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In an episode where Marie, Badger, Skinny Pete, Andrea, and Brock all make their Season 5 debuts, the show also adds Landry from Friday Night Lights in what may either be a showy one-off or a character whose role will expand in coming episodes but who is either way a shameless attempt at getting the TV critics to somehow gush about this show more than they've been already.
Meanwhile, Walt, Jesse, Mike, and Saul are on the hunt for a new place to cook, and after finding flaw with a handful of factory spaces, they settle upon a less conventional idea: hitch their wagon to a fumigation company and move their cook operation from house to house every week or so. After cooking their first batch, though, Walt finds the division of the spoils to be unsatisfactory, particularly after Mike pulls a hundred grand out of each of their shares in order to maintain payoffs for the list of Gus's former employees whom they need to keep quiet. Mike ends up winning the standoff, but Walt is already entertaining ideas of cutting Mike out of the business, permanently.
While having lunch with a particularly yammering Marie, Skyler ends up going full Apu on her sister ("I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DON'T SHUT UP!"), and Marie takes her home and waits for Walt's return to ask him what's up with his wife having a total fucking breakdown. Walt manages to think quickly enough to blame the whole thing on Ted Beneke, which had to give him some satisfaction.
Finally, Walt and Jesse have a heart-to-heart about relationships and honesty that is positively vibrating with subtext, as Walt tries to broach the subject of how close Jesse and Andrea are becoming and whether he's going to decide to be honest with her about the business. The upshot is that Jesse ends things with Andrea, which is ultimately to Walt's advantage. Funny how that keeps happening.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!At a local prison, an affable, doughy, nondescript lawyer checks in to meet with a client, one Dennis Markowski, and he's brought his paralegal with him. That paralegal, of course, is Mike. I'm so glad to see he had a backup career ready to go! Inside the meeting room, the lawyer sits and drums his fingers and listens to headphones, while Mike goes to business. He explains to Markowski about what happened to Chow and tries to perform some rumor control: it wasn't a message and it wasn't payback; it was a third-party action that's been taken care of. More importantly, he wants to assure Markowski that his deal with Gus Fring is still in place. Markowski is understandably dubious: not only did the Feds take away his "hazard pay," but Fring's entire organization burned to the ground, or hadn't you heard? He maintains that he's no rat and that he'll do his time without talking, but he's positive someone else is gonna flip. Mike insists no one's flipping because he insists the hazard pay will be there. He's got something new in the works, and he promises Markowski that he will be "made whole." Markowski still can't quite believe it, but he ends up taking Mike at his word.
As Mike and the lawyer leave the meeting room, the lawyer talks about the other prisoners at other prisons they will need to meet. He can't imagine Mike intends to see them all today, but oh, Mike does. And the stress of these meetings has him a bit on edge. Which we see when he screams at the security camera for someone to unlock a particular door. People, just let Mike go about his business, jeez.
After the credits and some commercials, we see Walt at home, moving his clothes back in to his closet, cheerfully defiant of Skyler's obvious reservations about him moving back into the house. Oh, he'll hold on to the condo, sure, but "it's time" he was back "home." Skyler, as ever (at least this season), looks shaky about it.
Better Call Saul. Outside Saul's office, Mike does his crossword while Huell looks on and breathes loudly. Inside, Saul is upset with Walt and Jesse that Mike, the guy who so viciously threatened to break his legs once upon a time, is invading the Three Amigos vibe they've got going. "Saul," Walt condescends, "Mike threatened me. He threatened Jesse. He probably threatened someone before breakfast this morning. It's what he does. Come on. Grow a pair." Saul wants it noted that he does this under duress, and then has Huell let Mike in.
First order of business (after brushing off a make-nice attempt by poor Saul) is that Mike wants the division of labor to be crystal clear: Walt does the cook, Mike handles the business. Bottom line. Walt is not to interfere with the way Mike conducts his business. Walt takes this in and gives his assent, so Mike, satisfied, leads them out to tour the possible sites for their new operation. Saul pulls Walt aside and asks if he's really okay with Mike laying down the law like that. Walt says he is: "He handles the business. And I handle him."
