"The kid's not in the mood for a nuanced discussion of the virtues of child poisoning."- Saul Goodman
In a seemingly direct continuation from the quick cut ending of last week, we pick up with Walter slowly parking and exiting his car down the street from his home (in more or less the same spot he used his neighbor as bait to flush out Gus' men late in Season 4). Saul's car is parked in the driveway, door open, in the same spot Jesse left it. Walt mutters to himself, and we cut to him climbing through the foliage in his backyard, gun drawn, ready for a showdown. Moving from cover to cover in his backyard, Walt eventually edges the back door open and makes his way inside. Walt sees the discarded can of gasoline after smelling it's contents strewn across his living room, and calls for Jesse to reveal himself before edging his way down the main hallway, checking the nursery and closet. Walt steels himself before checking his bedroom, the last place Jesse could be hiding. He opens the door and lunges in, with the camera slowly panning back. Nothing happens. He walks back out, staring again at the canister of gasoline, the heads outside to Saul's car, where he sees a discarded CD on the dashboard, covered in what is almost assuredly cocaine. He shuts the door. Jesse is gone.
After the intro, we pick up were we left off; in Walt's driveway, where Huell and a repair crew are stationed. As Huell climbs into Saul's car, Walt asks him to check the high school, just to make sure Jesse isn't going after Walt Jr. Looking a slip of paper with Jesse's Hello Kitty phone number on it, Walt dials him up and leaves a message: that he's thankful Jesse didn't go through with what he was planning, that he wants to "fix this," telling Jesse to sleep it off and to call him. The man repairing Walt's door asks if he wants separate keys for each new lock, and Walt tells him that they're using the same locks. Skyler cannot know that this happened. With that goal in mind, Walt tries to bribe the men cleaning his carpet, before being told that there's not much more they can do to remove the smell without taking the carpet up entirely. So begins Walt's attempt to cover up what happened. He douses his clothes in gasoline, and, after deliberation, the front seat of his car. When Skyler returns home later after dusk, she walks into a carefully prepared lie: Walt spilled gasoline all over himself while at a station, and in his haste to get out of his clothes, left them on the floor, where the gas soaked into the carpet. As he lays on another of his grand stories, it's obvious Skyler doesn't believe him, and neither does his son.
What was once endearing about Walt's lies, the self-deprecating tone, has become slimier and slimier as the series has progressed. Watching him lie like this has become almost squirm-inducing. Junior's not even buying it at this point, but for a different reason than Skyler. He thinks his father passed out again, and Walter realizes he has an out. Seeing an opportunity to warp his son around his finger a bit more, Walter admits that he might have gotten "a little swimmy," and before anyone can protest, he suggests that they stay at a hotel until the carpet is replaced.
Once there, Walt meets with Saul and Kuby, the former of whom is lamenting letting his dojo membership run out. Kuby lists off all the places he's checked for Jesse, including his buddies "Beaver and what's his name." The police don't have him, and when Walt tells them to keep looking, Saul asks what they want to do when he does. Saul, with another of his "colorful metaphors," suggests Old Yellering loyal Jesse. Walt warns him not to float that idea again and leaves. When he returns to the hotel room, with his bucket of ice and an excuse, Skyler dead eyes him and asks how Saul's doing. Walt feigns ignorance until Skyler tells him she saw them talking. She admits that she played along with his story for the benefit of their son, and Walt, in what's becoming something of a recurring trend this season, immediately tells Skyler the truth (though not the whole truth, leaving out why exactly Jesse is angry at him). When Skyler questions how, exactly, one goes about changing their mind about burning a house down, Walt begins defending Jesse, saying that he's essentially harmless (though in nicer terms than that). When Skyler asks if he's ever hurt anyone, Walt says no, again not telling the entire truth (this time that Jesse pulled the trigger on Gale after Walt put the gun in his hand).
Skyler wonders what their course of action is, and Walt says that when they find Jesse, he's going to "talk to him," which Skyler immediately assumes is a euphemism. For the second time in as many scenes, Walt is morally outraged that someone thinks he'd just kill Jesse. Skyler reiterates that Jesse is a threat, and that after "everything they've done," he can't just talk to him and make everything better. "What's one more?" she asks, and we hit the halfway point of the episode.
After the break, we do something I'm not sure Breaking Bad has ever done up to this point: we jump backwards in time. Not a flashback, and not a forward time-skip, but a straight up parallel timeline. We're about to find out just what happened to Jesse Pinkman. In a continuation of last week's closer, Jesse finishes pouring gasoline all over the White's living room. Then he rolls up a newspaper and grabs a match before being interrupted by Hank, who's absence so far was quite conspicuous in hindsight. "I don't to kill you, and you don't want to be killed," he says, and Jesse yells that Walt can't keep getting away with this. "He won't," Hank says, and offers that they burn Walt down together. They get into Hank's car and leave just before Walt pulls around the corner, Hank buckling Jesse in after the latter goes comatose again. After they leave, Hank admits that he was following Jesse, and that they're going to the DEA. Jesse scoffs at the idea that Walt can't get him if he's in the system.
