Breaking Bad Season 2 Part 2 TIER LIST Retrospective & Recap

hey guys kiwi here welcome back to my Breaking Bad season 2 retrospective I'll be breaking down the rest of season 2 and ranking episodes at a tier list we're about to jump into some really good episodes here so I'm excited to get started warning spoilers for Breaking Bad and potentially some of Better Call Saul as well with that being said let's hear a word from today's sponsor this video is sponsored by nordvpn have you ever sat down after a long day just simply wanting to watch a TV show or movie but you can't find it on streaming services anywhere all you want is to relax and watch that movie that someone recommended to you or maybe a classic favorite of your own but for some reason it's not available anywhere within your region all hope may feel lost but worry not because nordvpn can solve this problem with the click of a button due to Geo restrictions certain shows and movies unavailable to you may be in other countries Japan the UK Canada and the USA are four countries with the largest Netflix libraries so if you can't find what you're looking for by default try switching to another country via one of the many nordvpn servers and voila now you have a brand new catalog of entertainment to watch potentially even with the show or movie you originally couldn't find currently new to Canadian Netflix is jackass forever 2022. Suicide Squad 2021 Interstellar and Inception all these movies are available on Canadian Netflix but not American Netflix so if you're struggling to find a specific title that you want to watch or just want an entirely new catalog to look through use nordvpn today to expand your entertainment viewing capabilities click the link in the pinned comment or at the top of the description to try nordvpn for yourself get nordvpn's two-year plan plus four extra months for free using my link nordvpn.com Vivid kiwi it's risk-free with nordvpn's 30-day money-back guarantee thank you so much to nordvpn for supporting the channel by sponsoring this video speaking of which let's jump right into it season 2 episode 7 negro I Azul this episode's title The Negro izzul which is the name of the Heisenberg theme song music video that plays in the cold open it's also Spanish for black and blue the name of Better Call Saul episode 605 with no correlation the song is most likely called black and blue due to Walt's Heisenberg Persona being known to wear all black along with the blue sky Crystal being the product that he's known for I wish I could play the Heisenberg theme for you all or at least a snippet of it but copyright can't allow that the song is just essentially stating how Heisenberg's business is popping off to the point that the cartel down south is catching wind of his blue sky along with explaining how the cartel will come after Heisenberg due to feeling disrespected and seeing him as a rival as the song says Heisenberg is dead already but doesn't know it yet after that fabulous song we jump back in after the intro sequence to Walt talking to one of his students after class who is lacking the student tries begging for leniency but is surprised at Walt's response as he tells the kid not to BS a bullshitter this yet again shows another instance of Walt's Heisenberg Persona leaking into his everyday life as he's now beginning to let cracks of Heisenberg out toward people that he deals with during his normal life such as towards Gretchen in the last episode don't [ __ ] [ __ ] ER so after the student leaves Walt grabs his second cell phone out of his classroom roof and leaves Jesse a voicemail backpedaling his demand for Jesse to handle the two junkies who rob skinny Pete apparently Walt's having second thoughts about the way that he overreacted but it's too late as we know from the last episode Jesse already confronted the junkies which resulted in Jesse watching one of them die explaining why now isn't answering Walt's phone calls so Walt goes directly to his house after work but Jesse's reluctant to answer the door causing Jane to step out and see what all the fuss is about while it lies to her about being Jesse's dad in order to try and get her to open Jesse's door for him but Jane is adamant against it Jesse opens the door at the last second before things escalate letting Walt in while thanking Jane for standing up for his privacy this small interaction already starts to foreshadow how Jane will become a problem for Walt which results in Jesse taking Jane's side as she's the one trying to defend him also when Walt lies about being Jesse's father Jane asks him if he's Mr Jackson calling back to the fake name that Jesse gave her when they first met since while I turn uses the fake last name Jackson that Jesse gave Jane when she brings it up she most likely realizes that Walt is also lying to her and that he's not Jesse's father but potentially a criminal partner as she already suspects Jesse of being a drug dealer uh Jesse Jackson seriously what look I'm his father all right here Mr Jackson yes that's me Walt Jackson Jesse Jackson do you even anyways as Walt enters the apartment he instantly starts giving Jesse a hard time for not answering his phone along with having to give Jane the obviously fake last name Jackson Jesse mostly ignores them instead deciding to have another toke which causes Walt to snatch the bong out of his hand as he assumes that Jesse's been doing nothing but getting high for days this shows how oblivious Walt is to Jesse's clear body language as he's actually getting high to cope with what happened when he confronted the two junkies last episode when Jesse admits that he already did what Walt wanted he pulls out the gun to imply that he killed them while checks the gun and realizes that none of the bullets have been fired Jesse's so offended by Walt here that he exaggerates the story a tad even guilting Walt by handing him literal blood money however once Walt calls him out for it Jesse admits the whole story about some junky woman crushing her boyfriend's head with an ATM machine right in front of him as a response instead of being concerned about what Jesse's going through Walter instantly jumps to questioning him if anyone suspects that he was involved Walt is thinking rationally but his ability to cleverly deduce whatever situation he's in comes at the cost of not realizing when to care for or Comfort Jesse especially if Walt's at fault for Jesse being upset Walt is smart but he lacks people skills or rather the ability to care for someone else's feelings and or opinions above his own so as Walt continues to question the situation that Jesse went through he wonders why Jesse couldn't have stopped the woman from killing her boyfriend Jesse admits that she had the gun on him and to add insult to injury it was his gun too I can't help but feel for Jesse here but from Walt's perspective Jesse did a pretty bad job of explaining the situation the conversation went from Walt thinking that Jesse shot someone to learning that Jesse had his gun taken from him and pointed at him while someone else committed the murder fear and intimidation I meant get your money back I certainly never meant didn't even kill somebody well too late you know because dude's dead oh God I didn't say I killed him could you not stop this woman from killing this man she had a gun on me all right got my gun okay mine since we were in Jesse's shoes and experienced the situation with him when it all went down it obviously causes us to become incredibly sympathetic toward him however this explanation makes Jesse seem like an idiot in Walt's eyes and Jesse can even feel it to the point that he aches Walt on to a costume for not being able to run a crew like tuko or crazy eight this again calls back to the earlier episode this season episode 205 when Walt gave Jesse a hard time for the whole skinny Pete robbery after Jesse was the one to suggest that they should become their own tuko we cut out the middle man run her own game you think tuko had breakage go ahead say it say it no I I know uh I ain't no Tuco or or crazy ant I can't run a crew come on come on point made man Point made yes in order for Walt to manipulate Jesse to confront the junkies he had previously implied that on Like tuko Jesse was a wimp but Jesse clear now truly believes this himself Jesse then gets a phone call from Badger who leaves a message not so subtly implying that he has cash from all the crystal that he sold for them while he uses this to try and get Jesse to get up and continue working but Jesse's too depressed to get up which is not surprising so he tells wall to go meet his friends instead while takes his share the bloody ATM money and leaves this sets up the first time that Walt ever meets Jesse's friends but due to Jesse sending Walt in his place it causes the confrontation to be more fascinating than if they all just met at Jesse's house or something granted skinny Pete has technically met Walt during season one when Jesse was in the hospital and skinny even acknowledges this also the song that plays in the background while Jesse's friends wait for Walt is Bert the turtle which may be a reference to Tortuga and the turtle that we see later on the episode in Hank's story so Walt meets up with Badger skinny Pete and combo in his Heisenberg get up and they're all seemingly intimidated by both Walt and Jesse due to thinking that Jesse is the one who crushed spooge's head with the ATM Walter leads into the lie here implying that it's true as he loves the idea of using it as both fear and motivation for his crew to stay loyal and to scare away any potential competitors or junkies looking to make a move on them he really did it you didn't hear that from me this lie temporarily gives Walt and Jesse the reputation of not wanting to be messed with which is what Walt wanted so badly during Episode 205 but at the cost of Jesse's mental state this once again shows how Walt doesn't truly care about how Jesse feels at this point as he'd rather perpetrate the LIE of Jesse being an ATM killer even though Jesse is clearly trying to forget all about it Jesse isn't a killer and he doesn't want to become one but due to Walt that is now his reputation I just want to forget we then get our formal introduction to everyone's least favorite Side Story as we see Skyler applying for a job at Beneke Fabricators she tells the secretary that she worked there before in hopes of getting ahead of the competition but it doesn't work she notices Ted in his office and gets his attention by tapping on his window since Ted has the hots for her he lets her in right away much to the secretary's dismay as they catch up they speak of each other's children due to Ted acknowledging her baby bump apparently Ted's father passed away and left him the company but as we'll soon see Ted is struggling to keep things afloat but all we really need to take away from this scene is that Ted clearly likes Skyler which gets her her old job back back to Walton Jesse as Walt fast in the glow of everyone in town being scared of them he uses this opportunity to convince Jesse that they should spread out their territory knowing where this is headed Walt is clearly still making the same mistake as before he gets an ego boost over steps and ends up regretting it this happened when he first demanded Jesse to meet up with tuko for the first time just throw some freaking balls and then when he continued to deal with tuko after intimidating him with explosives you made a deal why would you make a deal with that scumbag and then when he told Jessie to take care of the junkies I want you to handle it even in 205 Walt admitted that he may have overstepped previously and that he has a difficult learning curve in regard to understanding how to operate as a criminal I will admit to a bit of a learning curve oh and perhaps I was overly ambitious but he seemingly learned nothing from his previous mistakes as he would not be insisting that they take over New Territory if he had learned his lesson I'm not the street guy yo Walt thinks that with enough initiative they can supply the entire town if they hustle enough and get enough workers to do so however Walt is clearly ignoring the fact that the territory that he wants to take is already someone else's which will result in a Turf War Jesse tries explaining this to Walt but Walt is completely convinced that no one will mess with them due