he asked and packing their things, which is actually sort of understandable if he really thinks they might be in danger. "This is your fault. This is what comes of your disrespect" he sneers. Skyler, stunned, demands he bring Holly back, but by this point, Walt's in full rant mode. He accuses Skyler of never believing in him, of always whining and complaining about "how he makes his money," while he does everything. After angrily saying that he told her to keep their son in the dark, he calls her a stupid bitch. "How dare you," he mutters, as though he's waiting for a response. The camera cuts to a frontal view of a Walter White much less enraged and haughty than he sounds on the phone. Skyler meekly apologizes, and Walt composes himself, saying she has no right to discuss what he does. He built this, him alone. Nobody else. He warns her to toe the line, or else she'll wind up just like Hank. Walt, fighting back tears, snarls that they're never going to see Hank again. Marie breaks down. "He crossed me," Walt warns, and Skyler composes herself enough to ask for Holly back, for him to come home. "I've still got things left to do," he snaps, hanging up and snapping his phone in two. The longer this scene went on, the more it seemed as though Walt was trying to paint himself as a dangerous psychopath and his family as innocent. Once Skyler told him there weren't any police, he launched into his spiel. Obviously, what he said came from a place of truth, from an entire marriage worth of frustrations, but by this point, I think even Walter White knows who's responsible for Walter White's problems. As he reaches into the pickup and grabs Holly, the camera pans over to show where exactly he is: outside a fire station. Inside the fire station, one of the firefighters points out the lights flashing on one of their trucks. He turns it off, and hears a whine. Holly is in the passenger's seat. Cut to Walt, sitting in the same spot Jesse sat a few episodes ago, waiting for Saul's guy to arrive and take him away. He loads his bags and his money, and the van leaves. A stray dog crosses the street behind them.

And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

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