Breaking Bad, "Buried"

**SPOILERS HEREIN!**

I don’t know what I liked better: the family fallout from Hank (Dean Norris) discovering Walt’s (Bryan Cranston) true identity that takes up the bulk of the episode, or the single expository scene where Lydia (Laura Fraser) enlists Todd (Jesse Plemons) and his neo-Nazi gang to massacre Walt’s former competitor/business partner Declan (Louis Ferreira). But I definitely loved them both.

I’ll start with the latter, since it’s only one scene. But it’s an effective one, the way the massacre happens offscreen, leaving us imagining the horror, and wondering if Lydia is in for it, too, or in on it (I correctly guessed she was in on it myself). It reminded me of Gus Fring’s war with the Cartel that formed an entertaining side plot in season four, like a great gangster picture just happening to go on in the background. I doubt this plot is going to be on the sidelines for very long, though, and whatever’s in store for Walt looks like it’s going to be messy.

But back to Walt right now...

Last week, I commented how Hank confronting Walt wasn’t as explosive as it could have been. Well, the explosions came this week, emotionally speaking. The scenes where Skyler (Anna Gunn) is confronted by Hank, and then by Marie (Betsy Brandt), are all at once tense, captivating, painful, cathartic, and yet completely unresolving of the main conflict. The only difference now is that Hank knows exactly who he’s chasing, and Walt can’t feed his brother-in-law lies to throw him off. But that doesn’t take the strength and weight away from these scenes one bit.

And that war brewing between Walt and Hank is going to be good, I think. Walt spends most of this episode hiding his money, but his very first moment onscreen, staring down Hank while leaving the garage after last episode, is like seeing two gunfighters about to draw in a Western (and seems obviously filmed to look like it). Everything Hank and Walt do afterward are moves in their battle of wills, but that one moment suggests the fight’s going to be long and intense, maybe almost like the “Walt vs. Gus” conflict. I’m not sure it’s possible for even the same show to actually match that level of tension, but hey, this show hasn’t let me down yet.

Along with their renewed conflict, we get a few small revealing bits about both men. For Walt, it’s when Skyler confronts him about the cancer returning, and he inquires if she is, in fact, happy about it, as she said she’d be after her pool suicide attempt. Subtle, maybe, but this might show Walt isn’t hiding it this time to spare his family the pain. Rather, it’s a slight against Skyler, to not give her the satisfaction. Even though it looks like a futile battle, Walt’s ego—or rather Heisenberg’s ego—won’t give in while he’s still alive.

For Hank, it’s his hesitancy to turn Walt in, as it could ruin his DEA career. The way the wind leaves his sails after his talk with Skyler failed, I had a feeling that Hank would look the other way. He still might, in my opinion. While the episode gives no indication he will, the closing scene where he’s about to question a very low, detached Jesse (Aaron Paul) has an aura of finality, like if this doesn’t work, he’ll give up and let Walt win.

I hope he doesn’t. Even if it costs him his life in the end, I want the one uncompromised character left in the series to make it to the end without breaking even a little bad.