Episode Report Card Joe R: B+ | 3 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT I See You
By Joe R | Season 3 | Episode 8 | Aired on 05.09.2010
er, in her best moment this week, smiles a joyless but knowing smile at Walt, then walks away without giving him the satisfaction.What follows is a scene that's almost surreal in its mundanity, with the family sitting around a hospital cafeteria table, and Marie fixated on the silverware. She says it's dirty; Skyler and Flynn try to convince her they're just water spots. Marie's on the edge of melting down and jamming her water-spotted fork in someone's eye, so Walt steps up with a story. About when he had his cancer operation at this very hospital. He muses about driving to the hospital that day and hitting every green light. And how he desperately wanted to spend a few more minutes with his family. And how scared he was. This doesn't feel like overt manipulation, but nevertheless, Skyler has tears in her eyes. Maybe because she's remembering a time before her life fell apart. "Anyway," Walt sums up to Marie, "I survived this place. And I'm not half the man your husband is." False humility hiding some actual truth there.
In his office at El Pollo Knockoffo, Gus gets a call from Juan Bolsa. Gus answers it with more pissy exasperation than he's mustered all season, so you know he's got the upper hand. Juan's all fired up about what happened to the Cousins, while Gus is playing it cool, wondering why they'd go after a DEA agent. Juan is no fool, though. He knows Gus is behind this. He says the next shipment will be delayed until things at the border calm down, plus then he'll be able to get the full story from Leonel. Gus notes that Leonel may be alive. But he's still in custody. "God bless America," Juan says, in Spanish. "He's innocent until proven guilty." And Juan plans to hire the fanciest, most expensive lawyer there is (sorry, Saul) to get him out. "Keep me apprised," says Gus, not doing a good job of faking upbeat. This is bad news for the Chicken Man.
At the hospital, Marie and the fam are getting an update from the doctor, who says Hank is out of surgery and doing well. She just can't see him yet, until he stabilizes. But good news. Though not good enough that Marie will entertain thoughts of going home and getting rest. "Me neither," says Flynn, in adorable solidarity. Walt offers to swing by their houses and pick up toothbrushes and stuff, and in the hallway he bumps into Gomez. He updates the boys in blue on Hank's condition, and it doesn't take too long for talk to drift to the POS who put Hank here to begin with. Gomez fumes about the cushy bed and painkillers that scum gets to enjoy while Hank is unconscious. "Your tax dollars at work," chimes in one of the cops, who really must've had a hard time choosing sides in the health care debate ("Hmm, well I certainly don't think everybody has a right to health care ... but on the other hand, I really like the sound of these death panels!"). Walt tries to sound supportive of their rage without actually contributing anything. I often find that the best strategy when chatting with cops.
So Gomez and Tax Dollars lead Walt up the escalator and down the hall to Leonel's room. They're followed by every damn cop in New Mexico, which means the turquoise handicrafts industry is going dangerously unregulated at the moment. As they peer in on the seemingly unconscious Leonel, Gomez cranks the impotent rage meter up so high that I start to hope the Cousin wakes up and goes all Juarez on his ass. And then he does! Well, he wakes up at least. But it's not Gomez he's staring at. No, it's the guy who looks a hell of a lot like that drawing of Heisenberg. (Speaking of which: how awesome is this shirt?) He gets SUPER intense, so I guess those taxpayer-supplied painkillers aren't quite so plentiful. He pulls himself to a sitting position, never once taking his eyes off of Walt. Then he pulls the sheet off of him and reveals the TWO STUMPS WHERE HIS LEGS USED TO BE. Yeah, turns out "wet bag of gravel" is a bad omen for your femurs.
And THEN! As if that wasn't enough to blow your mind, Leonel then rips off whatever tubes are still connected to him and hurls himself at the floor. He them proceeds to crawl towards Walt, in a perverted reflection of the crawl to Santa Muerte in the season premiere. With his BLOODY STUMPS leaking behind him. And then it takes like seven doctors and cops to pull him back. Because they're using PCP for painkillers in Albuquerque. Amazing scene.
After the commercial break, we return to a very different vibe: Jesse wheeling himself around the empty lab on a rolly chair. He's half bored, waiting for Walt so they can start cooking, and half overstimulated by all the gadgets and doodads in the lab. Case in point: an air hose that he uses to full his coveralls up so he looks like a parade balloon. He's a child, but he's a very happy child. Of course, Bag Man shows up to find him dancing around in his puffy suit, which even Jesse has to find embarrassing. Impassive as ever, Bag Man asks why nothing's cooking. Jesse doesn't know how to answer that one.
