Minicap: Breaking Bad

We open the week with a closeup of a glasses frame sitting on a floor next to Walt’s shoe. A couple drops of blood fall next to the glasses. Then Walt’s hand pops into frame to pick the glasses up and the lens pops out of them. Uh-oh.

More on that later. The first story of the week concerns Hank’s continuing private investigation into Gus, and Walt reluctantly aiding him. Walt picks Hank up for another trip to Los Pollos, again using the mineral show cover to fool Marie, and she jokes that “mineral show” must be guy code for a strip club or something. (What an IDIOT. Everyone knows “mineral show” is code for bathhouse, Marie)

On the way to Los Pollos, Walt notices Tyrus following them and tries not to look concerned. They pull into the parking lot and Walt does the same routine as last time—walks across the lot, kneels at Gus’s car, pretends to tie his shoe, and takes the tracking bug off the car. But this time Walt doesn’t bother going inside the restaurant to make it look more natural; he just comes back to Hank, not interested in keeping up the charade. Later, when Hank plugs the bug into his laptop, to his dismay the bug doesn’t indicate anything incriminating. All this is thanks to Walt tipping Gus off, so he’s kept Hank off the scent for a while longer, but after he leaves, his frustrations get the better of him. He spots Tyrus sitting outside Hank’s house and calls the cops on him out of spite.

Turns out Hank hasn’t gotten discouraged. Next day he calls Walt up at home with some news: he’s done some research and discovered an enormous Los Pollos distribution center—yup, the one on top of the superlab. Does Walt want to take a ride out there to see what’s up? Walt backs out, blaming “explosive diarrhea” (really!), but when he hears that Hank will just get a ride from someone else, he offers to take him in a couple days when he’s feeling better.

That’s it for that. Let’s take a look at Skyler. Her story begins at the car wash where she’s busy with another day of money laundering when Ted Beneke, her old boss and flame, shows up for what looks like a friendly visit. There’s more to it, though. Ted’s in some trouble. Back when Skyler was Ted’s company accountant she reluctantly looked the other way while he hid income from the IRS. Now the IRS’s Criminal Investigation Division is looking into his affairs. Only it’s not just Ted’s problem. Skyler’s name is all over those books, meaning the IRS can look into her affairs as well. Not good. They need to think of something.

Cut to a meeting with an IRS agent. The agent has discovered twenty years or so of unreported income and all Ted can do is stare at his hands. That’s when Sky shows up. She’s slutted herself up considerably and takes a seat next to the agent, giving him a clear shot of her cleavage. She’s come to help out with the investigation as Ted’s former accountant, but by all appearances she was just a wildly incompetent piece of eye candy for Ted. The IRS agent listens in disbelief as Sky explains all the incompetent book keeping she did without realizing it, and he appears to buy it.

The ploy works—for the time being, anyway. Outside, as she buttons up her blouse, Sky urges Ted to pay off his IRS fines so they can both put this behind them. But Ted’s fines total about $600K and he doesn’t have any cash or assets he can use. That night, as Skyler lies awake in bed, she realizes she only has one card to play: give Ted some of Walt’s drug money. And once again, the web of lies expands…

But the main story of the week belongs to Jesse. He remains between a rock and hard place: Walt wants him to kill Gus, and Gus is still manipulating him for unknown reasons. This is the week when things (finally) come to a head. Walt asks him yet again if he’s made any progress on murdering Gus, and Jesse stalls yet again. Later that day, hearing how close Hank is getting to Gus, Jesse asks Mike if Gus plans to kill Hank and lists all the reasons why that’s a bad idea—for one, it’d bring attention. For another, it would destroy the already fragile relationship between Gus and Walt. And thirdly, Jesse wouldn’t stand for it.

But that gets put on hold for the moment. Outside, as Mike and Jesse are about to load a batch of Blue Sky onto a Los Pollos truck, the head of one of Gus’s henchmen explodes. Sniper! Jesse looks on, dumbstruck, and the sniper, who turns out to be that cartel fixer from two weeks ago, draws a bead on Jesse’s face, but Mike pulls Jesse out of the way at the last second. The sniper has them pinned behind an outbuilding. This could get hairy. But then, Gus emerges from his office and walks right toward the sniper’s position, staring him down. And the cartel sniper backs off.

Later, Jesse thanks Mike for saving his life, and then wants to know what the hell that scene was all about. Why didn’t they kill Gus? Mike explains that the cartel can’t kill Gus because he’s still their main distributor. If not, Jesse asks, then what was the cartel doing? But if Jesse wants more answers, Mike replies, he needs to ask Gus himself.

That night Jesse shows up outside Gus’s house. He has a choice: does he bring the ricin cigarette along with him or leave it behind? After some deliberating, Jesse decides to take it. Inside, Gus chops some garlic for their meal with his back to Jesse, giving him a perfect opportunity to poison their stew, but Jesse freezes up.

Then they sit down to eat. Gus promises Jesse that he’ll answer any questions he has—provided Jesse first answer a question from Gus: can Jesse can replicate Walt’s recipe for Blue Sky? Jesse gets pissed. Assuming Gus is asking whether Jesse would replace Walt as the cook, he tells Gus to fuck off. If Gus plans to kill Walt, he might as well kill Jesse now too because Jesse won’t accept that. But that’s not what Gus was asking him…

To end the week, Jesse calls Walt up at home and asks him to come over. He has some big news. Gus—indirectly, Jesse is careful to point out—has told him that, with both Hank and the Juarez Cartel breathing down his neck, he can’t risk a war. Therefore, he’s decided to reverse himself and accept the cartel’s proposal. “Yes” means Gus will give the cartel half his revenue and give them Walt’s recipe for Blue Sky. And Gus wants Jesse to go to Mexico to teach Blue Sky 101. Jesse’s nervous as hell…it could go wrong so many ways…but Walt’s focused on another matter: Jesse saying he heard this “indirectly”.

Last week, Walt had begun to suspect Jesse wasn’t being truthful when he said he wasn’t getting any chances to poison gus. Now, Walt has proof: he’s put Hank’s tracker bug on Jesse’s car and knows for a fact that Jesse has been to Gus’s house. Walt’s furious. But Jesse is, too: he can’t believe Walt would bug his car after all they’ve been through. He hurls the bug at Walt’s face, opening a gash above Walt’s eye and breaking his glasses—the cause of what we saw in the show’s intro.  They fight. Walt’s surprisingly adept given that he’s in his fifties, has cancer, and is a total nerd-o. Eventually Jesse gets the upper hand and gets in some good licks on him. When it’s all over Walt can barely stand, but Jesse tells him to get the fuck out of his house.

They cut the audio over the word “fuck” instead of bleeping it, which is way cooler, too.