- It's hard to write about Breaking Bad each week and not sound like a broken record. Sure I'll be like groundbreaking this, and fucking awesome that, but its sheer lack of misfires of late leave me nothing to criticize, nothing to bitch at and nothing to whinge about. Which if I recall is kind of the point in blogging about stuff, to impotently rage on and on.
- If a show being so consistently good stifles me somewhat as a blogger then fuck it, let it stifle away. Its a sacrifice I'll gladly make if it means shows like this can go on being shows like this. As you may have guessed, there was yet another stunning episode last night. No more half-measures indeed.
- I couldn't possibly begin with anything other then the glorious cold open, which felt like an awesome five minute film to provide a little tragi-comic levity to what was clearly going to be an intense hour. The Wendy the meth-whore montage, set to joyful hippie anthem Windy by The Association , may be my favorite thing ever to exist in the history of time. I'll say no more in case I overexpose the thing. Awesome though.
- Jesse continues down his path toward inevitable doom, not content with skimming of Gus, he now wants to whack two of his dealers as well. Dude, you can only push a sociopathic crime-lord so far before he, you know, puts a new hole in his face. But Jesse doesn't care, pushed on by the urge to avenge Combo, and somewhat understandably the idea of indoctrinating kids to do your nefarious bidding is kind of not cool. I guess he'd prefer to die his own man rather then live as a stooge.
- Walt however takes a different tack, and when Jesse tells him his plan, he goes all self-preservationy, as only Walt can, ratting him to Gus. Who to his own detraction engages in the episode's worst half-measure of all and instead of just blowing Jesse's head, off tries to intimidate him with clout and his stature. Maybe Gus should have listened to Mike the cleaner, who had a wonderfully humanizing moment in this episode after being a fairly simple tertiary character this year.
- No more half-measures indeed, it seems that since the pilot Walt has engaged in nothing but half-measures, taking problems as they come but ultimately just delaying the inevitable. In particular season three Walt, who did at least attempt to forge his own identity in past seasons, his slide back into the same passive guy, beaten down by everything. Well until he did what he did at the end of this episode anyway.
- Holy shit that was awesome.
- What was awesome you ask? Jesse, pathetically skulking up to the dealers, fresh off a line of meth and clearly about to get shot When Walt saved the Guy from death and from himself as he went right ahead and whacked the guys Jesse was all ready to get shot by, hitting one with his car (his teenage son's car even) and shooting the other one in the face. The camera cowered beneath him as he looked straight at Jesse. No more half-measures indeed.
- Jesse's idiocy has always given him such an innocence, even when he tries to be the bad guy. One could say that Jesse is fundamentally good guy trying to be a bad guy and Walt is a bad guy trying to be a good guy. But I liked the fact that he decided that the preservation of Jesse's innocence was worth his own. Arguably the first selfless thing Walter White has ever done on this show.
- I can't imagine how well all this is going down with Gus though. I sure hope they don't write him out of the show for next year, because he's such an interesting, well-acted character. I should imagine Walt will somehow make a deal for Jesse's safety in the finale, but one thing this show never does is go the way you think it will go.
- Want to know about money laundering? You could make like skylar and try the wikipedia page.
- Here I am, forever the broken record. ANOTHER great, great episode of Breaking Bad, which was both an expertly told character piece and one of those treasured episodes where shit truly goes down. Game changed yet again
Rating: 9/10
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