to him fueling the lie that Jesse killed spooge with the ATM machine all seems fine and dandy now but Walt isn't thinking long term as he's not considering the possibility that since their reputation is built on a lie if the truth eventually comes out everyone will realize that Jesse isn't a killer therefore diminishing their influence now Walt is not only not thinking long term in regard to this particular aspect but rather he's not thinking long term for anything in general this circles into the fact that since Walt thinks that he's going going to die soon that he won't have to deal with the consequences of his actions which is a character trait of his that comes to a head in episode 209 so put a pin in that for now now Jesse is clearly unhappy with this lie but Walt types him up by hilariously comparing him to a blowfish Jessie's originally quite puny but with this illusion of a reputation that he's someone to be feared all he has to do is act tough and people will cower a blowfish say it again I'm a blowfish see it like you mean it I'ma Blowfish yeah to continue the comedic Vibe the scene ends with Walt coughing as Jesse takes a toke this is just a parallel how they're both coughing but for different reasons meanwhile we see how Hank has been not so easily settling into his new spot in El Paso as no one's giving him the time of day when he's used to always having the spotlight on him at his office back home here in El Paso no one takes him seriously when he wants them to you and no one laughs at his jokes we then see Hank and his new fellow agents meeting up with Don Tortuga which is Spanish for turtle the name fits and he knows as his Mantra is I take my time but I always win Hank grows impatience and tries cutting to the chase but he almost blows up the entire situation as he's clearly unaware of how the El Paso DEA agents make deals with the cartel also fun fact Tortugas portrayed by Danny Trejo but if you know who he is I'm sure you already recognized him easily we then see Marie over at Scholars as the two catch up reinformed Skyler of Hank's new position while Skyler does the same surprising Marie that she's back working for Ted as she knows that Ted apparently has had a history of touchy hands with Skyler but Skyler downplays Ted's infatuation for her as Walt arrives home Skyler implies for Marie to not tell Walt about her new job as she doesn't want him to be able to get a chance to talk her out of it after Walt quickly greets Maureen Skyler he rushes down the hall to the bathroom to have a coughing fit again implying that his cancer may be getting worse the next morning we get our obligatory breakfast scene with Junior as Walt gets told that Skyler got a job with Ted by the time that he sits at the table she's already dressed and ready to go not giving him a chance to get his opinion in on how he feels about it I'm unaware of Walt knows that Ted has a thing for Skyler as Walt seems to be more concerned about welding fumes than anything even if Walt doesn't know he wouldn't want her back at work due to how close she is to having the baby but she insists that the doctor told her that it's okay for her to work pretty much right up until she goes into labor which I suppose could be subtle foreshadowing near the end of the season we then see Jesse speak with Jane outside of their houses as Jesse notices her drawing as he steps outside to go buy a new TV Jesse compliments her drawings even catching on to the fact that she's sketching tattoo ideas as she works as a tattoo artist we get even more foreshadowing of their relationship as Jesse mentions how he used to draw a lot too which comes into play a bit later along with Jane implying that she has commitment problems when Jesse gives her a hard time being a tattoo artist without any tattoos herself a biker then drives by and notices Jessie calling him Pinkman Jane calls him out on how he said his last name was Jackson causing Jesse to leave instead of being confronted with this life yeah I thought your name was Jackson This Moment is really interesting me as it's Jesse's criminal life bleeding into his normal life as he's currently trying to hide his criminal activities and even his last name from Jane usually it's Walt who gets in these moments of his criminal life bleeding over into his regular one so it's intriguing to see the same thing happen to Jesse here since normally he Embraces his criminal lifestyle instead of hiding it as Walt does even more so Jesse's only called out by the biker due to the lie that Walt helped spread which adds some irony to it as well now back in El Paso Hank has continued to be considered the joke of the group as the other agents talk smack literally behind his back in Spanish which is insult to injury as they think less of him for not knowing the language Hank knows what they're doing but gets distracted when he sees Tortuga down at the spot that they plan to Ambush the cartel they drive closer and realize that Tortuga has been decapitated with his head stuck on the shell of a turtle painted hola DEA obviously implying that the cartel realized Tortuga was a rat Hank gives the appropriate response to this by having a weak stomach and needing to step back and take take a breather and regain his composure as he fights off a panic attack similar to the one that he had after a shootout with tuko what's the matter straighter you act like you never saw a severed human head on a tortoise before the El Paso agents get a rise out of him for this but their laughs soon turned into horror as karma hits quickly in the form of an exploding Turtle killing an agent in brutally dismembering and injuring others even with Hank feeling shell-shocked he still leaps into action and uses his belt as a tourniquet on the missing leg of the agent who's been making fun of him all day the scene ends with a great cinematic shot of Hank leaning back and all the terror that surrounds him apparently the creators killed off Tortuga so quickly due to not being able to afford Danny Trejo as a season regular so they instead changed his appearance in the show to quite a memorable Cameo the show then not so subtly transitions to Jesse walking past a painting of an explosion and the audio to the display mentions Werner Heisenberg who of course is the inspiration for Walt's Heisenberg Alias so Jesse meets with his crew at the Museum himself this time to tell them that they're going to be expanding their territory Jesse informs them that they'll get dealers to work under them just as they now work under Jessie and sells them the idea of exponential growth quite well calling back to his ability to convince them to get excited over dealing for him in the first place during Episode 205 Jesse leaves and returns to Walt's vehicle revealing that wall to drove him to meet his friends as Walt is the one initially pushing the idea of expanding their territory in the first place however instead of being happy that Jesse convinced his friends of their new plans Walt pulls a classic waltz by doubling down and declaring that they aren't charging enough and that they should raise their prices now that they're cornering the market this continues the idea of nothing ever being good enough for Walt as he'll always want more during certain situations if Walt could just cut his losses or be happy with the success that he's had things may have turned out alright overall in the grand scheme of things however whenever something goes well Walt always pushes the envelope too far causing something terrible to happen resulting in the one step forward and two-step back situations that Walt and Jesse see themselves in time and time again I'm not the street guy yo meanwhile as Skyler settles into her office Ted welcomes her we got more breadcrumbs here foreshadowing the potential love interest between them as Ted it's that he's gone divorced since the last time that Skyler worked there and they confide in each other over how people change with Skyler clearly reflecting on how she isn't happy with Walt anymore ever since his change in personality due to his cancer diagnosis this episode comes to a close as we cut back to Jesse attempting to figure out how to set up his new TV he hears Jane arrive home outside and listens through the wall following her to the backyard where she's having a smoke Jesse admits how Jackson isn't his real last name and how Walt isn't his dad as he worries that she'll kick him out for lying to her she states how she doesn't care what he does for a living as long as he doesn't do it on the premises implying how she's okay with him being a drug dealer as long as he doesn't deal out of their house Jesse invites Jane over to check out his new TV but they just sit there awkwardly as Jesse's unable to get it connected to satellite an instrumental whistling version of the Heisenberg theme starts up again in the final shot of the episode as Jane makes the first move on him by holding his hand as they sit there waiting for the TV to turn on this episode gets a strong B tier honestly I was debating whether to put put it into b or a but I think it just doesn't make a tier there's a lot of great and memorable moments from this episode and it's well put together but I just still find it above average and that's about it first off the Heisenberg theme song at the beginning is an absolute classic it's really well done and it gives a ton of exposition while still being patchy I do enjoy how the aftermath of the previous episode bleeds into this one in regard to Jesse's reaction to his experience with spooge while Walt gets yet another ego boost from spreading the LIE of Jesse being the one to kill him the chemistry between Walt and Jesse is always superb and this episode does another great job of continuing to showcase the total disconnect between the two of them at certain moments although this episode is a mashup of an aftermath setup episode it still manages to stand out the whole Tortuga head explosion which is absolutely wild and Incredibly memorable having a decapitated head on a turtle explode while de agents surround it is definitely one of the standout moments that casual viewers will remember years after watching as it's just so bizarre and Extreme Plus the cut to when one of the agents starts saying welcome to Mexico right as the explosion goes off is perfect timing and I love it hey welcome to season 2 episode 8 Better Call Saul I'd Better Call Saul this episode starts with one of my favorite cold opens which consists of badger getting arrested for selling to an undercover cop I love this cold open not because Badger gets arrested but rather how he gets tricked into still selling to the undercover cop immediately after calling him out as one we see Badger sitting at a salt Goodman Better Call Saul bus bench when an undercover cop named Getz played by DJ Qualls approaches him looking to buy Badger initially pretends to not know what he's talking about before calling him out as a pig stating that he smells smoked bacon when asked for clarification Badger points out a brown van and a flower van inconspicuously parked at either end of the street laughing at how they're obviously cop fans Badger even jokingly talks into a presumed wire on Getz pitching the idea of using a garbage truck as a cover vehicle instead as it'd be less obvious think about it boys all right in it whoa you dudes give up that easy not a cop it's interesting how the whole time Badger completely calls out the sting operation getslay's Reverse Psychology by getting up to leave as if he's offended the fact that he's seemingly giving up so easily confuses Badger who starts to believe that the guy isn't a cop after all in order to prove it Badger asks him to show that he's not wearing a wire to which he lifts half of his shirt up to make a spectacle of it as if it's ridiculous to show you you're being an [ __ ] I'm blinded by white douchebag oh come on I was joking come on don't walk away angry son gets continues the reverse psychology stating how he's not even sure if he wants to buy anymore as Badger's paranoia has turned him off this reels badger in as it's not only gets seemingly proving that he's not a cop that convinces him but the reverse psychology of getting mad at Badger even suspecting him in the first place in order to seal the deal instead of randomly assaulting a civilian like Badger suggests Getz comes up with a lie that if you ask