Walter White and Jesse confront Mike in the season premiere of Breaking Bad

Note: I’ve been away for a while, and just got around to visit all three new episodes of Breaking Bad.  I’m putting them into one giant review, just because I’m feeling kind of lazy.  From here on out, I’ll try to post a single post for each episode.  Oh yeah, there will be spoilers.

It’s been amazing watching Breaking Bad over the years.  In Season 1, it became TV’s biggest surprised, as no one knew Bryan Cranston, who starred in the family comedy Malcolm in the Middle, would be so convincing as teacher turned drug lord Walter White.  In Season 2, it proved that it wasn’t a one hit wonder and improved even more.  And by Season 3, Bad became the pinnacle of television, surpassing even Mad Men.  Bad has held that reign through Season 4, and Season 5 indicates the show’s as strong as ever.  I’m kind of annoyed AMC decided to split the final season into two parts a la Sopranos, but no matter.  Breaking Bad is the best show playing on television, and may be one of the best dramas ever on television.

The show picks up from last season when Walter White took down Gus Fring.  Now Walt and Jesse have to clean up and resume their meth making business now that there’s a huge empty slot.  But they need some help from Mike Ehrmantraut for distribution, who is still angry at White for killing Gus.

The first episode, “Live Free or Die,” revolves around the trio trying to destroy Gus Fring’s laptop which has the three one video with the drug lord.  The second, “Madrigal,” is about White trying to resume his life with Skyler while Mike meets with some of Gus’ other employees and tries to keep them to be quiet from the police. And the third, “Hazard Pay,” has Walt, Jesse, and Mike finally start their new drug organization.

There are so many fantastic things of the episodes I don’t know where to begin. Bryan Cranston is fantastic as Walter White and totally deserves his recently nominated Emmy.  Aaron Paul is great as Jesse Pinkham as well, and I have a tough time picking between him or Giancarlo Esposito for Best Supporting Actor.

But what really surprised me is Jonathan Banks, who plays Mike.  Banks gives off a dangerous vibe as Mike, hinting a possible future rivalry between him and Walt.

Vince Gillgan, the show’s creator, has long stated that Breaking Bad is the transformation of Walter White, as he turns him from Mr. Chips into Scarface (the last scene of Scarface is actually seen in “Madrigal”).  Over the past seasons, we’ve really seen White change.  It’s hard to remember the nerdy high school chemistry teacher has become a fearless drug lord.

All in all, Breaking Bad has set itself up an enormous TV juggernaut.  After seeing these first three episodes, you know this season’s going to be incredible.

A preview of one of my tracks from my debut album Lacrimosa. Hear more music and download the album here.

This track is an arrangement of the opening stanza of a madrigal by Luca Marenzio (1553?–1599), an Italian Renaissance composer, Solo e Pensoso. I hope Luca doesn’t mind a touch of drums.

Solo e pensoso i più deserti campi
vo misurando a passi tardi e lenti…

Alone and pensive through the most deserted fields
I go with measured steps, dragging and slow…

Walt has a new hero that he wants his family to know about: Scarface.

After Walt learns from Marie that Skyler has had a breakdown, he not only falsely blames and reveals her affair with Ted, he recognizes how shattered and frightened his wife has become since truly learning what her husband is capable of. His reaction: to gather their children around the television and blare the conclusion of Brian de Palma’s Scarface, cheering on the hyper-carnage to rouse Skyler from her self-imposed seclusion in the bedroom.

Walt once again asserts absolute control, here showing Skyler that her fears mean nothing to him – other than a novel avenue to exploit her. By encouraging Walt Jr. to yell in enthusiasm as Al Pacino guns down everyone onscreen in an almost ecstatic frenzy, Walt hints that he may rope their son into the family business. He even stages baby Holly in the front of the television to make clear that innocence is lost completely.

Realization hits Skyler hard in Hazard Pay. She’s married to a monster. Even I’m worried.

Bryan Cranston has to be good here: he’s moved so far from his character at the outset of the first season that it would be difficult to buy the trajectory without his performance. As it is, I’m a bit with Skyler: even I’m stunned that this is Walt, and I was along for the whole ride.

Mike introduces overhead and legacy payouts. Walt would like to keep the three stacks of cash as tall as they are. Actually, he wants two stacks. I think he’s thinking of the operation minus Mike.

Walt’s reactions to Mike’s commands and explanations of overhead are nearly as ominous. Walt won’t share power or take orders for long since his ego is soaring so wildly high. In fact, I believe we’re supposed to see the irony in Walt’s warning to Jesse about Icarus ascending: rather than wonder if Walt is directing the analogy at Mike or Jesse, I am focused on Walt’s apparent obliviousness to its application to himself.

Mike (Jonathan Banks) may be in real trouble, and I now am re-thinking the upcoming Walt/Lydia introduction. Rather than antagonists, I see them as possible collaborators. They share the common goal of removing Mike, Walt for desiring full control, Lydia (Laura Fraser) to keep her name untraceable to Gus Fring.

Moreover, both Walt and Lydia are upset about Mike’s men.

Walt resents the deep cut that the men pull from the current profits with their hush money, aptly termed by Gus Fring their “legacy” money, which must now come exclusively from meth sales since the offshore accounts have been discovered and frozen. Walt considers the payouts a pointless leftover from the reign of Gustavo Fring; Walt is king now, and he doesn’t recognize any of his forerunner’s subjects.

Who’da thunk Mike would carry the torch of business ethics in this operation?

Lydia on the Madrigal side of the table facing the DEA. Hank isn’t seated across from her, but I’ll lay odds that he will be sooner or later.

Meanwhile, Lydia has already defied Mike in attempting to arrange an astonishing series of eleven hits to erase any connection between Fring’s operation and Madrigal, the German corporation she holds a high-level position at, one which also seems to have placed her at the crux where she, Madrigal, Herr Schuler (who last week entered and exited the series in a single, highly memorable sequence), Gus, Gale, and the meth trade aligned. Schuler, Gus, and Gale are now gone, leaving only Lydia standing, a lone target for the DEA.

Lydia seems high-strung and impulsive in contrast to Walt’s cool and calculating character. However, at this point they both appear reckless, Walt out of hubris and Lydia out of panic. Paired up, they may find each other assets rather than antagonists, at least initially. I feel excited for this meet-and-greet! The downside: Mike making the introductions may result in his own conclusion.

Am I the only one who thinks that Walt and Jesse are crazy-visible in Vamonos Pest exterminator uniforms entering green and yellow tented houses that you can see from three blocks away? It’s almost like they’ve got their own flag for the cook-houses.

Breaking Bad was on last night and it finally looks like we got to some cooking.  A relatively calm episode in terms of crime drama, but we do have some personal stories mixed in.  The calm before the storm I think.  A storm that will definitely be rocking me side to side.  So as of right now, I’m taking in all of this set up and awaiting the climax of the season which should hit us within the next two episodes.  Here’s my review of the episode below.  Be sure to be aware of spoilers!  Because they’re everywhere.

Hazard Pay

The episode opens up covering some of the loose ends from the last episodes: Mike’s 8 or so other guys.  It appears he’s visiting them one by one to assure them that they’re being taken care of so they don’t snitch.  The lawyer covering up his ears so he doesn’t hear anything was a nice touch.  Since Mike decided to go back into business with Walt and Jessie, he can calmly reassure each of them that they’re families will be taken care of and that they’ll see what they’re due by the time they leave the jail, which is known as Hazard Pay.  What Mike’s guy says about the other guys possibly flipping may come back to bite by the end of the season.

