In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
So ... Walt gone crazy, y'all. If he's not trying to throw potted plants through Ted Beneke's office wall (fail), he's trying to make out with Vice Principal Carmen at school (awkward fail, followed by a suspension), and he manages to attack Saul and unknowingly forfeit the few people keeping him safe from unseen forces.
Meanwhile, Jesse's gone and cooked another batch of the blue stuff. After bartering meth for gas with a sweet gas station girl -- a move that seemed ill-advised for moral reasons until it became ill-advised for practical reasons when Hank followed the trail to the gas station and its ATM camera -- Jesse wants Saul to hook him up with Gus so he can get paid. When he tells Walt about this, expecting Walt to be proud his protégé cooked up such a sweet batch, Walt instead flips out on him, berating him for sullying the Heisenberg brand and just generally acting like a dickhole. So Jesse reaches out to Gus through channels and unloads the meth. But he only gets half the payment. The other half gets chucked into Walt's car at an intersection.
Also, Skyler's still fucking Ted Beneke (and winning no friends at the office), and Hank keeps finding reasons not to go to El Paso. Of course, one of those reasons is that aforementioned incredibly strong lead on the blue meth, so let's not come down too hard on the guy.
It isn't too late to catch up on this show, the first two seasons are on DVD.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously on Breaking Bad, Skyler f*cked Ted. Other things happened.
We open on a gas station that's so out of the way, they don't even have the up-to-date price on Kools. Jesse pulls up in the RV, apparently on his way home after his cooking expedition. A couple days in the desert has returned the patchy scruff to his face, which will only benefit everybody. He's also managed to regain a bit of his old swagger, as evidenced by the fact that he tries to get the cherubic counter girl to let him slide on the cost of gas, as he's fresh outta cash. The girl gets giggly in his presence -- and who could blame her? As my pal the Couch Baron so astutely texted me Sunday night, "He's got the best eyelashes of any meth dealer I've ever met." Mmm hmm. ...Sorry, where were we? Right, lost in Jesse's eyes. ANYWAY! The girl is not a rule-breaker and it doesn't look like she's going to cave. Until Jesse pulls out a baggie with the blue stuff in it. "Maybe we could trade. ...Ever try it?" His face cocked flirtily to the side. She hasn't; she's only smoked pot. "That stuff's really addictive right?" she asks. Jesse shakes it off. "It's just a media thing." So when Jesse said he accepted his role as a bad guy, I guess he really, really meant it. She asks what it's like. "It's awesome," Jesse says, with just enough honesty to prove he knows better. "Everything is maximum interesting. You get these really cold and sharp-like action dagger feelings? It's awesome." He presses her. This is hard to watch. A police officer rolls into the store, and Jesse, with the cocksure steeliness of a much less scrawny man, keeps the meth baggie on the counter, and his eyes squarely on his lady friend. With the cop now in line to check out, she takes it. Victorious, Jesse saunters out. A dealer once again.
Saul's Strip Mall Law Emporium (Lawmporium?). Saul is trying out different neck brace sizes for this biker whose ambulance he chased. Mike shows up -- without knocking, a nice clue as to who's running who in this operation -- and Saul quickly shuffles biker (and his grandma) out. Though not before reminding them to tell their friends that he's drumming up a class-action for the victims of flight 515. "Victims' families would be great, but I'll take anyone on the ground who suffered emotionally!" I'll say this for Saul: as an attorney, the man is inclusive. He asks Mike if there's trouble. Mike, in turn, produces a tape.
