Episode Report Card Joe R: N/A | 22 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT One Minute
By Joe R | Season 3 | Episode 7 | Aired on 05.02.2010
ets. He tosses one to ... Marco? One of 'em. "Sucker has six razor claws that expand upon impact," he enthuses. "Shred your ma's head like a cabbage." Which reminds me: happy Mother's Day, all you moms out there! McPoyle tells Marco he can keep the bullet, and Marco puts it in his coat pocket. When McP finally stops talking, Leonel is able to articulate what they're looking to buy: "Vests." McP pulls out a pair of Kevlar doozies, "stop a bullet like a soft wang against a Quaker girl." Oh, to have been in the room when that line got thrown out. I sincerely hope someone got high-fived. "They work?" asks Marco. McP answers by revealing the vest he's wearing right now. "I don't leave home without it!" Immediately, Leonel pulls out his gun and fired a shot directly into McP's chest. McP goes flying to the back of the car, gasping and pissed off, but alive. Leonel digs the bullet out of the vest, while Marco counts out a few hundreds and drops them on McP's fallen body. "You're welcome!" he screams after them. If only he knew how few people get to say that -- or anything -- after doing business with those two.After the break, Walt and Gale are all suited up, and Walt is eyeing a temperature gauge with much dissatisfaction. He asks Gale what temp he set, and Gale -- checking his clipboard -- says Walt told him to set it at 75. Walt, obstinate, says he told him 85. You can see where this is going, right? Walt berates Gale for a bit, before ordering him to dump the whole ruined batch. You know, I wish I could record this scene and send it to Jesse, and be all "See? You're not necessarily a useless fuckup! Walt does this to everyone!" Alas.
The next morning, we see Hank has dressed himself up all nice in preparation for another sit-down with Internal Affairs. Marie gingerly asks what he's going to tell them. Answering her own question, Marie starts to spin her wheels, trying to give Hank the precise excuse that will get him off the hook. Jesse came at him. With a pipe. Hank had no choice. Muscle-memory kicked in. No choice. Hank at first just sits there and mumblingly repeats the more ludicrous elements of Marie's story. "No," he tells her. He's not going to lie. Marie doesn't see how it makes sense that some "lowlife degenerate" getting what was coming to him should mean a good cop like Hank gets ruined. But Hank says what he did wasn't right. "It's not what the job is. I'm supposed to be better than that." Marie says it was "one mistake," but Hank refutes that. "I've been unraveling for a while." And with that, Hank steadily unfurls the last several months of PTSD that followed him killing Tuco. "It changed me," he says quietly. And El Paso exacerbated it. "What I did to Pinkman ... that's not who I'm supposed to be." He thinks all of it -- Tuco, Tortuga, Jesse -- is the universe trying to tell him something. And now he's maybe ready to listen. "I'm just not the man I thought I was," Hank says, his face beginning to crack. "I think I'm done as a cop." Marie doesn't say anything. And then she lays her head on his shoulder. Seriously, how the fuck did they get so functional? And can they adopt Flynn before it's too late?
Walt's on the phone with Gus, and despite how toxic he'd acted towards Gale earlier, I have to say I was not expecting this. "This" being Walt telling Gus he cannot work with Gale and needs a new assistant. Of course, once the shock of that wore off, I was slightly less surprised to hear Walt's choice for Gale's replacement: Jesse. That's one thing you gotta love about Walt. He's got the gall to say just about anything. Even request that his drug trafficker of a boss hire the meth-head that you've spent the last two weeks denigrating, and who just yesterday got his name memorized by every cop in New Mexico. Yeah, Gus, THAT Jesse. We don't hear Gus's end of the conversation, but the fact that Walt initially thinks he's been hung up on says plenty. Walt pitches him on the idea of the "shorthand" (is that what he calls a constant stream of abuse?) that he and Jesse share, one he's never going to reach with Gale. Oh, I don't know, he seemed to get off to a good start in that regard today. Hearing more resistance, Walt actually presses: Gus said the lab was under Walt's control. And this is what he wants. And apparently Gus just relents. Just like that. Dude has about six different plans for Walt, I'm betting.
At the hospital, Walt delivers what he's got to feel is good news to Jesse: he got him the gig as his new lab assistant. Jesse, as you might imagine, is resistant, and suggests Walt get himself a monkey. Well, hiring a monkey won't keep Jesse from fucking up Hank's life and (eventually) rolling over on Walt now, will it? Jesse's not interested, and he's certainly not interested in letting Hank off the hook. But Walt says the pot is even sweeter than he thinks: they'll be partners again. A 50/50 split, meaning $1.5 mil each. And Jesse still looks him dead in the eyes and says "No." Walt asks if he's really turning down a million and a half. By way of explanation, allow Aaron Paul another monologue, hmm? "I'm not turning down the money! I'm turning down you! I want nothing to do with you! Ever since I met you, everything I have ever cared about is gone. Ruined, turned to shit, dead. Ever since I hooked up with the great Heisenberg. I have never been more alone. I have NOTHING! NO ONE! All right? It's all gone. Get it??" Besides, he says, why would Walt want to partner with someone whose meth he's called "garbage"? "Your meth is good, Jesse," Walt finally admits. "As good as mine." Think of where we'd be now if Walt could have choked those words out weeks ago. And with that -- after finally hearing what someone so desperately needed to tell him -- Walt leaves Jesse alone.