Breaking Bad 5.12: Missed Connections
You have called Walter White. To escalate our conflict into the realm of mayhem, please press 1.
Warning: this is a recap. That means spoilers. This week’s installment: season 5, episode 12 — ‘Rabid Dog’.
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So… this episode? Oh, it’s the one where Jesse decides to help Hank, and Walt puts a hit out on Jesse. You’ll remember it for years to come, due to such gripping, mind-searing scenes of excellence such as the one where Walt walks around an empty house. There’s also one where Walt cleans his house, one where his son worries about him a bit, one where Walt and Skyler have a conversation, and another one where Jesse walks towards Walt and then turns around. Is Breaking Bad the master class in tense television storytelling that everyone would have you believe? Yes, it really is. Or at least it has been ’til now.
I’ve compared Breaking Bad to The Sopranos and Mad Men before, but in its last half-season, the show it more closely resembles, at least in terms of structure, is the box-set we see on Hank’s bookshelf: Deadwood. Each episode of Deadwood took a day, and each episode followed the next one. When you added up all the action, well, each season seemed like the most insane couple of weeks ever, but you could always pass it off as an interesting historical lesson in the roustabouting ways of the frontier spirit. If we all downed that much whiskey, we’d be dealing with daily uprisings and betrayals and shootouts too, no doubt. One difference on that show was that nighttime brought reprieve and closure to each sun-set chapter, where as these episodes of BB have picked up right where we left off. Unfortunately, where we’ve been left each week is usually spinning our wheels, with only the slightest of teasers to entice us until the next episode.
The house wasn’t torched in that season opener flash-forward, so it was a good indication it wouldn’t be here… and lo and behold, at the end of the ep, we’re still yet to go scorched earth on the story of Heisenberg. Instead, we’re halfway towards the end and it only just feels like we’ve got the pieces into position. Are we finally ready to kick things into gear? I don’t know whether this is a case of dragging out the action due to an extended season or whether the makers of the show are just feeling very confident in holding our attention, but I would have given up the coordinates to my dirty millions if it meant we got to have a scene of Skyler on her own, or with Walt Jr, or even Hank’s partner calling his wife or boyfriend and saying “Holy Fuck.” Thank goodness for Marie and her therapist’s small chat. For a show set in a landscape of empty horizons, I’m feeling like I’m stuck in a bunker, and I can’t wait for the lid to blow off this whole thing.
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BREAKING BAD: JESSE
Jesse must think wistfully towards a time in his life when he isn’t being bossed around by old bald men. That time, unfortunately, has not yet come. After catching him arson around, Hank drives Jesse home and lets him sleep off an easy dozen lines of crack. The next morning Jesse relates to video what we can only assume is the entire plot summary of all of Breaking Bad, probably with enough extra yos and bitches to make the meme hordes happy.
“Yo Mr. White, bitch! This ain’t over, yo! Bitch! Yo!” Sounds like Jesse’s singing a new song…
Jesse is the show’s loose cannon at this point. Breaking Bad would never be so clumsy as to montage together the worst of Walt’s behaviour towards the boy into one handy catch-up, so it’s up to us to imagine the emotional torment he’s been through these last few months. Luckily, we’ve got Aaron Paul’s baby blues as a guide.
I don’t know how well they see, but Paul’s peepers are great at this sideline gig they’ve picked up. Jesse, the addict, the meth cook, the killer, the lost kid, is so marginalised from standard society that the sight of him handling a biography of Reagan is as bizarre as Tarzan doing the same. Again and again, whenever the show takes a little time out from the plot, takes time away from “tense” showdowns and threatening meetings-turned–blinking competitions, the characters breathe and exist in the world. That’s when they become more than pawns or knights. With no money, no family, nothing to lose and a sack of money, playing a focused wildcard like Pinkman is still the show’s best bet at a burst of excitement, as long as they let him get amongst it. Let’s give the kid a shot(gun)!
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BREAKING GOOD: WALT
Oh ho ho, it’s wacky Uncle Walt,
Gets things wrong but it’s never his fault.
“How did you know I didn’t spill gasoline?”
“’Cause it’s the first time you ever worried ‘bout the house being clean!”
For the savvy Breaking Bad fan, there are always subtle symbols at play. Walt in his underwear is a symbol of when he’s being a stupid.
What you gonna do now, wacky Mr White?
Looks like Jesse’s spoiling for a fight!
You told your lawyer he and you would never part, see?
But you never said you wouldn’t call in a hit from Nazis!
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BREAKING EVEN: SKYLER
Oh, I don’t even know anymore. Maybe the problem with Skyler is Anna Gunn’s acting. Breaking Bad is a reasonably realistically written show when it comes to dialogue. Saul’s allowed a colourful metaphor here and there, and Walt drops catchphrases as often as he drops his slacks, but for the most part these people are talking in the real world. I can’t find fault with anything Skyler’s said before in the past, I just can’t find reason. And maybe that’s bad acting…
Yep, these close-ups definitely show that Skyler has emotions, even if there’s no character-based motivation behind them.
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BREAKING OUT: GOMIE
Uh-oh, Steve Gomez is on the case now. What will this mean for Jesse? For Hank? What will it mean for Steve’s family, and his dreams of leap-frogging over his boss into the head chair at the DEA? And what about his other dreams of quitting the DEA, and opening up a Jam Emporium? Sorry, you say nothing about this character has ever been explored before on the show? My bad.
“Hello. You may have to use Wikipedia to find out my first name. I understand.”
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NEXT WEEK
Some of them are hiding, some of them are out in the open. They’re all… BREAKING BAD.
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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.