a cop if he's a cop he has to answer honestly even if he's undercover this obviously isn't true but it is a myth that could be considered common misconception so Badger asks him and he says no so by this point Badger is now convinced now convinced Badger sells him a baggie only to get immediately arrested for it the kicker to all of this is of course the fact that Badger was correct about Getz being an undercover cop even down to calling out the cop Vans which we see roll up as Badger gets arrested even though Getz seemingly didn't have a wire the cop fans were most likely recording the drug transaction on video which is why they were confident in arresting him even without the audio also although Getz was most likely not wearing a wire he never fully pulled up his shirt or showed his back off at all so it was still hypothetically possible for him to be wearing a wire on the upper half of his chest with the wire potentially going down the side or the back now I love the roller coaster of is he a cop or isn't he that this cold open takes you on at first you think that Badger is smart for instantly profiling and calling out the undercover operation but the more that he talks to get the more that you start to believe that he's just a random junkie just like Badger does then the gut punch at the end how Badger gets arrested anyways even though he was initially correct in his assumption even down to the cop events just gets me every time let me know in the comments how you felt watching this cold open for the first time if you remember I love how there's many subtle Clues throughout this scene that could Lead You toward one side or the other with the biggest clue near the end being the lie about a cop having to tell you if he's a cop when you ask however as I said it is a common misconception so it's possible that many people don't know how that's not true but the ones who do would see it as an obvious red flag if you ask a cop if he's a cop he's like obligated to tell you it's in the Constitution also I love how this all takes place at a Saul Goodman bus bench not only referencing the title of the episode and the introduction of Saul himself but also foreshadowing the fact that Saul is going to represent Badger later on in the episode for this very arrest that we see take place in front of the advertisement for Saul now after the intro sequence we get the most famous fake low budget commercial in TV history the first and mainly iconic Better Call Saul commercial there's many other saw commercials out there mainly as webisodes but this one is definitely the most well known to the point that Saul's intro Spiel has turned into great Meme and copy pasta of sorts hi I'm Saul Goodman did you know that you have rights the Constitution says you do and so do I anyways we watched this commercial on Jesse's new TV which appears to be working now however Jesse and Jane aren't watching it as we see one of their chairs knocked over followed by a cliche trail of clothing leading to the bedroom this is of course a direct continuation of the final shot in the last episode where Jane grabbed Jesse's hand as they sat there waiting for a satellite TV to connect they apparently got busy before the TV had even turned on with this now being the aftermath of it I guess you could say we then see them essentially laying on the floor as Jesse hasn't bought any furniture yet which he acknowledges he States how he wishes that they could smoke a cigarette indoors but Jane says that they can't Jesse adds how he knows but that he still wishes that they could and even though this is a small detail put a pin in it for now as it does set up the rest of the season starting to show how Jesse and Jane's relationship morphs their landlord tenant uh relationship into being a lot more lenient because of their love interests Jane calls Jesse out over being able to smell the weed that he's been smoking implying that she isn't mad about it but that he better make sure that her dad doesn't ever smell it as he owns the property and is incredibly strict about drugs this leads Jesse to a lightheartedly ask Jane if her dad's ever caught her again setting up the dynamic between her and her father Jesse asks her if she wants to get high but she denies the offer tossing her sobriety coin at him showing how she's been sober for a year and a half Jesse respects it while downplaying how much he smokes himself followed by asking her to go grab some food she denies this offer too causing Jesse to wonder if everything's okay between them but her behaviors of course just a byproduct of her fear commitment that was hinted at in the last episode the next morning we catch up with Walton Skyler where Walt question sir about having to go to work even on the weekend I'm unsure if Walt is specifically worried about Ted's infatuation with Skyler but he is concerned about how dodgy she's acting towards her job in general doesn't become aware of it until the morning of her first shift and she's going into work on the weekends wearing nice dresses to work that she wouldn't normally wear I like this dynamic because any typical show would already have Walt suspicious or jealous of Ted but here Walt isn't instead just picking up on various contacts clues is that allude to it while still being polite about it she assures them that everyone's going to be at work implying that it's not to impress any particular person when we know that she's definitely trying to dull herself up for Ted which she's trying to downplay towards Walt even though he's unsure of her exact motives editors note here it is obviously possible that Skyler just wants to genuinely look good going into work but there is a subtle implication during these scenes that she is doing it to look good for someone else so just after Skyler leaves Marie calls the house phone in a panic over Hank's surprisingly returning home due to the whole decapitated head on an exploding Turtle thing Maria initially calls for Skyler but as she's off to work Walt picks up instead and heads over to Hank and Marie's to try and comfort Hank over the whole ordeal apparently Hank never told Marie that he was returning home and is completely shutting her out to the fact that she had to learn about the incident through Gomez she also mentions to Walt how Hank even put on a fake performance pretending to be A-Okay while talking to his ASAC over the phone but then he returns to sulking in his bed afterward this again shows how Hank feels the need to bottle up his true emotions while keeping up appearances as feeling the need to defend his typical cliche Macho Man reputation prevents him from opening up about his true feelings at all so as Walt enters the bedroom Hank is surprised and we initially see him try to put on a show to pretend that nothing's wrong but this quickly Falls flat after trying to excuse his negative mood for a case of an upset stomach he realizes that Marie told Walt about what happened in Juarez Hank again tries downplaying the situation but through this we can tell that he was sent home due to having a weak stomach even before the explosion in which he is clearly embarrassed by you know you don't put your second most senior man on the trail of those motherless bastards you send them home you know he's out getting an Evidence back and so it ends up without a scratch on him so must be something wrong with that picture you know Walt asked Hank if he needs someone to talk to but Hank shuts down the idea of going to a therapist as it'll negatively affect his career due to appearances which again is all Hank seems to care about while it says how Hank can talk to Marie or even himself about it but Hank implies how Waltz wouldn't understand what he's going through due to them not having an experiential overlap as he calls it what if I told you we do without giving himself away Walt implies that they do which is just such a great moment this not only again plays on the idea that Walt Heisenberg is right under Hank's nose but more specifically in this scene we followed Walt as the protagonist through everything he's been through so far in the series so we know that Walt has seen just as if not even worse things than Hank up to this point Sure Hank had to kill tuko completely unexpectedly and he did have to live through a gruesome explosion down in El Paso but while it's a list of traumatic experiences is much longer he was held at gunpoint many times killed Emilia with fumes brutally strangled Crazy Eight to death dissolved washed up and flushed both of them down the toilet confronted tuko earned his Respect by blowing up his HQ then was kidnapped by tuko and almost killed multiple times finally resulting in Walt being a part of the first bullet that Tuka was shot with before Hank had arrived all this to say is that Walt is far more experienced in violence than Hank is aware of as Hank still sees Walt as a pathetic excuse of a man all thinks considered even though Hank loves Walt like family Hank still sees Waltz as a complete wimp aka the opposite of such a macho man like himself however instead of admitting all of his criminal activities to Hank Waltz instead relates to Hank by bringing up how he felt during his first 50 years of life before his cancer diagnosis to relate back to what Walt said during the talking pillow scene Walters never truly had a say of any of the real decisions he's made throughout his life and here we can see him open up more to Hank about it Walt admits how he spent his whole life scared that something would or would not happen but ever since he found out about his cancer he no longer feels fearful in the future knowing that his future has now been predetermined for him Walt explains that being in fear is the worst part and so he implies that Hank should dwell in fear as Walt has for so many years I love that although Walt could relate to Hank in regard to living through traumatic violence he instead finds another more civil route to relate to Hank from his normal life in the form of Hank being reluctant to continue his career path in fear that something terrible might happen again so back at Jesse's Walton Jesse Count Their straight profits with a money counter machine when Jesse gets bad news about Badger this starts when Jesse admits how their few grand short due to Badger not paying up with Jesse assuming that he's just sleeping due to pulling an all-nighter to deal Walt cracks the whip as usual telling Jesse that Badger can sleep once he's paid up again proving that Walt is just a terrible boss and Jesse wonders why Walt is such a hard ass all the time with Walt responding by reminding Jesse that he should treat Badger combo and skinny Pete like their boss not their pal which is difficult for Jesse to do since they are his best friends Walter mines Jesse that this only works as long as they're scared of him again relying on the LIE that Jesse killed spooge with the ATM which just feels like foreshadowing till later on in the episode when that lie falls apart anyways Jesse calls combo and asks what's up in a no-nonsense type of way in order to impress Walt but his confident demeanor falls short when he hears the news that Badgers been arrested apparently combo already knew but was scared to tell Jesse as he's so afraid of Jesse now that he was worried about how Jesse would react see them being scared of Jesse doesn't have all the perfect perks that Walt chalks it up to have as them being scared of him means that they may lie to him or at the very least withhold bad news also unrelated but in this scene Walt found one of Jane's earrings in Jesse's house but Jesse takes it and puts it in his pocket without acknowledging it although this could just imply to Walt that Jesse had some random girl over it's the first hand for wall towards Jane and Jesse's blossoming relationship which will become a major problem for him by the end of the season meanwhile Hank tries controlling himself to not have another panic attack in that same elevator as he's now returning to work for the first time ever since being sent home from El Paso this clearly implies his reluctance to return to work due to his mental state still being unstable but he does so anyways as he can't procrastinate it by sitting at home for forever so we then get a huge juxtaposition from seeing Hank trying to not have a panic attack to him greeting his fellow co-workers as he enters the office due to