Yesterday afternoon, hours before the second of the final eight episodes of Breaking Bad aired, Dean Norris tweeted the following: “Hey Twitter folk, I’ll tread however the f*ck I want tonite. F*ck you.” He was not kidding. Hank was not f*cking around last night as Vince Gilligan and company wasted no time turning the tension up a few notches following last week’s confrontation between Hank and Walt in the garage.
So let’s get right to it, shall we? Here are a few notes I made during last night’s Breaking Bad about characters, scenes, etc. I found interesting for one reason or another.
– I want to start off this discussion with something I feel the need to get immediately off my chest, and that is this: for a show of such extraordinary cinematic quality, the sound engineering of last night’s episode left a lot to be desired. There were multiple scenes — the Hank/Skyler scene in the diner and the Walt/Skyler scene on the bathroom floor, for instance — where I could flat-out not understand what characters were saying when they were speaking in hushed tones. Like, I rewound my DVR multiple times and pumped my sound way up and I still couldn’t make out what was being said at times, and I could tell from Twitter that I wasn’t the only one experiencing this same issue. It was incredibly frustrating. So there — just needed to vent that.
So, back to the episode…
– Curious about Hank’s handling of the whole situation last night, I asked an attorney friend of mine about how his actions might hamper any effort to prosecute Walt. He wrote…
Hank is investigating Walt outside his official role with the DEA, and hasn’t reported his convo with Walt, and Walt knows about the warrant-less GPS. And he showed up with Marie at the house. All sorts of legal/law enforcement ethical sh*t going on there, which a decent defense attorney would eat up like pizza. Hank would get killed on the witness stand.
So there’s that.
– At this point I’ve watched every Breaking Bad episode at least twice and I don’t recall any scenes ever getting to me the way the Skyler/Hank and the Skyler/Marie scenes got to me last night. And when I say “got to me” I mean had me on the verge of tears. Yes, obviously, the show has made me feel things over the course of its run, but I don’t think anything the show has done has touched me in that place, so to speak. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so emotionally worked up as I did after those two scenes — especially at the part where Skyler is trying to calm the baby by reassuring her that everything is fine when it most certainly is not. (“It’s okay, everything’s okay.”) If there had been a camera on me while I watched these scenes I’m pretty sure it would have shown me sitting on the edge of my sofa with my hand over my open mouth with a little more moisture in my eyes than normal. Both scenes were acted flawlessly and, of course, so well-written and directed.
– Gotta love marie taking her penchant for thievery to the next level last night by blatantly trying to steal a baby.
– I almost hate to admit this, but I don’t think I’ve ever liked Skyler as much as I did last night. I mean, she effectively crossed over fully and joined Team Walt last night, didn’t she? She sat down with Hank not knowing what to expect and there was a moment of recognition where it became clear to her that he had nothing more than hunches and suspicions and she refused to give him the goods that he needed. And then later, when talking with Walt in the bathroom, she said this: “You can’t give yourself up without giving up the money. That’s the way this works, Walt. So maybe our best move here is to stay quiet.” Skyler is all in, you guys.
– Conversely, I don’t think I’ve ever been more annoyed with Jesse as I was last night. I’ve tried to put myself in his shoes and empathize with everything he’s been through, but I can’t help but think that he’s acting like a little bitch right now. How’s that for irony?
– The yellow remote control car has to be foreshadowing something, right? I mean, it has to come into play in some way later down the line. It just has to.
– The overhead shot of Huell “channeling Scrooge McDuck” was so great. Also, was that done using a green screen? Something about Huell’s frame on the pile of cash looked a little odd to me, which perhaps made it all the more hilarious.
– I’m not sure what Saul pays Huell and Kuby, but I doubt that it’s nearly enough. And couldn’t Walt have tipped them for their honest efforts by tossing them each a stack? Geez.
– “Have you given any thought to sending him on a trip to Belize?” — Saul Goodman, ladies and gentlemen.
– I’m sure the Belize Tourism Board is thrilled over last night’s shoutout. And no, the internet is totally not going to meme the hell out of this…
– Jokes aside re: Belize, Walt’s utter refusal to even consider offing Hank shows that there is at least one line left that he will not cross. Hank, he reminds Saul, is family, so such a thing is out of the question. For now, anyway.
– I have to give it up to Walt for wanting it so bad that he actually dug a hole in the desert deep and wide enough to hide multiple barrels full of cash. Not sure I would ever want it that bad.
– Where the hell was Walter Jr. when all of this sh*t was going down last night? I’m so dying to see how he reacts to the revelation that his dad is Heisenberg.
– So Lydia’s meth was being cooked in an old city bus buried in the desert? No wonder the Czechs hate it so much.
– Also, nice shoes, Lydia. I like how the blood red is hidden on the bottom. These must be her killin’ shoes…
– HOLY CRAP TODD IS STRAIGHT ICE! But hey, he’s also a gentlemen who knows how to treat a lady! He’ll deftly and gently guide said lady around dead bodies and spent shell casings and all. What a guy.
– Last night marked the return of the show’s resident hapless buttplug, Gomie. As he spirals further into incompetence, it appears as though he can’t even pick out his own clothes anymore.
– Last week I noted how glad I was that Gilligan and the writers didn’t end the episode on Hank’s garage door closing, that they actually showed us the Hank/Walt confrontation. That said, I was disappointed that last night’s episode ended without getting at least a little taste of Hank’s interrogation of Jesse. Perhaps I’ve become spoiled?
– I’m calling it: that lottery ticket is going to get lost and all of that money is just going to be buried in the desert, forever.
– Finally, the whole “scenes from the next episode of Breaking Bad can be seen during Low Winter Sun” f*cking stinks and needs to stop. I will never, ever watch that show now. It will not be done, ever, on principle. Also, it’s pretty dumb to not run a post-Breaking Bad discussion show immediately after Breaking Bad, but of course this is another ploy to try to make Low Winter Sun happen. Screw you, AMC.
Your own thoughts are welcome in the comments below. Have an A-1 day!
(GIFs via Chet Manley, stills via Daily Breaking Bad)
