Breaking Bad Recap: Pain Train

Recaps

By Saint Clare of Assisi | Tuesday, August 14, 2012 | 4:34 pm | 9 Comments
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Posted in: Breaking Bad, Featured, Recaps

Hey Breaking Bad-ders! Welcome to the recap for Season 5 Episode 5, aka “The one where they rob a motherfucking train”. I’m back from my vacation AND back from my post-vacation illness (yes, I went on vacation and got sick immediately after. yes, what the fuck?). I’d like to thank Cathode Tube for filling in for me while I was out of commission.

Now let’s get to the recap!

PREVIOUSLY ON BREAKING BAD

Here’s what they’d like us to remember this week…

-Last week, when Skyler ruined Walt’s birthday dinner by taking a dive into the pool with her clothes on. Overtly it was a cry for help, but really it was Skyler’s plan to appear insane so Hank and Marie would take the kids off Skyler’s hands for a while, thus buying the kids some temporary safety. Or at least that’s Skyler’s plan, anyway.

-The DEA is continuing to keep tabs on Mike. They know he’s dirty and in some way connected to Gus’s meth empire, but they don’t have any dirt on him yet. So they’re keeping a surveillance team on him. Oddly, this doesn’t really play into the episode this week. If the DEA is keeping tabs on Mike, it’s happening offscreen…and it means Mike has basically given the DEA enough to put him, Walt, and Jesse away for good.

-Todd, the guy at the pest control business, taking initiative by telling Walt and Jesse about the nanny cam in the first fumigation house/covert meth lab. Todd will be returning this week to help Walt and Jesse with the train heist, and he clearly wants to be a bigger part of their operation.

-The tracking device on the methylamine barrel that Jesse discovered last week. Did the DEA place it there, or was it Lydia who did it, hoping to convince Mike that her methylamine source is compromised? Last week Mike was ready to kill Lydia over this but Jesse barely held him off.

COLD OPEN

THE DESERT

A dirt bike rides through the landscape, then comes to a stop. The driver is an adolescent boy. We’ve never seen him before and we don’t know who he is. He sees something. A tarantula. He lets it walk onto his hand and then picks it up, examining it. He’s engrossed. He takes out a glass jar—maybe he came out here specifically to collect a tarantula?—and returns to his bike. Off in the distance, a train whistle blows.

OK then!

ACT ONE

THE DEA

Hank is settling into his new office as the ASAC. He places a framed picture of himself and Marie on his desk. Then, Gomez comes by with a guest. It’s Walt.

Gomez sees himself out. Alone, Hank admires Walt’s new watch—the one Jesse got Walt for his birthday last week, and the one Walt used to teach Skyler a lesson about how people who used to want him dead (like Jesse) have come around (by, say, giving him a watch for his birthday).

They sit. Hank wants to know how Skyler’s been since the swimming pool incident. Walt has good news. Skyler’s decided to start going back to work at the car wash to keep herself occupied. She’s also begun seeing a shrink, though Walt can’t remember the doctor’s last name. So, progress. Or, at least enough to make it plausible to someone outside The Secret, like Hank.

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Saint Clare of Assisi attended Boston University and has written for The Onion.  He took his name from the patron saint of television, who was a virgin and saved a boy from a wolf one time.

9 Comments

  1. 1
    Some guy
    Posted August 14, 2012 at 5:52 pm

    Welcome back and hope u feel better. I thought this was one of the better shows this year. I forgot about kid until he showed up at the end . I was wondering how they were going to divide Jessie and Walt. I think this will be the start and Mike will go with Jessie. I can see Walt and Lydia getting together she is just as ruthless as he as long it doesn’t effect her kid.

    Great recap as always and catch way more things in the show that lets me watch again in new light.
    Thanks
    T

  2. 2
    Kammie
    Posted August 14, 2012 at 5:57 pm

    I did not see it coming when the boy showed up. Actually, I had forgotten about him, which is rookie mistake #1. It did make me think that Todd isn’t an undercover agent though, which I have heard a little chatter that possibly he was working for the DEA.

