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So there is first the small matter of that shootout. Gomez is dead. Hank's been shot in the leg. Jesse is nowhere to be found. And Walt is still handcuffed inside the car. Uncle Jack's gang advances on Hank, and Walt pleads with them for Hank's life. They can't strike up some kind of don't-ask-don't-tell deal or something! Walt's got $80 million to make it worth their while! Instead, Uncle Jack executes Hank (good night, grumpy prince) and then takes Walt's money for good measure. Walt is momentarily broken by Hank's murder, but to his great credit, he recovers in time to accept Jack's pittance of one barrel and also point out that Jesse's been hiding under the car the whole time. Todd convinces Jack to let him torture Jesse for information before they kill him (fucking Todd), and I guess Walt decides to give Todd a head start on that, since he gratuitously tells Jesse that he watched Jane die and didn't save her. So consider that particular loose end tied. Todd eventually takes Jesse back to the hangar/lab, chains him to a tether, and forces him to cook, under threat of harm to Andrea and Brock.
Walt manages to make it out of the desert with his money, but in the meantime, Marie goes to the car wash and informs Skyler that Hank has arrested Walt, so it's time to give this whole Lady Macbeth thing up. The first step of which is to tell Flynn the truth. He takes it ... poorly. When Skyler and Flynn return home, they find Walt frantically packing for a quick getaway. Flynn just wants answers, but Skyler's questions are more pointed: how is Walt here? What happened to Hank? Walt's non-answers are enough to confirm for Skyler that Hank is dead. At this, she brandishes a knife at Walt and tells him to leave, alone. This leads to a struggle, something of a brawl, with Flynn getting in the middle of things, and Skyler slashing Walt's hand open. Ultimately, the knife goes flying, and Flynn calls the police, siding with his mother FOR FUCKING ONCE. So Walt's reaction is to take baby Holly and go on the run. Skyler fucking flips.
Later that night, the police (plus Marie) are all over the house when Walt calls. When Skyler just asks for the baby, Walt angrily tells her this is all her fault for butting in where she doesn't belong. He alludes to a skewed version of history, where he was the only perpetrator and Skyler was threatened into silence. So basically, he wants the police to hear him as he exonerates her. By episode's end, Walt drops Holly off at a local fire house, then steps into Saul's friend's Van of Identity Fraud, preparing to flee and start anew. And alone. TWO MORE!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously: Are you fucking kidding me?
If you thought we were going to pick up things where we left off last week in mid-shootout, you obviously don’t know this show very well. Not before the elliptical cold open! Instead what we get is a flashback to the events of the very first episode. The look and feel of it is so well-studied, in fact, that I would have bought it as a deleted scene. Moving off of Jesse’s observation last week that Walt buried his money in the exact spot in the desert where they had their first cook, this is a flashback to that first cook. So did this initial experience with the meth trade have such sentimental value for Walt that he decided to keep his money there? Well, kinda.
After some familiar Walt/Jesse bickering (one’s a fastidious teacher! The other’s an impatient and vulgar teen! Can they make it work? Tune in every week!) Walt changes from his cooking smock into his button-down/no-pants look that those old posters were so enamored with. He walks up the rocks and rehearses the phone call he’s going to make to Skyler, explaining his absence. When he does call, Skyler is hard at work packaging her eBay art for shipping. Walt’s rehearsed story -- that he has to work late at the car wash for freaking Bogdan -- goes over like literally no big thing. Skyler has no reason at this point to be even a little suspicious. Skyler actually makes an idle threat about how Bogdan better not keep him too late and piss her off. I guess it’s not foreshadowing if it’s written after the fact, right? Speaking of post-shadowing, Walt and Skyler discuss "Holly" as the possible name for a baby girl. And much like Sammy’s mom (as imagined by Vicky) in Reality Bites feels about P-FLAG, Walt is beginning to like the sound of that. , Skyler and Walt make plans for the upcoming weekend and are in general a very loving, supportive and pleasant couple. And Walt is lying through his teeth to her, probably not for the first time ever but certainly for the first time this seriously. Here’s Zero Hour for when it all started to go bad. Once the phone call is over, Walt smiles at a job well done, but the smile fades, maybe because he knows something’s begun.
