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Jesse's hopping mad that Walt got half of his payout for doing exactly jack, but while Walt claims ignorance, he's also not about to give Jesse his half back. Walt correctly guesses the payout was an effort by Gus to coax Walt into cooking again. But when Walt goes to tell Gus face-to-face that it won't work, Gus takes Walt on a field trip to his laundering factory ... which also houses an industrial-strength meth lab. Later, when Saul mediates a supposed compromise between Jesse and Walt, Walt informs Jesse that he's cooking for Gus now, and Jesse better not try to cook Walt's meth recipe. The threat of what would happen in that case hangs heavily in the air.
Meanwhile, Skyler is growing increasingly bored with f*cking Ted. And she's certainly being seduced by the happy-family times at home, with Flynn actually smiling and joking with her. Also seducing Skyler? The giant sack of money in Walt's room. Despite the come-to-Jesus delivered by her suddenly awesome attorney, Skyler is nevertheless slightly chagrined when she sees Walt has signed the divorce papers.
Hank's still tumbling down his emotional black hole. He's even more intense about tracking down the RV -- and his doggedness pays off when he ends up finding the RV's original owner: the late Combo's mom. But he's still mopey and irritable and snapping at Marie, particularly when Gomez lands the promotion to El Paso he passed up.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously on Breaking Bad, Hank was too PTSD'd out to handle El Paso but wasn't entirely blowing smoke when he said he had a lead on the blue meth; Jesse cooked up a batch of blue himself, which made Walt angry for reasons of petty pride, proprietary privilege, and alliteration; Walt got a duffel bag full of cash from Gus for Jesse's trouble anyway; Skyler told her lawyer about Walt's dealing; and poor Combo got iced by a second-grader. That kid should be friends with that annoying girl from Kick-Ass.
This week begins farther back than any of those previouslies. Back when Walt still had hair, and 90% of his soul intact. Back when Walt scrounged up everything he had, shoved it in Jesse's twitchy palm, and told him to go out and buy an RV with it. Remember, back when Walt felt alive for the first time and all that? Of course, we remember that part. We don't remember what comes , which is Jesse and pals -- including long-since-forgotten cronies Combo and Skinny Pete -- baking a beeline to the nearest strip club and spending Walt's seven thou like it's paper route money. Much debauchery and pasty-clad boobery (we're still on basic cable here, Ted-f*cker) follows. Why is Jesse even more appealing when he's being the most stereotypical scumbag possible? I kinda don't want to know the answer to that. He brags to his pals that some old dude just gave him the money, before blowing all but a grand on lap dances and Dom and "skinny glasses like James Bond drinks from." At some point the whole thing just becomes a Cash Money video, and Jesse makes a double-entendre about his "fat stack," and before you know it, Jesse and Combo are out in the harsh morning light, and Jesse still has to procure an RV. Combo has the hookup.
Cut to some white-trashy driveway (yes, a driveway can look white-trashy; there's a quality to it), where Jesse is dwarfed by the RV in a nice bit of camera-trickery-that-doesn't-look-like-camera-trickery. He takes it all in. Combo emerges from the front door with a set of keys. Jesse asks if there's paperwork he has to sign. Does he... perhaps mean a note that says, "Thanks for letting me steal your RV, Mama Combo"? Is that what he needs to sign? Combo calls it a "paperless kinda deal." I really hope Jesse got it by this point. But still, Combo has to hustle him into the RV and out the driveway. Jesse peals out the driveway and knocks the hell out of two garbage cans, before barreling down the street and taking out anything else in his zig-zaggy path. Credits.
Back in the now, Skyler is in a bathrobe in what is clearly Ted Beneke's ultra-luxe bathroom. She's staring at her feet and whisper-moaning "I... love... this floor." It's apparently heated? Which Ted -- who is in the shower, trying not to make the fixtures seem sad and pathetic by association -- talks about like it was this upgrade he had to get talked into. I'm sorry, I understand most of the bougie luxuries people pay for -- heated car seats, mirrors that won't fog, whatever -- but is there really that much of a benefit to a heated bathroom floor? Particularly when there the toilet seat sits, icy cold as you please. Anyway, Skyler's totally into it, and she's not even interested in drawing lines from Ted extravagances to the embezzling he's doing "just to stay afloat." Ted rests his chin on Skyler's terrycloth-clad shoulder and asks if she'd like to start leaving some things here. Bathroom stuff, clothes, whatever. ...Yeah, Skyler's not really there yet. But that moment with the floor had me thinking she was considering getting there soon.
