There are several great moments in this episode.
The pre-credits shootout with Mike (Jonathan Banks) in the freezer truck is very good, both just as an action sequence in itself, and as a harbinger of further conflict between Gus (Giancarlo Esposito) and the Cartel. Later, Mike takes the increasingly detached Jesse (Aaron Paul) on a car ride, with the credits rolling before we find out what happens. Mike has made his negative thoughts on Jesse clear earlier, so the audience knows whatever’s in store can’t be good.
Walt (Bryan Cranston) learns that Hank (Dean Norris) is on his tale, and through Gale’s (David Costabile) lab notes that the coworker he had killed though highly (maybe a little too highly) of him. There’s a twinge of regret in Walt during this turn of events, especially in the look on his face when he sees Gale’s alive on DVD (Gale’s karaoke rendition of “Major Tom” is a goofy, random touch that works), but it’s hard to tell if it’s remorse for his death, or worry that he didn’t cover his track well enough. He’s crossed so many lines that it’s hard to tell anymore.
But even with all these great parts that continue or set up major events in the overall storyline, my favorite scene is actually something smaller: When Walt and Skyler (Anna Gunn) are rehearsing their cover story (that Walt won his drug money through gambling), and Walt refuses to read his overly apologetic lines.
Walt’s right: The script Skyler prepared sounds so obviously fake and preplanned. But their argument isn’t about the script, but the tension between them that was never resolved, only pushed aside. Skyler never got an apology from Walt, so her script in which he’s so apologetic is her last-ditch way of getting him to say he’s sorry. Walt, however, is long past the point of thinking he’s in the wrong.
The crime drama and action elements on the show alone would make it an entertaining product, but it’s these little perfect character moments that put the series above and beyond much of television today.
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