Before our eyes, Walt fades out, as do Jesse and the RV. Time has taken them away and run them through a gauntlet the likes of which none of us could have predicted. Only the desert remains. The desert and the elements. Credits and elements.
After a mercifully short break, we’re back at the stand-off from last week. Uncle Jack and the Nazettes have fired their rounds into the comparatively defenseless tandem of Hank and Gomez. Hank is bunkered behind the car with a bullet wound to the leg, but he’s not the worst off. One look behind him reveals that Gomez is dead. R.I.P., man. His gun, however, is very much alive, and Hank would like to get to it. He starts to crawl over, but Uncle Jack and his men have advanced, so Hank’s hand makes it to the gun at the same moment Jack’s foot does. The team fans out to look for Jesse, who is nowhere to be found, while Herc finds Hank’s DEA badge and shows it to Jack. Jack’s response to this potentially sticky situation is to cock his gun and prepare to fire it into Hank’s head. This is when Walt springs into action. He agitates to get him sprung from the back seat of the car, and when Todd retrieves him, he begins hollering for Jack to stand down. Jack knows he’s the one in charge, even if Walt doesn’t, but he decides to humor Walt, apparently for the sake of any future business they might want to conduct. "Don’t kill him!" Walt breathlessly repeats. He explains that Hank is family, which only troubles Jack more. All through Walt’s attempts to argue Jack out of shooting him, Hank eyes Walt with confusion and suspicion. Who is this guy trying to save my life?
Jack’s argument is simple and infuriatingly logical: they just killed this guy’s partner, and he’s got their bullet in his leg. They basically have no choice but to finish him off. Particularly since at any moment, the cavalry is bound to show up. Hank -- fiercely holding onto his pride, as it’s all he’s got left -- grits that the cavalry is most definitely coming. Walt yelps at Hank to shut up, be reasonable. The only way out of this is for Hank to essentially promise to let everything go. Walt, the investigation, Jesse, Gomez, his leg. Everything. Keep quiet, allow the bad guys to win, keep his life. That’s Hank’s only option and Walt is adamant that he take it. You can see why. That road works out great for Walt! His brother-in-law is off his case and his death doesn’t have to weigh on his shoulders. I mean, yes, there is a baseline familial bond here that is making Walt try so hard to keep Hank alive, but it’s still primarily selfish in motivation.
Hank’s not interested, and Jack once again begins the process of wasting him. So Walt moves to Plan B: he hurriedly tells Jack about the money he has buried out here. $80 million. That obviously gets everybody to stop. Not even Hank knew it was that much. Walt pitches it to Jack this way: you can take the money and start over anywhere… if he lets Hank live. He doesn’t seem to realize that Jack now also has the option of killing Hank AND taking the money. This is why you don’t let the Uncle Jacks of the world into your meth business. Jack turns to Hank and asks, "What do you think, Fed? Would you take that deal?" Walt, his anger starting to show, tells Jack that the man’s name is Hank. From the ground, Hank takes it a step further: "My name is ASAC Schrader. And you can go fuck yourself." Well now NO ONE is playing ball the way Walt wants them to, so he starts to panic. He starts to cry. He needs Hank to promise he’ll drop it. Hank looks at Walt with something close to pity. "You’re the smartest guy I ever met," he tells Walt. "But you’re too stupid to see: he made up his mind ten minutes ago."