Back home, Skyler's taking on the much less luxurious task of setting the dinner table. With her feet at room temp like a sucker. She meekly asks Flynn to go fetch his dad, a request which Flynn could not be more giddily happy to carry out. Man, Skyler and Flynn are just gonna keep breaking my heart all season, huh?
Flynn taps on the closed door to what was Holly's nursery and is now Walt's ramshackle bachelor cave-cum-office. Or at least the closet is supposed to be the office. That's where Walt, crouched down on a stepstool and speaking in a fierce whisper, is carrying out his very important phone conversation with Jesse and Saul. Here's how that goes: Jesse is all, "Gimmie my half of the money, bitch! I made that deal all on my own, yo!" Jesse's convinced Walt made some deal with Gus behind his back, but Walt professes his innocence. Which, under these very limited parameters, is true. But the more Jesse accuses him -- and especially the more Jesse stresses that this was his product that Walt got paid for -- the more Walt gets defensive and proprietary. He stresses that he owes Jesse nothing, even while pledging to get to the bottom of this money situation. Jesse, who is probably just as heated about the shitty way Walt treated him the other day, is just incredibly heated, hurling invective after wigga-inflected invective. And every time Jesse spews a "bitch!" in Walt's direction, Saul sputters and begs Jesse not to "escalate" the situation. Seems Saul still has visions of getting the highly profitable band back together. Walt can't resist needling Jesse about cooking his formula without permission. Jesse rages that he needed no such permission because it's "our" formula. "MY METH, MY MONEY!" Jesse screams. Walt hangs up in the middle of Jesse's subsequent pledge to become a "one-man glass factory," and we're spared whatever kind of Chernobyl action that inspired over in Saul's office. Instead, Walt emerges from his closet, stepstool wedged around his ass, and goes to join his family for dinner.
Elsewhere, Hank and Gomez are staking out a random RV park, which seems like a comically low-rent use of night-vision goggles, but here we are. Hank is slinking around some random RV like he's Sydney Bristow's tubby, bald half-cousin, while Gomez watches and wonders how he ended up playing glorified Xbox with the world's most overinvested RV hunter. After executing a few tuck-n-rolls for fun (okay, not really), Hank returns to the car and declares that he "can't see a damn thing." Gomez looks like he really hopes none of his friends walk by and see him doing this. He doesn't see any sign that this RV is their meth RV, so why not head home and start fresh tomorrow. Hank ain't having that. He wants one more crack at it. Which is why the tubby, bald cop is soon after seen scaling the RV in question and trying to peek in through the moon roof. Inside, Hank spots something more horrifying than meth: half-clothed old people. As Gomez watches on the night-vision like it's a particularly retarded movie, Old Man No-Shirt chases Hank down from the roof. Cut to some time later (it's daylight now), when Hank has smoothed things over with Ma and Pa Kettle (which is how they're credited) and returns to a mortified Gomez. Hank suggests they "check out a couple more, then call it a morning." Rather than punch him square in the face, which Gomez totally should do, he instead begs off. He's gotta pack, he says meekly. For El Paso. Oh.
So, okay, I don't really know why it delights me to see that Marie has such an OCD manner of putting Splenda in her coffee -- four packets, lined up side by side, neatly opened one at a time into her little travel mug. It's the little things with Marie, but I sure do love her. Maybe it's because, as time has gone on, her petty kleptomania has really paled in comparison to the meth dealing and negligent homicide and embezzlement and adultery. Anyway, Marie hears Hank roll on in, and while she calls for him, he gruffly ignores her and goes to take a shower. Not that it stops Marie any. She's shocked to hear he intends to shower up and then head right back into the field. She also says she heard from Gomez's wife about his transfer to El Paso. Marie knows it's a sore subject so she's actually moving gingerly about it, not like the usual bull in a china shop conversational style she has. She knows why he turned El Paso down, she knows he's going through some stuff, and she even knows he doesn't want to talk about it. She actually approaches the issue quite well. Even so, Hank is visibly getting angrier at every question and eventually takes the classic argumentative shortcut: the personal attack. He accuses Marie of only caring about "that townhouse in Georgetown." She says she just wants to be included in his decisions, is all. And if he didn't want to go to El Paso, he could have talked to her about it. Hank flips out and starts yelling about all the important work he's doing here in New Mexico, and Marie, knowing he's still building that wall up, just walks away.
