Last episode ended with Walt (Bryan Cranston) yelling into the superlab camera about Jesse’s (Aaron Paul) whereabouts, while his former student rides away with Mike (Jonathan Banks) to places unknown. This one begins frantically with Walt driving maniacally to the local Pollos Hermanos to find Gus (Giancarlo Esposito). The scene where he waits in the eatery for his boss/adversary—as he grows angrier by the second while the security cameras, employees, and even patrons seem to be watching him—is just brimming with latent tension that seems about to explode.
What happens is next is unexpected, in a way that’s underwhelming. Instead of Jesse riding to his death, he simply aids Mike in making routine collections. We were expecting something big to happen, but the episode just spends most of its running time showing Jesse riding alongside Mike for no discernible reason, intercut with Walt struggling to cook alone. Jesse gets bored, and aside from the mildly humorous moments he gets on Mike’s nerves, so do we watching.
But what’s boring at first turns out to be compelling when we realize what’s really going on. Jesse’s ride wasn’t so pointless after all; it’s Gus and his crew’s way of starting to build up his damaged psyche to their advantage, and use it to break Walt (a short scene with Gus and Mike establishes this directly, but it’s clear what’s happening well before that). It’s working, too. Maybe a little bit better than Gus intended, for the stress drives Walt to imbibe a little too much at a family dinner, which leads him to drunkenly cluing Hank (Dean Norris) in to Gus’ operation through Gale’s death.
The episode doesn’t relieve the tension that’s built up, just pushes it aside to let is simmer even more. Ironically, this also is the episode that Walt and Skyler (Anna Gunn) finally get back on good terms. It’s like the universe won’t let Walt have both a good home and work life, whether that work be in teaching high school or making meth.
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