And with that, the camera cuts back to a wide shot and Jack shoots Hank in the head. The camera does a little Goodfellas thing on Walt, and he crumples into a heap on the ground. We’re only hearing ambient sound, but it’s clear Walt is either wailing in grief or trying to. Very end-of-Godfather Part III. Man, two 1990 Best Picture nominee influences in one shot. Walt’s pain is even enough to make soulless Todd wipe a tear away. Uncle Jack, however, is already on to the task. Now that he knows about the money, he figures the coordinates Walt gave him must mean something. Herc starts digging, while Walt remains utterly unresponsive on the ground. He’s a shell. The guys hit pay dirt on the first barrel pretty quickly and, as you might imagine, the contents of said barrel are more than sufficient motivation to dig up all the other ones. One jump cut later and all seven barrels are in the back of their truck. As for the hole that remains? A fine resting place for Agents Gomez and Schrader, I’d say.
Meanwhile, Walt -- who may well have ended up napping for a bit -- comes to, his head on the ground. Jack orders his guys to take one barrel and put it in Walt’s car. Time to set the new deal with Walt. The new deal is basically "Fuck you, Jack’s in charge." One barrel of cash is his gift to Walt. Todd uncuffs his mentor and mumbles, "Sorry for your loss," and I WANT TO KILL HIM. Breaking Bad will not end satisfactorily if I don’t get to murder Todd myself. Jack cites Todd’s hero worship as the reason he doesn’t want to have to take care of Walt, like, permanently. But Walt has to convince him that he’s still onboard. He coaxes a handshake out of a near-catatonic Walt. But just before Jack leaves, Walt’s face contorts to a mask of pure hatred. He calls out to Jack: there’s still the matter of Jesse. Jack says if he ends up surfacing again, they’ll take care of him. Walt’s face darkens and he points to underneath the car, where Jesse has been hiding this whole time.
The guys pull Jesse out, writhing and screaming, and it looks like we’re going to have another execution on our hands. Jesse looks to the sky and even maybe is a little grateful that it’s all going to be over. Todd interrupts, and I’m sure he’s going to ask to kill Jesse himself, the little shit. Instead, he makes the case that first they ought to torture Jesse in order to get him to admit who else knows about his and Hank’s mission to nab Walt. Jack is swayed by this bit of strategy, and Jesse is wrangled into their truck. But not before some parting words from a monstrous Walt: "I watched Jane die. I was there. I watched her overdose and choke to death. I could have saved her. But I didn’t." ICE COLD. I had been saying that this was one loose end likely to remain loose, as finding an organic way to bring it up would be virtually impossible. They proved me wrong. Also, Walter White is the living worst. At this, all the life goes out of Jesse’s body, and he’s dragged away. Walt is left behind in a literal cloud of dust. Dust and blame.
After the break, Walt's still in the desert, sitting in his car, staring at the two fresh graves that house Hank and Gomez in the rearview mirror. When he does finally get going, he barely makes it onto the dusty desert road before his car breaks down. Which is pretty effing perfect, right? Seems a bullet to the gas tank -- while not always the incendiary event it is in the movies -- can still fuck up your day. So as the Tarantino-esque use of Old West music commences, Walt does what he has to do: he hauls out his barrel of cash, the only thing in the whole world that might possibly make this whole hellish experience worth it, and begins rolling it across the desert. I'm not sure whether Walt knew where he'd be going or not, but after a whole lot of rolling, he comes up on a brick hut occupied by an old Native American man. This old Native American man welcomes Walt onto his property and then immediately invites him into his sweat lodge, whereupon Walt has visions of Hank, Tuco and Gus Fring, all of whom tell him he must take out Lydia Rodarte-Quayle if he wants to survive. No, that doesn't happen. Instead, Walt sees the truck on the property and asks the old Native American if he can buy it off of him. "It's not for sale," says the Native American, which is pretty much what everybody says before they realize you have $11 million in your barrel. One nice stack of bills later and the truck is Walt's.