After the commercial, Walt is sitting in Gus's office at El Pollo Knockoffo. Walt drops the money on Gus's desk. He can't wait to lecture Gus about what an "obvious" ploy this was to lure Walt back into cooking for him. But oh ho ho! Walter White's momma didn't raise no meth-dealing dummy! He's too smart to fall for something like that. Rather than simply inquire with Walt as to who is presently sitting in whose office as if he's been summoned like an incredibly surly manservant, Gus plays it incredulous. Walt goes on, "As if I would seriously believe you would hire an addict." This has a basis in reality, of course. Gus made such a big deal about Walt's association with Jesse last season. But it also really plays into Walt's constant self-flattery. No way would an upstanding businessman like Gus work with a low-life like Jesse. Walt's more Gus's kinda people. "How he could possibly produce anything other than a mediocre product?" Walt sneers. "At best." Gus, unflappable as ever, says he's been told Jesse's product was "more or less consistent" with the quality of Walt's product. Which leaves Walt just delightfully slack-jawed. Can I hire out Gus to burst the bubble of other unjustifiably pompous people in my life? Walt can't believe what he's hearing. He then says Gus must think Walt has some proprietary hard-on for this formula, and that he'd come crawling out of the woodwork at the first sign that somebody else was profiting off of it. That is clearly a ridiculous accusation, sir, and one not at all borne out by the events of the last episode and a half! Gus is like, "So, wait, it's NOT like that?" Walt tries to sell Gus on the lie that it's all about the chemistry, baby. Like that Puff Daddy song. You know, the one that featured the Lox. Gus then decides to shift into the gear. He apologizes for being so "transparent" (flattering Walt again with the idea that he saw through Gus's master plan) and wonders if Walt would take a drive with him. Walt practically goes to fetch his leash.
Meanwhile, Skyler's in the car in front of Ted's palatial estate. She sees him pull in and smiles a bit, so it seems obvious that she was waiting for him to get home. But I wonder if there wasn't a bit of reticence to even get out of the car. Just a smidge. For now. She gets a call from Marie, who is babysitting Holly and is calling with an update. But she's really calling because she's worried about Hank. She doesn't know what to say to him, since El Paso. She explains about the turned-down promotion, and Skyler notes it's "much safer up here" in New Mexico. Which seems to me like pre-emptive irony given everything Walt is drawing up from Mexico. Marie begins to break down, saying Hank's just not the same guy anymore. "Facing death, it changes a person, it has to," she says, which definitely reverberates with Skyler. "Don't you think?" Skyler sits and contemplated just how true that statement is for her.
Gus has driven Walt out to one of his many warehouses. This one's not the chicken farm, with the cacophonous chatter of death on all sides. No, this one looks to be a laundry facility. Industrial-sized and all. Gus leads him through the factory floor, pulls a lever that clears out a false apparatus, and leads Walt into what waits on the other side. In this case, it's not Les Cousines Dangerouses. Or even a sex dungeon. (On come on, you know Gus must have a sex dungeon.) No, he leads Walter down into what must be Valhalla for chem nerds: a giant floorspace full of work stations and industrial sized vats and gleaming chrome everywhere. "Your new lab," Gus announces. Walt's slack-jawed, and from the corner of the camera, we can see a smirk flash across Gus's face. He's got him. The music even has a plinky, "oooh-oooh-oooh" Dorothy steps out into Oz quality to it. Walt takes inventory of the place, with its sodium oxide and reaction vessels. Oh, the liters! He's impressed. Gus says it took a long time to set up. He also says that, with the long-established laundry running upstairs, regular deliveries of chemicals in bulk won't raise any eyebrows. Also the air filtration is top notch so no meth clouds either. "I need 200 pounds per week to make this economically viable," Gus announces.
All this, but Walt still says no. "I've made a series of very bad decisions, and I cannot make another one." Gus strikes like a cobra. With precision and a plan. He gets Walt to admit he made those decisions for his family. And decisions made for your family cannot be bad. "What does a man do?" he asks. A man provides for his children. Armed with the knowledge of Walt and Skyler's estrangement, Gus does what any great debater or underhanded Republican strategist does: he changes the parameters of the discussion. It's all about Walt's children. Skyler's barely in the picture. As far as Gus's word-pictures about doing what you have to do for your kids are concerned. "A man provides," Gus reiterates. "And he does it even when he's not appreciated, or respected, or even loved." He bears the consequences, because he's a man. I said it before and I'll say it again: Gus has got him.
Back in Ted's bathroom, Skyler is once again in a bathrobe in front of the mirror, only this time she's not luxuriating in the warmth of Ted's heated floor. It looks like the conversation with Marie took root and now she's puzzling over what to do . She's so uncomfortable, even, that she places a towel down on the floor -- a literal buffer between her feet and Ted's fancy floor.