He Handles the Business, I Handle Him

Back at Sauls, the four: Walt, Jessie, Mike, and Saul convene to talk about their new dream team.  Saul is hesitant to allowing the once enemy Mike into their ranks, but Walt calmly reassures him that there will be no issue.  During the meeting Mike gives them [mainly Walt] an ultimatum: Walt Handles the Cooking and that Mike Handles the Business.  At first, Walt nonchalantly acknowledges this notion, seeing as he truly didn’t understand how Gus’s business worked.  But when Saul approaches Walt alone about how okay he is with this he simply responds, “He handles the business, and I handle him”.  This attitude is another coal to the fiery power struggle between Walt and Mike.

Finding a New Home

Meanwhile, Saul takes them to several new locations where they could potentially cook.  They turn down numerous places such as box factories, food production warehouses, and video game stores citing logical meanings to their rejection.  When Saul takes them to an abandoned warehouse, Walt gets an idea when he stumbles onto an enormous tarp.  They turn to pest control where they’ll set up mobile cook zones in fumigated houses.  A neat and definitely original idea that never would’ve occurred to me [pure testament to the writers of the show.]  And speaking of giving someone props, how about Saul, who seemingly knows about a dozen of places.  Vince Gilligan announced that he would be interested in giving Saul his own spin off and I would definitely watch that considering how networked this guy is.

Prepping the New Home

When Saul locks down the crew to provide the cover, the team begins to bring in the equipment.  We see Jessie’s two hotheaded friends once more as they help secure some of the shipping mediums to bring in the equipment.  While it’s good to see these fools again [boy can that boy play piano], it’s not long until Mike scares them off.  Mike is rightly suspicious of them because Jessie’s friends know he’s big time and I think he sees them as a liability.  Rightfully so…this might not be the last time we see these fellas.  In the final act of the planning, Jessie proves his worth and intellect by suggesting several ways in how they’ll successfully transfer and operate the lab.  He continues with his plan until his lady friend and her kid walk into the room…The look on Walt’s face is priceless which brings me to…

Walt Faces His Demons

Walt gets a look at the kid he poisoned.  He’s essentially horrified, but he plays it off cool in front of Jessie and his lady friend.  But when the two of them leave, he’s alone with the kid for a couple of minutes.  While the kid is ignorant in the fact that his poisoner is sitting in the same room, the look on Walt’s face is priceless.  This is definitely not the last we hear from this, but it seems like Walt is becoming more and more guiltless.  Has he transformed into a guiltless child poisoner?

The Chefs are Back at Work

In a nice montage, the Chefs were back to work in the fumigating house.  A lot smaller than the lab they were accustomed to, it was nice to see them actually cooking.  Combined with a smooth track, some neat machinery at work [being a chemical engineer, I thought it was all truly fascinating], and some generic [though probably actually scientific] chemical sequences [much like the ones you see in your Biology class], it was a neat way to emphasize what they were doing and how it was more like clockwork to them.

Bonding Time is Sweet Bliss After So Much Chaos…Is it the Calm Before the Storm?

Of course after making a couple of dozen of pounds of Meth, the first thing you do is crack open a few beers and watch The Three Stooges.   It was really nice having this talking time with Walt and Jessie.  The past season or two, they’ve been held up against their will, threatened, nearly killed, and now they can finally relax with a beer as they slowly make their way back to the top of the world.  The conversation that ensued was also very interesting to to hear.  Walt was seemingly concerned with Jessie’s lady friend and how much she knew about the business they were into.  He sprinkles in a little of ‘Love’, ‘what makes you happy’, and ‘what it’s all really about’, and Jessie eats it up as though Walt really cares.  I ate it up too until towards the end of the episode [which I'll explain later].

Marie the Bitch is Back and Skyler Breaks Down

Marie returned after being absent so far.  And of course, she’s tight-assed Marie, being super condescending and annoying.   A reference to Walt’s upcoming birthday reminds me of the first episode and how he treated his bacon in a similar fashion nearly 2 years ago when this series started [which was 5 in real time].  Marie continued and continued to be annoying and clearly Skyler wasn’t having any of it because she just broke down in front of her telling her to shut up about 15 times.  The scene was definitely jaw dropping and we haven’t seen Skyler be like that in a long time.  This is clearly a result of the stress that Walt and induced onto her.  It’s breaking Skyler’s heart that she can’t tell quite possibly the only person she can trust.

When Walt gets home, Marie is waiting for him expecting an answer for Skyler’s behavior.  I was very curious as to how he would get out of this one, but playing Ted Beneke was a smart move.  That seems to ward her off for a while, but I can’t help that Skyler will eventually have to say sorry to her sister and in her time of vulnerability, she might let out a secret or two.

The Payout

My favorite part of the episode was simultaneously the most tension filled.  The money from the last batch was counted and it appears that made them about $1.3 million dollars.  The smile on Walt and Jessie’s face was clear, but was quickly wiped off when Mike starting breaking down production costs.  $300 thousand to transportation, $300 thousand to Mike’s guys, $120 thousand to paying Jessie off for the loans, etc. etc.  Walt quickly loses his cool and stops Mike from taking anymore money from his pile.  Mike returns the gesture with his patented death stare.  The tension is thick and Jessie once again quenches the fire with his generosity and intervention.  Walt allows Mike to dwindle their original cut of $300 thousand plus to a mere $150 thousand.  In confidence, Walt asks Jessie how he felt about it all, and when Jessie thinks Walt was talking about how he felt about his lady friend, Walt shuts him down about that and redirects him to talk about the money.  That’s when I figured that the calm conversation above was a means of Walt finding out how much Jessie’s lady friend knew instead of legitimately caring about him.

Walt is absolutely becoming the villain of this season, with him being an a$$hole all the time, and it’s getting harder and harder to root for him.  Will he redeem himself later this season or will he further descend his path of darkness.  Find out with me as we continue to review Breaking Bad next week.

Peter Schuler, an executive in charge of Madrigal Electromotive’s fast food division, electrocuted himself with a defibrillator at 10:15 a.m. earlier today at Madrigal’s German headquarters.

According to German police chief inspector Kunst, Schuler locked himself into a bathroom at Madrigal Electromotive, then placed one end of the defibrillator into his mouth and the other end over his heart before activating it.

This happened shortly after his team paid a visit to Schuler’s office to question him about his connection to Gustavo Fring. Fring, the co-founder and CEO of North American fast food restaurant chain Los Pollos Hermanos, a subsidiary of Madrigal Electromotive, was killed three days ago in an explosion at an Albuquerque nursing home. The United States Drug Enforcement Agency is currently investigating Fring and Los Pollos Hermanos for connections to a large scale crystal methamphetamine operation in the U.S. Southwest.

Says Kunst, “We are deeply saddened by this turn of events. We had hoped that Peter Schuler might be able to shine some light on the tragic events now unfolding in the United States.” Madrigal Electromotive could not be reached for further comment.

This news story was posted at 12:00. Three hours later, Madrigal Electromotive issued a statement:

Madrigal Electromotive is deeply saddened to report the death of Peter Schuler, head of our fast food division. Schuler was an employee of thirty-seven years and a loyal businessman, and he will be greatly missed in the halls of our German headquarters. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and all those affected by this tragedy.

Madrigal Electromotive press aides refused to respond to queries for further comments.

Mike is back from Mexico, here playing with his granddaughter Kaylee, in whose name Gus Fring had funneled over two million dollars into a secret offshore account, which has been traced by Hank and seized by the government, pushing Mike back into the game, even with Walt, who he considers a time bomb, as his partner.

The fifth season of Breaking Bad has begun, and my obsession with Gus Fring shows no hint of abatement.

Mike’s return from the makeshift ER in Mexico suggests that I’ll learn more about Fring as the season moves forward, but then, Mike really know how to keep his trap shut. Note the poker face he maintains after Hank announces that the two million bucks in his granddaughter Kaylee’s name in an account in the Caymans will most likely be seized by the government.