Meanwhile, Marie shows up at the car wash with grim determination all over her face. Skyler's on the phone, leaving yet another worried message for Walt, so she doesn't see Marie show up and hug Junior. When she does, Skyler tenses up, as you figure she might when her sister whom she very recently blackmailed comes around. Marie says she and Skyler need to speak privately, and when Skyler's like, "Not a good time," Marie chirps, "Flynn looks like he can hold down the fort. Let's go to your office." God, Marie with the upper hand -- even when she doesn't know she no longer has it -- is amazing. Cut to Skyler's office, and their wordless stand-off. Skyler says she has nothing to say, which I'm surprised didn't lead Marie to laugh in her face, because in no way does Skyler hold the cards anymore. Marie informs her that Hank arrested Walt three hours ago. She explains how he and Gomez have been working with Jesse Pinkman in order to nail Walt, and now they have him dead to rights. It's incredible, thinking about the rest of the events of this episode, to imagine that Walt might have actually gotten away with his family if Marie hadn't jumped the gun at this moment. In many ways, she's sealing Walt's fate simply by doing what so many characters on this show haven't done: letting the truth see the light of day.
So Skyler is shaken into silence at this news, which is fine, because Marie's going to do all the talking. She monologues for a bit about how she wasn't even going to come here, but she remembers certain moments from last season that tell her that there's a part of Skyler that recognizes what a monster Walt is and that her sister is perhaps not beyond salvaging. She promises that Hank will help in whatever ways he can, and she intends to stand by her through what is bound to be a remarkably shitty time, but only under a few iron-clad conditions. One is that Skyler destroy every existing copy of that "obscenity" of a false confession. Skyler, ashamed of making that recording in the first place, agrees to that part immediately. The part, however, is that Skyler must call Flynn into the office and tell him everything. This isn't knife-twisting on Marie's part. "He deserves to know the truth from his family," she says, "not a bunch of uniformed D.E.A. agents." Lady's got a point. Skyler can't fathom it and initially refuses, but once it sinks in that he's going to find out eventually, she realizes she has no choice.
Elsewhere, in some godforsaken corner of New Mexico -- a state in a country in a world in a universe where the shittiest things tend to happen to people -- Jesse Pinkman is chained up and beaten and lying on the ground in what can only be described as a torture pit. Todd uncovers the grate at the top of the pit, letting in horrible sunlight and bringing with him the promise of more beatings, which only makes Jesse cower in a corner. Jesse isn't a soldier. He's seen enough death and he's done enough awful things for a lifetime of PTSD, but it's not like he's built to resist something like this. "I gave you what you wanted," he wails as Todd descends into the pit. "I told you about the tape. Just go to his house and get it." I am, of course, worried that Jesse will reveal that Marie knows something and put her life in danger, but he just screams, "NO ONE ELSE KNOWS!" as Todd hauls him outside. They enter the hangar that now houses Todd's lab, and Todd chains Jesse's shackles to a wire that runs along the ceiling. So Jesse is on a track, basically. Able to move freely, while tethered to a point. Todd's intent is becoming clear, as is Todd's motivation for sparing Jesse out in the desert. He wants Jesse to cook for him. White slavery for a skilled laborer. Jesse looks across the room and sees how Todd is going to successfully compel him: taped to a post is a photograph of Andrea and Brock. The threat is implicit and doesn't even need to be spoken. Jesse's a meth laborer now. Good sweet Jesus, if I can't do it, please let Jesse kill Todd in these two episodes.
Back from the break, we're in the office at the car wash, moments after Skyler and Marie have told Flynn the truth. "You're completely out of your minds!" is his initial reaction. "You're full of shit! Both of you!" So, yeah, he's not taking the news well and neither is Skyler, really. Like any true Breaking Bad fan, Flynn blows right past his father's possible complicity in this and says if it is true, Skyler's a monster for not saying anything. She's a liar! What a liar! What an awful liar! Skyler's face is shiny with tears, and Marie can't really do much to bring Flynn to his senses either. "This is bullshit!" Flynn declares and says he wants to talk to his dad. Marie says Walt's in custody, so Flynn then tries to call Uncle Hank. Who is, as you might imagine, not picking up the phone. Marie says Hank is probably "in the thick of it" with Walt. Marie tries in vain to calm Flynn down, but he just storms out. Skyler's outright sobbing now. Marie tells her to take Flynn home and "regroup." Yeah, like that's gonna happen real soon.