And so begins the tour of factories! Starting with a visit to Albuquerque's box factory! Oh boy! I'm hoping we're working a theme here and that the couple places to scope out are the cracker factory and Krustylu Studios! Saul seems to think this place has all the amenities: lots of noisy box-making, an agreeable owner, sufficient electricity usage to mask their own spike on the power grid, a horrendous smell to mask the meth's own telltale odor, and a staff full of illegals eager and motivated to keep their mouths shut. Mike grumpily nods his approval (pending vetting, of course), but as soon as you realize that Walt has broken off from the group to wander about the machines, you just know he's going to have a problem. He muses that he once worked at a box factory and recognizes this one machine as a corrugator: it uses steam and salt to crimp cardboard. Saul's like, "Yeah, and it's hella loud and stinky while it does it!" But Walt is getting at a different point: the steam and salt will render the environment inhospitable to a cook. Per Jesse, bluntly: it'll ruin the product. Saul whines about picking up a few dehumidifiers at Costco, but everybody else is already moving on to the place.
We're then treated to a tour of unsatisfactory locations. First, a tortilla factory that would end up producing tortillas that smelled "like cat piss" (thanks, Jesse) if they cooked there. Besides, Walt declares all food production facilities are out, as they're subject to unannounced government inspection. Jesse adorably grabs a super fresh (it's still puffy!) tortilla on his way out.
to be rejected, without so much as leaving the car, is the laser tag place last seen when Jesse sprinted out of there to go kill Gale. Nobody wants to remember that place. Note: Sadly, there's no visit to the nail salon! It could have been perfect, maybe! -- Rachel.]
It's nighttime and Saul's pretty demoralized when the team arrives at Vamonos Pest, a tiny little garage of a place behind barbed wire fencing. Saul makes a halfhearted case for the place, knowing Walt's just going to reject it. Which of course means Walt's going to be into it, because he's THAT asshole. Jesse and Mike hate it, so obviously Walt's going to find a reason why this is the place. And that reason seems to be the big heap of green and yellow tarp in the corner.
After the break, it's the morning, and Team Walt is in the car, watching a fumigation crew tent a house with that same green and yellow tarp. Walt explains his bright idea: the fumigation company rolls up on a house, tents it, the family leaves, and it's like that for several days; nobody looks twice at a tented house; nobody thinks to investigate strange smells from a tented house; and nobody would go inside. They pick one house to hitch their wagon to each week, they cook their batch, they clear out. Jesse notes that the challenge would be setting up the lab and taking it down again for each cook, but Walt says it's do-able. Mike asks Saul for the 411 on the pest control company. Saul points out the various members of the crew, including a cute young white guy named Todd who is played by former Friday Night Lights star Jesse Plemons, which, as I said in the recaplet, is just SHAMELESS critic-bait casting. Everybody already loves you, Vince Gilligan! No need to gild the lily. (Seriously, though: hey, Landry!)
Anyway, Saul explains that the Vamanos M.O. is to fumigate the places on the up-and-up, then copy the keys and either sell them to third-party thieves or wait a few months and come back themselves. So think about that the time you catch a cockroach in your kitchen and decide to bomb your house out. Saul vouches for Ira and his crew, says if you buy them, they stay bought. Mike is circumspect, but he seems more or less okay with it. He asks if they should take a vote, but Walt, petty as ever, simply says, "Why?" So Saul shoots Ira the thumbs-up.
And now for today's wonderful diversion into unexpected beauty: you know who's a hell of a piano player, apparently? Skinny Pete! I know! [Note: Apparently Charles Baker practiced three hours a day for a month for that one scene.] Pete and Badger are back, which is enough to warm my heart anyway, and they're noodling around in a music shop, where Pete is playing the keyboard and showing off some major fingering skills. (Oh, grow up.) Badger is taking a somewhat more blunt approach to the double-neck guitar he's jamming on. But these two wonderful boys didn't come here just to try out instruments. They're looking to buy roadie equipment -- heavy duty roadie cases, that can bear a ton of weight, lock up tight, and fit through regulation doorways. And they need four of 'em. The somewhat nonplussed employee offers to stencil their band name on the cases, and the time we see them, they've got "VAMONOS PEST" stenciled on them.