Cut to Saul and Mike listening to the recording of the aftermath of Skyler's revelation to Walt that she F'ed T. I love that this is how we get to witness that inevitable screaming match play out. Wonderfully inventive. Particularly because the argument is pretty much the screaming match we expected. Saul sits with a half-amused look on his face as Walt rails at her for her pathetic taste in adultery-bait, while Skyler tests her "if you don't like it, then leave" hypothesis, which gets her predictably nowhere. At one point, a terrible, metallic crunching sound blares, and Saul is momentarily repulsed. "Garbage disposal," Mike says, dispassionately. "Screw 'em all," Walt yells, "I'm not going anywhere!" "Suit yourself," Skyler snipes and slams the door behind her on the way out of the room. "Is this a good or a bad thing?" Saul asks. Mike points to the recorder in time for Walt to say, to himself, "I'll suit myself to his face!" "It's a bad thing," Saul concludes. Yeah, and not just because of that terribly weak burn.
Cut to Walter angrily storming the gates at Beneke. Or storming the reception desk anyway. In his blue plaid Oxford shirt and khakis, he cuts a menacing profile, that's for sure. The receptionist -- who looks birdlike, even for a receptionist -- says Ted's on a conference call. The universal excuse for cowardly execs everywhere. Walt sees right through it. He says he'll wait. Even if it's a while. Walt fixes his eyes on a darkened office and soon sees Ted peek out from the blinds. Can that possibly be Ted's office? Right there to reception? Either Beneke's layout is as shoddily put together as its books or Ted got caught in a conference room when Walt rolled up and panicked. Anyway, Walt starts hollering for Ted to come out. Clearly Walt only wants to have a calm, rational conversation! Ted lifts the blinds and tells Walt he's a bit busy right now. Oh, rookie mistake, Beneke. Never acknowledge. Walt then finds a giant potted plant in the lobby and makes to throw it through Ted's office window. Only this plant is effing huge, and the pot looks like it's made of stone, and the whole thing weighs a ton. Still, he drags it towards his intended target, as Skyler rushes into the lobby and whisper-yells at Walt to stop it. "What are you doing?!" she hisses. Walt, crouched over the plant: "I'm talking with Ted!" Oh, boy. Walt finally lifts the plant to about knee-height, swings it for momentum, and then tosses it at the glass. It bounces right off and cracks on the ground at Walt's feet. Which is about when the security guards arrive and escort Walt to the parking lot, his marriage's honor most definitely not avenged.
Out in the lot, Walt looks like he's about to regroup and storm the castle again, but up speeds Mike in his car, throws Walt in the back seat, and speeds away again. Cut to Saul's office, where Saul is lecturing Walt on being a bigger man about this whole thing. "It's a cruel world," he says. "Grow up." Walter will entertain no such notions. While Saul lectures Walt about maybe not attracting the attention of the authorities every day and a half, Walt turns and looks at Mike (who is, naturally, filling out a crossword puzzle and being so very over everything that's going on in the room). Walt may be acting out in childish ways, but he's certainly no dummy. He puts two and two together and figures Saul and Mike only knew he was going to be at Beneke because they bugged his house. Saul, ever the evolutionary being, quickly adopts a defensive approach: "Let's not get bogged down in the details," at first. Then, "You told me to keep tabs on your wife." Walt doesn't recall that. Saul, again, doesn't want to get lost in the logistics of this invasion of privacy. He'd rather focus on the "ironical silver lining," which is that Skyler, even when given an opportunity, didn't give Walt up to the cops. He doesn't bother explaining why Mike -- so quick on the trigger today at Beneke -- didn't exactly spring into action when Skyler sure seemed like she might turn Walt in, but let's not get bogged down in details ourselves. The point is that the Skyler threat appears neutralized. "I mean, sure," Saul says, "she might have snuck off the reservation to get some dirty, damp, and deep, but..."
It is at this point that Walt drags Saul across the desk and begins pummeling him. Mike, who looks more perturbed at the interruption of his crossword, saunters over to break up the scuffle. And he does so by picking Walt up by the collar of his shirt and the waist of his pants and launching him across the room like a bouncer at a cartoon bar. "YOU'RE FIRED!" Walt bellows at Saul. Saul's all "Boo-Hoo! Who needs ya?" He calls Walt a crybaby meth dealer and says he's halting the donations to the Save Walter White website, so good luck laundering that money. Walt wants the bugs out of his house, TODAY, so Mike follows him out.