Not that the news doesn’t have an effect: by the end of the episode, Mike finds monetary opportunity in the face of the woman, our new character Lydia, he is about to kill in retaliation for her ordering a hit on Chow and ten other of Mike’s “solid men.” In changing his mind and bartering meth materials for Lydia’s life, Mike becomes the link tying together Gus Fring, Madrigal, Walter White, and Lydia. The Walter White connection hasn’t been made yet, but it’s on the horizon, and I anticipate mutual hatred and devious plots.

A worn Chow attempts to light up a cigarette before an admonishment from Mike. The necktie selected for his courtroom appearance is the saddest attempt at a show of patriotism I may have ever seen. But I am relieved that everyone remembers that we are still in 2009.

RIP: Chow.

When I saw you in the courthouse, I just knew this episode would be our goodbye.

Welcome Lydia. I think.

Lydia stares Gus in the eye and thereafter makes a monumental blunder by crossing him.

She’s a very odd character, snippy and snobbish and apparently quite out of her realm with on-the-ground decision-making and Mike-defying errors.

The Scottish actress who plays her, Laura Fraser, reminds me of a cross between Alison Brie (Annie from Community and Trudie from Mad Men) and Madeline Stowe, currently making her comeback in Revenge, which remarkably failed to capture Raúl’s sustained attention, despite one of his favorite themes: revenge.

Maybe it’s this combination that bothers me. She should be a lot less Alison Brie and a lot more Madeline Stowe if she’s going to convince me she’s a high-level operative in an international drug ring with ties from Albuquerque to Germany.

Lydia does not know how to order food in a diner, and she is very, very bad at not drawing attention to herself despite her oversized sunglasses.

Her incognito scene with Mike in the diner came off as comedy, which I believe Vince Gilligan meant, especially with Mike demanding that she take off her sunglasses since he felt like he was talking to Jackie O. However, she does not present much of a threat so far, other than making somewhat expansive and ill-conceived decisions, like ordering the murder of 11 or 12 people. This brittle, nervous high-level executive cannot even effectively order in a diner. How can she function as a druglord?

She seems the opposite of Gustavo Fring: Lydia is unable to traverse territory from an established, pampered circle of wealth to the world of cartels and meth-makers.  She is so sheltered cannot even manage the middle ground of common diner, where she makes a borderline spectacle of herself attempting to order something other than Lipton tea, adopts a ridiculous espionage persona with her back to Mike and preposterous sunglasses on her head, and makes a risible fumble using an improvised pseudonym for Mike when the waitress knows him as a regular.

Here Gus demonstrates his dexterity and cool head as he greets Hank, the detective on his trail, and Walt, Jr., the son of his meth partner. Gus can do high-society philanthropic events, mingle with common folk in fast food restaurants, and slash throats in a moment’s notice. For a loner, he really knows how to cross social boundaries effortlessly. Not Lydia.

So how did she come to her position as a major player, apparently one who can lay her hands on the chemicals Walt prizes in his crystal recipe?

Has she functioned as Gus’s main liaison to Madrigal, the German corporation so intertwined with the New Mexico meth trade that the executive in Germany opted for a stunning suicide via defibrillator in lieu of a police interrogation?

Herr Schuler, we hardly knew ye. But we know you knew Gus. And just how well did you know Lydia? She has no intention of defibrillating herself to death like you. She’d rather take out everyone connecting Madrigal to Los Hermanos Pollos.

Lydia’s character has been described in publicity as calculating, but she’s going to need a whole lot of improvement in that area before she goes up against Walt, who last season out-maneuvered even Gus Fring and is now pulling even sly Saul’s strings while continuing to manipulate Jesse more deeply than ever before.

So far we’ve seen that Lydia is ruthless – ordering the hit of 11 men – but also reckless and naïve. What would draw the D.E.A.’s focus even more than having everyone on their interrogation list end up like Chow on the sofa? And how could she think defying Mike, Gus’s right arm, could turn out well? She’s going to have to learn to transfer her executive boardroom skills to the meth market if she deals with Mike, or Mr. Ehrmantraut, as he prefers to be called during police interrogations. And Lydia hasn’t even met Walter White.

Not to be outwitted by another hitman, Mike enacts a very quick judgment on the hitman hired by Lydia to kill Chow – and then Mike himself.

I hold out hope that Lydia helps shine light on the mysterious Gustavo Fring. I hold out further hope that she can come across as more than a wealthy woman prone to fits of micro-hysteria with has no business being in the drug business. C’mon, Lydia, surprise us.

Taking a closer look at Madrigal: Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 2

“Two good men died because of you” declares Mike. One of those ’good‘ men attempted to kill him for $30,000.  Being able to see the silver lining or bigger picture could come in handy on a day when Mike looses 2 million dollars, negates a plan to murder 11 men, and goes into business with a man he describes as a ticking time bomb. The second episode of the season sets up the partnership of Mike with Walter and Jesse, while exploring the aftermath of Madrigal’s involvement with Gustavo Fring’s meth empire and the missing ricin cigarette.

• ‘Franch or Cajun Kick Ass?’ – Written by Vince Gilligan, the opening scene cleverly uses visual cues and inference to convey information absent dialogue laden exposition which otherwise could have detracted from the suspense and momentum of the narrative. A stoic and non-verbose Mr. Schuler, taste testing various dipping sauces, is presumed and later confirmed in the episode to be the Fast Food Division executive of a German based company. After he exits the lab, the company name displayed on the wall is revealed to be ‘Madrigal Elektromotoren’. As Mr. Schuler walks through the hall, he stops to watch the logo of Los Pollos Hermanos, one of Madrigal’s subsidiaries, being taken down. Shortly after, Mr. Schuler sees a police officer in his office, closely inspecting a framed portrait of himself with the infamous drug kingpin Gus Fring. Without hesitation, he takes a conveniently located defibrillator to the rest room and induces a cardiac arrest. The automated flush as he falls off the toilet was a nice touch for a wasted life gone down the drain. “An innocent man does not kill himself”, deduces the CEO of Madrigal. Almost all the vital information and clues that connect Madrigal to Gus Fring is visually presented in this scene which actively engages the viewer; allowing the audience to put together the pieces themselves instead of being burdened with exposition.

• ’Roomba’ - Heinous. It’s the perfect word to describe how Walter tricks Jesse into believing the cigarette containing ricin was in his home all along.  From Walter’s perspective, it’s a genius ploy to regain Jesse’s trust and to relieve Jesse’s anxiety of someone accidentally becoming poisoned by ricin.  Jesse’s emotional breakdown, brilliantly portrayed by actor Aaron Paul, is gut wrenching having realized his accusation was unfounded and that he almost killed Walter.  One question I have is why does Walter keeps the vial of ricin?  The ricin is well hidden behind an electrical outlet but he should know better than to leave any evidence.  Walt’s secret is not completely safe as Saul helped orchestrate the removal of the cigarette pack from Jesse’s possession.  Saul’s inside knowledge is a major liability to Walt; if Jesse ever finds out he’s just a sacrificial pawn in Walt’s game of lies and manipulation all hell will break loose.

