Wow. Now that was a heartpounding experience. Our fourth to last episode ever of Breaking Bad opens with the new meth crew consisting of Todd, Uncle Jack, Uncle Jack's right hand man, and Lydia overlooking the new batch of meth, where we find out that Todd has managed to cook it to 76% purity, although the color isn't blue, a fact which disturbs Lydia, as she says her buyers will accept the lower quality but not the color.
Jack laughs at this and offers food coloring as a solution, but Todd later creeps up to Lydia and promises her he'll get better. Todd's uber-politeness is so creepy here, as he gets up in Lydia's face and appears to have some kind of odd attraction towards her, but she cooly tells him she appreciates his efforts and walks away. As she goes Todd caresses her coffee cup and drinks from where she left a lipstick mark (sooo weird!) and then he gets the call we saw Walt make in the last episode, telling him about the hit on Jesse. Predictably, Todd's only reaction to this is to agree pleasantly and go back to caressing Lydia's coffee cup. So eager to please, that Todd.
Hank and Gomez meet up after the botched attempt to trap Walt last week, and agree to hear out Jesse's idea. Apparently Jesse's threat to get Walt where he "really lives" involves finding his buried money, so he offers up Huell as the guy who might know where it is. Hank and Gomez have Huell put into a motel room and Hank proves himself nearly as sneaky as Walt in fooling Huell into thinking that his life is in danger from the almighty Heisenberg. He splatters some bloody meat on the floor to look like brains and has Jesse lay his head down next to it while he takes a picture to prove to Huell that Walt had Jesse killed and is now coming after him. Huell buys this convoluted explanation a little too easily in my opinion, but that's all it takes for him so spill what he knows about the money- which as we saw, isn't much except that Walt took the barrels and a shovel and drove off in a van.
Meanwhile, Todd's set up a meeting with Walt and Uncle Jack, where Walt explains that he doesn't want Jesse suffering because he's "like family" to him, and Jack agrees to off Jesse if Walt will come back and cook for them, and bring Todd up to speed. Walt reluctantly agrees, since they won't accept money, and says he'll come back for one cook after they get the job done.
Walt's idea for flushing Jesse out of hiding is to show up at Andrea's house, telling her that Jesse's using again and he's worried about him. This prompts her to call Jesse and leave him a message, of course letting him know that Walt is there with them, so that presumably Jesse will dash over, where he'll be intercepted and killed by Jack, who's waiting outside staking the place out. Brock is of course at the house in this scene and is noticeably quiet and weirded out by Walt's presence, but I can't remember if this has any significance. Somebody help me out, did Walt threaten Brock before or something? There's an obvious tension in this scene that I'm not sure I knew the meaning of, other than that we know Walt poisoned him, but I don't think Brock knows that (but it seems like he knows something).
We then see that Hank, not Jesse has gotten the message from Andrea, and he brushes it off completely, knowing it's a trap and doesn't even mention it to Jesse. He's had no luck tracking the van that Walt used to transport the money, because it didn't have GPS, but he decides to bluff about it to Walt, who wouldn't have known that.
Back at the car wash, Skyler is showing Jr. how to work the register when Saul comes in, hilariously beaten up and paying for his ticket, meeting Jr. for the first time (who's a fan of his billboards), and bantering with them in his usual snarky way as Skyler nervously ushers him out. Walt meets up with Saul at the hoses, where Saul informs him Huell's disappeared and without his bodyguard he's now wearing a bulletproof vest as protection, thinking Jesse's gone on a killing spree. Walt denies this, but is at a loss to explain Huell's vanishing act, and when he gets back inside the car wash he receives a text from Jesse that appears to be a barrel of money.
This sends Walt racing to the desert with Jesse on the phone threatening to burn his money in a heartpounding sequence that has Walt yelling at him and in the process inadvertently confessing to every nefarious deed he's ever done for him, defending his actions as always being for Jesse's benefit, but Jesse was just too stupid to realize it. We of course, realize as he's saying all this that it's being recorded, but Walt has lost all capacity for rational thought at the possibility of losing his money. When Walt gets to the spot (which is called To'hajiilee, the name of the episode) it takes him a few minutes to realize Jesse tricked him and when he does he panics and hides behind a rock, realizing that Jesse has probably followed him as well. It's a testament to what a good actor Cranston is again, that he makes us see that the thought of the money being threatened was so massive that he lost all his judgment and good sense, never even realizing there's no way Jesse could have pulled off such a complicated trap without outside help. But of course he does now, and he calls Jack and the crew to come out and save him, thinking Jesse's going to have backup when he finds him, but as Jesse pulls up with Hank and Gomez, and Walt finally discovers who he's been working with, he tells Jack to call it off, and hangs up the phone in despair, leaning back against the rock as a tear rolls down his face, seemingly defeated.
Walt has given up and it's an incredible moment when he comes out from behind the rock and surrenders to Hank, who cuffs him and reads him his rights as Walt stares down Jesse the entire time, who appears just as amazed as we are that Walt has actually been caught. Walt calls Jesse a coward and Jesse responds by spitting at him as they try to fight each other, with Gomez and Hank pulling them apart. Hank puts Walt in the car and calls Marie to let her know he's gotten him, and this scene I could have done without, because there is WAY too much "I love you" and tearful goodbye exchanges going on between them for me not to have gotten the hint (actually the sledgehammer) that something bad was about to occur- sorry, but that meaningful good bye moment is in way too many movies, shows, etc. and it always means somebody's about to die.
So that's when Jack and his crew show up of course (saw that coming) in defiance of Walt's order, and as Walt freaks out in the car yelling for them to stop, and Hank and Gomez haul out their guns in a standoff, the mass shootout happens and it goes on for about two minutes until the episode cuts out in the middle of it, leaving us on that horrifying note with no previews of what goes down next week and how this turns out.
Pointless Prediction #5- Whew. Well, I guess my prediction this week has got to involve the result of that shooting, and my guess is that both Hank and Gomez are dead (they were severely outnumbered), as we know Walt doesn't die and I have no idea about Jesse. He was in the other car, so he could theoretically be protected from the bullets, and hey, maybe he'll be forced to work with Walt again, as Walt is obviously going to go to war with these criminals over the likely killing of Hank. But Jesse could very well be dead (my guess is the show wouldn't want to kill him off that way without a big final goodbye scene, as they seemingly gave Hank this week). But my official prediction is that Walt lives and is basically imprisoned by the crooks as they force him to cook for them until he escapes to confront them with the machine guns he's hauling around in the present day.
Just three more episodes, guys! I can't believe it. And I guess this is the end of the previews as well, as tonight's consisted of a voicemail from Skyler over slow motion images of scenes from this week's episode, so yeah...we're not getting anything from this point on, people. Just gotta wait it out.