being so used to being the center of attention there that it's expected of him as he again wants to keep up appearances while bottling up and hiding his true emotions as to not raise suspicion fun fact in Hank's office we can see a picture of himself on his desk of him and Marie from his wedding day where he's wearing a white suit with a huge white cowboy hat it's actually a deleted scene from Breaking Bad of Walt and Hank at Hank's wedding where we can see Hank wearing that same attire but that's a topic for another day whenever I finally get around to doing a breakdown video of all of breaking bad's deleted scenes anyways as gomi catches Hank up to speed Hank brushes off gomi's concerns as gomi is well aware of what Hank went through in El Paso since gomi is so close to Hank it seems like gomi is able to see through his fake cheerful performance to keep up appearances where others cannot goomi then informs Hank of how a dealer slinging Blue Sky was arrested Badger and suggests going over to take a peek at him this leads us into our first appearance of Saul Goodman but before that we see Getz interrogating Badger without his lawyer there Badger admits how he feels betrayed by Getz for tricking him into selling to him I like people who don't like abuse the Constitution but instead of apologizing or anything like that that's tried Sweeting up Badger to spell details of his supplier however Saul comes in at the nick of time to shoot gets out of there and saves Badger from the situation I love how salt does so by belittling gets as he informs him that he should have left 10 minutes ago along with jokingly treating him like a child due to having a baby face by talking about him having a kindergarten teacher along with telling him to go crack open a juice box and have a nap side note it's always interesting for me to revisit Saul Goodman's first ever seen on Breaking Bad after spending so much time with his character during Better Call Saul along with the rest of Breaking Bad in general you tell that Bob Odenkirk was still getting a feel for the character due to Saul having a deeper more raspy voice than Better Call Saul viewers may be used to so Saul sits down and instantly mixes up Badger with another client of his who's been arrested for public masturbation which is initially a throwaway line for comedic value but fans of Better Call Saul will know how this isn't the first client with that charge that he's dealt with then of course the first thing that Saul brings up after straining out that misunderstanding is his payment where he brings up Ice Station zebras and Associates as his loan out company oh boy I'm not even gonna begin to go down that rabbit hole as veteran viewers of the channel know that I've made multiple theories and breakdown videos about Ice Station Zebra throughout the course of Better Call Saul so I'll just move on from it after mentioning that it's originally just a reference to an old movie so before I spend an hour and a half on this episode alone let me address the elephant in the room let me get down to brass tacks I won't be going in depth about all the connections that this episode has to Better Call Saul the show but I will be giving subtle nods to them throughout so apologies in advance if I vaguely spoil anything for you here but to be honest if you haven't seen the entirety of Better Call Saul yet what are you even doing with your life at this point so since this episode is the introduction to Saul Goodman it makes sense How Better Call Saul references this episode many many times it's to the point that I will eventually do an entire video listing every example of it which is quite a a long list even if I negate the hole it wasn't me it was Ignacio Lalo didn't send you lines coming up in a bit which fueled fan theories for years leading up to the creation of two fan favorite characters out of the entire Breaking Bad Better Call Saul Universe anyways the first saw Goodman seemed as a great overall job introducing the character as an obvious comedic relief character with Bob Odenkirk being the perfect actor for the role as he was a huge comedian before this show ever existed we then see Saul in the Halls speaking to his secretary Francesca over his Bluetooth headset where he figures about taking its pills along with mixing up his clients my attempt to refrain mentioning Better Call Saul connections intensify we then see Saul speaking to Hank gomi and gets where they give back and forth insults fans always wondered if this was the first time that Saul and Hank ever met or if they had dealt with each other previously and better cross all actually answers that in one of my favorite episodes and I'm doing it again aren't I anyways Saul wonders what the D.A would want with a simple Street bust the scene cuts off here with implication that Saul is told by the DEA off screen that thereafter Heisenberg through Badger due to the Blue Sky connection and that they want Badger to make a deal with them by giving up Heisenberg's identity we then get the introduction to Saul's office as Walt and Jesse roll up into the parking lot Jesse tries downplaying the situation by stating how it was inevitable that one of their dealers were eventually going to get busted if Walt wanted to keep the exponential growth that he keeps talking about I'm not the streak Waltz however takes up issue with the bus bench lawyer that was hired for Badger as Walt doesn't see Saul as a real lawyer and even just saying that out loud is giving me flashbacks to Chuck it's funny how Jesse vouches for Saul here since we learned in Better Call Saul that Jesse originally felt the same way towards Saul that Walt does currently that was until Jesse saw Saul get Emilio out of charges that Adam dead to right with the first time being something that we saw during Better Call Saul well I imagine the second time was during the pilot episode of Breaking Bad where Emilio was surprisingly out on bail after getting arrested during Walt's drive-along drug bust with Hank so Jesse tries convincing Walt about Saul due to Saul being a guy that he higher which Walt isn't convinced by as Walt clearly doesn't think very highly of Jesse's mental capacity what are you kidding me this is the guy you want this is a guy I'd hire oh the guy used higher Jesse then explains further with the iconic line of you don't want a criminal lawyer you want a criminal lawyer this line is famous for a very good reason it's a great way to sum up why Saul is so good for criminals as Saul is a criminal himself you don't want a criminal lawyer right you want a criminal lawyer know what I'm saying I just love to play on words here with the emphasis on criminal the second time but I may be stating the obvious but I just felt the need to over explain this one line due to how much I truly love it Jesse then once again tries downplaying Badger's arrest by stating how Badgers too loyal to them and scared of them to snitch Jesse then adds that it should only take about four grand to cover Badger's legal fees in that they can even take it out of his payroll implying that they won't have to pay Saul themselves plus Jesse State's house since this is Badger's first offense as a dealer worst case scenario he only sees Badger getting community service put a pin in all of that is what Jesse says here initially seems likely when in reality the situation is far bigger than they're currently aware of so Walt doesn't want to show his face inside Saul's office causing Jesse to stay the same Walt wonders why Jesse would care since he seems like Saul's usual clientele which is quite a passive aggressive insult that Jesse doesn't appreciate this actually reminds me of episode 202 when tuko had Walt and Jesse kidnapped out in the desert and Jesse told Waltz to be all sacrificial due to the fact that he's gonna die soon from cancer anyways this shows how their face value profiling insults of each other Cuts both ways except where Jesse's Mark in 202 was unintentionally offensive Walt's remark here in 208 is intentional which may be Walt getting payback for Jesse's you're as good as checked out already you should be like all sacrificial jumping on a grenade the awesome my life is not the priority here because I'm gonna be dead soon anyway that's your point uh yeah so who goes inside I don't need them seeing my face well I don't need them seeing my face why not you look like his typical clientele dick anyways Walt decides to flip a coin to see who has to go in as he's hoping the coin flip will get him out of it this is of course a callback to the second episode of the show when Walt wanted to flip a coin to decide who had to deal with killing Crazy 8 versus dissolving Amelia's body now just like last time hear Walter loses the coin flip again which is just insult to injury as the coin flip has always been Walt's idea and he's lost two times in a row now I bet this is why we never see him bring up the idea of a coin flip to get out of doing something ever again as he seems to have a track record of losing anyways I do love how the first time Walt lost the coin flip in episode 102 he asked Jesse for a best two out of three but here he doesn't even say anything and he just accepts it we then see Walt comedically sitting in Saul's uncomfortable waiting room which gives off the vibe of about the worst waiting room that you've ever sat in there's blatantly patriotic music a kid running around and picking his nose a baby crying with criminals surrounding you in a bland room that feels like it's suffocating you and I just love this moment as this horrible experience further rubbed salt in the wound as icing on the cake of Walter losing his own coin flip again we also get our first brief glimpse of Saul's receptionist Francesca as she calls Walton as Mr Mayhew as Walt is posing as Badger's Uncle I love how Saul's first impression a walled in this terrible disguise is to compare him to D.B Cooper who seems to get referenced all the time in pop culture saulden of course initiates by requesting the money order that he mentioned to Badger previously followed by breaking ice about their last names Saul relates them due to the fact that Mayhew is an Irish name while Goodman is Jewish Saul then admits that he just plays up being Jewish to attract clients while admitting that his real name is McGill which again is a throwaway line implying that salt Goodman isn't his real name which is elaborated on in Better Call Saul but just like Saul heard I digress um small states that the DEA is involved but it mentions it in a casually positive way as he sees it as a good thing due to the fact that he thinks that Badger will get out of the situation scot-free if he gives the DEA the information that they want Saul figures that Badger will just take the deal and that it'll be an open and shut case so we quickly tries to rush Walt out of the office so we can move on to his next client but Waltz requests elaboration on why the DEA is involved as that's clearly really bad for himself and Jesse I love the dynamic in this scene where Saul doesn't realize that he's speaking to Heisenberg himself so he has no reason to believe that the DEA being involved is bad news Saul thinks that making a deal with the DEA is a Saving Grace when in reality it's the last thing that Walt wants when Walt is taken back by learning that the da is involved Saul says how he hopes how he's not the breaker of bad news but that Badger has got himself and mixed up with some pretty nasty people obviously not realizing that he's literally talking to a sad nasty person the DEA being involved is bad news for Walt for multiple reasons not only does Saul explain how the DEA is on Heisenberg but since Hank is Walt's brother-in-law this adds another layer to the situation as it implies that Hank is unknown hunting Waltz down Walt implies that he's looking for another solution but Saul lays down the only two options that he sees either Badger blabs to the DEA or he's going to get sent away to prison where he'll be turned inside out as a cellmate's prison boyfriend and gets his rectum resized about yay big Walt tries convincing Saul that Badger shouldn't take the deal with the DEA by stating how this Heisenberg fellow will come after him for adding and Saul leans into this by stating how Badgers so scared of his supplier that his loyalty to them is the only thing holding them up from taking the deal Walt