Episode Report Card Joe R: A | 6 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Bang! What's Up With That Thang?
By Joe R | Season 4 | Episode 5 | Aired on 08.14.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.I'm once again just in for the recaplet, but I can tell you that both Joe R and I were very worried going in that this show had both the story motivation and the stones to kill Jesse off, and we apparently are not the only ones, as Walt is in such a frenzy at the beginning of the episode it looks like he's playing Grand Theft Auto in his Aztek and doing either a terrible or a wonderful job at it, depending on your point of view. He also instructs Saul to make sure Skyler gets all his money if he should, say, die in the next twenty-four hours, so apparently he's once again willing to lay down his life for Jesse, which is certainly the best thing left about Walt in my opinion.
He goes stalking into El Pollo Knockoffo with that gun he bought a couple weeks ago and demands to see Gus, but only receives a phone call from Mike and Jesse, who are still in the car. Mike silkily assures Walt that nothing is wrong, but while Jesse drops the devil-may-care attitude and starts worrying about his own well-being at what seems like the eleventh hour, Mike zigs just when you thought he was going to zag, as out in the middle of nowhere, he digs up a bag of money from a secret location and tells Jesse they have several similar stops to make. He doesn't reveal exactly why Jesse is along for the ride, only saying it wasn't his call, and I would discuss the hilarious ensuing montage in which Jesse acts like a child with ADD to the point where Mike literally has to pull the car over like the stern parent he is, but I'm too happy that Mike didn't take Jesse out back that I don't care about much else. While waiting for Mike at the last pickup, though, Jesse notices an armed thug striding purposefully toward the car and takes action to save the stash – except this development was all an elaborate ruse set up by Gus to make Jesse feel, essentially, like he's worth something on his own and as such doesn't need Walt. Nice to know that Gus is back to playing the deep games instead of, you know, the ones involving box cutters.
For his part, Walt is still panicked and barges into the back of El Pollo Knockoffo only to find that Gus has vanished (I wouldn't be surprised if he has a series of secret exits in the place that only he knows about), so Walt has little choice but to cook on his own and sit with a haunted look as he and Skyler officially purchase the car wash, and then Skyler tells him she needs there to be no more secrets between them from now on, which could be the funniest thing ever said on this show. Also, fueled by Skyler listening to Walt's panicked message from earlier, he and Skyler Do It for, presumably, the first time since Season Two. Of course, though, Walt can never be happy with anything that happens to him no matter how much he thought he wanted it, as apparently, his readmission to their marital bed only causes those immortal words "I fucked Ted" to start ringing in his ears, and when Skyler invites him to move back in, he looks at her like she just farted right in his face. Then at dinner over at Hank and Marie's, Walt, stewing as only he can, gets hammered enough to slur to Hank that Gale wasn't so great – he probably just copied someone else's work! The real Heisenberg is likely still out there! Skyler, unsurprisingly, looks like she might commit murder/suicide during this speech, and probably actually will when she finds out that it made Hank take one more look at the Heisenberg case – and link Gale suspiciously to El Pollo Knockoffo. This is one of those episodes where it seems like nothing happened, and then you realize kind of everything did. -- Couch Baron
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Thanks once again to Couch Baron for coming to my rescue with the recaplet. Previously, Walter got worried that Hank would connect Gale's murder to Jesse, while Mike and Gus fretted that Jesse could be the downfall of their whole operation simply for being sloppy and generally checked out of life. So Mike took Jesse on a little road trip.
This week's pre-credits vignette probably shuts up the two or three people who complain about this show not being action-y enough. Because this sequence is 100% Walter racing his product-placed Aztek (I had previously embraced the Aztek as the kind of product placement I like because the car spoke so much to Walt's suburban displacement in the drug world, but that glamor shot of the car logo really made me squeamish) all over Albuquerque. He's frantic that Jesse is, right at this moment, being murdered, and the panic and concern that Walt's currently experiencing for someone else (especially poor Jesse) is encouraging. Then Walt decides to double-down (card-shark terminology!) on caring about other people by making a frantic call to Skyler. Actually, first he calls Saul, but it's only to make sure that in the event of his untimely demise -- which might happen, oh, any minute now -- Skyler gets all his money. "Every last dollar." When he does call Skyler, he gets her voicemail. In the calmest tone he can manage (the soundtrack helps him by downshifting into lullaby music, which is a nice touch), he says he just wanted to say he was thinking about her and the kids, "...and I love you." And then he reaches under the seat for his gun because it's back to the car chase!
After the title card, Walt comes screaming into the parking lot at El Pollo Knockoffo. To his credit, he does not take a handicapped spot -- you know, for a guy who's intending to murder his boss in a few minutes, Walt's being unusually conscientious today. Inside, he badgers the poor girl at the counter to let him see Gus Fring. The Sofia Coppola-ish girl is not having it. Gus isn't here, et cetera. With every denial, Walt gets angrier. He basically plays the "Do you know who I am?" card, like the name "Walter White" is supposed to open the secret vault to Gus's pleasure dome. Walt finally decides to wait at a table until she announces his presence to Gus.
Of course, the wait only allows Walt's exponentially-expanding paranoia to truly flourish. Every security camera, every car pulling into the lot, every glance the counter girl shoots at him becomes fraught with dread. Finally, his phone rings; it's Mike, adopting the world's weariest tone and wondering just what the hell Walt thinks he's doing. So obviously Gus IS there, somewhere. Or else word travels awfully fast in that dry New Mexico air. Walt demands to know where Jesse is, and when he doesn't believe Mike's "he's with me" assurances, Mike puts Jesse on the phone. If you thought Jesse would be more forthcoming with answers for Walt, you're really underestimating the degree to which Jesse has stopped giving a fuck. "We're driving," he says. Driving where? "I dunno...north?" And while I personally found that part encouraging (i.e. they're not headed to the Mexican desert so Mike can feed Jesse to the cartels or something), Walt is endlessly frustrated at not only Jesse's lack of information but at the fact that Jesse doesn't seem overly concerned for his life at the moment. Walt's been screaming all over town, breaking every traffic law ever invented, and now has made a scene at Pollos, all for Jesse, who is barely raising his voice. Mike takes the phone back and tells Walt that "Jesse's with me today," and Walt should get back to the lab and muddle through today's cook solo. Walt should be taking Mike's conditional word usage ("today" implies that there will be a tomorrow, for Jesse) as comfort, but he's too busy shaking with rage at being brushed off -- by Gus, by Mike, and even by Jesse. So he decides to plow past the girl at the counter, through the employees' area, and into Gus's office. Which is empty. "This area is for employees only," the counter girl says. "I have to ask that you leave immediately." I suppose Walt can't exactly explain that he IS an employee, now can he?