Pete and Badger deliver the cases to Jesse and enthuse about how it looks like he's is back in business with fat stacks of cash. Jesse downplays it and just generally seems like he's outgrown these two knuckleheads, loveable though they may be. But even so, when they ask if there's any place for them in Jesse's new venture, he kind of waffles and contemplates. That is, until Mike emerges, like the disapproving father figure he is (all, "Didn't we talk about you falling into old habits?"), and Jesse gets serious again and tells the guys maybe someday. Later, Pete and Badger! Missed you guys!
up. Mike delivers new marching orders to Ira and his crew: they're to continue to do their jobs like normal, only with one exception: no more burglary. No more selling keys to criminals. Everything about the business is on the up-and-up. In return for that, they'll get paid by the meth operation. Mike then gestures to Walt and Jesse, hanging at the back of the room. He tells the workers as far as they're concerned, these two guys are ghosts, not to be addressed or acknowledged, "but if either one of them says jump, you don't ask why." He says if they must be addressed, call them Yes Sir and No Sir. Walt and Jesse stifle a laugh at this and smile at each other, partly in appreciation for Mike blunt operational style, and (I think more for Jesse) partly at the idea of being called "sir."
Later, at Jesse's house, Jesse and Walt go over some sketches of equipment Jesse drew, as he explains to Walt his ideas for most efficiently moving the equipment into and out of the houses. Walt is impressed at the work, and despite how fucked up this whole situation is on a macro level, I'm still SO PROUD of Jesse for how far he's come. He's even imparting wisdom from his little study-abroad excursion with Gus into Mexico! Applied learning! Anyway, he's cut off when Andrea and Brock return home, and that's when my stomach starts to turn. Walt introduces himself as Jesse's friend, and then instead of escaping into the night like the vermin he is, Walt makes a point to shake little Brock's hand and ask how he's feeling after being sick. On the bright side, I now officially know that no matter how loud I scream "KILL HIM, JESSE!" at the TV screen, the characters can't hear me. Andrea and Jesse leave the living room, leaving Walt and Brock on the couch, and Walt stares over at Brock like he's the living embodiment of his damnation. Which he very much is.
After the break, the Vamonos Pest crew rolls up on a nice looking house, and while Ira goes over the paperwork with the family's father, the tent is already going up over the house. The dad blanches at the volume of equipment being rolled into the house, but Ira talks enough about larvae and such that he ends up signing the papers and leaving with his family and no further questions. No sooner is the family gone than Walt and Jesse arrive, to the silence Mike earlier mandated. Todd is the only one who pipes up, informing the Sirs that there's a nanny-cam inside; he already disabled it, but he wanted them to know. Brown-noser. So is this the extent of Landry's role on this show, or should we expect him to become important later on?
Inside the house, it's MONTAGE TIME, as Walt and Jesse set up their equipment and get to cooking. To some smooth, jazzy rendition of "On a Clear Day." This show really likes to stretch out its muscles, visually speaking, when it comes to these meth montages. Slow-mo and molecular-view animations (the crystallization process looks like the opening credits of Fight Club).
After the cook is finished, Walt and Jesse relax on this borrowed family's couch, crack open a beer, and watch the Three Stooges. Their talk soon turns towards Andrea, and Walt plays the part of concerned -- more moreover proud -- father figure, whose speech to Jesse is all about how he needs to make his own choice about whether to tell Andrea about what he's doing with his life. On the six levels that this conversation is operating on, one of them acknowledges that letting his wife in on his secret life certainly has not improved their relationship. On another, there's almost a hopefulness in Walt to believe what he's saying to Jesse -- that someone else might manage it better than he did. Of course, at the most basic level, we can only assume that while Walt is talking the talk of openness and Jesse making his own decisions as a man, Walt has no intention of letting Andrea fuck up his business, and we know just how far he's willing to go to stop it. So the effect, when we see Jesse's face brighten at Walt's assertion that he can choose to tell Andrea if he wants, is of watching Jesse wade into shark-infested waters unknowingly.