 • ‘Mr. Ehrmantraut’ – One thing that occurred to me while watching this episode is what do we really know about Mike? In Breaking Bad, we know what we need to know; that Mike is a bad-ass, loyal, solid as a rock, and a loveable Grandad. At the diner, he’s pragmatic in dissuading Lydia from her plan to kill eleven men and unshakable when Hank presses him on his involvement with Gus’ drug empire. Unsurprisingly, we find out that Mike was a former cop whose tenure in Philly ended dramatically but a detailed back story is not relevant to his current dilemma (Mike: “I don’t want to talk about that.” Hank: “Yeah, me neither”.). The give and take power play during the questioning was a treat to watch, with Mike attempting to subtly undercut Hank’s authority until it is revealed that 2 million dollars was deposited by Gus to an offshore account in Mike’s grand-daughter’s name; money he will never see a drop of.  Hank offers him a role as an informant in exchange for keeping some of the money … maybe, although Mike doesn’t strike me as someone who wants to be under the thumb of the DEA even if the deal was legit. At the climax of the episode, Mike is pointing a gun at Lydia and is intent on killing her. Lydia does not plead for her life, instead she frantically insists that her dead body be found by her daughter rather than letting her daughter think she was abandoned. How much of his decision to let Lydia live was due to empathy, having a grand daughter himself, or simply because Lydia could be useful in obtaining the precursor methylamine? Mike is not a cold-hearted hit man; his conscience does play a factor in his practical decision-making process.  “Madrigal” did a solid job of fleshing out the characterization of Mike and laid the ground work for his motivation to join with Walter and Jesse which he was initially against.  Moving forward, it will be interesting to watch the ever-shifting dynamic of a three-way partnership play out as each character has their own moral code – clearly established in this episode.

• ’Best Quotes from the Episode‘

German Lab guy: “This one is a new concept and it intrigues us. Half-French dressing, half-Ranch. We refer to it simply as … ”Franch”.

Mike: “How ’bout we lose the sunglasses? I feel like I’m talking to Jackie Onassis here.”

Mike: “Now I don’t know what kinda movies you’ve been watching, but here in the real world we don’t kill eleven people as some kind of prophylactic measure”.

Hank: “Given your history … doing background checks on pimple-faced fry cooks seems like overkill.”

It’s time to get back in business.

Through a series of lies and with blinkered overconfidence, Walt succeeds in getting the core of the Fring meth operation back together. Will we be back to industrial-scale cooking next week, or will it all fall apart sooner than expected?

You can read more about this episode at Emilia Jordan, AMC, IMDb and the A.V. Club.

Random thoughts

The Brix number is a weight percent measure of sugar content used in the food industry.

As other commenters will already have pointed out, you probably can’t kill yourself with an automated external defibrillator like we see in the cold open. AEDs are designed to be used by untrained members of the public and are therefore fairly idiot-proof. They will not work if the chest pads are incorrectly placed (as they most certainly are here), and may prompt the user with voice and visual commands to place the pads properly. They also analyse the patient’s heart rhythm and determine automatically whether a shock is required. If the heart is not in fibrillation then the unit will not be able to deliver a shock. Also, I’m not entirely sure if a shock as shown would have been lethal – the electric current would have travelled the shortest distance from the mouth to the upper left shoulder, largely missing the heart and brain.

Methylamine.

In a call all the way back to season one, Walt is still planning to cook using the phenylacetone-methylamine method. It’s probably more sensible than the smurf-and-fry-cook pseudoephedrine route, but a chemist of Walt’s calibre should be able to come up with something less attention-calling.

Elements in the credits

Turns out that dearly departed Gus had some international appeal with his Meth production.  Madrigal, a German company is being investigated in its connection to Gus Fring; its manager, Mr. Schuler, killing himself in a traditionally creative Breaking Bad manner in the opening minutes.  Back in the ABQ, Dean returns to work to formerly interview board members from Madrigal, where we learn that his boss, Merking, is taking the hit for not busting Gus earlier.

Walt creates a dummy cigarette to ease Jesse’s anxiety over not being able to find the one missing from his pack.  He says the real one behind a wall outlet in his bedroom.  They search Jesse’s house, and find Walt’s dummy cigarette inside Jesse’s rhumba, which sends Jesse into a bout of hysterics at the fact that he almost shot Walt over the missing cigarette.  Walt calms him down and really drives it home to the audience what a terrible human being he’s become.  Meanwhile, Jesse and Walt need to start making money again, which means they have to start selling meth again, which means they need a lab, equipment, and methylamine; the latter being an issue.  They try to recruit Mike into the fold as a third business party, but he’s the only one who will call Walt out on what a crazy, impulsive, wildcard he really is, calling him a ticking time bomb waiting to go boom.

On Mike’s side of things, we are introduced to a high strung woman named Lydia.  Lydia is involved in Mike’s former operation and is freaking out that the DEA have already connected things back to Madrigal.  She’s worried that eventually, someone will roll over and talk, which would lead the DEA right to her.  Mike tells her that they’re his guys and they’re solid, but she takes matters into her own hand; forcing Mike to have to kill two of his own guys.  Mike is picked up by the DEA and interviewed by Hank, who to Mike’s surprise knows a lot more than he thought he would, including all the offshore accounts filled with the money that was supposed to keep his guys quiet no matter what happened.  Mike goes to take care of Lydia, who has a daughter, but in the end Walt’s offer is nagging inside his head now that he knows he needs money too.  Mike lets Lydia live, and asks if she can get her hands on methylamine.  He then calls Walt, and agrees to his offer.

Walt is crazy.  He’s 100 percent evolved into the villain of this show, using the guise that he’s doing it all for family to justify his actions. He continues to manipulate and destroy Jesse, and his life style has sent his wife into a depression.  Skyler literally cringes at his touch now.  I love that the main character in this show is so despicable, but you want him to succeed.  Though if last weeks teaser is any indication, Walt’s success is going to be short-lived.  And lets be honest, Mike had it right.  Walt is a loose cannon; impulsive and just waiting to make the mistake that sends everything all falling down around him and everyone he’s supposedly doing this for.  I don’t have an inkling as to where this season is going just yet, but I’m excited to be along for the ride.

Breaking Bad is in full force and that mean a bunch of pop culture quips are emerging.  Like this hilarious panorama of Hector Salamanca’s facial expressions.  The man has seen a lot of things as we’ve seen in the past season.  And he’s clearly been through a lot to make him that way.  What a way to go Hector, what a way to go.

Things are moving quite along for Breaking Bad.  Last season, we were given a look at who Gustavo Fring was and his motivations for things.  This background look at a supporting character was spine tingling, haunting, and delicious.  It appears that torch has passed onto Mike Ehrmantraut.  I’d say about 75% [if not more] belonged to him and I have to admit I loved every minute.  In this episode, we get a glimpse at a little bit of Walt and Jessie as well as a very key scene with Hank realizing something important.  Discussion and spoilers below!

The episode starts in Germany where the CEO of a company that Gus Fring’s operation was attached to, Madrigal, is taste testing some new products.  With his mind clearly in another place, he gets approached by the German police where he escapes to a nearby bathroom.  There he commits suicide on the toilet and the credits roll.  First off: what a freaking way to open up a show.  I was so entranced by this scene and this guy’s delivery as the ‘i’m so screwed that I’m gonna abandon everything in life’ attitude was absolutely gripping.

The next scene involves a conversation between Walt, Jessie, and Mike as they discuss their plans to fill in the shoes they blew up.  Mike is fairly confident in his decision to avoid being involved with them, especially Walt, listing him as a ticking time bomb.  There a noticeable amount of tension as noted in the eye gestures of Jessie between the two power houses.  Another great scene involved the adventures of Hank, whom is apparently walking without crutches anymore.  One of the more memorable scenes of dialogue in the show happened between Hank and his supervisor.  As his supervisor reflects on how he had an enemy right under his nose, Hank reflects on something deep…possibly…nah, no way.

The rest of the episode revolves heavily around Mike.  It seems he is a very busy man.  His first trip involves seeing an old client of his. The woman’s scene was infuriatingly annoying, but I think they used it as a means to show this woman is extremely unstable and erratic.  She asks Mike to essentially clean the slate of by ‘killing off’ loose ends.  When Mike gets upset with her for asking him to kill his own men, he politely tells her off and leaves to go to his next appointment.