Back home, family dinner night is the least awkward one yet. Flynn compliments Skyler on dinner and even cracks a few jokes. And from the look on Skyler's face, you can tell that Flynn smiling back at her trumps any heated bathroom floor. Flynn gets up to go to homework/play video games, and after a rather heavy-handed shot from behind a pillar where Walt and Skyler are literally separated despite being at the same table, baby Holly starts to fuss. Skyler moves to go pick her up, but she looks over at Walt, whose face reads a distinct longing, and asks him if he'd like to. The mix of gratefulness and sadness on Walt's face is the most human he's looked all season. But even so, once Walt has picked Holly up, put her on his shoulder, and smiled about as wide as he ever has, he turns around to find Skyler has left the dinner table.
The day, the DEA offices are buzzing with the going away party for Gomez. Would you believe the only person not taking part in the festivities is Hank? I know, right? No, he's on the phone tracking down RV leads. Frustrated, he crosses the last contact off his list. Dead end. Of course, Hank's not afraid to ruin other peoples' good time, so he calls in Janice, who is walking down to the party with the actual cake. Hank doesn't notice or doesn't care. He asks her to check the databases again for more leads. To her credit, she asks him if this can wait 'til the end of the party, but Hank, with honest vulnerability, says he's "dead in the water" without new leads. Janice resigns herself to her fun new task.
Hank gathers himself and walks out to the celebration. He and Gomez banter like the buddy-cop movie they are. Hank says something racist! Gomez doesn't quite punch him! La la la la! Then, as often happens in conversations between two dudes who aren't saying what they really mean, there's a lull. In this quiet moment, Hank hands Gomez a little Mexican statue thing, then sincerely (and a bit sadly) tells him to "fight the good fight." Hard to tell if Hank's sullen because of his own opportunities lost or if he's worried about Gomez's head ending up atop a tortuga. A short time later, Janice returns to Hank with good news: one more RV listing. This one never had the registration renewed, but was also never rendered inoperational or destroyed. Hank gets a big ol' smile on his face. He's got daylight.
At home, Skyler is putting away laundry in Holly's room (which is right now functioning as Walter's room). She spots an ominous black duffel bag in Holly's closet/Walt's "office," and her curiosity gets the better of her. After nearly collapsing under the weight of the bag, Skyler opens it to find fat stacks. Though not the kind Jesse was talking about earlier. In a nice touch, some of the money still looks beat up from when Walt tried to burn it and then chucked it into the pool. Skyler's breathless at the sight of all this ill-gotten lucre. To her credit, she doesn't roll around the floor in it, like some people might. ...What?
The sight of all that money, unsurprisingly, has sent Skyler straight to the office of the only person she can tell about this: her lawyer. She admits that she's worried that any choice she makes at this point will be the disastrously wrong one. She also seems delightfully unhinged. The kind of fun way where at any point she might call an old lady a fucking cunt, and you really don't want to leave her side in case she does. She then broaches the subject of her affair with Ted. It seems fairly obvious that Skyler is happy to be able to tell someone about this. She initially says she doesn't know why she's sleeping with Ted, but that's a lie. She says everybody in her life -- Marie, Hank, Flynn -- thinks she's a bitch for what she's doing. And though Law Gal says she should just tell the truth about Walt, she can't. "How could I?" So sleeping with Ted, as much as she knows it's also about trying to get Walt to leave her, it's also about "the only thing in my day where I don't feel like I'm drowning." Anna Gunn is really good, you guys.
Lady Law takes it all in but does manage to stay on task. She asks if Walt's knowledge of the affair means he'll sign the papers. Skyler says Walt has entrenched himself, then sarcastically, self-pityingly congratulates herself for her brilliant tactical gambit. She then mentions the money Walt's keeping in the house. Lady Law's eyebrows about hit the ceiling. She asks if Skyler is asking her permission to spend this money. Skyler gets defensive, all "Hey, I'm just sayin' is all." Lady Law -- who at this point might just have to be my friend -- then says, "I'm half as qualified and twice the price of a therapist. There is nothing to discuss here, Skyler." Skyler says she's just saying, they have a history, he's the father of her children, and maybe he really did do this all for them. "Guess what?" my new best friend says, "That is one enormous load of horseshit." She spells it out even more explicitly: "You are a fool to stay in that house one minute longer ... You are now an accessory after the fact. You, your children, you could lose everything you own." Real talk. Skyler, tearfully, pleads, "I didn't marry a criminal." My non-romantic life partner doesn't budge: "Well, you're married to one now." What else can you really say about that? Except can we get this woman a name? I need to know who to address the flowers to.