Switching lanes entirely, we join Marie with her therapist, struggling to talk about the "close family friend" who betrayed her with a secret without actually talking about it. She can't eat or sleep, and she's been up all night looking up untraceable poisons on the internet. When the therapist presses for more details, she refuses, saying that it would be bad for Hank (Marie shows an uncharacteristic amount of restraint with a secret for once). They try to make small talk about the other aspects of her life, and she starts quoting wikipedia articles about more poisons. Dave, the therapist, tells her that there's no problem violence won't make worse, and Marie agrees, saying that it helps just to think about. Marie returns home to find Hank has packed some bags for her, and that she might need to move out for a few days. She presses, and he admits that they have a guest. He shows her Jesse, asleep, and that there's no way to keep him in custody without both exposing him to Walt and getting his accusations on record, and Marie interrupts him with a simple question: "is this bad for Walt?" Unequivocally so, Hank agrees, and Marie states that she's staying. Jesse's phone starts to ring, and after the voicemail notification goes off, Hank listens to Walt's message of truth and reconciliation from earlier in the episode.
After a quick interlude at the hotel where Walt again lies to his son about the seriousness of his illness. Walt's desperation to keep his son in the dark is disturbing, but in a way, the most justifiable of his lies. He hugs his son and means it, and for a moment, we're reminded that Walt is not a bad father, to either of his sons, biological or surrogate, as illustrated by the fact that he calls Jesse's phone as soon as Junior leaves.
The next morning, Jesse wakes up and, after staring at a picture of Walt as Santa Claus, runs into Marie, who tentatively offers him coffee. He makes his way into the living room, where Hank and Gomez are setting up a tripod. Reticent, Jesse admits that merely offering his word against Walt's isn't the best way to take him down. Hank insists that it is, and Jesse reluctantly sits down to tell his story. Starting from their interaction in high school, Jesse begins, but not before forcing himself to drop the "Mr" from Walter's name, calling him Walter. After a cut (another forward timejump), Hank and Gomez commiserate on the balcony. Gomez admits that he believes Jesse, and wonders where they can start without any physical evidence. Lydia? Drew Sharp? Hank produces Jesse's phone, saying to start there.
Walt's newest message tells Jesse that he'll be at Civic Plaza, alone and unarmed, at noon, and that if Jesse wants to come there and kill him, he can. Hank's plan is to put a wire on Jesse and let Walt incriminate himself. "So your plan is to do his plan" Jesse scoffs, saying that if he goes to that plaza, he's a dead man. Hank tells Jesse that Walt won't kill him because he cares about him. Hank goes through Jesse's story, pointing out all the times Walt manipulated Jesse to stick around, even when he never needed to. Jesse, still sure that Walt's going to have him killed if he shows up, refuses to go. He knows how smart Walt is, and more importantly, how lucky he is. Hank interrupts him to remind him that he doesn't really have a choice in the matter. Jesse asks to be excused to the bathroom, and after he leaves, Gomez expresses his concern that Jesse might be right. Hank admits that if he is right, at least they'll have it all on tape. Jesse is a tool to him, albeit a useful one, in his scorched earth campaign to bring Walt down.
After the break, Hank briefs his new informant on how not to seem suspicious, and not to cross his arms before checking in with Gomez, who's keeping an eye on Walt, sitting alone on a bench. "Ready to kick some ass, partner?" Hank asks, again fundamentally misunderstanding what it is Jesse Pinkman wants out of life. Jesse gets out and begins marching towards the plaza, eyeing every passer by as a possible assassin. Once he rounds the corner and spies a tough looking (and bald!) guy standing across from Walt, he pauses, and eventually books it to a nearby payphone. He calls Walt's phone, to Hank's chagrin. "Nice try, asshole, " he says, and that he's done doing what Walt wants. This call is just a heads up "I decided that burning down your house is nothing: next time I'm gonna get you where you really live." He hangs up. Walt, confused and dismayed, looks around for signs of his former protege. Walking away, he passes the tough guy Jesse was so worried about, whose daughter runs into his arms with a squeal. They don't acknowledge one another. Walt really was just there to talk.
As Jesse walks away, Hank squeals to his side and tells him to get in. When he asks Jesse what he was thinking, Jesse admits that there's another way to get him. "A better way," he smirks. Jesse's bloodlust has been focused. He inadvertently took Walt's advice and slept it off, and now he's refreshed and scheming. Walt has two final enemies this season, and they are both enemies of his own creation. They've both been there from the start. Now, they're working together. When last week's episode ended, Jesse was a wild card. Now, he's holding the best hand. The rabid dog is done being cornered.
The saddest thing about all of this isn't that Jesse and Walt's relationship was finally broken by a simple misunderstanding, It's that, despite making the right choice at the plaza, Jesse walked away from the one person in the world who actually seems to care about him. Hank, Skyler, and Saul all seemed perfectly fine with the idea of Jesse Pinkman not being a factor anymore. Walter didn't. But as he calls Todd and tells him that he has another job for Uncle Jack, it's clear that he's ready to do what everyone in his brain trust told he him he should have done.
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