Speaking of going home and regrouping, Walt has made it back to the house and he is dashing around like an actual crazy person, throwing as much stuff into as many suitcases as he can manage. His stuff, Skyler's stuff, Flynn's stuff, Holly's stuff. Everything must go.
Skyler's in the car with the kids, trying in vain to think of something to say to her son. All she can manage is a feeble request that Flynn put on his seatbelt. "It isn't safe," she says. Which only sets up Flynn to snit at her about how safety is clearly such a huge concern for her, right? Poor Holly is in the back, all "Get it together, you two, Jesus." "If all this is true," he tells her, evenly, "and you knew about it, then you're just as bad as him." Okay, 1) No, and once again, I'm seeing a lot of the Blame Skyler First crowd in Flynn's reaction here, but 2) The extent to which Skyler is responsible -- something that I don't think has ever been too far from her mind -- is really settling in on her now. I like how basically the day after she went all Lady Macbeth on Walt, she's having all her illusions about being a ruthless operator come crashing down around her. This is more the Skyler I know.
When they pull up to the house, they see the pick-up truck in the driveway. I'm not sure why Skyler's danger alerts didn't start blaring right then and there, but maybe she's on a delay. Walt scurries out of the house with luggage in full "No time to explain" mode. He's still dirty from the desert and he's got crazy in his eyes. He tells them they have to run inside and pack now. Flynn tells him that Mom and Aunt Marie have been saying some crazy things, but of course Walt has no time to even begin to finesse an answer, so he just bowls everyone over with further packing instructions. Skyler has to get Holly out of her car seat, so Flynn gets a head start on hounding his dad for answers. He's basically begging, and all he's begging for, really, is for his dad to just say it's not true. Just a simple lie, really. I bet he wouldn't even ask for specifics. This kid just wants his dad to be innocent. That's all. Walt finally snaps at Flynn to listen to him, telling him to grab "anything that's important to you" and bring it out to the car. The surefire behavior of an innocent man.
Skyler, meanwhile, catches on to something much darker. She asks Walt why he's even here. Marie said he was in custody, after all. How did he go from custody to a free man looking to flee with his family. "Where's Hank?" she asks. "I negotiated…" Walt begins, but he can't even begin to formulate the rest of that sentence. All that time rolling a barrel in the desert, plus that long drive home, and Walt the Preparer can't manage to think of a decent reason why Hank would have let him go. The cracking in his voice at this point, as he tries to say that they're fine, is also a pretty big getaway. He manages to downshift into angry resolve, ordering his family to listen to him and that they will all be okay as long as they get out right now. Neither Skyler nor Flynn budges. Skyler wants to know where Hank is. Flynn wants to know why they have to leave. They both know the answers to their own questions, deep down. Skyler, more urgently: "Where. Is. Hank?" Walt pulls his co-conspirator to the side and basically begs her to be cool about this. They have $11 million outside and can start a new life with their family intact. You can see why he thinks she'll go along with this. The Skyler from the hotel room who wanted Jesse dead is willing to do whatever it takes, right? Just like him? But no. For Walt and for Skyler, Hank is beyond the pale. Walt had his cry over his brother-in-law and moved on. Skyler isn't willing to do that. "You killed him," she finally realizes. "You killed Hank." Flynn is all, "UM WHAT?!" Walt begs her to stop saying it. "I TRIED TO SAVE HIM!" is his ultimate response, but the news that Hank is dead just sealed it: Skyler and Flynn will not be coming with him. They already decided ten minutes ago.