instinctively relieved says but Saul doesn't follow no that's not good that's terrible again playing up the idea of how Saul thinks it's a good idea for Badger to take the deal from the DEA well that's the one main thing that Waltz doesn't want as he's the person that Badger would be ratting on I also love Walt's slip up of calling Badger well Badger instead of his real name Brandon as a family member would call him by his real name and not his street nickname I also like how Saul catches on to Walt potentially being the one who made Badger so fearful of Heisenberg as Walt's preaching Revenge just like Badger which is why Badger won't talk while it doubles down not wanting Badger to talk out of fear by bringing up the lie that he helps spread of how one of badger suppliers Jesse crushed someone's head with an ATM Saul nips it in the bud right away due to admitting how spooge the guy who died from the ATM was one of his old clients and how he knows that it was spooge's girl who actually killed him Walt thought that this ATM lie would work on Saul and convince him become afraid just like everyone else but the exact opposite happens with Saul calling out the legend to knowing the truth not only does this ATM line not work on Saul but implies that the reputation that Walt and Jesse built off of this lie will now come crashing down around them as more people learn that it wasn't actually Jesse who killed spooge now that spooge's girl has publicly gone on record of admitting to the murder and is facing the consequences I'm not this so with no other options Walt Stoops to his final Resort bribery as Saul goes to open the door for Walter leave Walt calls out the figure of ten thousand dollars causing Saul to close the door and turn back on him after some clarification that this is a bribe you start to think that it'll work that is until our expectations are subverted with Walt back and Jesse's car telling Jesse how Saul said how he was apparently morally outraged by the offer and threatened to call the cops Jesse doesn't believe it as if there's anyone who would take a bribe it's Saul Goodman but will soon learn why Saul didn't take it after all so with them now completely out of options they resort to something more drastic so that night as Saul gets off work right after Saul tries of bringing Francesca home with him in such a manner that has become the show Creator's biggest regret of dialogue they've ever done hey Francesca how about I follow you home no for safety what God you are killing me with that booty Walton Jesse kidnap him before he can get into his car and they bring him out to the desert this reminds me of two things from earlier this season first being Walt and Jesse now kidnapping someone after being kidnapped themselves by tuko and the second is the fact that Walt is now kidnapping someone in a similar manner which he jokingly told Junior about in episode 206 minus the fire ants and scorpions you and I put a bag over their heads tie them up drive them way out into the desert this is why that scene with Junior has such a dark undertone for me as we know that it's along the lines of something that Walt would actually do at this point in his life anyways as they take Saul out of the RV in the middle of the desert they kneel him down in front of an open grave as a thread and Saul starts going wild his PTSD and Trauma from its past starts acting up causing him to freak out as he thinks that he's been kidnapped by someone named Lalo and so he starts blaming someone else named Ignacio while saying in Spanish that he's a friend of the cartel Better Call Saul fans now know the full context here which is a huge Rabbit Hole I won't be getting into as I have many times before and probably will again in a separate video in the future but this was originally just meant to be some throwaway lines to imply how Saul's worked with some seriously messed up criminals in the past and that he's obviously had to deal with worse people than Walt and Jesse in the past this is why when he realizes that Walt and Jesse aren't Lalo or related to the cartel at all due to Jesse just telling him to speak English he feels completely relieved that they aren't who he thought they were and so he calms down mitigating any fear that he previously had towards the situation no it wasn't me it was a nazio he's the one but he is I just speak English oh thank God oh Christ I just find it so funny how although at this point Saul doesn't know who they are or what they want but since they aren't the cartel like he thought they were he's now regained control of himself and is able to easily talk his way out of the situation with confidence this again just goes to show that this is in Saul's first rodeo being kidnapped and brought out into the desert and that a surprisingly better at handling himself in situations like this than Walter Jesse could have ever anticipated so Jesse explains how this is about Badger to which Saul admits how he didn't take the ten thousand dollar bribe as he doesn't take bribes from strangers showing how even though he's totally someone who would take a bribe he's not stupid and still takes precautions while working under the table he also mentions how the 10K offer was low anyways which is funny considering how much Walt and Jesse are about to pay him to help them along with how much they will eventually pay him throughout the series but let's not get too ahead of ourselves here throughout this confrontation Saul does a great job talking down Walton Jesse by convincing them to negotiate with him in such a way that he begins to get the upper hand I can't stress enough about how Saul is in the worst situation possible kidnapped brought to the middle of the desert done to your head empty grave in front of you and he's still able to use his superpower of having a big mouth to get himself out of it first he tries playing this horrible situation as a glass half full and calls them to grave a negotiation tactic AKA an empty threat to put fear into him to do anything they say he then coldly suggests killing Badger by stating how you should take out the problem itself not the problem's attorney I love the way he Compares Badger as a problem to a mosquito that needs to be swatted I mean follow me guys but mosquitoes buzzing around you bite you on the ass you don't go gun it for the mosquitoes attorney you go grab a fly swatter so to speak and how he seems to win walls over here is he's clearly considering it the way he's looking over at Jesse while staying silent Walter may be wondering why he hasn't already thought of this even though he knows that if he suggested it Jesse would have never been okay with it as Badgers one of his best friends so with Walt's seemingly convinced of this solution Jesse of course steps up to declare that they're not killing Badger why don't you just kill badger we're not killing Badger yo so as they bicker back and forth over the fact that Badger is going to talk to the DEA eventually regardless of what they do to Saul as Badger Won't Last a Day in prison Walt starts coughing violently and Saul takes notice of this Saul instantly recognizes the cough to be the same as Mr Mayhew Walton disguised earlier and so he puts two and two together realizing that this is the same person Mr Mayhew recognize your cough take that mask off you don't get some air one come on take it easy Saul uses this to his advantage and advises Walt to take the mask off and get some air now that he roughly knows who he is with Walt now agreeing to show Saul his face Saul realizes that they're able to listen to reason and that he may actually be able to talk himself out of this he States how he's going to stand up on the account of having bad knees which he does have but really this is all for the body language advantage of being able to speak to them while facing them on an even level while standing instead of being on his knees facing the grave with them above him so now that he's gone Walter reveal his face and now that he's standing up to speak to them as equals he starts making demands by telling them to both put a dollar in his pocket with Walt and Jesse clearly confused Saul explains how this will give them attorney client privilege meaning that they'll officially be his clients and that he won't be able to speak to anyone about what they say to each other out in the desert usually the cliche situations like this is that they need to kill Saul as they wouldn't want to risk leaving him alive as a loose end who could potentially snitch on them for kidnapping him but this dollar in my pocket trick solves that problem as it gives them an out which doesn't result in them needing to kill Saul this is quite a smart trick for Saul to do here as it gives them a reason to leave Saul alive while having the Peace of Mind of knowing that he's not going to tell anyone about how they kidnapped him and threatened him at gunpoint although this is mutually beneficial it gives Saul the real Advantage here as he now won't be considered a loose end that needs to be snuffed out I love how once they both agree to put a bill in his pocket he then says that everything they say between each other is privileged under the threat of disparment as if getting disbarred is equal to or even worse than getting killed and buried in an empty grave out in the desert so with that taken care of Saul makes one final Act of gaining leverage in the situation by convincing Jesse to take his mask off too since he already recognized Walt by his cough while taking his mask off didn't reveal anything that Saul didn't already know however Saul obviously doesn't know who Jesse is or what he looks like so Jesse revealing his identity to Saul is a big deal Saul uses the Rapport that he's built between them so far to convince Jesse to do so especially since while has taken his mask off already so Jesse reluctantly does so leading Saul into how to take care of their Badger Problem by stating that someone's going to go to jail but it's just a matter of who put a pin in that for a moment I just want to emphasize how great of a job Saul did getting himself out of the situation I know I just broke it down step by step but let me summarize he first calls their Bluff about how the empty grave implies that they're going to kill him as if they were going to kill him they would have done so already meaning that they're keeping him alive because they need him for some reason then he manages to talk reason with them to build rapport is able to stand up and speak to them as equals and convince both of them to show him their faces while having the understanding that he won't snitch on them as the attorney-client privilege means that he'll keep his mouth shut so they don't need to kill him also it's funny how Walt and Jesse originally flipped a coin earlier to see who would have to go into Saul's office as neither of them wanted to show their faces in there but here Saul's able to get them to reveal both of their faces to him while they have him kidnapped and held at gunpoint I'm Gonna Keep a happy thought and assume this is just a negotiating tactic recognize your cough take that mask off you don't get some air all right I'm gonna stand up all right because I got bad knees put a dollar in my pocket come on make it official take the ski mask off I feel like I'm talking to the Weather Underground here so back to Badger we see him meeting with Saul Hank gomey and Getz where he's seemingly willing to give up Walters Heisenberg as he gives a complete profile of Waltz to Hank 50 to 70 years old medium height and weight and completely bald this is however a misdirection that's instantly revealed to the audience as we jump straight to the next scene of Saul in his office with Walt and Jesse where he explains that they'll be paying someone to purposely go to jail as a scapegoat for them Saul explains how James Edward Kill Kelly AKA Jimmy in and out has gone to prison six times between 1963 and 1992 and that he's been getting paid to purposely go to prison for other people multiple times ever since then he's apparently spent the last 44 or 58 years in prison due to it and he feels more comfortable on the inside than out Saul States how the next day Jimmy will be purposely arrested Badger will be set free and how all it's going to cost them is the low low price of eighty thousand dollars and a pound of their finest blue sky this is what makes the original 10K vibe from earlier so laughable as that's only an eighth of the cost of the service that they need from them I just love how Saul goes from almost getting killed out in the middle of the desert to turning it into scoring an eighty thousand dollar deal well fifty thousand dollars goes to him but you get my point he gets 30. 