At home, Mike digs the bug out while Walt tries to glower officiously from the sidelines. Mike is having none of this high-handing, by the way. Walt's all, "I want ALL of them out! You hear?" And Mike's like, "You're not that interesting to me." Zing. As Mike walks out to his car, afterward, Walt hectors him with immature (and laughably tone deaf) taunts about how Mike's in a disreputable line of work. NO REALLY HE SAID THAT! Mike glances at the ground, then, in a beautiful moment of playing exactly the right card while holding four better ones, informs Walt that maybe, just maybe, it's not such a bad idea to have someone watching your back. Walt scoffs at this, but as Mike rides off, we see just what he was looking at on the ground. A chalk rendering of a reaper's thresher, clearly left by Les Cousines Dangereuses. Who are artsier than one would expect, right? Anyway, Walt is oblivious (shocker) and stomps inside.
After the break, we're in the classroom with Mr. White as he stands, zoned out at the front of the classroom, with his expectant students all waiting for him to do something. What the hell kind of high school students are these? A catatonic teacher and they're just sitting there? Waiting to learn? Nerds. Finally, one girl -- we'll call her Snitchy -- returns to class, and soon after, Principal Carmen is peering inside. "Mr. White?" she approaches. "Hi!" Walt chirps, unnaturally, as he sips from his World's Greatest Teacher mug. Sadly, mug-based contracts appear to be non-binding, as Walt is anything but the world's greatest teacher today.
thing we know, we're in Carmen's office as she gingerly tries to broach the subject of why Walt's been acting like such a fucking freak. She talks about the stresses Walt must be operating under, and blah blah blah, obligations to the students. Walt's more interested in wandering across the room and asking about the photo of Carmen's dogs. She brings it back on task, which in this case is Walter's absenteeism and general weirdness. Walt's answer to that? He creepily advances on Carmen and, after Carmen offers to call Skyler to pick him up, tries to kiss her. "Walt, what's wrong with you," Carmen screeches in her Lea Michele voice. Girl, you don't even have the time.
Marie and Hank are at the airport curbside dropoff. It's time for Hank to head to El Paso. Surprisingly, he's not the most upset one in the car. Marie, who may be kind of a lunatic but has shown herself to be emphatically not an idiot, knows something's up and that Hank doesn't want to go. But he'll never admit that. It doesn't help that Hank defends his decision to go with stone-faced statements about paying dues and answering the bell and how he could get killed crossing the street. Marie's not happy but she drives off anyway. After she does, Hank gets a phone call, and from his end, we can tell it's about somebody getting a lead on the blue meth. Suddenly armed with an excuse -- and a pretty damned good one considering the blue meth had become Hank's white whale -- Hank hails a cab and heads back to town.
Walt exits the school with a box of his personal effects. He's almost to his car when Jesse honks his car horn and alerts Walt to his presence. Walt seems more nonplussed to see Jesse than anything, but Jesse's got the gleam in his eye of a kid who just got As on his report card and wants to tell Dad. After getting the lowdown about Walt moving back home (that's good) and getting indefinitely suspended from school (not so good), Jesse invites Walt inside the car. Hilariously, Jesse's like, "Should we go off somewhere," but Walt doesn't think it matters. That's the spirit, soon-to-be murdered by the cartel guy! Anyway, Jesse wants to gets in touch with Walt's "guy." He means Gus, but he doesn't know Gus's name, because Walt's kept him about as far out of that particular loop as he can keep him. Jesse's standing to Marie, in this scenario. Walt casts his head down, disappointed. Jesse says he wants to do this -- "it's the one thing I'm good at." Walt begs to differ: "You're good at a lot of things, son." And you guys? I actually felt warmhearted at such an uncommonly sweet, fatherly sentiment coming from Walt. Guesses at how long that lasted?