"They're leaving streaks!" These, the judgmental words of a busybody, are coming from none other than Marie Schrader. GOOD TO SEE YOU, GURL! I'm so happy to see Marie that I am going to cheerfully go over how she's nitpicking the work of the car wash employees (well, just one, really; the "more ethnic-looking one" is doing a great job) on not leaving streaks. At her desk, Skyler is too busy eating her salad and continuing to have a quiet nervous breakdown to notice. She perks up a bit to hear that Hank is back at work, but Marie blows right past that to complain about how the jerks at the DEA didn't believe him for so long. Skyler's face falls whenever Marie mentions the "chicken man" Hank turned out to be right about, as that leads her down some sad, scary pathways.
Marie then changes the subject to Walt's upcoming birthday, and lets Skyler know that she's available to help with whatever plans there are. Skyler nervously says she doesn't think they're doing anything this year. Marie finds that unfathomable -- after all, Walt was diagnosed with his cancer around his birthday. (Chalk another one up for viewers who saw the symmetry between episode one's birthday and the birthday we saw in the season premiere's flash-forward.)
Skyler remains evasive in the face of Marie's yammering disapproval, though she ends up doing the one thing guaranteed to earn her even further yammering disapproval: she pulls out a cigarette and lights it up. Well now Marie's going into hyper-drive, emphasis on the "hyper." You can't smoke indoors, you certainly can't subject employees to secondhand smoke, and since when does she smoke anyway, and considering the baby, and Walt, and and AND... Finally, Skyler does what any of us would do (and I say this as someone who loves and cherishes Marie very much) as she turns around and tells her sister to shut up. Marie, of course, doesn't, so Skyler says it again. And again. Yells it, even. Fourteen times in total, crescendoing into a scream and following it by sobbing down into her chair. Marie shares the same "DUDE!" expression that I assume most of the audience has.
After the commercial break, we return to the Vamonos Cook House of the Week, where we're treated to a nice shot of a cockroach crawling across the kitchen island (well, they haven't started fumigating yet, to be fair). Walt and Jesse are in the weighing-and-bagging stage, and the results are good. Walt claims it an "excellent" yield. On their way out the door, they start the gas machines, and the inside of the house fogs up. They were never there.
Back at the White family abode, Marie sits disconcertingly still on the couch, staring straight ahead at nothing. Waiting. Walt returns home and forces himself to act casual as he asks why she's here. She says Skyler's in the bedroom, resting. Cut to Walt sitting across the coffee table from his sister-in-law, reacting to her off-camera news that Skyler had a "breakdown." At least, that's as best as Marie can describe it. Walt, of course, first wants to make sure Skyler didn't say anything incriminating, but Marie just reports back about the "SHUT UP SHUT UP!" part, and of course the smoking. She's pissed that Walt didn't return the five phone messages she left him. Marie's all urgent whispers here, not wanting to rouse Skyler, but she demands to know what's going on and tells Walt she's not leaving until he tells her. Is he gambling again? Is it -- God forbid -- the cancer? It's interesting, Walt having to think on his feet like this. The last time Marie needed a cover story this bad, Skyler spun straw into gold with the lie about Walt's gambling addiction. Now he's gotta tapdance all on his own. Lucky for him, he's got a story simmering not far below the surface of his thoughts: Ted Beneke.
He tells Marie about the unfortunate incident of ol' Ted and his fractured vertebrae and posits that as the reason Skyler's in a mood. This doesn't make sense to Marie at first, until Walt's all, "You do know ... right?" Suddenly, it all clicks: Skyler was having an affair with Ted. Oh is this ever sweet for Walt. He gets a cover story and a chance to expose his wife's whoring transgression. He plays the forgiving husband with Marie, earning him a big sympathetic hug. She decides to leave without any further inquiry. Walt asks her not to say anything, you know, considering. Crisis averted. With Marie gone, Walt stalks into kitchen and bites into an apple in the most sinister way ever.
Meanwhile, Jesse is at home, watching Brock and Andrea play video games. He's pretty well lost in thought, and Andrea asks if he's okay. She doesn't get much of an answer.
