Breaking Bad re-watch: Season 4, Episode 9: "Bug"

Walt (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse’s (Aaron Paul) relationship has never been a very good one. For every moment of loyalty or camaraderie, there have been about a dozen instances of distrust, deceit, secrets, fighting, and manipulation. From the start, it almost seemed inevitable that the two would eventually come to blows. But that doesn’t make their scuffle at this episode’s close any less affecting.

The fight seems all the more real because it’s sloppy and choppily edited, instead of focused on every blow and detail like a scripted sequence. The fallout is brutal, and not just on account of the blood and bruises. It doesn’t resolve anything—not between the two of them, not with the plan to kill Gus (Giancarlo Esposito)—and in fact only makes things worse.

But Walt is the clear loser in the fight. An earlier episode showed that he really wasn’t in control of his situation. In this one, Jesse gaining the upper hand in and pummeling Walt’s face is symbolic. Walt can’t even control Jesse anymore. He’s burned his last bridge, and is now fully backed into a corner, all alone in his battle to stay alive.

What finally set off this fight is that Walt’s waiting for Jesse to poison Gus became unbearable. Also symbolic, this time of the whole show because this is about the point where the tension the viewer feels becomes unbearable, between Walt’s conflicts with Gus and Jesse, and the looming war between Gus and the Cartel.

And…Ted Beneke (Christopher Cousins) comes back into the picture, too. It seems odd at first how they just throw this back into the mix so late in the season, but the resulting turn in Skyler’s (Anna Gunn) arc next season will reveal this subplot’s importance. For now, it results in the scene where Skyler plays the goofy dumb blonde before an IRS audit, another unexpected and random injection of comedy into a dead serious narrative that actually works. Maybe not as funny as some of the other times in the show employed such comic relief, but if nothing else, it keeps you from pulling your hair out at the otherwise tense happenings.