This episode was a roller coaster ride from start to finish, probably the most dramatic episode in Breaking Bad's history. We open on a flashback to Walt and Jesse's first cook ever that he'd mentioned last week, the old trailer making a comeback and everything. As Walt and Jesse step outside, Walt calls a still pregnant Skyler, telling her he'll be home late and promising to pick up a pizza as she suggests "Holly" for the baby's name. These few minutes are by far the quietest in the episode, as Walt hangs up and we see him, Jesse and the trailer slowly fade out of the desert.
When we get back, the epic shootout from last week is still in progress, when suddenly it ends very abruptly and the Nazis are staring at the damage they've done to their victims. Gomez is lying on the ground dead, while Hank is crouched behind the car, only shot in the leg. For a second I was thinking cop-out, as I fully expected both Hank and Gomez to be long gone when we got back to this scene, but those fears last only minutes as Uncle Jack comes over to finish the task. Walt cries out for him not to kill Hank, doing his best to save him, even giving up his $80 million for them to spare his life, but Hank won't play ball. He tells Walt he won't beg, and then, just like that, Jack shoots Hank through the head. It's a pretty shocking moment- I have to give them credit as anyone who saw Hank survive from last week immediately assumes he'll live for at least the rest of the episode, but no- he's gone. Walt collapses in shock and sadness as the rest of the crew go out to dig up Walt's cash with shovels. They can't find Jesse, who's apparently taken off, having got out of the car before the shooting started, but it doesn't matter too much at the moment, while the Nazis help themselves to Walt's barrels and bury Hank and Gomez in the now conveniently empty hole in the ground.
As the crew starts to load up, Todd tells Walt he's sorry for his loss in his typical indifferent fashion and uncuffs him while Jack tells him he's letting him go, and because he's in a good mood, he's decided to leave him a barrel, leaving Walt with just $10 million. Walt is staring into space but suddenly he realizes Jesse had been hiding under the car this whole time and gives him up to Jack, telling them they owe him one more kill. The Nazis haul Jesse out and prepare to pull the trigger on him despite Jesse's despair and pleading looks at Walt, but at the very last second Todd suggests keeping him around to tell them what he told the feds first. Walt agrees and as Jesse is hauled away, Walt stops them one more time to tell Jesse to his face that he watched Jane die and didn't save her. Walt appears to blame Jesse for everything that's just happened and wants to rub the nail in further, and these are, for me anyway, some of the darkest moments ever on the show, as we see poor Jesse taken away to be held prisoner by the Nazis.
As Walt gets in his car to take off, it starts leaking fuel from all the bullet holes and of course runs out of gas, leaving Walt to push his lone barrel through the desert and offer money to an old Native American man for his truck. Meanwhile, Marie pulls up at the car wash and confronts Skyler with her phone call from Hank, telling her to hand over all the copies of the incriminating tape she and Walt made and ordering her to tell Walter Jr. the truth, as everything has changed now, and Walt will (as far as she knows of course) be going to jail.
We then find that Jesse has been badly beaten and locked up in a ground cell, as Todd comes in and pulls him out, ignoring Jesse's cries to leave him alone, having already told them about the taped confession he made to Hank. But of course, as everyone has suspected by now, that was not the only reason Todd wanted Jesse alive, and it certainly comes as no surprise to me when Jesse is locked to the ceiling of the meth lab by a cord, and ordered to cook for Todd. As incentive, there's a picture of Andrea and Brock taped to the wall for Jesse to stare at every day and our hearts sink in despair, along with Jesse's, whose future is looking decidedly grim.
