Breaking Bad 5.11: If You’re Watching This…
On last night's watershed episode, and why we're having the wrong conversation about Skyler White.
Warning: this is a recap. That means spoilers. This week’s installment: season 5, episode 11 — ‘Confession’.
–
Perhaps aping that other evil redhead, Walt tapes his own obituary. And he seems to have gotten a few facts about his life a little skewed.
While we viewers have been asked, in watching this character decline, where we may draw the moral line, rarely does the show play with perspective. Sure, we’ll see the action from the angle of Roombas, washing machines, acid vats and — in this episode — gasoline cans, but Breaking Bad plays reasonably straight in terms of what’s going on. Part of that is the show’s narrow focus — we’re pretty much just tailing White. And part of that is the show’s long takes — conversations are rarely ambiguous, because we sit there with the characters for every single forehead furrow and drawn-out pause.
But just as the show occasionally pulls back to give us a glimpse of the mischief through the eyes of bystanders, in this episode Walter paints a broad stroke portrait of how the show’s big actions might be seen by others. Hank as vengeful mastermind. Walt as helpless pawn. It’s a little piece of bravura blackmail that puts a hitch in the stride of the already limping Hank. Walt’s been lying to Jesse and his family for months. He’s gotten really good.
–
BREAKING BAD: JESSE
The boy breaks free. After another day of sighs and cries, Jesse puts two and two together and works out that Mr. White poisoned that kid back in season four. How does he work this out? It seems like maybe because Huel lifted his dope, which reminds him of another time he lost something (a poisonous cigarette!) at the exact moment that he’s leaving town to escape Walt’s manipulations, which maybe makes him think that maybe Walt manipulated him that time the cigarette went missing. Fair enough!
“I thought about Alaska, and then I thought about Baked Alaskas, and then I thought about that time Mr White baked some poison! Tell me that doesn’t add up!”
And so he double checks his calculations with Saul, reaches the correct conclusion, and jaunts over to Casa de White and covers it in gasoline. Maybe Jesse is the one who spray paints ‘Heisenberg’ on the wall, as seen in episode nine. We would have thought he had more finesse with a spray can, but he seems pretty emotional at the time.
–
BREAKING GOOD: MARIE
“Maybe you should just kill yourself.”
Really enjoyed your work this week, Marie.
–
BREAKING EVEN: SAUL
Is it a credit to Bob Odenkirk’s very flappably unflappable performance that I have no idea whether this is a good, bad or average day for the lawyer? Saul splutters between pleading and wisecracking this episode, as he has almost every week since he met the blue meth crew.
“What are you talking about?! I don’t even know what you do for a living! I, no joke, thought you were saying “bloometh” — like what a Shakespearean rose would do — in every conversation we had this year.”
Is the world really screaming for more Saul after this season is done? If Breaking Bad has shown us time and time again, a beat-down delivers a trauma to the victim that goes beyond the bruises. I kinda hope Saul takes his own advice, jacks it to Florida, and leaves this whole town behind.
–
BREAKING OUT: SKYLER
Well, maybe actress Anna Gunn broke out more than her character did.
Skyler spent the episode moodily gazing in cream outfits, the default position of the un-merry married Whites for the last couple of episodes (“I’ll take the whole rack — just make me look like a manilla envelope, dahling,” say the Whites on their bizarre, decadent, lacklustre shopping sprees).
Gunn, however, fired a few shots at the highly deserving misogynistic masses online. In her great op-ed in the New York Times this weekend, the actress called out all the hateful online clackering directed towards her character and herself. Good for her. These final episodes have definitely dragged the debate that surrounds the “the real housewives of anti-heroes” into those grey areas where we seemingly can’t allow our female characters to dwell.
If only she’d realised that, despite the calcified state of her marriage at the time, it was her wifely responsibility to give Walt a much better hand-job than she did in the pilot episode. Maybe then every online idiot wouldn’t hate her.
One the one hand, Gunn rightly points out the similarly unfair bashing towards Mesdames Soprano and Draper (and Draper II), as evidence that we viewers only abide strong and emotionally conflicting portrayals of male television characters, and not in their often-rightfully-disapproving spouses. Absolutely true. Beyond the harried homemakers that anchor the illicit action on Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Mad Men, The Shield, Justified, Ray Donovan et al, think towards the tough time that Girls’ Hannah Horvath and Enlightened’s Amy Jellicoe have in the comments section of any blog, simply for being “unlikable”.
But on the other, has the audience ever had a chance to get to know Skyler? I’d sadly say “not really”, and have said it before. Others, like Stephen Bowie for A.V. Club, have said it too. We’ve enjoyed watching Betty Draper shoot pigeons, screw strangers, fight against weight gain and get her groove back. We’ve seen her laugh with her friend Francine and satisfactorily get one back on her ex. Carmella comforted friends, grappled with her faith, flirted with Furio and mothered her children. These actions aren’t always likable, but they’re undoubtedly actions, not simply reactions.
Part of the problem with Skyler lies in the show’s short storytelling timeline; we’ve only followed her for a year, and it’s been a busy, lousy, husband-focused year. But we’ve also barely seen her interact with her son, her sister, a coworker or a stranger in a way that hasn’t been bland, sour or overwhelmed by emotional reactions to Walt. Competency at running a car wash is not enough to curry favour. If there’s more to Skyler than disapproving wife, let’s see it, and soon.
–
NEXT WEEK
–
Matt Roden helps kids tell stories by day at the Sydney Story Factory, and by night helps adults admit to stupidity by co-running Confession Booth and TOD Talks. He is 2SER’s resident TV critic — each Tuesday morning at 8.20am — and his illustration and design work can be seen here.