    This show has had me on the edge of my seat many times, and this was definitely one of those episodes! The writing, acting, everything is just so awesome I feel privileged to witness how it’s unfolding. Between Mad Men, The Walking Dead, and Breaking Bad, AMC is really getting my vote for best channel EVER!

  3. 3
    nativepeach
    Posted August 15, 2012 at 4:27 am

    After the cold open with the kid, I watched the rest of the episode anticipating his return. I knew when I saw the site of the train robbery that the kid would reappear there. That still didn’t prepare me for the end though. I had two physical reactions when Todd shot the kid, my stomach flipped, and my eyes teared up. I wasn’t expecting that kind of reaction after knowing how brutal this show can be. Jesse isn’t going to take this well at all, and it very well may be what finally severs his loyalty to ‘Mr. White’ if Walt doesn’t measure his response very closely. Good shit!! I jones for it every week…

    Thanks for the awesome recaps, too. I always want to go back and rewatch after reading.

  4. 4
    mjhhawk
    Posted August 15, 2012 at 6:29 am

    I had forgotten about the kid by the time he pulled up at the end. I never it coming – I also thought Todd was a cop. It actually is just like the movie Heat (referenced by Hank earlier in the show), when they bring in a new guy for a job and he ends up killing an innocent.

    I personally think it was done because Gilligan wanted to remind everyone that these are all bad people. By now everyone has turned on Walt as evil, but most seem to have sympathy for Jesse and Mike. You literally forget that their business is selling life ruining meth. This was a brutal reminder that even if Jesse was horrified by the shooting, his actions have devastating collateral effects that ruin lives.

    All in all a great episode and recap (even with the prediction so good it needed a spoiler alert).

  5. 5
    MrsMiaWallace MrsMiaWallace
    Posted August 15, 2012 at 8:13 am

    Great recap!

    I too totally forgot about the kid. Congrats on putting it together so well! This was a great episode and I think you’re right about how it was set up with scant information, but the whole thing was just so… cool.

    I had the same reaction to Walt bugging Hank’s office. He didn’t bother to wipe prints, left a key logger in plain view and was caught holding Hank’s photo. Unless he plans to head back in there in a day or two, he is really risking a lot. I didn’t think of IT guy interfering but Hank doesn’t seem like someone who could fix his own PC!

    I already feel like the final showdown will be Walt v Jesse and I can totally see Walt pairing with Lydia to take out the 9 and Mike. How they get there will be interesting, and if I’m wrong of course that will be interesting too!

    I wonder what the final arc is for Walt and Skylar. I know he is turning megalomaniacal but before the show wraps (and I suspect Walt’s life), I would like to see a glimpse of the old Walt and Skylar for redemption purposes.

    @mjhhawk – you are dead on. This show is so good it is easy to forget what a terrible drug Meth is. Just have to think back to the two junkies ( and their poor kid ) who dropped the ATM… shudder

  6. 6
    sweetblondie
    Posted August 15, 2012 at 12:50 pm

    I’m crushing hard on Lydia…hope she becomes a regular. Now, back to reading…

  7. 7
    sweetblondie
    Posted August 15, 2012 at 1:05 pm

    Jesse is getting smarter (and wiser) by the week!

    My prediction stands…Jesse will find out the truth about everything, kill Walt and burn the whole operation down by end of series. And Skyler will be okay with the world.

    And I agree MsMiaWallace, I can totally see Walt and Lydia trying to forge a plan to kill the 9 too.

  8. 8
    SuburBint
    Posted August 15, 2012 at 2:07 pm

    It must be the mom in me, but when that kid pulled out the glass jar for the tarantula, all I could think of was how dangerous it is to ride a dirt bike with something that breaks in to several extremely sharp, stabby pieces in your jacket pocket.

  9. 9
    maryedith
    Posted August 16, 2012 at 8:41 pm

    I am still having trouble with the it’s-only-been-a-year business. Remember all the time spent here working out Walt’s finances? Maybe now we could construct a timeline? For some reason it’s Jesse’s stint in rehab, relapse, etc. that’s bothering me the most. Also the shifts in Hank and Marie’s relationship. I know it can all be explained, but it’s still hard for me!

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