Which so happens to be with the police.  As he meets with Hank, Mike plays the classic cool guy in an interrogation room, calling all of the police man’s bluffs.  It’s during this time, we get a learn a little bit more about Mike himself and who he was in the past.  I’m still anxious to see how he lost tenure at his old policing job, but we’ll likely find out that way.  After nearly sitting the cops on their asses, Hank pulls out one more ace up his sleeve regarding the money found in his daughter’s bank account.  After he hesitantly denies its existence, he pulls away finally with an angry scowl on his face.

The man knows no peace, because as he’s playing with his granddaughter, he gets a call from one of his guys talking about how he’s being muscled by the police.  Mike slowly but surely makes his way to the guy’s house where he springs a trap.  Well he technically springs a trap by placing bait to his own trap.  He reveals the trapper to be another guy the woman from before hired.  He quickly and remorselessly kills him and then leaves.

Only to show up to the woman’s house.  He traps her and allows her kid to go up to her room before contemplating killing her.  Conflicted and split between allowing her to live or die, he frustratingly gives into asking for her services instead of killing her.  And with that, he calls up Walt saying that he’s in.  I’d imagine this is a combination of the day’s events: loose ends getting wild, all his money now belonging to the police, and killing parents.  Poor Mike has been through a lot.

Which leaves us to Walter.  He gets the call from Mike and nonchalantly continues working as though it were no big deal.  It seems Walt is more and more unphased by emotion that isn’t anger or lust.  Nabbing Mike was a big deal especially seeing that it was pretty crucial to his entire operation, but he didn’t even show a lick of emotion.

At least until he entered his wife’s bed where he started muttering how much easier it would all get.  The look on Skyler’s face is a picture worth a thousand words.  She’s horrified about the prison she’s put into by her own husband.  But she doesn’t have the voice to tell him.  Because what would he do?

Overall: Breaking Bad is setting up very well.  There aren’t any clear antagonists this time around.  Is it Mike?  No, I’d rather think he’s pretty submitted to Walt at this point.  It can’t be Hank, because he’s the good guy DEA officer.  Jessie is actually more of a good guy being manipulated by…oh no.  Could it be Walter White as the bad guy of the series.  It’s so interesting how difficult it is to choose someone to root for.  I can’t wait how they use this to further the episodes.  I’ll see you all next week for Hazard Pay.

via veryaware.com

The opening sequence of “Madrigal” presents us with one of “Breaking Bad’s” favorite visual puns—cooking in the culinary sense of the word, for once.  The aesthetic of the laboratory of the episode’s start is completely different from the look of Albuquerque (it’s all hard lighting, as opposed to the soft, umber tones of Walt’s house), as is the language, which is German.  Vince Gilligan’s writing slowly cues us into the fact that this is Madrigal Electronics GmbH, the site of a dipping sauce test, in which its sole participant is a chicken nugget-eating German, who, by the end of the sequence, ends up killing himself using a defibrillator upon noting that Pollos is closing and that federal agents are after Gus.

Gilligan’s pitch-black dark humor is particularly strong here—a few suggested sauce names include Cajun Kick-Ass, Franch (French and Ranch dressings combined), and Ketchup—particularly when this man’s suicide is punctuate by the flushing of a toilet.  It’s a ridiculous scene, but it could only work here on “Breaking Bad.”

That sequence works largely thanks to the directorial efforts of Michelle MacLaren.  She’s directed some of the show’s finest episodes, but “Madrigal” may just be the most finely directed one she, and the series as a whole, has produced yet.  The striking opening is followed by a series of shots of Walt placing salt in a cigarette.  MacLaren chooses to shopt this at a low height from underneath a glass table, a particularly effective directorial choice that makes the salt look like cocaine.  It seems oddly feasible that Walt would be doing cocaine, or at least selling it—he’s certainly bad enough for it—but it’s also a strangely intense series of shots that do indeed characterize Walt as the drug lord that he is.

But Walt does not believe he’s only a drug lord; he sees himself as something of a lord, a deity of sorts.  By the end of “Madrigal,” he’s completely broken Skyler in one (almost) violently sexual swoop and made Jesse trust him again.  If last episode’s “I forgive you” wasn’t a chilling enough line, Walt’s final bit about doing “all of this for the family” is enough to mortify.  And, even though the events surrounding him are mostly circumstantial, Walt has even pressured Mike into becoming a partner in a newfound three-way partnership between himself, Mike, and Jesse.  Why, you may ask, is Walt still making meth if he has, as Saul says, “won the lottery by living?”  Because he is broke, and because he owes Jesse $40,000, the former of which is almost surely false and a mere fabrication to control his subjects.

“Madrigal” truly revolves around Mike, however, which is a nice change of pace, considering how little we get to see of him.  Mike’s arc in this episode is an intentional whirlwind of confusion in which he has to do battle with Hank and Gomie, a mysterious woman with methylene named Lydia, and the 11 people who know about Gus’ trade.  At times, it’s really easy to get lost in Mike’s story, as it quickly jumps between the three of these groupings of people (Gilligan’s screenplay and MacLaren’s direction structurally and visually parallel this), but moments of great character development guide Mike through a downward spiral.

Lydia’s appearance may not last beyond “Madrigal,” but Gilligan’s addition of her character here is particularly interesting.  Lydia is first introduced to us as an archetypical femme fatale—she walks into a diner garbed in sunglasses and business attire, sits in a booth behind Mike, and requests business with him.  But the tables are quickly turned.  Mike soon establishes himself as the power in this situation, and Lydia is soon established as a nervous brat who won’t settle for Lipton’s Tea when she can’t have English Chamomile.  What’s even more interesting is Mike’s choice to spare her out of mere desperation.  He needs her to supply ingredients, even if she sent a hit man to kill one of the 11 people who knew about Gus’ operation.

It’s great watching “Breaking Bad” reinvent noir tropes over and over and over again.  It makes watching a show like this particularly unpredictable, because characters are never easily characterized, and everyone is particularly ambiguous.  Saul, Jesse, Skyler, and Mike see major changes in this episode as they buckle under Walt’s pressure.  Walt, on the other hand, seizes all the power he can.  All hail the king.

Alex Greenberger is a staff writer. Email him at entertainment@nyunews.com.

Herr Schuler’s last meal, boneless chicken with five dipping sauces chemically engineered for the unrefined taste buds of Midwestern America, did not befit a man of his stature. But for a man who, it seems, knowingly aided a man who peddled chemicals in at least five states, perhaps that last meal was poetic justice. Schuler’s death will only delay the investigation into Madrigal Electromotive for a little while, but I can’t figure just exactly how it will lead Hank to Mike, Jesse or Walter.

More promising are the bank accounts revealed by last week’s magnet caper, which accomplished nothing good, we know now. Mike, the rest of Gus’ muscle and businessmen like Chow will have to continue standing up to the heat. If Mike’s faith in just one guy is misplaced, Mike and Lydia the mystery methylamine mom are compromised.

Those hippos were bought with dirty money.

So much of this episode lays out the groundwork for the investigation that—I assume—will ultimately lead Hank to Walt. To that end, no scene was more important than the one in which Hank’s soon-to-be-gone boss pities himself for missing Gus, who was right under his nose all along. At the end of the anecdote, Hank is shown wondering if that could happen to him. The Whites dine at the Schraders’ house pretty often; if Skyler is catatonic and numb in his presence, Hank will only become more suspicious.

The final plot line of note is Walt’s manipulation of Jesse. 

Yeah, that. Gus didn’t poison Brock, so Tyrus did not remove the ricin cigarette from Jesse’s pack. Consequentially, Jesse assumes he lost it and freaks out that some innocent will die because of it. Walt makes a salty forgery and plants it in Jesse’s Roomba so that Jesse finds it on his own. Jesse is calmed enough to think about their next move: a three-way partnership with Mike. By the end of the episode, Mike agrees, perhaps because he knows his granddaughter’s Gus money will be taken by the DEA.

