Breaking Bad Recap: The Dream's in the Ditch? You Better Belize it.

By Marshall Weber 

Am I under arrest? Last night, the Hank-Skyler diner scene rivaled the awkwardness of the infamous post-drunk, post-coitus meal not unlike the scene in Knocked Up. Like two strangers who woke up randomly next to each other and decided to go have breakfast, Skyler and Hank sat in complete discomfort, asking themselves millions of questions in their heads. 

Hey Sky---what did the hand say to the face? SLAP. Not since Tyrion slapped Joffrey in Season One has such a deserved slap to the face taken place. Yay for rhymes. But for real, that scene between those two sisters was about as easy to digest as a capsule of ricin. Like I said before, one of the greatest traits of Breaking Bad has been its ability to build up the Schrader vs White for five and a half seasons. The payoff has worked beautifully as the gloves are finally off and all the dominoes are starting to fall. Or whatever silly metaphor you wish to insert. But if this were a boxing match, Marie would've taken home the belt last night. 

But even in its most tense of moments, Breaking Bad is still one of the funniest shows on television. Sure, it's about as black as comedy can get...but among Gilligan's many strengths, his tour-de-force is being able to not take himself too seriously. During Marie's attempt to 'rescue' Holly, Skyler and Walt's infant daughter, from the house that meth built, Hank is waiting like husbands wait for their wives while they shop. For a brief moment, I felt I was watching the bizarro Raising Arizona, as Marie rushes outside with a child in hand to find a flat-footed Hank playing around on his cellphone. 

Family is family... right? 

Hank makes Marie give Holly back to Skyler before they leave the house, but we are left with the anticipation of a full blown Schrader vs. White showdown. In his conversation with Saul, Walt refuses to 'send Hank to Belize', like did with Mike because even given the circumstances Hank is "still family". Despite steaming like a tea-pot for two episodes, it looks like Hank is starting to feel the same way. Taking down a modern day Jesse James could bode well for Hank, but then again it might not. Like he said last night, the day he catches Heisenberg is his last day on the force. The fact that this illustrious criminal was his brother-in-law and under his nose the whole time may do more harm than good. 

Marie may be the one who wants Walt to go down the most, but she may have more in common with her brother in law than she may think. One of the more surprising turns of last night was Walt's return to form. By that I mean, he ditched the Heisenberg/Drug Lord persona for a brief second, and reminded us why he did this to begin with. For his family. Walt goes out to the desert, in his Wallaby's of course, digs a ditch and buries his millions to ensure the prosperity of his children. But then again, never doubt the ambiguity of Walter White. Is he really doing it for his family? Or is he just saving his own ass? We'll see.

But maybe that's why we have Jesse as the patsy. The climax/cliffhanger last night was Hank's inevitable interrogation of his 'old pal' Jesse Pinkman...an interrogation that I'm sure will hear our praises next week. My only complaint, in what otherwise has been two brilliant episodes, is the lack of Jesse Pinkman. The scarcity of the show's true hero has been unfortunate but effective. We've seen Jesse wandering around aimlessly time and again, but it seems he's finally had it. He's either ready to turn himself to Hank or give up Walt. What will it be? Dum dum dum....

The biggest thing I often forget about the show is the very, very short timeline in which this has all gone on. Even if you include the flash forward sequence of fully haired and bearded Walt, it's only a two year timeline and Hank's realization of the real 'W.W.' on the toilet was slightly over the one year mark from when we first met Walt and Company. Just think about all the shit these two men have been through in their 365 days together.

To un-shamefully rewind back to 2008, MGMT's "Time to Pretend" echoes Walt and Jesse's period together: 

"This is our decision to live fast and die young.
We've got the vision, now let's have some fun.
Yeah it's overwhelming, but what else can we do?
Get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning commute?

Forget about our mothers and our friends
We were fated to pretend.

But there is really nothing, nothing we can do
Love must be forgotten. life can always start up anew
The models will have children, we'll get a divorce,
We'll find some more models, everything must run its course

We'll choke on our vomit and that will be the end
We were fated to pretend"

Basically what I'm saying is, the gig is up. Walt painfully begs Skyler to let him die but never give up the money, saying "don't let me have done all this for nothing." Walt, like Jesse, is starting to see their successful fantasy come to an end and both are ready to accept their respective fates.  How they got this far is beyond anyone, but they're both starting to realize the time bomb is about to explode.