Breaking Bad 5.11 Confessions
Aug. 26th, 2013 06:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which things go helter skelter indeed. By which I mean someone should make a Breaking Bad vid using one of the most disturbing Beatles songs, but also that the show continues to be gutwrenchingly, adrenaline poundingly awesome.
Firstly, I was very nearly spoiled for one of the twists when I started to check out the web this morning. Note to self: avoid twitter until watching. Which I hadn't had a chance to until now for RL reasons, but luckily in the morning after the first two words I stopped, figuring a spoiler would be waiting. So I knew that the confession of the title would be Walter's, not Jesse's, but nothing else. Certainly not what Walt would do with it. I only started to suspect somewhere during the lunch but it still hit me with full force only when poor Hank and Marie watched it.
But to go back a little: Walt has several master manipulator moments during this episode, starting with Junior (poor guy, still more out of the loop than anyone else except for baby Holly), and culminating, of course, with the tape/video/cd, however we call lit. The irony is that the moment where he's arguably least manipulative, though he still is a little, with Jesse in the desert, is when he gets finally called out on it by Jesse. It's a fantastic scene, incredibly touching and showcasing the Walt 'n Jesse relationship in its dysfunctional glory. I think my favourite thing about this is that Walt still isn't able to say what Jesse wants him to day - "I need you to get out of town for my own safety" - and goes for the hug instead, and that Jesse, despite seeing crystal clear now that Walt indeed is always "working" him (though not always to the same degree), still clings to Walt as if to dear life.
(If we're doing contrasts and parallels: whereas with Junior in the earlier scene, Walt and Junior remain physically separated; first they are not even in the same room, then they sit opposite each other, and the only contact is a handclasp by the end. Also, Walt is in control of the conversation throughout, and of course Junior has no idea that he's being played by his father, that his father is using one true element - the cancer's return - to mask a world of horrible lies, or indeed who his father really is.)
The episode starts with Jesse turning Hank down, not that surprising, considering their backstory, and also because Hank, who doesn't know Jesse's personality very well, goes for the "you want him to go to prison, don't you" and revenge approach when for Jesse at that point a more promising angle would be "you want to atone for what you did", but in order to know that, Hank would have to understand first Jesse still has a moral compass. It ends with Jesse finally having figured out just Walt did with Brock. I was wondering not just if but how the show would let him find out, because as opposed to the truth about Jane, which I suspect will remain hidden, this was something that I was 50/50 on coming up again. And Jesse finds out because Saul, with best intentions, does his cigarette swapping trick again. Culminating in that fantastic final scene. So now we know how the White house ended up in ruins, and doesn't happen after the goverment seizes it. Mind you, given the screen goes to black before Jesse lights the fire, it could still be a fake out, but I don't think so, because of the poetic equation here. I also wouldn't be surprised if the "Heisenberg" graffiti which Walt saw in the 5.09 opening teaser was by Jesse as well.
Meanwhile, on the legal side of things, Hank also makes a discovery and unfortunately it's that drug money paid for his therapy. I knew we wouldn't miss getting shown this one, but I had no idea it would come up after Walt's "confession" . Poor Marie, who really couldn't have known. And now, on to Walt's master stroke, because it really is brilliant. Evil, but brilliant. Because the story he tells, of his brother-in-law the corrupt brutal cop who knows exactly how much money you can make through the meth business, knows all the dealers and all the business practices and blackmails poor Walter the cancer stricken chemistry teacher into cooking meth for him, makes far more sense if you haven't watched the show than the truth about Walt does. Hank is the one who is on record having beaten up a defenseless suspect, the one whose public image is all bluster and attitude. Meanwhile, everyone and their neighbour can testify to Walt being mild-mannered and harmless, wouldn't hurt a fly, etc. Even Hank's colleagues would probably believe this story over harmless Walt being really Heisenberg. Unless Hank can find solid proof, now not just proof implicating Walt but documenting his own innocence. I'm really rooting for him to do so, but as of now, I have no idea. Not least because yes, Jesse has just gone beserk, but that doesn't have to translate into helping Hank as opposed to, well, torch Walt's house down and cry out Walt's guilt. (Which, again, is not the same as clearing Hank of blame.)
This show, man. And woman. Breathtaking. Bring on next week!
Firstly, I was very nearly spoiled for one of the twists when I started to check out the web this morning. Note to self: avoid twitter until watching. Which I hadn't had a chance to until now for RL reasons, but luckily in the morning after the first two words I stopped, figuring a spoiler would be waiting. So I knew that the confession of the title would be Walter's, not Jesse's, but nothing else. Certainly not what Walt would do with it. I only started to suspect somewhere during the lunch but it still hit me with full force only when poor Hank and Marie watched it.