Walt pulls back into the hospital parking lot -- the tape is still on his second new windshield of the season, in a nice nod to continuity -- and next thing we know, he's once again answering the white courtesy phone. The sight of Walt chatting with his meth-cooking partner in the middle of a lobby filled to busting with cops is a striking one. "Reverend," Walt bullshits, "so nice of you to call." He then steps out into the parking lot, so he can talk to Jesse for real. And by "talk," I mean "lecture and harangue Jesse about bothering him." But Jesse tells him about Bag Man's visit, and how they have a quota to meet. Walt's distracted, though, and asks Jesse to remember back to Tuco, and how he had threatened them that people were coming up from Mexico to take care of them. Jesse vaguely recalls, but ultimately doesn't care to rack his brain too hard. Which is easy for him to do, since he didn't see the stumpy-legged Diablo crawling across a bloody floor with murder in his eyes. "His cousins," Walt brainstorms, "right? It was his cousins?" Jesse's all, "Sure, yeah, that's a possibility." He asks why, but Walt hangs up on him. He's finally as freaked as he should have been all season.
Walt returns with toothbrushes and stuff, and the women head off to make themselves pretty. Which gives Walt a chance to talk to Flynn. He brought the book Flynn had asked for -- a copy of Killing Pablo. Flynn explains that Hank gave it to him, the story of the men who hunted down cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar. Hank said that while everybody knows Escobar's name, it'd be good to learn about the guys who brought him down. "He said the good guys never get ink like the bad guys," remembers Flynn. This statement lands on Walt with appropriate gravity. Then he gets another phone call and again flees to the parking lot. This time it's Gus. Walt bullshits that he and Jesse are "hard at work," but when Gus presses for delivery of product tomorrow, Walt says they won't be able to make that. "But not for a lack of trying!" he stresses. It's uncomfortable watching someone lie knowing that the person they're lying to knows the whole truth. Gus gives Walt every opportunity to come clean, but Walt simply blame-shifts the whole thing onto Gale. Look, I understand why Walt wouldn't want the local kingpin to know he blew his deadline while standing in a waiting room with 100 DEA agents all day, but still, that takes some balls to blame Gale. Gus keeps silent and lets Walt pull out enough rope to hang himself with, ultimately promising 400 pounds by next week. "I have your word on that?" asks Gus. Walt assures him. Sucker.
Night falls on Albuquerque. Gomez sees Walt wandering the halls and asks if there's any news (there's not). In the background, Leonel is unconscious in his hospital bed. Walt fishes for information on who this guy and his brother are. Gomez says they don't know, but they will eventually. This, naturally, concerns Walt. As does this question he asks Gomez: "Do you think there could be others?" Gomez assures him that "nobody's getting to Hank." Which is hilarious in that it's not remotely why Walt was asking. "I'd love to walk in there and shoot that bastard right in the head," Gomez rages. "Me too," says Walt, with way more convincing badassery. I wondered at this point whether Walt would try to manipulate Gomez into doing just that. After all, what does Walt care if Gomez ruins his life/career? One less DEA agent, right? But he just keeps staring ahead. Gomez gets a phone call and announces to all that food's here. "Hey," he asks Walt, "you like [El Pollo Knockoffo]?" Gomez says the owner is "a big booster for the DEA" and he brought enough chicken to feed every officer in the building. And he brought it over personally! Walt looks like the dividing walls in his double life just came crashing down. Which they have.
After the break Walt and Flynn are enjoying the delicious chicken, while Skyler and Marie are chatting with "Mr. Fring." Skyler tells Walt Gus just said he's offering a $10,000 reward for any information about Hank's shooting. It's interesting, with as much as Skyler knows about Walt's business, to see her dealing with Gus, who she has NO idea is the local kingpin. Walt fixes his side eye on Gus as the Chicken Man serves up country-fried horseshit to Marie about Hank and the "thin blue line." Merkert, too, wants to shake his hand, which is even more perverse than Skyler not knowing. Gus tells the room a story about the time he met Hank, after he was a sponsor for the Agency's Fun Run. Gus makes special mention to Walt about how Hank was collecting money for Walt's cancer treatments at the time, and gosh, he sure hopes things have improved on that front. Aaaaand now it's Walt's turn to be completely in the dark. "Things have improved, yes." Says Walt, choking the words out. Gus then takes his leave, but not before once again accepting the accolades