50 goes to me you give 50 for what for facilitating who's taking a bigger risk he likes prison it's also funny how earlier in the episode when we saw Walt and Jesse counting their money at Jesse's house right before they found out Badger was arrested both they and the audience had no idea that most of that money that they were counting would be going straight to Badger getting set free they counted a total of forty five thousand dollars each and now they're having to pay forty thousand dollars each in order to make up the 80k total to give to Saul also this goes without saying but eighty thousand dollars is way more than the original four grand that Jesse thought that they'd only have to pay back when Walter and Jesse were talking in Jesse's car in Saul's parking lot this is all technically their fault as they decided to hire Badger and the only reason why getting him set free was so pricey is that the deas involved due to wanting to catch Heisenberg who is obviously Walt himself plus they only go through with paying the eighty thousand dollars because Jesse doesn't want to have Badger killed instead with Saul rubbing salt in the wound by stating how having a conscience can get pricey this is also the third and final time in the episode where we get the comedic effect of Saul offering to have Badger killed Walt wanting to go along with it but Jesse denying it as they say comedy comes in thirds right or the rule of three for storytelling why don't you just kill badger we're not going to kill you okay it's completely off the table and we're sure of that no shaking yeah look if this option is too expensive uh you can still always uh badger in the chow line now this whole situation is just yet another example that goes to show how every time Walt and Jesse take one step forward they take two steps back as they've had to once again spend all of their profits to get themselves out of their current situation plus now they know that the DEA is on to them so with the episode now coming full circle we cut back to the same Saul Goodman bus bench that we saw at the beginning as this is where the fake Heisenberg sting operation will take place we see Hank gomi and gets on a vehicle recording Badger ready to get the transaction on film to arrest Jimmy in and out while Walt and Jesse sit in Walt's car in the corner of the Street behind them in order to make sure that everything goes down as planned now this wouldn't be a Saul Goodman scheme if everything went down without a hitch so of course a problem arises some random guy who fits the description that Badger gave the DEA sits down beside him while Jimmy in and out sits at a different bench now since Badger hasn't met or even seen a picture of Jimmy in and out he doesn't know what he looks like even though as far as the DEA is concerned he should since Jimmy in and out is supposed to act as the real Heisenberg keeping up with the ruse Badger hypothetically would have seen him before since the D.A doesn't know they're about to arrest a scapegoat they believe this random guy is Heisenberg just like how Badger thinks that he's the Fall Guy so not realizing the misunderstanding Badger tries to make the deal with his random stranger as both he nor the DEA don't realize that this isn't the guy so Walt thinks on his feet and quickly devises a plan to solve the problem which includes him dropping Jesse off to walk by Badger to tell him that he's sitting at the wrong bench while Waltz distracts the DEA by pulling up in front of their vehicle to block their view while Jesse does so during this frantic moment the song bandarella or bandaria by Calexico plays and it just perfectly fits the vibe in my opinion apologies for probably pronouncing both of those wrong but I love how Walt distracts the DEA by acting like he randomly recognized Hank while driving by as he acts completely oblivious and naive over how he's inconveniencing them and keeps up the charade going on for as long as possible for Hank finally gets in the move as Walt leaves the DEA starts freaking out over Badger not being at the Saul Goodman bench anymore thinking that they missed the transaction but they quickly realized that Badger just moved benches and the swap finally goes down properly I love how the same two cop fans that Badger called out from the beginning of the episode roll up to arrest Jimmy in and out with us even being able to see the Duke City flowers on the side of one of them side note I gotta say Jimmy in and out preemptively puts his hands behind his head and gets on his knees way too early which honestly makes it seem like a pretty obvious setup but I suppose the DEA doesn't notice or realize as they arrest him anyways thinking that they're successful so with Walt and Jesse driving into the sunset thinking that the DEA bought it we cut back to the DEA and see that the answer is both yes and no Getz is on the phone talking to a superior about how it was a textbook bust and how Heisenberg's real name is James Kill Kelly but then we see Hank standing there unsure of whether to believe this situation or not as he's got hunched that arresting Heisenberg like that was too good to true as if it were too easy also we hear guts say that they arrested Jimmy in and out with a pound of Blue Sky explaining why Saul requested a pound of it alongside the 80 000 payment as the crystal was used to help prove and prosecute Jimmy in and out as the real Heisenberg so Jesse returns home to see that his new mattress is already inside his house and Jane knocks on the door moments later explaining how she let the delivery guys in so they decide to break it in giving another full circle moment of the episode meanwhile we see Walt back at work marking chemistry tests where he's surprised by salt Goodman arriving to his classroom Walt wonders how Saul found him and Saul gives him a hard time for how easy it was apparently Saul's Pi charged him for three hours so he doubts that it actually took him more than one again this gets elaborated on in Better Call Saul Walt instantly assumes that Saul came to visit him as blackmail but Saul has quite the opposite motive instead wanting to continue working for him Saul sees Walt has an opportunity to make a ton of money which although true ends up being a decision that Saul will eventually come to regret but that's a conversation for another video Saul recognizes how Walt's product is special and that he's on something especially considering how much the DEA has worked up over it so Saul convinces Walt to allow him to work for him by stating how he needs him since if it was that easy for Saul to find him he can't imagine the cops being too far behind him Saul says that although Badger was their first dealer to get busted he won't be the last and that drug dealers need lawyers Saul's essentially going to be the character to help guide Walt through the criminal World from this point onward Saul concludes by saying the iconic line so if you want to make more money and uh keep the money that you make Better Call Saul heck and the episode ends what a perfect line to end a tremendous episode Better Call Saul is of course very fitting as the final line of dialogue in the episode considering it's all Goodman's slogan the name of this episode and the name of the spin-off show with Better Call Saul also eventually getting an episode titled breaking bad as to fulfill the naming parallel and main character introductions in each respective show I just love the multiple meanings that this slogan has built onto it throughout the years this episode gets an S tier easy and yes I may be giving this episode a higher ranking due to its relation with Better Call Saul but this is a retrospective after all not only are my Breaking Bad retrospectives meant to reflect on and analyze the show 10 to 15 years after its creation but also with the knowledge of the entirety of the Better Call Saul prequel spin-off in mind as well which completely enhances the experience of watching Breaking Bad especially this episode this episode was already originally an above average a tier on its own but then it retroactively became a superb s to your episode with immense importance to the entirety of the Breaking Bad universe verse due to the significance it has towards Better Call Saul also to further elaborate on my bias here due to the theory videos that I created throughout Seasons three to six A Better Call Saul I may have watched the it wasn't me it was Ignacio scene of Walt and Jesse kidnapping Saul more times than I've seen any other scene of breaking pad I'm not even joking all this to say that I always liked this episode but after watching Better Call Saul I absolutely adore It season 2 episode 9 4 days out so this episode starts out with Walt joined by his entire family for a PET CT scan checkup even though they won't know the results for a week's time since Marie's an x-ray technician she starts going off about how they shouldn't need to wait a week to see the results but Skyler insists that they should go through the clinic that they're used to using as that's where Walt's doctor is Walt not knowing the results of his test for a week is actually incredibly important as the driving force towards what happens in this episode so this dialogue with Marie kind of feels like the creators excusing wise results will take so long also Marie States how doctors think they're so much smarter than technicians when in reality she as a technician could take one quick glance at Walt's results and see how he's doing this will come into play in just a moment I'm sorry but these scans are not that difficult to read I could take one look at Waltz until you immediately how he's doing Walt goes to the bathroom to both avoid the conversation and to let out a coughing fit which has been getting worse all season long or rather even throughout the entirety of the show up to this point the show's been making a point to emphasize Walt's cough and this episode is why so after Walt finishes up with his scan he asks the technician if he sees anything usually it's a common rule to not ask the technician performing your scans about the results as it's your doctor's job to relay that information to you but due to what Marie said earlier about how technicians can tell how he's doing Walt asks anyways of course the technician belittles himself and tells Walt that his doctor will tell him how he's doing next week not answering his question Walt however can see a reflection of the technician's computer screen in the picture on the wall behind him and can see how he has a large spot on his lung from his test again taking what Marie said at face value Walt assumes that the big spot on his test implies that his cancer spreading or that his tumors getting larger and that he may not live much longer but we saw in the reflection pledged his constant coughing seems to prove to him that his cancer has gotten worse I really love the way that the cold open sets up the rest of the episode so let's get right into it we then jumped to Saul's office where Walt is there talking to him about potentially setting up a money laundering business for himself Saul's iffy on the idea of not letting his wife know but Walt is adamant about her not finding out the truth of where his money's coming from until after he dies when Saul asks how much time the doctor told him that he has left he responds by saying how he only has a few weeks even though the doctors obviously haven't told him that this only being his own assumption after seeing how seemingly bad his test was from that reflection earlier when Walt says that he only has sixteen thousand dollars so launder so it gives him a hard time for not having more profit Walt excuses this due to the circumstances that he's had to deal with but again this adds to that one step forward two steps back idea with Walt barely having anything to show for all the criminal activity he's gone through throughout the show oh well look let's crunch some numbers how much money are we laundering at this time sixteen thousand dollars uh how long you've