But to go back a little: Walt has several master manipulator moments during this episode, starting with Junior (poor guy, still more out of the loop than anyone else except for baby Holly), and culminating, of course, with the tape/video/cd, however we call lit. The irony is that the moment where he's arguably least manipulative, though he still is a little, with Jesse in the desert, is when he gets finally called out on it by Jesse. It's a fantastic scene, incredibly touching and showcasing the Walt 'n Jesse relationship in its dysfunctional glory. I think my favourite thing about this is that Walt still isn't able to say what Jesse wants him to day - "I need you to get out of town for my own safety" - and goes for the hug instead, and that Jesse, despite seeing crystal clear now that Walt indeed is always "working" him (though not always to the same degree), still clings to Walt as if to dear life.
(If we're doing contrasts and parallels: whereas with Junior in the earlier scene, Walt and Junior remain physically separated; first they are not even in the same room, then they sit opposite each other, and the only contact is a handclasp by the end. Also, Walt is in control of the conversation throughout, and of course Junior has no idea that he's being played by his father, that his father is using one true element - the cancer's return - to mask a world of horrible lies, or indeed who his father really is.)
The episode starts with Jesse turning Hank down, not that surprising, considering their backstory, and also because Hank, who doesn't know Jesse's personality very well, goes for the "you want him to go to prison, don't you" and revenge approach when for Jesse at that point a more promising angle would be "you want to atone for what you did", but in order to know that, Hank would have to understand first Jesse still has a moral compass. It ends with Jesse finally having figured out just Walt did with Brock. I was wondering not just if but how the show would let him find out, because as opposed to the truth about Jane, which I suspect will remain hidden, this was something that I was 50/50 on coming up again. And Jesse finds out because Saul, with best intentions, does his cigarette swapping trick again. Culminating in that fantastic final scene. So now we know how the White house ended up in ruins, and doesn't happen after the goverment seizes it. Mind you, given the screen goes to black before Jesse lights the fire, it could still be a fake out, but I don't think so, because of the poetic equation here. I also wouldn't be surprised if the "Heisenberg" graffiti which Walt saw in the 5.09 opening teaser was by Jesse as well.
Meanwhile, on the legal side of things, Hank also makes a discovery and unfortunately it's that drug money paid for his therapy. I knew we wouldn't miss getting shown this one, but I had no idea it would come up after Walt's "confession" . Poor Marie, who really couldn't have known. And now, on to Walt's master stroke, because it really is brilliant. Evil, but brilliant. Because the story he tells, of his brother-in-law the corrupt brutal cop who knows exactly how much money you can make through the meth business, knows all the dealers and all the business practices and blackmails poor Walter the cancer stricken chemistry teacher into cooking meth for him, makes far more sense if you haven't watched the show than the truth about Walt does. Hank is the one who is on record having beaten up a defenseless suspect, the one whose public image is all bluster and attitude. Meanwhile, everyone and their neighbour can testify to Walt being mild-mannered and harmless, wouldn't hurt a fly, etc. Even Hank's colleagues would probably believe this story over harmless Walt being really Heisenberg. Unless Hank can find solid proof, now not just proof implicating Walt but documenting his own innocence. I'm really rooting for him to do so, but as of now, I have no idea. Not least because yes, Jesse has just gone beserk, but that doesn't have to translate into helping Hank as opposed to, well, torch Walt's house down and cry out Walt's guilt. (Which, again, is not the same as clearing Hank of blame.)
This show, man. And woman. Breathtaking. Bring on next week!
no subject
Date: 2013-08-26 07:16 pm (UTC)I was worried about Saul there. Really worried. Glad he made it out.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-27 05:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-27 11:46 am (UTC)Jesse, though, and I do need some memory refreshment; who did he murder in the course of the series? I'm thinking only Gale, and again, his motive was whipped into a storm by Walt.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-27 01:10 pm (UTC)Jesse: well, let's not forget Jesse was in the "manufacturing poison" (tm Jesse, in The Fly) business from before the pilot ever started. Walt enabled him to be good at it, true, which he didn't use to be, but still: meth producing does equal murdering people for profit, Jesse chose to do that of his own free will and before Walt ever was more than his chemistry teacher, and I think what's killing Jesse now is that he was aware of this from the end of s2/start of s3 onwards. But if you mean by gun or in other direct hand to hand ways, outside of combat (i.e. the shoothout in Mexico, for example), there was only Gale, yes.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-26 10:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-27 05:21 am (UTC)