AMC
Previously on Breaking Bad: Aryan shootout in the desert like BLAW! If you were looking for an A-Team shootout where hats get blown off, feelings get hurt but essentially everyone walks away unscathed then you’re shit out of luck. Gomez is dead and Hank‘s shot in the leg. Uncle Jack requests a debrief and when he discovers that Gomez and Hank are DEA he’s rather of the opinion that Hank shouldn’t make it out of the desert. This offends Walt‘s sense of duty to family and to save Hank he tells Jack all about the $80m he’s got buried out there. All Hank has to do is promise never to breathe a word of this to anyone and he can walk away out of here, as well as he can with a shot up leg. Surely Jack won’t argue with that? Hank interjects at this point. He would like a word with Walt and it concerns the negotiations he’s currently engaged in. “You’re the smartest guy I ever met” he says “And you’re too stupid to see he made up his mind 10 minutes ago”. He’s proved right when Uncle Jack puts a bullet through his head because nobody likes a know-it-all.
If you were looking for an A-Team shootout where hats get blown off, feelings get hurt but essentially everyone walks away unscathed then you’re shit out of luck.
All of a sudden it’s a Nazi money digging party! Todd tells Walt he’s sorry for his loss and I imagine he will be at some point. Uncle Jack would be all for icing Walt right here but the baby killer respects him and would never forgive Jack if Walt’s story ended right here with 3 episodes left. They leave a barrel for Walt – $11m give or take and with a shake of the hand their business is done.
Well not quite. Walt spots Jesse underneath the car and reminds Uncle Jack of the original deal to kill him. Ruh-roh! But just as he’s about to be shot Todd saves his life (woo-hoo!) by suggesting they torture him first to find out what he told the DEA (d’oh!) Walt is OK with that. Jesus. Walt stops to tell him that he watched Jane die, could have saved her but didn’t. Christ. Things turn around quickly in Jesse’s world.
And to make a bad day worse Walt runs out of petrol – a bullet in the tank will do that. So the dying man rolls out the barrel through the desert like a bad cockney singalong. He happens upon an old bastard in a shitbox made of bricks. Bastard’s got a truck with a street value of about 12 bucks but it’s not for sale. That quickly changes when Walt flashes the cash. You need wheels to make deals. Walt’s back on the road.
Also on the move is Marie who pays a visit to Skyler to gloat over Walt’s arrest. She’d like Junior to be told the full story and Skyler really isn’t in a position to argue. Ever on the ball Junior decides that it’s all “bullshit” and storms out. Well, storms out then gets in his mam’s car so she can drive him home. When they arrive Walt is packing. He advises them quite strongly to leave with him. Skyler works out that Hank is wormfood. Walt must have killed him? “No! I tried to save him” he says in one of those justifications that really make the whole thing worse. The penny’s even dropped with Junior now that his dad might be a wrong ‘un and you have to penetrate through several layers of dimness to do that.
Now is the time to act for Skyler and she pulls a kitchen knife on him. They struggle and Walt gets the upper hand but Junior steps in to yank him off (no, not like that). “What the hell is wrong with you?” barks Walt “We are a family!” Yeah, that’s right Walt – I got all my sisters with me. Hank was family. Jesse was “like family”. Maybe we’ll just not go that family route eh, big boy? Junior assesses the situation correctly for once in his life and phones the police – maybe he’s not so dumb after all? In response Walt kidnaps baby Holly and drives off the busted truck with the $11m payload. Time for a road trip Holly!
“What the hell is wrong with you?” barks Walt “We are a family!” Yeah, that’s right Walt – I got all my sisters with me.
Back in House Heil a fairly comprehensively tortured Jesse is retrieved from his cage by Todd. He’s already given up the location of the tapes but Todd isn’t done with him yet. He takes him to the meth lab and hooks him to a pulley. “Let’s cook!” says Todd like he’s Fern Britton. Oh yeah, the agreement to increase the purity of the meth. Priorities. Still at least Jesse will spend his last few hours on Earth doing what he loved.
The police have arrived at the Whites. The newly widowed Aunt Marie doesn’t get it “He had him in handcuffs”. I know, right? Mister White phones and requests an audience with the lady of the house “I warned you for a solid year: you cross me there will be consequences”. Scarface style he tells her “Who put this thing together eh? ME! ME!!!” For a guy on a tight schedule he’s in a very talkative mood. He tells her she will never see Hank again. You’d think that he might at least guess there were police on the line but I suppose he’s dying so what the fuck?
[On second viewing it seems more likely that Walt is protecting Skyler by stressing her lack of involvement. He still wants Holly and Junior to have a mother and an inheritance.]
He dumps baby Holly in a fire station with a handy note pinned to her then gets picked up with his suitcases and barrel by Saul’s new identity guy who takes him away to a new life as Mister Lambert. It’s about as distressing and brilliant an hour of television as you’ll ever see and they are not done yet.
The verdict: You really need to watch this shit medicated.
Marks out of 10: 10