Walt again promises that everything will be fine and he strides through the kitchen to his bedroom. The camera lingers on two items on the kitchen island: the knife block and the telephone. Rian Johnson, I want to have your impeccably composed babies. First things first: the knife block. As Flynn follows his dad, begging for answers that aren't horrifying, Skyler grabs a knife. The big one. As Walt comes back through the hallway to the living room, Skyler puts a hand out and stops Flynn from following. Just one hand, a mother holding her child back from a dangerous intersection. In the other, the knife, which she points at Walt. "Get out," she says. Walt again begs her to see that they can make it through this. "Enough," she says. I think that says it all, really. Enough. She's gone too far. They've all gone too far. Walt realized it once, too, but he figured there was no use turning back. Skyler's taking the other option. Flynn is boggled at what he's seeing right now, as you might imagine. Walt, having become accustomed to getting Skyler to see it his way, approaches her with some mixture of exasperation and forcefulness. He reaches out to grab her and that's what she slashes his hand open with the knife. It is, as they say, ON.
In all my time watching television, this might be the craziest shit I've ever seen. Not necessarily the content of the struggle. I've seen husbands and wives brawl; there's an echo to the "Whitecaps" episode of The Sopranos here, with Carmela thrashing against Tony and Tony right on the edge of really fighting back. It's just this moment, the culmination of a marriage that became a war, all with Flynn watching and screaming, and the knife in play, and the knowledge that we're in endgame mod now so anybody can die at any time. And wouldn't it be horribly Shakespearian if either Skyler or Flynn took a knife to the gut right now? That's what happens, right? Flynn dies and Walt breaks forever? Everything's on the table now as Walt and Skyler struggle for control of the knife. Walt finally wrests the knife away and tries to hold Skyler back. Would be actually stab her? We won't ever know, because Flynn at this point tackles his dad. Waiting for the stabbing. We're all waiting for it. Miraculously, Flynn manages to throw his dad off without any unintended consequences and immediately throws a reciprocal arm out to shield his mother. I admit I'm kind of tearing up at that action. Flynn finally -- FINALLY -- takes his mom's side. "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?" Walt yells. "WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE A FAMILY." Those two lines are packed to the gills with that special brand of Cranston lunacy that is both dramatic and comedic at once. It's fantastic. Flynn then manages to do the one thing Skyler never could. He recognizes the danger that his father poses and calls the damn police. He even polishes the truth a bit, saying his dad pulled the knife on his mom. "He's dangerous," Flynn says. "I think he might've killed somebody."
So. Walt sees it right in front of his eyes. His cowering and crying wife, shielded by his son who just blew him in to the cops for probably murder. He's lost them. For good. He's devastated for a moment, but, pragmatic to the last, Walt makes the decision to cut his losses. He always does eventually. He crosses the room, picks up Holly out of her playpen and takes off. Skyler and Flynn don't see it right away. Not until he's halfway down the driveway, at which point Skyler takes off after him, screaming "NO!!!!" She gets to the car just as he shuts the door. She's begging him. She's screaming and begging and following the truck into the street (after Walt bulldozes her car out of his way), but she can't catch him. Walt drives away with Holly on his lap, as precarious as any character on this show has ever been. Skyler drops to her knees in the street. She's lost everything now, too.
After the break, we reconvene in one of this season's most popular locations: a public restroom. Walt's cleaning up his knife wound and changing Holly's diaper. Seems incredibly sanitary. Particularly the duct tape on his hand. He coos to the baby about how they're going to get her a car seat soon and everything will be all right. "Mama," Holly says, and she continues on about five more times. Moments before this scene aired, I made a joke on Twitter about how Baby Holly wasn't really bringing it on the level of her illustrious co-stars this season. Smart-ass quip retracted! The sad little look on her face as she begs for her Mama is honestly the most heart-wrenching thing, and I think if it was delivered any less perfectly, we might not get why Walt ultimately changes his mind. I don't know how long it took to get this take, but it was worth it. Again, Rian Johnson, please gay marry me in every state it's currently legal. Walt hugs her close. It's honestly the most attention he's paid that baby ever. I kind of don't know why he even took her, which makes me think she was as much a trophy as she was the last vestiges of Walt's family. But in this moment, I think he's finally seeing her as a person, so: baby steps. As it were.
