Tonight's very eventful episode is appropriately titled in every way, and we get more of Jesse for the first time in a while, but we start out with a thread that will presumably be picked up in future episodes, because tonight it's only in the cold open and then nothing for the rest of the hour.
Todd calls Walt outside a diner and leaves him a rambling message, letting him know about the "change in management" at the meth lab. He's his usual polite, differential self, and then he, his uncle and a guy in his uncle's crew have breakfast in the diner while Todd relays the story of the train heist in a boastful manner. The men are sufficiently impressed and in the bathroom we see one of them wiping the blood off his shoe as they complain vaguely about the "nanny state," before taking off in car toward New Mexico. The fresh blood lets us know this is all taking place right after the shootout in the last episode, and Todd expresses his confidence in cooking again.
Meanwhile, back at the station, Hank faces Jesse and tells him that he knows Walt is Heisenberg and that if he talks he can make any charges on him disappear. Jesse refuses to spill, but Hank plays up his apparent unhappiness, surmising that Walt hasn't treated him well and has used him for his own benefit, just like he's used his family. This truth seems to get to Jesse a little, but he still refuses to say anything to Hank in particular, and then Saul bursts in to shut down the interview and scold Jesse for throwing his money around recklessly. I have to wonder though... Hank seemed to correctly guess a LOT in this scene about Walt and Jesse's relationship, but I'm not getting how it is that he knows so definitively that Jesse and Heisenberg are partners in the first place. Maybe I'm forgetting some things, but I don't think Jesse had been linked to any of the major events in the past few seasons- I think the writers may have had Hank leap pretty far to some of these conclusions about the depth of their connection. Did he even suspect Jesse for the last couple of seasons of being involved in anything?
Back at the White's house, Walt prevents Walter Jr. from going over to his aunt Marie's house at her request by confessing to him that the cancer's back. It works perfectly, as Jr. insists on staying home with his dad, and then Walt decides to, with Skyler's help, tape a "confession" of sorts, as we'll see in a bit. Walt and Skyler then meet Hank and Marie for one horribly awkward and tension-filled dinner at a Mexican restaurant, where Walt tells them to leave the kids alone, while Marie snipes at them in anger and disbelief over Skyler's attitude. Walt pleads with them not to destroy the family and Skyler claims that the entire ordeal is behind them anyway, but then Marie interjects that Walt should just kill himself to get all this over with. Hank protests at the idea, saying he doesn't deserve to get off that easy. Walt feigns concern over Jr.'s well-being and hands them the confession he's recorded before he and Skyler leave the table.
When Hank and Marie play the tape at their house, it turns out to be a video of Walt "confessing" to being the forced victim of Hank, whom he pins the whole drug empire on, along with every tragic event that he himself is to blame for. Hank realizes it's a threat, and also finds out from the tape that Walt is the one who payed for his medical bills, which Marie admits is true, placing Hank in an even worse position. I'm not sure how plausible Walt's plan is here- as much as Hank doesn't have any evidence of Walt's crimes, there's also zero evidence of this alternate story either, so it just seems to be a threat of your word against mine. But maybe he assumes that will be enough.
Walt meets Jesse and Saul out in the desert, and Jesse tells him that Hank doesn't seem to have any evidence and hasn't even told the DEA yet, and this all seems to prompt Walt to once again reassure Jesse in a fatherly way that he doesn't like to see him hurting like this and maybe he ought to, for his own good, get out of town and start a brand new life with a new identity, using one of Saul's contacts to help him. Jesse doesn't fall for it this time and screams at Walt to drop the "concerned dad" act and just tell him to get out or he'll kill him like he did Mike, breaking down in the process as he tells Walt to just admit he doesn't care about him. Walt doesn't say anything, but pulls Jesse into a hug, as Jesse falls into his arms, sobbing. It's a powerful and effective scene, but it all goes to hell in the final part of the episode, leading to a crisis and a cliffhanger ending.
Jesse is all prepared to vanish, and Saul is setting him up with his contact and piles of cash, even suggesting Florida as a destination, but Jesse is nervous and shaking, and lights up in his office again as Saul reprimands him and sends him out with Huell and a Hello Kitty phone to the pick-up stop. As Jesse stands at the spot, waiting nervously, he searches his pockets for his dope, but all he finds are his cigarettes and realizes Huell has lifted it- and then it finally, suddenly dawns on him that this same cigarette pack was lifted off him before and that's how the infamous ricin was planted there. Jesse bolts from the spot and storms back into Saul's office, punching him and holding everyone at gunpoint, demanding to know if Walt had it lifted and if he did in fact, poison Brock after all. Saul admits it, but protests his own ignorance of the plan, and Jesse takes off again, while Sauls calls to warn Walt. We then see Walt dash to the car wash to fish out the gun he'd hidden underneath the soda machine, but the last scene of the episode is Jesse kicking in the White's front door and pouring gasoline all over the house in a blind rage.
It's quite a downer to end the episode on, but I think that unless Walt does kill Jesse in the next ep (which is certainly possible) he's almost certain to run back to the DEA to turn Walt in, as there would seem to be no way that relationship is salvageable at all at this point. I always wondered if Jesse would find out about Brock and/or Jane, as it seemed to me that was only necessary if they planned to have an irreparable split between the two, something I was never sure was intended in the end. Now though, the previews (which are finally back at the end of the episode- yay!) confirm that Jesse says "Mr. White is the devil," at some point in the next ep, so yeah- I think we can safely say a permanent good-bye to that partnership.
Pointless Prediction #3: hmmm, it's hard to say this week- but given all that's happened, I'm going to go out on a big limb and predict that Walt DOES kill Jesse before the season's over. May seem too extreme, but I wouldn't put anything past him now and with Jesse in this uncontrollable fury, it seems like his only option for self-preservation, which we know is Walt's number one priority.
