The first thing that struck me after viewing this episode was how consistently tense it was. Other than Huel and Kuby’s silverfish routine, every scene had me on the edge of my seat wondering how it would play out – who would talk and who would stay silent – who would be dead by the end and who would manage to escape unharmed. I’m struggling to come up with another episode in the series which was quite as tense from top to bottom.
All of the tension comes, of course, from the impossible situations that each of the characters have been forced into. Walt nearly kills himself trying to bury his hard-earned money in the desert so that when he goes to jail or his time expires, all the things he has done won’t have been for nothing. When Walt is lying on the floor begging Skyler never to give up the money, we’re taken back to the very beginning of the series and we see that, despite the stopovers in plot points far from his destination, Walt is still in this for the very same reason, his family.
Skyler has her own impossible situation. How should she react when Hank tells her what he knows. She manages to temporarily evade him by enacting her rights and causing a scene in the diner but in doing so she may have buried herself right alongside Heisenberg. I think Hank would still make a deal if she lawyered up and wanted to talk but she seems set on sticking with Walt, no matter the cost to her family.
And don’t think that Hank has it any easier than the criminals. In a scene that I was hoping we’d get to see before the end, Hank acknowledges his own impossible situation; just as was the case with his old boss Merkert, Heisenberg has been right under Hank’s nose the entire time and Hank is smart enough to know that his career is over because of it. So how long can he hold out before he admits what’s going on and gets help from the DEA to bring down Heisenberg? Can he prove his case before then? I honestly hope so. Hank’s story is so incredibly tragic that I hope he can, at the very least, be the man to finally bring down Heisenberg.
As for Jesse, he has been in an impossible situation since the day that Walt spotted him climbing out the 2nd story window of Emilio’s neighbor’s house.
I’m going to play the rest of this review the same way Jesse played this episode. Ready?
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Ok, that’s not riveting, is it? It did serve my final thought though, which is that despite significant screentime, Jesse didn’t say a single word this episode. Easiest paycheck ever. I’m guessing Villigan just tossed him, Huel, and Kuby each a stack of cash after the episode and told them to go buy RVs or something.