Skyler is also lost in thought, staring at ceiling in her bedroom, hearing the sounds of gunfire from the room. They're coming from the TV of course, as Walt is watching Scarface with Junior and Holly. It's the "say hello to my little friend" scene, and the whole thing is a nice winking tribute to Vince Gilligan's oft-reported mission statement for the show (taking a man from Mr. Chips to Tony Montana). It's quite the sight for Skyler to walk in on: her kingpin husband gleefully shepherding her children through a celebration of extreme kingpin violence. Junior invites her to join; she doesn't, but she doesn't object either, mostly because she can't seem to speak. Walt, meanwhile, is loving life. "Everyone dies in this movie, huh?" he enthuses to his son, as the machine gun fire from the TV dissolves into the rattling of a money-counting machine in the scene.
It's the day, and Mike has counted and stacked all the money in three equal cube-shaped piles in front of him, Walt, and Jesse. $367,000 each. Walt immediately objects -- after the dealers got their cut, they cleared over $1.3 million. What happened? Already annoyed by this line of questioning, Mike responds that the mules (drivers) get a 20 percent cut off the top. Walt is incredulous and asks what Gus paid his drivers. Mike says Gus didn't have to pay drivers because he spent 20 years setting up his own distribution network, including 16 refrigerated trucks. Maybe if Walt didn't want to pay 20 percent, he shouldn't have killed Gus and doomed his entire operation to federal impound.
Jesse moves in to break up what's now becoming an argument, but Mike's on a roll. He brings up the fact that the methylamine, which was free this time, is going to come at a hefty price the time. Now, to further divide up the spoils: Jesse fronted $120,000 to get the operation off the ground, so he gets paid back by Walt and Mike. Ira gets a cut, and so do his guys, and so does Saul. The main point of contention ends up being the "legacy cost" -- that's what Mike is calling his unilateral decision to re-establish the "hazard pay" hush funds for those nine men sitting in prison and (currently) keeping their mouths shut. Walt, of course, doesn't like this one bit; as far as he's concerned, these are Gus's employees, Mike's guys, and it's not HIS fault they're in prison, so why should their payoff come from his profits? Mike grumbles back that paying these guys not only ensures that the feds will stay off their trail (which reminds me -- HOW is Mike not under some kind of police surveillance right now?), but it's also "what you do." Walt, of course, has no respect for the old power structure (nor, more specifically, any kind of system that requires him to show deference to anyone), and he whines that this is a shakedown, it's blackmail. Oh grow up, Walt. Mike simply insists that business is his part of their agreement, so it's his decision, the end. Walt slams his hands down on the money and says it should come solely out of Mike's cut. Like a classic child of divorce, Jesse volunteers to pay Walt's share out of his own profits; anything to keep Dad and Dad from yelling at each other. Sufficiently shamed by the selflessness of his surrogate son, Walt swallows his rage and agrees to pay up. Mike rubs it in that this is going to be an ongoing expenditure so Walt best get comfortable with it.
Walt takes a look at the money he's got left: $137,000. That's less than he made when he was with Fring. Mike looks at Walt without the faintest whisper of pity: "Just because you shot Jesse James don't make you Jesse James." BOOM.
Mike heads to his car, but Walt hangs back with Jesse and muses. He asks Jesse how he feels. Jesse says he broke it off with Andrea; the specter of confessing what he's doing ... what he's done ... Gale ... it was too much. Unlike his show of paternal concern the night before, Walt doesn't even have it in him to pretend to be concerned right now. He meant how does Jesse feel about their meager cut. Jesse wisely injects some perspective and says while working for Gus, they cooked 200 lbs. a week; this batch was under 50. They cleared less money but got a bigger piece of the pie. He tosses Walt's own words back at him: they're owners now, not employees. Walt doesn't acknowledge this much and instead changes the subject to poor Victor. At the time, Walt says, he figured Gus killing Victor was a message to him and Jesse. But now he's thinking that maybe Victor trying to cook that batch on his own ... "maybe he flew too close to the sun, got his throat cut." Oh, Jesse. You're in the middle of something awful. Dad's thinking about killing Dad.
Joe R doesn't want Marie to shut up. He can be reached for lavish praise and nothing but at joseph.reid21@gmail.com.