Walt inquires about Jesse's sobriety, and Jesse says he's not using anymore, not ever. I actually believe him. Or at least believes that's his intention. He just wants to deal. Walt says he doesn't. That's okay for Jesse, though; he's not asking Walt to cook again. He pulls out his backpack, stuffed to the gills, and produces a baggie full of ice-blue crystals. With the pride of that kid with a report card, Jesse yammers on about pH levels and being careful and doing just as Walt taught him. He's almost beaming. Meanwhile, Walt's handling the baggie as if it contains the freshly-produced shit of a not-particularly-loved family dog. "What... in the hell... is this?" Walt demands. He's furious that Jesse went behind his back and cooked HIS meth behind his back. "I was gonna cut you in!" Jesse assures, but that only offends Walt even more. "Cut me in? I cut YOU in!" He refuses to set up a meet for Jesse with Gus. And why? Because -- and this is some bullshit -- he's not going to lend his name to "some inferior product." He starts nitpicking Jesse's product ("This is very shoddy work, Pinkman"), and while I don't know enough about meth to know if he's telling the truth or just grasping at straws, it really seems like these are the sourest of grapes. Jesse defends himself, saying he gave out samples and "everyone said it was the bomb." Okay, Jesse has this one coming, as Walt laughs in his face and says he's probably not going to be using a bunch of crank-heads as a focus group. Walt storms out of the car (Jesse does manage to call him an "asswad," which is gratifying), confident that Gus won't do business with a "junkie" like Jesse. Jesse speeds away in his car, Walt's box of personal effects getting carried away helplessly on its roof for a few yards before being slung off and crashing on the ground. It's a simple gag, but the way Walt was acting, he doesn't deserve a more elaborate one.
At Beneke, Skyler is in the break/supply/copy room, running off Xeroxes with the lid open. Which is just inefficient and will do a number on your eyes. No wonder she looks like she's got a headache. She tries to make small talk with Birdface McGee ("I can't believe it's only four" etc.), but Birdface is not having it. Looks like Skyler got branded the office trollop after Walt's visit. Skyler goes back to her Xeroxing, and the whirring of the machine fades out into the sexy moans of sex, as we cut to Ted's house later on. So she's still fucking Ted. Huh. Skyler, how should I put this? Why are you still milking the cow when you've already served the purpose of making the other, meth-dealing cow insane with jealousy?
After Skyler and Ted are done ... you know, makin' copies, Ted asks her to stay. Of course, that's not what Skyler's in this for; she begs off. He has an answer for every one of her excuses (including offering to fire her scandalized co-workers), which on one level is very Needy Ted, but on another is understandably comforting to Skyler. He broaches the subject of Walt -- what happened to turn him from mild-mannered Professor Science to the rage zombie Ted saw today? Skyler doesn't really want to talk about it. Ted presses, ever-so-slightly, saying he just doesn't want to make the same mistakes Walt did. Skyler smiles ruefully and says, "I would be amazed."
At the police station, Hank and Gomez are interrogating a junkie named Russell who strongly resembles either the parking garage attendant in Ferris Beuller's Day Off, or perhaps a particularly unhinged Ben Stiller character. Hank tries to get him to remember any detail of the guy who sold him this baggie of blue meth, but Tweaky von Headband can only remember that he was wearing tan pants and probably had a moustache. Hank presses until Russell produces a name: Mel. Mel! ...Or was it Mark? An "M" name, certainly. Definitely tan pants, though! Hank and Gomez are done with this guy, and out in the hallway, Hank is giddy at the prospect of shaking down the grimy-ass bar where they picked up Russell. He's ready to go knock some heads together. Gomez, understandably, is less psyched, particularly given Hank's freelance violence from last week. Hank points out that he was totally right about Heisenberg re-surfacing, but Gomez says that blue meth could be any blue meth and not necessarily Heisenberg. And anyway, was this all really worth blowing off the task force? Hank's getting really sick of all the second-guessing re: El Paso; he tells Gomez if he's not interested in tracking Heisenberg down, he can surely ask for a transfer. Gomez wonders what's up with Hank lately, and suggests he maybe talk to someone about it. He puts a hand on Hank's shoulder and assures him he's only concerned for Hank, that's all. Hank bristles and tells Gomez to get his hand off his shoulder. Don't you tell Hank what dive bars he can and can't rough up!
