The fallout from the ordeal with Tuco won’t come around until next season, but Walt’s (Bryan Cranston) fallout at home is almost immediate.
It started with the awkward exchange with Skyler (Anna Gunn) about having two cell phones last episode, and Walt tries to curb the tension with obvious attempts to overcompensate by being a super-husband around the house. Doesn’t work. Skyler becomes just as vague and distant as Walt was to her, leaving for hours without telling where she’s going (revealed at episode’s end to be starting to smoke, despite being late in her pregnancy).
Meanwhile, Jesse (Aaron Paul) is evicted from his aunt’s house after his parents find the cooking equipment in the basement. He tries to shack up with an old friend—a friend whose married, stable, grownup life stands in sharp contrast to his—but is turned away. With nowhere to go, he messily breaks into the junkyard (through a porta-potty, no less) where the RV is being repaired to sleep among the chemicals and lab equipment. I said before how Jesse has nothing else besides cooking meth. In this episode, that’s literally the case. When Walt fixes Jesse breakfast after a little scuffle in the closing
moments, it seems like Walt might feel the same way, having driven his wife away and feeling out
of touch with his son (RJ Mitte).
The contrast between Walt and Jesse’s lives isn’t so stark this time. When tensions with Skyler boil over, Walt lashes out at his wife for being distant, even though he’s clearly in the wrong, still hiding things from her. Jesse blames his parents for his predicament, despite the fact that he’s the one doing illegal things and forced their hand. Both of them seem to have reached a mental point where they’ve convinced themselves they’re doing nothing wrong, and that any problems are someone else’s fault.
There are still some major differences between the two, and there will be more as the show goes on, but in this moment, Jesse and Walt aren’t so different after all.
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