Breaking Bad Recap: Soggy Birthday

Howdy Gasmii! It’s the Cathode Tube, happy to be filling in for a vacationing Saint Clare. Would have had this up for you earlier, but I’m typing one-handed while holding a 3-week old who doesn’t yet know that one’s own ripping farts are a source of pride and not something you can run away from by crying and kicking your legs really fast.

Previously on Breaking Bad, machines counted the money made by the new meth operation, before Mike took out everybody’s hazard pay and whatnot. Walt moved back home without being invited. Lydia told Mike to kill all the hazard pay guys so they didn’t trace back to her. Hank finally got kudos at work. And Skyler finally told Marie what she needed to be told since she first graced our screens, but the intensity of it made her have a breakdown. And Mike pointed a gun at Lydia and asked her if she could still get methylamine.

Car Repairs ‘R’ Us, run by a polite and thorough dude who’s giving Walt a rundown of the parts he replaced and how after-market kept it all on the insurance company’s bill. He and Walt Jr. have a chuckle about how the windshield stayed intact this time. Oh, and by the way, the repair guy cleaned out some gunky carbon-based material from under the front fender and repainted it all fern green. He remembers when Walt hit that deer… must have gotten all caked up there then. Walt leans into the car in an awesome shot.

Dark like secrets and murder and the congealed blood of rival meth dealers.

He reaches in, pulls out his Heisenberg hat and contemplates it.

Repair guy continues to wax poetic about this Aztek. How much will he give Walt for it, Walt asks. Repair guy thinks Walt wants to do a legitimate trade, but Walt actually wants any DNA left over from the steam wash to get driven around by someone else. Someone who has his address, phone, and credit card, but Walt lives on the edge. And he also wants to be done with this dark, dark period of his life and move on to the carefree era of meth trade. Repair guy gets a $50 bargain Aztek, and Walt gets a cool shot in his Heisenberg hat in the sideview mirror.

But Walt’s not done. Cue Island Party Pimp music. Ultimately, Walt gets an old rich dude car and Jr. gets a young spoiled dude sports car. And the camera does all this maneuvering so it looks like both Walters are tearing ass around their prefab suburb… but they’re standing still. Anyway, Jr.’s tickled pink.

Madrigal’s Multinational Nugget-Frying, Methylamine-Utilizing Business. Lydia bites her nails at her desk in her glass-walled office on a conference call, which is probably about how the Midwestern focus groups liked that Cajun Kickass dipping sauce compared to the Franch. Conference calls have to be more boring and crazy-making in German than English, if that’s possible. Lydia puts her head in her hand and notices she’s wearing two different shoes.