Saul's in his office, on the Bluetooth, shystering for clients for his class-action suit, when Jesse shows up. Saul hastily dumps the call and starts yelling at Jesse: "You had your chance! I told you to get him cooking again, and you blew it off, and now it's too late, and ..." Saul's righteous indignation is cut shot when Jesse dumps a giant bag of blue meth onto his desk. "Hi there!" Saul says. Addressing the meth, of course. He starts to inquire about Walt, but Jesse sets him straight: "I made it." And he wants Saul to go through his channels and set up a meeting.
Out in some parking lot, Mike meets with Gus for a full debrief on Walt, including medical updates. But Mike's major takeaway is that Walt's gone off the rails and isn't coming back any time soon. "At least not by himself." He also mentions that the Cousins are apparently still stalking Walt, what with their ominous chalk drawings. week, I'm looking forward to a hopscotch grid with skulls in all the squares. Mike wonders why Gus doesn't just tell Walt about the Cousins. That'd certainly get him motivated to cook, knowing Gus is all that stands between him and certain, silent doom. But Gus doesn't believe in fear as a motivator. He's interested in Walt as an investment, and to that end, he's interested in the medical reports that say he's got 2-3 years of healthy living ahead of him, minimum. Mike also, almost as an afterthought, passes on that Jesse wants to set up a meeting. Gus doesn't work with junkies, a response Mike fully expected. But when Mike notes that Jesse and Walt are on the outs with each other, Gus's interest is piqued. He tells Mike to do the deal. Mike doesn't ask questions.
After the break, Hank's driving down a desert road and vigorously ignoring his bleating cell phone. He pulls into a driveway and checks his notepad, which is chock full of leads that have been crossed off. They've all led him here ... to the gas station from the beginning of the episode. After checking his messages -- the latest in what sounds like a long line of voice mails from the DEA brass telling him to get his ass to El Paso PDQ -- he heads inside. He chats up our same pie-faced clerk (who at this point needs a name, and Hank eventually calls her Cara, so she's Cara) from before; he's looking for a Matt Santos, but Cara tells him he got fired weeks ago and she hasn't seen him. Hank sounds slightly dubious, so Cara's like, "No really!" Hank delivers the un-shocking news that Cara is a pretty terrible liar. He produces the baggie of meth, and Cara is comically bad at denying knowing anything about it. Hank's voice gets SUPER intense as he starts yelling at her. He NEEDS to know where the meth came from, and she's going to tell him RIGHT NOW! Cara trembles that she tried it and hated it and gave it to Matt. Who gave it to her? Cara describes the encounter with Jesse, who she describes as a white guy with "really blue eyes -- really, really blue." Mmmm, girl, don't I know it. Anyway. After once again stressing how badly he needs to find this guy, Hank wrings out some more info out of a now-crying Cara (he drove an RV, for example), before finally noticing the totally obvious security camera pointed right at him. At which point, I think I channeled Walt and said, "God damn it, Jesse, you moron." Hank begs Cara to tell him that camera works. Cara's frightened, tearful face seems to indicate it doesn't. And indeed, Hank heads back to his car emptyhanded. Jesse dodges a bullet! Ah, but wait. Hank looks ahead and spots the ATM machine outside the store. As he peers at its screen, we get a POV shot from the machine itself. That fucker looks like it had a pretty good vantage point on Jesse's RV. "Bingo," Hank growls.