been doing this we've had some extenuating circumstances yeah apparently this also fuels the main plot of the episode as when Saul calculates that after all the fees Waltz will only have left his family just under ten thousand dollars out of the original 16k while it states how he'll have to cook a lot more in order to make money while he's still alive and solid grease but back at home that night Walt tells Skyler how he wants to go visit his mom as he still hasn't even told her that he has cancer Skyler realizes that Waltz thinks his test results will be bad and so he wants to go see his mother one final time while he still can as he's been procrastinating telling her about his condition ever since he was diagnosed Skyler Loki gives Walt a hard time for thinking so negatively as she's still trying to stay positive in hopes that Waltz will live longer this shows that at this point in the show even after all the lies and arguments Skyler still loves Walt and still Wishes the best for his health oh boy will that eventually change which is why I'm emphasizing every moment we see Skyler still care for Walt with how she'll feel a few seasons from now in mind in retrospect anyways Walt tells Skyler that he'll try to save positive but even so he implies that he wants to be prepared for a worst case scenario as they go to sleep Skylar admits how she believes that the results will be good and that wall should prepare for that too Walt pretends to agree but he's so sure of himself that the result will be bad due to the reflection he saw of his test fills him with grief as he thinks that he already knows what she doesn't it adds another layer of tragedy re-watching episode after knowing how it ends due to knowing who's truly right and wrong in this conversation the next morning we see Jesse and Jane wake up together as they plan to drive all the way to Santa Fe to go to a museum Jesse's reluctant to get out of bed and is mostly thinking with his other head but when Walt calls he jumps out of bed and rushes to the phone indicating to Jane how important to answering Walt's phone call is to him Walt of course is dropping another we have to as he demands that they need to cook for four days straight Jesse's reluctant to go gather supplies or to cook for four days straight in general due to making plans with Jane to go to Santa Fe moments ago but Walt demands that they need to and that they have no choice considering what we've seen the entire episode up to this point Walt of course wants to cook as much as he can in as little time as possible in order to make as much money that he can while he's still alive as he thinks that he's only gonna live for a few more weeks due to being convinced that his test results will be bad however instead of explaining all that to Jesse Walt comes up with the lie that their big special barrel of chemicals are gonna go bad due to losing its potency so they need to cook it all before it's wasted again broken record here I've mentioned this in like every retrospective but I can't say that M drug word in my videos due to YouTube flagging me as non-advertiser friendly even if the m word is part of another word just be safe anyways this live their chemicals wasting away convinces Jesse to get on board with the plan and so he starts writing down supplies to gather for the following day speaking of which the next day Skyler drops Walt off at the Albuquerque airport under the assumption that Walt's going to visit his mother for four days as he previously told her but in reality Walt's not going to see his mom with this just being an excuse for Walt to go cook with Jesse for four days straight so as soon as Skyler drops him off and leaves Jesse rolls up in the Crystal Ship to pick Walt up with Walton on press that Jesse brought a rolling lab to the airport just to save the trip of having to go get it right off the bat Walt is giving Jesse a hard time and this trend continues we then get an RV driving Montage set to the song Good Morning Freedom by Blue mink as Walt and Jesse drive way out to the boonies where they plan to cook for four days straight all of the title of episode four days out with the title also having a double meaning as it's also referencing how long Walt has to wait for his test results now during the filming of this driving Montage apparently Aaron Paul missed turn and entered an on-ramp where he was scared that he was going to tip over the RV even so the camera continued filming and he never broke character as he managed to regain control now once they arrive at their cook spot Walt gives Jesse a hard time packing nothing but junk food such as three big bags of Funyuns instead of something nutritional as Walt communically nags about their food options or rather lack thereof Jesse gives the cliche my phone isn't getting any service line but they switch up the Trope due to Walt still barely having a signal I love how this already foreshadows later events that I'm getting stranded out there but put a pin in that for now as we'll get to it when it comes believe me speaking of their phones though Jesse asks to use Walt's phone as he wants to call Jane but Walt shuts that down quickly as he announced to assume that Skyler checks his phone records after the whole second cell phone Fiasco during the Fugue State Arc due to the earring that Walt found in Jesse's house last episode he's able to deduce that Jesse wants to call a girl again further setting up while it's learning about his relationship with Jane so they begin undressing to get in their lab suits which interests me how Walt still cares about his clothes not smelling like a lab when he previously stopped caring at the end of season one maybe Skyler smelling it on him smartened him up and Justified his original concern or maybe it's just easier for him to get into his lab gear without clothes underneath but I digress as they do so Walt gives Jesse a hard time for throwing the keys to the RV on their workstation and so he tells Jesse to find another place to put the keys where they won't get lost so Jesse has the bright idea to stick the keys in the ignition with a camera then slowly panning up to a red light indicating that the battery is running we then get one of the best cook montages of the whole show set to the song one by one by the black seeds enjoy it while you can because this is also the final RV cook Montage in the entire show throughout this Montage we see Walt and Jesse Bond and build camaraderie if having no one but themselves as they cook together we also get many iconic cinematic shots of Walt and Jesse cooking out together in the desert such as their Silhouettes sitting in their foldable chairs them taking a group piss a through the table saw to them pouring drugs onto a tray along with many great shots of the RV out in the desert also there's one shot of the RV where you can actually see a lily of the valley flower in the foreground unintentionally foreshadowing the season 4 finale I've said it before and I'll say it again the cinematography for Breaking Bad is top tier the shot of them taking a group piss actually wasn't in the script it was something that the director producer someone they wanted to get that shot but they thought they wouldn't have time so one morning right before they started filming they told Brian Cranston and Aaron Paul to go stand out there so they could get the shot even though they technically weren't supposed to and I also love how during the shot of their Silhouettes in the chairs we can see Walt eating one of the Funyuns that he initially complained about followed by a quick shot of him throwing away the supposedly empty bank so after the Montage we get potentially the most wholesome and happiest moments of the entire show which occurs moments before disaster after they finish weighing up a full bin of Blue Sky being 42 pounds total Walt calculates how much money they'll make from this and comes to the conclusion that they'll make 672 thousand dollars each which is quite a far cry from the measly 16k that Walt started out with at the beginning of the episode by all accounts Walters almost reached his original goal of 737k that he set during the season 2 premiere now to emphasize the camaraderie between Walt and Jesse In This Moment first there impressed with having 42 pounds then Walt is impressed that they're selling a single pound for 40K each with Jesse saying how it's because Walt wanted to raise the price during his Corner the market strategy back in episode 207 then when Walt calculates the 672k I love how Jesse first asks if it's all in meaning that it'd be split between the two of them followed by Waltz stating how they'd be bringing home 672k each 672 thousand dollars each each 672 000 each emphasis on them saying each followed by celebrating is an absolutely brilliant heartwarming moment I get a damn smile on my face every time I watch this scene even knowing the tragedy that's about to befall them I absolutely love how Walt finally allows himself to throw away his professional and hard-ass demeanor he's had all series long and especially in this episode and let loose by giving Jesse the high five he's asking for as they celebrate yes hell yeah hey come on baby come on yes come on yes yes now the evolution of their friendships through being Partners during the first half of this episode alone speaks volumes Walt goes from constantly giving Jesse a hard time and being a total hard ass to genuinely celebrating with him in the happiest moment that they've had since they first became Partners now not to ruin the moment but as an um actually side note if you calculate the prices that they used to sell for compared to now it's actually the same even though they State how they raised the prices in a previous episode this season we learned that Jesse's dealers were selling for 2 500 an ounce of which Walt and Jesse kept 2000 after distribution fees and then evenly split between them is one thousand dollars per ounce which is before they supposedly raise their prices in this episode when Walt asks Jesse what price they're selling at Jesse says 40 000 a pound which is still 2500 per ounce Walt looks surprised that it's so high to which Jesse replies hey you said raise the prices but but the math of each of them making 672k for 42 pounds shows that the street price is still 2 500 per ounce and that he and Jesse still keep 2 000 of that exactly the pricing that they started with 672k divided by 42 was 16k divided by 16 is 1K each aka the two thousand dollars per ounce after the 500 Distribution charge as before anyways with that aside aside in this moment of Celebration their AC turns off with their generator running out of gas Jesse figures how that's perfect timing as he thinks that they're done cooking but Walt's ambition gets the best of him as he States how they're not done cooking until they've used all their ingredients and that they still have around 10 gallons of chemicals left in their Barrel that they can cook with Jesse compromises by stating how he'll agree to cook the rest of it but that he first wants them to take the night off in order to get some well needed RNR along with allowing them to fill up on gas for their generator and get propane and propane accessories Jesse manages to convince Walt of this with the promise of a Denny's a hot shower and a bed so they get all giddy as they go to the front seats to drive off into the sunset I love the moment of Walt all excited stating how they'll even have separate rooms with Jesse stating how that's a given so we come back tomorrow strap on the sizzle and glass up the rest come on there's gotta be a Denny's out there someplace slam odd shower a bed separate rooms um yeah that's a given with every new high there comes a new low except their new low is coming a lot sooner than they could have anticipated as soon as Jesse tries turning on the RV it won't start as the battery is dead Walt instantly recognizes the reason and passive aggressively asks Jesse where he put the keys to confirm his suspicion Jesse admits that he put the keys in the ignition leaving Walt to give the best soab face palm I think I've ever seen on television right here in the um the ignition I love her [ __ ] Jesse claims that it's not his fault as the buzzer that usually buzzes to signify the batteries on didn't Buzz so he thought that putting the keys in the ignition was fine Jesse is right the