***

Now that we know Jesse’s nickname for the meth RV, we may safely assume that he has listened to this song quite a bit, probably stoned.

It was the sort of opening that Breaking Bad has perfected:  With an air of mystery, against a perfectly framed backdrop (whether it’s the dessert or the lab or the test kitchen of Madriga) a relatively unknown character acts out a decision that will have wide ranging consequences for everyone involved.   Think the assasin brothers crawling to the shrine to offer up a sacrifice before heading to kill Walt, or the floating pool debris being scooped up into the disaster recovery worker’s net.

The episode continues on, as we see the Madrigal executives, including Gus Fring / Madrigal front-woman, Lydia, speaking to the police and offering up — what seems like — a genuine offer to cooperate.

Lydia is one of 11 Fring employees now exposed by the offshore bank accounts found in the aftermath of the magnet adventure.   Although I was a bit taken aback by the general silliness of the magnet plan, I greatly enjoyed that the action had the unintended consaquence of tipping off the police to the offshore accounts.  Complexity gets in the way of the best laid plans, and often even the best plans are affected by nothing but chance, and end in unpredictable ways.  It’s great writing, and great storytelling.

Gus’ muscle man Mike is the show in “Madrigal”, and we’re treated to the usual Mike things: his cool hand at assassination, his love for his grand daughter.  But we also see a new side to Mike: when he goes to kill Lydia for her potential to do him in with the cops (and her general loose cannon ways) he’s affected by her pleas to spare her daughter the horror of either finding her dead body shot through the face, or not finding her, and thinking her mother abandoned her.

Mike, now slightly desperate himself to re-quire the funds lost when the cops found out about his offshore account in his daughter’s name (having earlier turned down a deal with Walt to enter a new meth cooking partnership before he knew his offshore account was compromised), makes a deal — find him some meth precursor — the chemical methlamine — and her life will go on.

The show closes with an incredibly creepy Walt coming on to Skylar, as Skylar, shaken with some sort of remorse or panic or something — lays in bed facing away from him, her eyes telling us her fear as Walt explains how easily the moral hand-wringing fades the more you break bad.  Walt’s transformation from loving father to criminal sociopath is complete now, his ability to rationalize “it’s all about family” the proof, as his effect on his catatonic wife is lost on him.

Bullet Points:

Walt’s manipulation of Jessie reaches new heights as we are shown (what I think is a flashback) of Walt replacing the ricin cigarette with a salt filled one, then tricking Jessie into believing it was simply lost in the robotic vacuum cleaner the whole time.  The ricin remains taped behind a electric outlet in Walt’s house, probably to be a plot point somewhere down the season.

Hank almost surely suspects something is up with Walt, the look in his face as his partner goes on about “hiding in plain sight” and “right under my nose” suggests as much.  Hank is a smart guy and I hope the writers do his character justice with screen and plot time as the show wraps up.

Breaking Bad has never been about political grandstanding or deep intellectual investigation into the “war on drugs”, but with the introduction of Madrigal, we are starting to see that the ties that bind us together in the 21st century are much closer than perhaps some of us would like to admit.  Drug money funds restaurants and laundry mats and props up German companies’ stock prices.  It’s not a local problem with local solutions, but rather a global problem with global implications.  Everyone loves easy money, and it’s one thing to be pulling the trigger on the corner to make it — but it’s morally easier to be the bag man — as the Madrigal executive surely knew.  See no evil, hear no evil and all that.  I’m reminded of the excellent Lester Freamon quote from the Wire about drugs and the cities they are in: “you follow the drugs, you get drug users and drug dealers, but you start to follow the money and you don’t know what you’re gonna find”.  You start to follow the money on New Mexican meth, and you end up in Germany, at a fortune 500 size corporation.

While the quality of Breaking Bad has perhaps tailed off since the nadir of Seasons 2 and 3, the watch-ability of the show is still incredibly high an an episode to episode basis. The opening of Season 5 was a bit lacking, but this week’s episode quickly went off in a half dozen interesting directions. The production remains top notch, more akin to a art film than a cable show. It will be interesting to see if the writers can keep us involved with Skylar and Walt Jr, as their characters have waned in importance. I’m ready for Skylar to either “shit or get off the pot”. We’ve seen her waffling on joining Walt on the dark side for awhile now. It’s time she either turns him in, cuts herself a plea deal, or breaks fully bad.

Up until now, Walt and Jesse have had things pretty easy, relatively speaking. Since they started working for Gus, all they’ve had to do is sit in the lab and cook**. But now Gus is gone, and if Walt and Jesse want to keep earning money they’re actually going to have to run things. That’s production, marketing, distribution, catering, the whole nine. And it’s obvious right from the start that the two of them can’t handle it alone. And that means bringing Mike onboard.

(**Sure, in between all that they had to go out and kill Gale and Gus, but, you know, work, amirite? Sometimes you just gotta stay late.)

Now, if you’ll remember, Mike has his reservations about Walt. Mainly that he’s a crazy person who’ll get them all landed in prison or killed. So it’s not too much of a surprise when Walt and Jesse visit him, offer him an equal share of whatever profits they make, and Mike turns them down flat. He’s getting old. He wants to spend time with his granddaughter. And then there’s the whole landing in prison or getting killed thing. Walt — who’s coming across as a completely different person this season — almost looks like he expected Mike’s answer. And from the slight smile we see on his face, almost enjoys the BS back-and-forth. He tells Mike to sleep on in, and I think he knows Mike will reconsider.

And in the end, Mike has no choice but to reconsider. As cold as Mike is, he can’t bring himself to kill Lydia. And if he keeps her around, he accepts the possibility that she’s going to come after him again. She already tried, sending Chris his way. And if she can be stupid once, she can be stupid twice. And now that the Feds have drained the account Mike had tucked away for his granddaughter, he’s in need of a new income source. So he calls Walt up, tells him he’s in, and Walt does a little victory lap around his kitchen. And why not? This guy’s getting everything he wants. And with that, gone are the days are the bumbling chemistry teacher, whose desperation belied just how scared of Gus he was. Now, Walt’s in control. And not just of the business, but those around him. I’m glad to see him and Jesse working together this season (why can’t everyone just get along?), but it was kind of sad to see Jesse played like a cheap fiddle in his search for the missing ricin**. And after a long day of manipulating those around him, Walt comes home to sooth his wife’s frazzled nerves while she stares with puffy eyes into the middle distance. I’m wondering if the show’s going to end every episode this season with Walt doing and saying something to Skyler that makes you want to take a shower.

(**Which Walt did not get rid of, and which I think we can safely assume we’ll see again before the series ends. Because as the saying goes, any time someone takes out a vial of ricin, you know they’re gonna use it.)

And speaking of Skyler, I’ve got questions about where the show’s taking her this season. Unfortunately, not all character arcs are created equal, and sometimes a show just comes off as a little clueless on how to handle this or that character. A good example would be Apollo from Battlestar Galactica. From season to season, it seemed like the show just really didn’t know what to do with him. First he’s a pilot, then he’s in the government, etc, and I’m wondering if Sklyer’s following a similar path. Last season we saw her embrace Walt’s business (which itself was a turnaround from the season before), and with the carwash, actively help him to cover up his tracks. Now we see her not even able to get out of bed, and I’m worried she may be snapping back in the other direction. I can understand a character having reservations about something, and Skyler should have had some major reservations about getting involved in Walt’s business. But once they commit, I like to see them commit. They can only go back and forth so many times.

