Advertisement

‘Breaking Bad’ recap: No exit

Share

Every so often, “Breaking Bad” goes out of its way to give Walter White a reason to get out of the meth business. In the first season, his former colleagues at Gray Matter offered to pay for his cancer treatment. In the second season, his cancer went into remission. In the third season, it looked like he might be out after Gus cut him a deal of more money than Walter could ever know what to do with in exchange for a few months of work. And now, in “Buyout,” he’s got the offer of $5 million, substantially more than the $737,000 he said he needed to provide for his family way back at the start of Season 2.

It seems like the perfect sweetheart deal, the thing that will finally keep him from careening off a cliff. After all, his outfit was responsible for the death of a child in the last episode. Jesse is understandably feeling the effects of that, while Mike is tiring of having the DEA constantly on his tail. That methylamine the three men stole is worth $15 million to a Phoenix drug tycoon, as is the promise of having the blue meth off the streets. Yet the whole thing has terrible resonances for Walter with his days at Gray Matter, when he was bought out by two colleagues whom he no longer wanted to be around (and who no longer wanted to be around him). They made him an offer of $5,000. He took it. And he’s been driven by a dark resentment ever since.

The problem with all of these “maybe Walter will get out of the meth business” episodes is that there’s no way the series would actually have him get out of the meth business. Even when the show dabbled the most in this possible plot line (at the start of Season 3), it was simply a constant countdown to when Walter would eventually take Gus Fring’s offer. This means the episodes in which Walter considers these sorts of offers are interesting conceptually, because it’s always fun to watch just how deeply Walter will drag himself into a pit of his own making, but often less interesting on a plot level. And indeed, “Buyout” is a solid example of the show pulling off a very fun episode that nonetheless spins its wheels a tiny bit. Most frustrating is the way the show disposes of the issue of what happens with that dead boy, whose spirit haunts the episode but is mostly gone in time for the rousing climax (though I did like the very somber cold open of the men dismantling the boy’s dirt bike, then dissolving it with acid, before the suggestion the very same would happen to the boy).

Advertisement

Now, granted, this is still an episode in which Mike comes up with an elaborate scheme to get out of the meth business for good, where Jesse shares a supremely uncomfortable dinner with Walter and Skyler, and where Walter escapes from being (plastic) cuffed to a radiator by creating a makeshift blowtorch from a coffeepot’s power cord. This means there’s still a lot of good stuff in the episode. Yet it can’t help but feel just a little bit like the show powering down ever so slightly after the last two powerhouse episodes. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course. The show needed a bit of a breather after the emotional devastation of “Fifty One” and the sheer breakneck momentum of “Dead Freight.” And given that the episode concludes with Walter saying he’s got the perfect plan so everybody wins, I can only imagine next week’s episode will be just as over the top as ever.

My favorite bits this week all have to do with Jesse seeming to slowly realize that Walter is as toxic as ever, before Walter expertly plays him to bring him back into the fold. Jesse’s so wounded by the death of the child that he decides to follow Mike on his way out of the meth business. The decision is preceded by a seemingly sincere talk with Walter, one in which Walter talks about how saddened he is by the death of the boy, and how they’ll have to take steps to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. Walter then gives Jesse the rest of the day off, and Jesse seems to be on the path to at least working through some of his pain. Yet when he comes back down to where Walter is cleaning up the cook site, Walter is whistling happily as he goes about his work. There’s a serious dissonance between who this man pretends to be and who he actually is, and that dissonance is showing to more and more people who aren’t Skyler. It’s then and there that Jesse makes his choice.

Yet inviting Jesse to stay for dinner turns out to be just the thing Walter needed to do. After bitterly explaining why he’s not going to give up his business, even though the only way Jesse and Mike will be able to get out is if Walter does so as well, Walter has primed Jesse’s extreme empathy by talking about his days at Gray Matter. All it takes is that strained dinner with Skyler present, a Skyler who’s just learned that Walter told Marie she had an affair, and Walter has all the ammunition he needs to make Jesse feel sorry for him again. If his wife doesn’t love him and she’s made him send his kids away, what else does he have, he asks. All he has is the business. And now Jesse wants to take it away. It’s an expert bit of manipulation on Jesse, the sort that only someone who knew him very well could pull off. Without Mike or Skyler there to cut through what Walter’s saying, Jesse falls for it yet again.

At some point, you’d figure these people would stop making deals with the devil. The show always carries out this dim hope that Walter might realize the weight of his actions, might atone for them somehow (though the prologue for this season obviously suggests that won’t happen). Yet with every episode, he slides deeper and deeper into the darkest pits of his own soul. Not everything has worked this season — the side plot with the kids going to stay with Hank and Marie really just feels like the show giving a bunch of cast members something to do because it can’t think of much else — but what’s been so brilliant about it is the way it’s refocused us on Walter White, a man who could pull out of this death spiral but chooses at every turn to let the rot chew away at him. Last season, he told Skyler that he was the danger in a moment of ridiculous hubris, but now, he truly is.

ALSO:

‘Breaking Bad’ recap: It’s so much fun ... until it’s not

‘Breaking Bad’ recap: The long, cold war

Advertisement

‘Breaking Bad’ recap: The pride of Walter White

— Todd VanDerWerff

https://twitter.com/tvoti

Advertisement