At the White house (hahaha, get it?), they're having dysfunctional-family breakfast, while poor Flynn sits around thinking his family's gotten back together. He even compliments Skyler on the eggs, which is nice to see. He notes the "weird"ness of the fact that it's been three days without a donation to the Save Walter web site. Walt, not one to miss a chance to be shitty, grouses that people lose interest, as he lets his cereal glop from his spoon back into the bowl. It's not that Flynn doesn't notice that Walt looks like a corpse and Skyler is hiding behind a wall of newspaper; it's just that this family togetherness is so fragile, he doesn't want to touch it, lest it fall down. He doesn't realize it's already fallen down. So he gently inquires about how long Walt's leave will last, and whether Walt can drive him to school. He asks Skyler if Walt can babysit Holly now, so Skyler doesn't have to take him to work. Skyler is clearly repulsed by the idea, but she's so happy to have Flynn talking to her again that she forces the world's most uncomfortable smile and chokes out a "Maybe. We'll see."
Jesse stands outside his car in the shadow of an overpass, smoking. Another car pulls up and, in a series of medium-to-long shots that keep Jesse and the other driver in silhouette, Jesse exchanges a knapsack full of meth for a bag o' money. The bagman, who is all business to the extreme, pulls away, but Jesse digs through the bag and is agitated. The bagman pulls around, and Jesse is able to lodge his complaint: it's only half! WTF? The guy's like, "Yep. Your half." He pulls away, leaving Jesse to wail about who gets the other half. By which I mean he yells, "Yo! Where's the other half, bitch?" I can't deny that I'm kind of glad to see Jesse's got the wigga spark back to him.
At the DEA, Hank's boss wants to know if Hank's going to El Paso or not. Hank's like, "Yeah! Of course! ...Just as soon as I harpoon this white whale o' mine." Bossman is dubious, to say the least, but he can't help but get caught up in Hank's enthusiasm for the blue meth case, Hank lays out the file, which now includes grainy B&W shots from the ATM machine. Hank has correctly deduced that the RV has been hollowed out for meth production and has narrowed the vehicle down to one of twenty-nine in the state of New Mexico. Even Bossman is impressed at how far Hank has closed in on these guys. Hank says the step is to go "knock on some doors," which brings Bossman back to Hank's avoidance of El Paso. "They need you in El Paso," he says. And not once the Heisenberg case is wrapped up -- now. Does Hank leave for El Paso tonight, or is he refusing the assignment? Hank, shamed and defeated, barely croaks out that he "can't" go to El Paso. He recovers his bluster to say that it's only because he's so close to cracking this case. But Bossman knows the score. And to his credit, he tells Hank he better get cracking on it, then. Man, that was a moment for Hank. You can't help but wonder if Walter had been able to scrounge up that small bit of humble-self awareness that Hank just did, how things might be different for him. Ah, but I've beat up on Walt enough for one week.
Walt's driving when he hears a radio news report about Donald Margolis -- Jane's dad, the ATC responsible for the plane crash, maybe you've heard of him? -- who was reportedly rushed to the hospital today after a suicide attempt. Walt can't change the dial fast enough, which seems to indicate that Walt feels the guilt of that chain of horrors extending from Jane's death, even if some of this show's fans don't think he should. Walt starts breathing heavy, like he might be having a panic attack, as he pulls up to a red light. Suddenly, the car behind him pulls up along his driver's side and tosses a back of money though his open window. "Your half," says the same bagman who exchanged with Jesse, then speeds away. Walt collects the cash money that has spilled out of the bag until the car behind him starts honking at him. Walt's got the green light. He surely does.
Joe R is patiently waiting for life to throw a bag of money through his open window. He can be reached for lavish praise and nothing but at joseph.reid21@gmail.com.
Want to immediately access TWoP content no matter where you are online? Download the free TWoP toolbar for your web browser. Already have a customized toolbar? Then just add our free toolbar app to get updated on our content as soon it's published.