And speaking of Hank, how many of you noticed that while he and Gomez were in ASAC Merkert’s office talking about Gus, Hank grabbed Merkert’s whiskey and topped off everyone’s cup? It’s small, I know, but I’m still trying to figure out how Hank’s obsession with rocks minerals was worth the time we spend on it last year, and I’m hoping we don’t see him go off in some other crazy direction, like becoming a drunk. I know, the chances of that happening are pretty small, I admit. But then again, minerals. Of course, it’s just as likely that Hank will go off in the complete opposite direction. The mystery of Gale’s death got him out of his funk last season, and now that things are heating up with Madrigal, it’s possible he’ll turn into supercop and bust Walt’s door down. It’s possible. But then again, minerals.

COMPLAINT (!):

A quick word about Madrigal. Alan Sepinwall praised the show’s set design in showing the company’s German office. But as a snobby asshole who used to live there, I saw one GLARING omission. Light switches. American light switches, of course, look like this (what we saw at Madrigal), while German light switches look like this. I understand there was no chance that production was going to take off across the Atlantic to shoot a five minute scene, but still, I hope the show is retroactively stripped of all its Emmys.

Walter White wraps this episode up with a line that only a year ago would have won a bunch of viewers back to his side; “[there's] No better reason than family”. Only now he says it during perhaps one of the squickiest scenes of the series to date, one that’s filled with a simple, subtle and understated sense of disgust, one that makes you feel sick when you watch it and one that shows just what it is that Walt is really doing to his family. It’s ingrained in us to side with the most familiar face in an argument, you always stick with a friend over a stranger, and so a transformation like Walt’s takes us a while to fully swallow, we still want to believe that he is good at heart, that he can be redeemed but it’s obvious from this episode that the flip is full, that the Walt we once knew has been turned inside out (and upside down?) by his experiences.

In case it wasn’t obvious enough from that final scene the episode also goes to great lengths to start us off on the opposite side to it’s old hero and it does this by again bringing up the ricin cigarette. The constant mentions of that McGuffin could just be due to Gilligan and co. going too far with their late game switcheroo last season (Bryan Cranston didn’t know Walt was responsible until he read the script for the season finale) and have had to set this time aside to struggle to contrive a clean and canonical explanation for it all as a result; or it could be a clever use of the shows concrete continuity.

Nothing is ever forgotten by the writers of Breaking Bad, they bring back each and every minor detail to dramatic effect; unfortunately though we watchers on the other-side of the television are not so invested and our memories not so incredible, so by stretching this story out the show can continue to shove our nose in what Walt did; lest we forget and ever try to forgive.

While that sounds like it might be a little too harsh and dark a thing for a show to do to it’s main character, we have to remember that Walt has undergone another transformation alongside his move from hero to villain and that is from protagonist to antagonist. As soon as he set his poisonous plan in motion without involving us he severed the link to the viewer; he’s no longer the lead in any traditional sense and this episode is a strong example of that. While Walt does still get a decent amount of screen-time he is shot in a genius way: every scene that he is in features at least one shot of him in the shadows, obscured by an object or partially cropped out of the center. The camera doesn’t focus on him, he’s alienated himself from us, and we are left to simply drift astray.

This though is something that I am somewhat thankful for because Walt’s mind is not a place that I really want to be right now. His crazed behavior has been alloyed by confidence and what has resulted is as far from righteous as you can get. He’s gone full Caine but thankfully we are provided someone strong enough to stand up to his Queeg-ish behavior, the once minor character Mike. There’s no better sign of a show’s quality than when a member of its extended family, its supporting cast is able to hold up episodes on their own and Mike does that this week with nary more than a furrowed brow to show the strain.

When Michelle McLaren makes a stop behind the camera of a Breaking Bad episode you can be sure that some magically smart action will ensue – how she hasn’t made a big budget feature yet is beyond me – and Mike’s action is some of the smoothest that this show delivers; they are a match made in heaven. The calm, clever beats of his bloody scenes are refreshing when compared to the chaos that the show would throw at us when Walt was at the helm but the best part of Mike’s main character role this week was the way that he won us over to his side without a single winge or beg.

Mike actually is a man making choices for his family and as such he makes them in private; a direct contrast to Walt’s constant wording of intent, his attempts to convince everyone, including himself, that he has made the right choice. Mike then is a much better hero despite having killed a number of people in cold blood, a tally he cooly adds to this week, though I fear this is exactly what will bring him down. Then again I guess that there is no better reason to finally be beaten, to die, than family. Whatever the case there is no better reason for watching television today than this show, so do so.

The ever-pressing need for money has always hung over Breaking Bad. After all, Walter only begins cooking in the first place because his family is so squeezed for cash in the face of his cancer treatment. In the last couple of seasons, however, the almighty dollar had largely become a representation of Walter’s growing ego and lust for power as he accumulated for more cash than he would ever actually need or be able to spend. Financial problems came off the back burner in “Crawl Space” when Skyler tried to pay off Ted’s IRS debt, losing the money Walter would need to get his family new identities. They’ve stayed a bit more relevant since, as ”Madrigal” was all about the financial crunches the different characters were in and seeing what they would do to make bank.

“Madrigal” begins with Herr Schuler of Madrigal Electromotive, the tangible representation of the fruits of the drug trade, deciding his remaining money and power is no longer worth it in the face of arrest and the loss of his dignity and taking his own life. Schuler’s ultimate inability to give up the remainder of his self sets the tone for the rest of the episode, as the decisions the characters made for money come back to haunt them.

Walter, of course, wants to go immediately back to cooking to get out of the $40,000 debt he owes to Jesse (and others?) because there is “gold” in the streets. Though the car wash could likely make that money legitimately (and it’s not like Jesse would have made him pay up immediately), Walt is now at the point where he simply wants to accumulate as much wealth as possible as a way of demonstrating his power. The murder, pain, and humiliation that come with it are now just part of the territory. Walter, who does not have to struggle with these decisions in the wake of his own reckoning in “Crawl Space,” is barely in the episode.

Mike, on the other hand, is faced with several financial choices. First, whether or not to work with Walter, a man he knows to be a cancer (yes that is a terrible pun but it is also accurate). Mike initially rejects Walter completely, choosing his principles over the vast sums of money that would come from going into business with Heisenberg. It appears that he persists in placing his own life (and dignity) above money when he tells Lydia that obviously they don’t need to kill 11 people to cover their own asses, that shit only happens in movies. But the reason he is OK with letting them live? Those men have made the choice to take the money and give themselves up for the sake of the organization – Mike trusts the power of money.

Fittingly, Mike’s confrontation with Lydia is like something out of a movie the same way as Mike’s balloon takedown from season 3, presenting a heightened version of reality and therefore a heightened, intensified version of Mike himself.  And when pressed with his financial need and, more importantly, potentially having to murder a girl as old as his granddaughter, Mike gets into bed with Walt and Jesse in a decision that seems likely to lead to his demise – he is simply incapable of ignoring the part of him that is a warm, caring, grandfather.

The show has done several stories about money taking precedence over dignity, literalized in the season 2 plot when a career criminal loses his freedom and his identity by going to prison as Heisenberg for money. The plan only worked as a stopgap measure until the DEA realized this man was clearly not Heisenberg. Deciding to sacrifice his identity as a “good man” for money was the first evil in Walter’s moral progression, but, as the eventual fate of Saul’s fall guy demonstrates, you’ll be tied back and forcibly shown what you were somehow.

As the show moves into its final act, it has begun inverting the structures it relied on in the beginning – consider last week’s episode a riff on the early caper episodes, and the sequence where Walt and Jesse hunt for the ricin a gross take on the cooking montages. When the time comes, the characters may just be confronted with what they used to be – Jesse, the father figure to Brock, Skyler, a good wife and mother, and Walt, a real family man. Mike’s pained sigh as he asks Lydia for methylmine is his way of recognizing that you can give up as much of your identity for money as you want, but eventually a far more serious penalty will have to be paid.