Back home, the house is crawling with cops, who are busy sending out an Amber Alert for one Holly White. Skyler has her head in her hands, praying to whatever God will still take her calls. Across the room, Flynn sits to Marie, who is in denial about Hank. "He had him in handcuffs," she keeps repeating. The phone rings, and everybody goes rigid. The anachronistic (even for 2010) answering machine picks up, and Walt starts to speak. He demands Skyler pick up, which she does after a billion years of hesitation, waiting for the cops to patch in. She picks up the phone -- still on that kitchen island with the knives -- and wants to know where Holly is. He asks if she's alone and after a few beats, she lies that she is. It's insane to think Walt would believe that, which is your first clue.
So okay, apparently this needs to be addressed. This issue of Walt's intent versus Walt's true feelings. The rest of this call is one giant monologue delivered impeccably by both Bryan Cranston and Walter White. In it, he unleashes an ocean of invective on his wife, telling her that she brought this abduction on herself, because she crossed him like he warned her repeatedly not to do. "You never believed in me!" he hollers. "You were never grateful for what I did for this family. 'Oh, Walt! You have to stop this! It's immoral! It's illegal! Someone might get hurt!' You're always whining and complaining about how I make my money, just dragging me down, while I do everything. And now, you tell my son what I do, after I told you and told you to keep your damn mouth shut. You stupid bitch! How dare you?"
So. Okay. Walt is clearly working an angle here. When is he not? The pained look on his face says it. He obviously knows the cops will be listening in, so he's taking this opportunity to forcefully leave the impression that Skyler was a cowed and threatened unwilling accomplice to his crimes. If he can't leave his family monetary security, he can at least leave them intact and out of prison. It's a strategic play, and probably, yes, the one last gift he can give his family. But it's also like six other things. It's Walt's last ditch effort to manipulate things so that they might end on what could generously be called "his terms." It's one last attempt to let him think of himself as the good guy, sacrificing himself for his family. And it's really a long-overdue airing of his id. You don't think he dredged up all that anger out of nowhere, do you? You don't think Walt never thought of delivering this speech to his wife over the last five seasons? The same speech Skyler-haters have been posting to message boards for years? He's not lying. He's "lying." He doesn't want to say these things. He's always wanted to say these things. Walter White, I don't know if you've heard, is a complicated guy. To the end.
You can see in Skyler's eyes she recognizes what Walt's doing, and she lets him do it. Within this lie comes the implicit promise that he's making things right. It's no guarantee that he'll return Holly, but it's a pretty decent bet if she plays along. "I'm sorry," she says. Walt growls some more about how he built his empire alone. "ME! ME ALONE!" He warns her to toe the line or wind up just like Hank. Skyler begs him to tell her what happened to Hank. "You're never gonna see Hank again," he spits. "He crossed me. You think about that." At this, Marie breaks down, as you can imagine. She's not the only one. So, yes, Walt "made himself" the bad guy. He was already the bad guy, come on. Tears or no tears. She begs him to come home. Bring Holly home. Walt, barely keeping the sobs at bay: "I've still got things left to do."
At that, Walt breaks the phone in half. He returns to Holly in the car. thing we know, we're at a fire station. The lights light up on one of the trucks, leading one of the firefighters -- Noah Segan, from all of Rian Johnson's movies, but especially Brick -- goes to check it out and finds Holly, in her car seat, sitting up front. That girl has had a DAY.
The morning, Walt stands by the side of the road with his three packed bags and barrel full of $11 million. That familiar red van pulls up -- Saul's identity-switcher guy -- and Walt finally gets in. Two more episodes to go, and Walter White is no more.
Joe R hopes somebody is thoughtful enough to bake Marie a lasagna in her time of need. He can be reached for lavish praise and nothing but at joseph.reid21@gmail.com.
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