Back home, Skyler wanders through an empty house. She peeks into Holly's room and sees all of Walter's things are gone. Inside the crib? Some signed divorce papers. Looks like that giant bag of money is going to be staying elsewhere.
Over to Saul's Strip Mall Lawmporium for the Main Event. Inside, Jesse waits for Walt to show up while Saul tries to get him to calm down and let him do all the talking. Jesse is sparking like a live wire, though. Saul's like, "Trust me, I've got your back" and asks if the parameters of Jesse's sobriety allow him to pop a Xanax and chill for a bit. He says he gets the Xanax from his 5-foot tall Asian "chiropractor." Using all appropriate air quotes, Saul says she "'adjusts you' to completion." Oh, Saul. Jesse, who may or may not have been listening to that at all, says he's outta here, but of course, that's just when Walt shows up. Saul stands up as Walt enters and is exceedingly formal/polite with the man who only last week tried to kick his ass. The men sit down, and Saul presents the "sweetheart" deal that Jesse is offering ("offering" seems a bit much considering how much Jesse is obviously not the one who wants this deal), where Walt would have to do fuckall and collect 10% of all Jesse's future earnings. "Consider it a gesture of respect for your valuable contributions to the business thus far." Saul is sure Walt will agree that's fair. Jesse turns and says it's "charity, is what it is. I do all the work and he sits around on his fat ass judging people." Saul again tries to stop Jesse from "escalating" while Walt glares silently at his former partner.
Saul then, gingerly, broaches the subject of the 50% payment that Walt was "mistakenly" given by Gus, but before Saul can even finish his spiel, Walt tosses the bag of money onto Saul's desk and says it's Jesse's to keep. While Saul wishful-thinkingly compliments how well everybody's getting along now, Walt turns his venomous glare directly at Jesse and tells him to enjoy the money, because it's the last he'll ever make in this business. Walt, deriving cruel pleasure from breaking this news, tells Jesse that Gus was only using him to get Walt to start cooking again, and that now he's entered into an arrangement with him. "[Gus] needs someone with expertise. Someone who knows what he's doing. In other words, he needs me." Jesse is shocked that Walt is cooking again, and Walt again bottom lines it for his former student: "I'm in. You're out."
Walt goes to leave on a high note, but Saul leaps to his feet, asking how much Walt's new deal is worth. At hearing the $3 million price tag, he immediately starts groveling to represent Walt again, for a reduced fee, of course. Saul flails around from 17%, but Walt won't budge from 5. Meanwhile, Jesse is probably a little too shocked to see Saul throwing him overboard like this. Come on, Jesse, this kind of weaseling is what Saul was built for. Jesse then gets up in Walt's face, raging that it won't stop him from cooking. Walt says he can cook up as much of the old stuff he wants, but don't even think about cooking Walt's formula. "Just try and stop me," Jesse seethes, leaving the room with a "...bitch!" Walt's face is now almost entirely in shadow, and you're pretty much forced to imagine what lengths Walt will indeed go to do just that.
Jesse stomps into the strip-mall parking lot, so angry he doesn't even know where to go. He picks up a loose hunk of curb, carries it over to Walt's car, and then heaves it at his windshield. It doesn't shatter, but the giant cracks spidering away from the point of impact are pretty much an exact replica of what happened after the plane-crash victims hit it. Momentarily satiated, Jesse picks up his bag of money and drives off.
Finally, Hank follows his lone remaining RV lead, and it takes him to the house of our old pal Combo. Of course, Combo ain't there no more so it's his Mom who answers. There's no one to protect anymore, so she eventually answers Hank's questions honestly. There's still sadness and shame in her voice when she talks about her own son, "Christian," stealing her RV and (as far as she knows) selling it for drug money. He was still her son, so she never reported it. "He ran with a bad crowd," she says, "but he was never a bad person." It's funny, you could probably say that about all four members of Jesse's sad little crew. Can you still say it about Walt?
Inside Combo's room, which is still stuffed with the video games and weed posters of a burnout who hasn't been gutshot by a grade-schooler, Hank picks up a photo. It's of Combo, Jesse, and the strippers from their wild night. The look on Hank's face says he's got no problem remembering Jesse, even with all those boobs distracting him. Closer and closer.
Joe R really does love that lawyer. He can be reached for lavish praise and nothing but at joseph.reid21@gmail.com.
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