So we start off tonight right where we left off, with Walt speeding up to his house to see Jesse's car in the driveway with the door hanging open. Walt creeps in the back way with his gun out and wanders through every room in the house, calling out for Jesse to show himself, only to realize Jesse isn't there. All the gasoline is poured, but the place is empty.
When we come back from the opening credits, Walt gets Huell to take Jesse's car and cleaners to fumigate the house, but he also calls Jesse and leaves him a voicemail, thanking him for changing his mind and telling him they can fix things between them if they just talk, using his fatherly voice again in what he thinks is a calming manner, and this is our first hint in this episode that Walt might really care for Jesse after all. I was amazed that he thinks all he has to do is "talk" to him and Jesse will come around again after finding out about the ricin, but I guess it speaks to the enormous amount of power Walt thinks he wields over him.
When Skyler comes home, Walt has fashioned this amazingly convoluted story about a malfunctioning gas pump that spilled gasoline all over him, the car, and then the house as he threw his clothes off. No one believes him of course- Jr. thinks he fainted again and Skyler sees that something else is going on but stays quiet for the sake of the kids, as Walt suggests they go stay in a hotel for a couple of days. While they're holed up in what must be the fanciest hotel in Albuquerque, Walt meets Saul and his guy in the car, where Saul tells him they've looked everywhere and can't find Jesse. Walt just thinks, again, that all he has to do is explain to him why he had to poison Brock and everything will be ok, but Saul isn't buying it and suggest Walt look at Jesse as an "Old Yeller" type of situation, where the once loyal dog had to be put down because he went rabid (hence, the title of the episode). Just like with Hank, Walt flat out refuses, telling Saul to keep his metaphors to himself.
Back in their floor size hotel room, Skyler demands to know what really happened and why he's talking to Saul, so Walt pretty openly confesses about Jesse, not telling her what he did, but admitting that he did "something" that he had to do that made Jesse angry. He again emphasizes that he knows how to handle the kid, but Skyler think he ought to kill him, which shocks Walt. Skyler thinks they should just face facts and seeing how they've come this far, what's one more? This faux "shock" on Walt's part over the idea of killing Jesse seems strange in this episode- it's similar to his reaction over the thought of killing Hank, as though Walt has somehow drawn these lines in his own mind over how far he'll go, which is of course, ridiculous, given that he's poisoned a child, let a woman die in front of him, run over some drug dealers, and had 10 people killed in the span of a few minutes, among countless other murderous deeds in this series. But he seems to be hanging on to the idea that there is some imaginary line he won't cross.
Now we get a flashback to Jesse pouring the gasoline in a rage. We see that he's high and got just seconds away from doing it before Hank barges in and stops him at gunpoint, having been following him from Saul's office himself. Jesse cries out that Walt poisoned Brock and can't keep getting away with everything, to which Hank agrees and gets him to come with him in his car. We see Hank and Jesse drive off mere moments before Walt pulled up to the house.
Then we get Marie with Dave the shrink, complaining about not knowing a person's true nature and wondering about getting untraceable poisons, in a scene that I'm not sure I know the point of (I have never found Marie even vaguely interesting on her own), unless it has something to do with Dave himself, who kept pressing for details on the Walt situation only to be spurned by Marie. That whole thing was kind of odd- is Dave going to turn out to be a random key player in an upcoming episode? When Marie gets home she sees that Hank as brought Jesse back as a houseguest, which she agrees to as long as it's bad for Walt, and then Hank listens to Jesse's voicemail on his phone, and hears the message Walt left for him earlier.
There's a brief moment of Walt sitting poolside at the hotel, where Walter Jr. joins him to hug him and cry about his returning cancer- and they've really been pushing the stress on poor Jr. over the last couple weeks about this, which makes me wonder if Walt's cancer somehow might not really be back and if he's faking this in order to make Skyler stay with him or something. There just seems to be more to that, given that we know Walt isn't dead in the future, and aside from the beard he doesn't actually look to be in that bad of physical shape, either. Jesse then wakes up at Hank's house, where Marie offers him coffee and they appear to have brought Steve Gomez in on the story, as he's there when Hank has Jesse tell him everything from the beginning as he records him.
Hank and Gomez commiserate on the balcony after hearing all the details, and though they believe him they both agree that there's no real evidence, just hearsay. But Walt calls again and leaves Jesse another message, wanting him to meet him the plaza in Albuquerque so they can talk. Hank and Gomez want Jesse to go wearing a wire, but Jesse freaks, saying Walt is smarter and luckier than them and whatever they want to happen the exact opposite will, and beside, Walt will kill him. Hank disagrees, saying that Walt's actions have shown over and over again that Jesse is the one thing he cares about, but Jesse doesn't buy it. When he leaves the room, Gomez confesses he's not so sure either, but Hank doesn't care, saying if Walt kills him at least he'll get it on tape. Well, there goes the audience's rooting interest in you, Hank, if there ever was any. Poor Jesse just can't get anybody on his side.
The meet is set, and with Walt waiting on a bench in the crowded plaza, Hank pretty much shoves Jesse out of the car, wire attached. Jesse is nervous and slowly walks over to Walt, but stops when he sees a suspicious looking bald guy standing near him in the corner. Jesse then turns around and runs to a pay phone, calling Walt and telling him he decided not to burn his house down because he's going to get him another way, and he's going after where he "really lives." Hanks picks Jesse up and yells at him over ditching the plan, but Jesse insists he's thought of a better way to nail Walt. But it turns out the bald guy was just some random dude with no connection to Walt at all, and the last scene is Walt getting in his car and calling none other than Todd, telling him he's got another job for his uncle.
Well, I really have no idea where this is going, but I'm starting to think this future with Walt and the machine guns might have something to do with Todd and his crew after everything goes horribly wrong. This episode tonight seemed to let us in on the fact that Walt really does (or did) care about Jesse, or at least he thinks he does, even if he showed it in extremely uncouth ways in the past, but of course Jesse doesn't learn that. Now I'm wondering if there will end up being some sort of crazy, unexpected reconciliation between them at some point after all, despite all the terrible things he's done to him. Since Jesse has been nothing but jerked around the whole series, going from being the object of one person's manipulation to another, it would seem especially cruel to not let him have some form of solace in the end, but I have no idea how that's going to come about.
Pointless Prediction #4: I'm going to ahead and predict that Walt's lying about his cancer being back. I'm suspicious now and I'm going to say he's faking it in order to get Skyler on his side again.