Tonight’s Breaking Bad was indicative of why we all love Mike. He’s always been the calm and collective character of the show, and regardless of what he does, we accept his actions as the most ideal contribution for the overall group. In other words, Mike is a badass and you should assertively nod your head at everything he does.

In “Madrigal”, we take a step back from Walt and Jesse’s life, and follow the path of Mike Ehrmantraut. Because, why not? The show needs more of Mr. Ehrmantraut. In the episode, we find out that the DEA has uncovered the payroll accounts of those that helped Gus’ operations. There are a total of 12 people on the list, one of whom includes Mike. Mike is brought in for questioning and find out the that all of Mike’s $2 million is under her granddaughter’s name. Looks like there’s a soft side to Mike after all. When Hank and Steven Gomez reveal the once-thought cryptic payroll information, Mike’s face subtly fills up with distress and tension. This certainly is not the Mike we know.

Shortly after Mike’s encounter with the DEA, he knows that he no longer has the advantage over them. He receives a suspicious call from Mr. Chang, one of the 12 concerned payroll-ees on the list. We find out that it was a setup from Chris, also an endangered candidate on the list, who was hired by Lydia. This infuriates Mike, which in result commences the bodacious Mike we’ve all been thriving for.

Mike is out to kill. The next scene of Mike’s assassination attempt on Lydia is the emobidment of the show’s tense moments. Those moments where I have my hands clasped as its resting on my forehead and my eyes piercing as if I’m in a dire need of a excorism, depicts what a typical episode of Breaking Bad evokes. Back to the scene, as Mike is impersonating his best James Bond, blending in the dimness of Lydia’s home, with her child and sitter oblivious,it was hard to believe that Mike would actually gun down Lydia in these circumstances. It digressed from the intrepid side of Mike, to one that was threatening and grim. Considering that Mike also had a daughter of his own, you’d think that there’d be some common ground, but who are we kidding, this was Mike. A man that regardless of the conditions, gets the job done.

The episode highlighted and introduced several aspects of Mike that we were and weren’t familiar with. But more importantly, it introduced a side of Mike that we never saw. Desperate and scared. When he realizes that the DEA is a lot closer than he thought, he starts to panic and even commits to killing one of his own men. It was a powerful scene. Obviously Mike didn’t want to kill Chris, but proceeds as if it was protocol; even going as far as asking him if he’s ready. In those moments, you can see from Mike’s decrepit face that he’s becoming exhausted and weary of  his job. He wants to retire from this Batman-like role and live a typical life. We’re not sure how long Mike is going to hold up, but from his commitment to Walt’s “regime”, he’ll be around for awhile. And hey, Gilligan’s been flirting with the idea of a Mike spin-off. Sorry Mike, looks like your job ain’t over yet.

*How amazing were some of the shots? The confrontation of Chris and Mike while Mr. Chang was clearly executed. Very reminiscent of The Walking Dead.  Also, Mike’s scenes in Lydia’s home was brilliant. Played well with the darkness and Mike’s motive.

-mL

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Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 2 Breaking Bad has long employed the technique of the obtuse flashforward, showing us what might come without actually contextualizing what we’re seeing. Think the damaged purple teddy bear of season two. Tonight’s premiere utilized what appeared to be a flashforward in which Walt meets a mysterious figure in a Denny’s bathroom on his 52nd birthday. A trade of money-for-keys is made, and Walt (going by the last name “Lambert”) suddenly finds himself in possession of a battered old vehicle with guns and other illicit cargo in the trunk. Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 2 Where this plot is leading is anyone’s guess (really, who called the damaged purple teddy bear being debris from a mid-air plane collision?), but what we know in the present is that the death of drug kingpin Gustavo Fring has emboldened Walter White to a dangerous degree. Not that he didn’t have enough swagger to account for five drunken Kanyes before, but to remember the tail end of the fourth season is to remember a Walt that was on the edge, desperate to the point of arranging a new life for his family safely away from Albuquerque out of fear for what Gus Fring would do to them. Having followed Walt for four seasons, I’d imagine the audience wants to believe that Walt is smarter than to let such hubris rule him. If anyone should know better, it should be Walter White, who hasn’t had a safe minute since this entire enterprise began. Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 2 Seriously, this is Breaking Bad, Walt! The point where you think you’ve “won” is arguably the point where you ought to be the most concerned. Jane certainly thought she and Jesse had it made when Walt dropped off nearly $500,000 way back in season 2. But she was choking to death on her own vomit within hours. And I bet little Brock and his mother were overjoyed to finally be out of their crappy, run-down gangland neighborhood, thanks to Jesse’s monetary contributions, but all it took was a few buds from a lily of the valley plant to send their happiness crashing back down to Earth. In brief, happiness is ephemeral on this show, and peace even more fleeting.

Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 2 As for “Live Free or Die,” the episode is a solid entry into the Breaking Bad premiere canon. Walt has “won,” but the specter of Gus Fring looms over the proceedings. Upon disposing of the bomb evidence and the lily of the valley plant, we find Walt (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse (Aaron Paul) confronting Mike (Gus Fring’s fixer, recovering from last season’s bullet wounds) to ascertain the location of Fring’s surveillance footage, since the cameras in the lab have captured all sorts of incriminating evidence of their cook sessions and other illicit activities. Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 2 Mike, for his part, immediately wants Walt dead for what he’s done in engineering Fring’s murder, believing he’s doomed them all. But, with Jesse’s help, Walt is able to talk Mike into a crazy scheme in which they will attempt to destroy the surveillance evidence, stored on Fring’s laptop, even though the laptop has already been confiscated by the police and stored in an impenetrable evidence room. Leave it to Jesse to come up with the solution: Magnets. Lots of magnets.

Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 2 The three-man operation to destroy the laptop locked in the police evidence room, without ever actually entering the police headquarters, is among the more daring acts of bravado exhibited by Walt and crew. The plan involves Mike disarming the police security cameras and gateway to allow Walt and Jesse to drive a moving truck full of magnets into the lot, parking it adjacent to the wall of the evidence room. Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 2 From there, they crank up the magnetic pull, and watch the evidence fly. It’s a plan that, on paper, is almost too bold to work. There isn’t a single reason on Earth that this plan shouldn’t fail in spectacular fashion. Yet it doesn’t fail. Probably because Walter White is the brains behind it. And this is why we’re treated to Walt’s excessive hubris throughout the episode. He’s high on the enormity of what he’s accomplished in eliminating Gus Fring. Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 2 He has delusions of invincibility, he feels immune to Hank’s investigative efforts, above the condemnations of Skylar, and in complete control over his relationship with Saul Goodman, his lawyer, to whom he declares “We’re done when I say we’re done,” in a particularly chilling sequence. What’s so galling about this is how so little of Walt’s ingenuity comes from Walt himself. Yes, he’s an outrageously clever guy, and Lord only knows what he’d be capable of if he put any of his considerable intellectual gifts towards maybe not making drugs. But so much of what he accomplishes is dependent upon the involvement of others. He wouldn’t have been able to kill Gus Fring without Tio Salamanca and his willingness to die just for the opportunity to take Fring with him.

Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 2 He couldn’t have poisoned innocent little Brock without the help of Saul Goodman and his cronies. (Hell, I can’t think of many things he could have accomplished without the help of Saul Goodman, who seems to be a Swiss Army Lawyer with a solution for everything). He certainly couldn’t have pulled off the risky magnet plan without the help of Jesse and Mike. In short, Walt is becoming the worst kind of kingpin (and he IS becoming a kingpin – it’s been his arc every bit as much as the fact of his gradual moral compromise), the kind that doesn’t acknowledge that while you might become the king on your own, nobody remains the king without help, or the right connections.

 Keeping Up with the Kardashians Season 7 Episode 11