Banana Scoop

Not a lot of Meth related drama on this week’s episode of Breaking Bad.  Instead we focused a lot of the family drama between Walter and Skylar.  This show definitely has its bad ass moments and heart thrilling scenes, but the acting is top notch.  For this year’s Emmys, 4 cast members are nodded with a best actor nomination, and based on last night’s episode, they’re reeling up for another one.  Read on for this week’s episode of Fifty-One.  Major spoilers as always.

Opening with Cars & Dubstep

The show opens up with Walt selling the car he hit those two goons with two seasons past.  Telling the mechanic he hit a deer was clearly a clever cover up.  What Walt does next was fairly unexpected.  He sells the old car to him for nearly $50.  This was a pretty strange scene.  The mechanic was pretty confused and even Walt Jr. gives him a skeptical look. I’m seriously thinking this will bite Walt in the butt later on, considering that the mechanic WILL talk about how a client of his gave him a car for $50.  How will that not raise heads in suspicion.  But admist that confusion, Walt finds a very special token of his, his Hesienberg Hat.  A chilling moment occurred to me when he donned it again.  And to top it all off, Walt buys two brand spanking new cars for himself and Walt Jr.  What was neat here was the opening with Dubstep.  A very fitting music track to a very cool scene.

Walt’s Awkwardest Birthday Ever

We learned [or at least I did], that almost one year has passed since the beginning of season 1 with Walt’s fifty first birthday coming up.  Characters have been beating around the bush about what is planned for Walt’s birthday, and Walt himself even wanted something nice done. When the day comes, his expectations are disappointed.  Skylar doesn’t really care, Walt Jr. acting as enthusiastic as his mother and when Hank and Marie drop by, things get pretty weird.  They can’t even celebrate Hank’s new promotions as lots of awkward silences occur, especially because Marie passed on the lie of Skylar’s infidelity to Hank.  But the next thing is the icing on the cake.

Skylar’s Gone Off the Deep End

During Walt’s rather touching conversation about how a year has passed since his diagnosis, Skylar takes a deep look into the pool.  She slowly makes her way down, ignoring the pleas and warnings of her family.  As she submerges her head in the pool, she gives a look of feeling lost, powerless.  It’s pretty unknown if she meant to stay down there until she drowned, but she was saved by Walt at the last second.  The repercussions of this affect the whole episode, because we learn that Skylar did this on purpose to send the kids away from the hostile environment that Skylar claims their home to be.  Walt’s reaction on that matter below.

Tracing Methylamine

Meanwhile, more of Gus’s old men are getting round up and his surviving connection at Madrigal, Lydia, is freaking out.  Mike sends Jessie to go pick up the Methylamine for their cooking, but they quickly find out the barrel that they want to transport is being traced by the cops, or so they think.  Jessie describes the tracer to be out in the open, under the barrel where it’s easily seen, and Mike sees right through it.  Mike believes Lydia planted it there to make it seem as though they’re tracing them and to possibly stop Walt, Mike, and Jessie from using her a precursor.  As he makes his way out to kill her for this believed treachery, Jessie stops him and begs him to not do so.  Walt calmly agrees and therefore Lydia lives another day.

I think Lydia is trouble.  She’s described as uptight several times on the show and is even shown to be as she gets her hands dirty with the transportation of Methylamine.  She’s treacherous and conniving when it comes to team Heisenberg and will definitely cause problems in the future.

Walter White is a Monster of a Husband

The episode’s most powerful scene consisted in the bedroom after Skylar’s presumed drowning.  We find out Skylar did her stint on purpose as a ploy to driving the kids away from the hazardous environment she believes Walt to have created.  Walt doesn’t like the idea of someone taking his kids away, so he begins to interrogate Skylar on how else she plans to try to do that.  Skylar reluctantly confesses on plan with somewhat confidence and Walt shoots it down with his own retaliation.  The scenarios get darker and darker as Skylar threatens to make it though he’s beating her and Walt get fiercer and fiercer about what he’d do to her if she dared to cross him.

Skylar slowly begins to break down knowing she lost this battle, where she admits to her only plan is to wait.  When Walt asks her as to what she’s waiting on, she helplessly replies, the cancer.  She’s wishing him to actually get cancer and presumably die and sees this as her only hope for what she considers salvation for her and her family.  A crazy powerful scene that I was absolutely entranced with.

Tick, Tick, Tick

As a present, Jessie gave Walt a nice new watch.  As Walt returns home, he explains that his new gift was given to him by a man who just recently wanted to kill him.  He hopes Skylar will also change her mind about how she feels about him in time.  The most interesting part of this scene is the significance of the watch.  Earlier in the episode, we’re told that Walt had his diagnosis only one day after his 50th birthday.  And as his 51st ends, the ticking of the watch gets loader, emphasizing the significance of the day after his 51st.  What will happen?  We can only know come next week.

Overview

A powerful drama filled episode that really shows how talented the actors are.  There was a lot of family drama in this episode, not something we’ve had in a long time, as Walt and Jessie have been more focused on people not killing them as opposed to homefront battles.  Walt continues to walk down his path of destruction and evil as he threatens his wife with committing her, but we also got a small redemption with his heartfelt words about the support of his family during his birthday dinner.  I still think Walt is the main bad guy of this season, and I think we need to give Jessie more screen time.  Maybe all will be heard next week.

Tune in next week for this review and Dead Freight on AMC at 10:00 pm EST.