buzzer didn't Buzz however as the camera slowly panned up to show us earlier the indicator light for the battery did turn on and Jesse didn't see it so with them now sitting in an RV that won't start with over a million dollars of drugs about a million miles away from civilization in the middle of nowhere all the camaraderie that was just built up between them Fades away as they instantly go back to bickering and arguing with each other as much as I love the classic Walt and Jesse bickering you hate to love to see it here as they were finally getting along so well so of course something just had to ruin it while it does give some pretty hilarious insults here this is just a genetic thing with you is it congenital did your mother drop you on your head when you were a pleasure did not Buzz Jesse does make a good point about how it was Walt who told Jesse to move the keys in the first place but Walt's response is equally as good as he didn't think that he'd need to tell Jesse not to put the keys in the ignition out of all the spots that Jessica could put the keys you put them in the one spot that he shouldn't have granted the keys would have been fine at the workstation so if walten been such a hard ass earlier everything would have been fine that's what I love so much about this show as I've said before whenever something bad happens the show creates elements where technically both Walt and Jesse are equally at fault or at least somewhat each Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul by extension do such a great job at showing the domino effect of blame and although this doesn't seem like a large domino effect at this moment put a pin in it for now as it does get much longer and will return to it later and you're the one that made me move the keys in the first place remember I see your point you're imbecility being what it is I should have known to say Jesse don't leave the keys in the ignition the entire two days leave them on the coucher [ __ ] I'm sorry oh the workstation so in order to try and jump start the battery they decide to siphon some gas out of the RV into the generator in order to use that to do so as Walt siphons the gas he spills some all over the generator while trying to get the tube into the gas tank and walks off coughing and gagging from the horrible Taste of the gas keep in mind how throughout the episode the show is now leaning on Jesse also taking notice of Walt's terrible coughing for this episode we saw a hint of it during the Montage and out during Walt's coughing from the gas to be honest the show's been leaning into this all season long such as episode 207 at the end of the motivational Blowfish scene when Walt and Jesse are both coughing at the same time with Jesse only coughing because he just took a bong ramp so they connect the booster cables and go to start the generator but Jesse has problems getting it started after some more bickering between them Jesse gives it a really big yank resulting in an exploding probably due to the gas spilled all over it while Walt initially siphon gas into it so Walt runs inside to grab a fire extinguisher but Jesse instinctively grabs their huge jug of water and pours it onto the fire here both wasting their water and ruining the generator if it wasn't ruined already from going up in Flames Walt walks out of the RV with the fire extinguisher to see what Jesse just did and the look on Walt's face as he slowly looks over to Jesse is absolutely hilarious we then cut to waltz taking apart the generator while Jesse has made some sort of makeshift antenna to try and get service on his phone but both of their Endeavors come up fruitless they argue over the generator once more with Walt giving some hilarious smart ass remarks blaming Jesse for his thinking being the problem you know I understand you hooked it up wrong no no no no no that is not what happened how do you know what I know is that I wasn't the one who dumped out the last of our water that's what I know there was a fire excuse me for thinking on my feet oh is is that what you would you were thinking ah now that we've identified the problem you in thinking that's the problem now I can't 100 say with certainty why exactly the generator blew up but I'm gonna go ahead and assume it's because there was gasoline poured all over it you even saw uh the camera focus on the vents which were just coated in gas right before Jesse started it so it's possible that it is Walt's fault for spilling the gas all over it that caused it to explode but he's just trying to blame Jesse for it because Jesse wasted their water in order to put the fire out Jesse then begs Walt to use his phone so he can call someone to pick them up and Waltz reluctantly agrees even though he's worried that Skyler will notice the random phone call this was brilliantly foreshadowed earlier in the episode and Walt wouldn't allowed Jesse to call Jane but now that they're in a dire situation Walt allows Jesse to call someone due to the emergency that they're in so is Jesse called Skinny Pete to give him directions to come pick them up we get yet another comedic moment of Walter looking at Jesse's makeshift cell phone antenna now as the Sun starts to set Jesse gives skinny some less than ideal directions leaving them with nothing to do other than wait it out until they can hopefully get rescued so later that night as they freeze in the RV Jesse convinces wall to allow him to call skinny P to get an update on how close he is to picking them up at first it seems like skinny Pete is on the right track that is until he mentions going over a river which they never did implying that skinny Pete is going the wrong way to make matters even worse Walt's phone dies with them now unable to correct Skinny Pete's root or call anyone else for help I bet skinny Pete is just sitting in his car thinking I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque horrible Jokes Aside absolutely love how they set up this situation with their phones they took the cliche no service horror movie Trope and flipped it on its head even though Jesse didn't have service Walt did giving us hope however as they were using it Waltz kept mentioning how roaming drains the battery which was perfect setup for the phone dying mid-conversation with skinny Pete just after they learned that he was going the wrong way good good he's across the river yeah have you seen anything what river yeah hey yo love River people what the hell River you talking about man there's no River hey yo Peach yo peek Kitty phone's dead this just goes to show that no matter how bad of a situation they're in it can always get worse first the generator catches on fire and then gets totally ruined along with their water being wasted then just as they think they're about to get rescued the phone dies just as they get confirmation that skinny Pete is going the wrong way this is brilliant writing that keeps me constantly glued to my screen every time I watch this episode so now with them being completely out of options Jesse asked Walt what they're going to do but Walt stays silent and just rolls over in bed essentially waiting to die with their Lantern going out as a perfect representation of them losing the last little bit of hope that they had to get out of the situation the next morning Jesse wakes up to Walt coughing again as he starts cranking the generator in order to try and charge the battery in it I suppose that with all hope lost Walt just needed the night to sleep on it and come up with another plan Jesse doesn't buy it but Walt States how it has to work under the implication that they'll die out there otherwise so now this marks the third day that they've been out there along with their first day without water as we get a montage of them turning the crank on the generator all day long as they switch turns doing so you'd think that we would have already gone past the all hope is lost moment but oh boy just you wait it eventually gets to the point where Jesse asks if they can finally start the generator and he notices that Walt is completely slouched over in his chair seemingly dead now we as the audience see Walt blink so we know that he's still alive and not even sleeping and that he's just so mentally and physically drained and dehydrated that he appears as such so with Walt on his last legs Jesse wants to try and start the generator but Walt wants to give it a little longer just to make sure Walt breaks out in a violent coughing fit again hammering that point home that both he the audience and now Jesse think that he's not going to last much longer it's at this moment that Jesse realizes how their chemicals don't spoil and that wall tricked him into coming out into the desert to cook for four days as Walt believes that he's going to die soon Jesse has every right to be incredibly mad at Walt over this but at this point neither of them have that energy to argue about it so finally after another time skip they've seemingly exhausted all the energy that they have to turn that crank and so they decide to try to turn on the RV it works out first with Jesse cheering in relief but then it suddenly shuts down yes yes Jesse has a complete mental breakdown here as he figures that this was their final shot to get out of the situation and Aaron Paul's acting here is equally impressive as it is heartbreaking Jesse then Ponders an alternate timeline where he just went to Santa Fe instead but hey hindsight is 20 20 right anyways Jesse realizes that Walt is missing as Walt got such a huge coughing fit that he left the RV to go cough up a lung as Jesse walks out to find him we get an almost tranquil moment of Walt sitting out in the field alone as if he's peacefully accepting his fate as Jesse approaches it's revealed that Waltz just coughed up blood again implying that his condition has worsened to the point that death is knocking on his door this is the all hope is lost moment after three separate attempts to get themselves out of the situation failing along with Walt now coughing up blood this is the true low point of the episode as things honestly cannot get any worse so I guess take back what I said before the battery died due to the Keys being left in the ignition fine the generator blowing up and getting ruined from Jesse dumping their water on it fine while it's cell phone dying right before they found out skinny P was going the wrong way fine but now after their final attempt to get the generator working again after cranking it all day along with Walt coughing up blood you can truly feel the pain that these characters are going through and it's just absolutely heartbreaking usually when characters are stuck in a situation like this in a show or movie the first attempt always fails but the second or even third attempt usually does the trick and saves them however here that is not the case with them now completely screwed it makes sense that viewers would think how simply giving the RV battery a boost would go wrong somehow but I bet a lot of people were surprised that calling skinny Pete for a rescue didn't work and I'll bet money that everyone watching this episode for the first time was equally as distraught as Jesse when trying the generator again after cranking it all day didn't work especially after the RV started for a second as if it would just absolutely crushing now yes apparently there's a technical error here where cranking the generator all day like they did wouldn't have actually worked but I'm just kind of bypassing that error as within Universe we're going with the idea that it would have worked so as they lay there in the RV without any plan or even any energy to get up Walt becomes incredibly self-deprecating as he States how he had this coming and that he deserves this outcome after all the lies to his family that pushed them apart after all the crimes he's committed including drug manufacturing selling theft kidnapping murder Etc Walt figures that Karma's finally caught up with him with this being almost a Moment of clarity realizing all the horrible things that he's done and said Jesse tries arguing that although Walt has done horrible things he did it for the noble reason of wanting to provide for his family after he's gone now although this is technically true even up to this point as The Show Goes On we'll come to see how even that is eventually a lie as well and also you know Walt always could have just taken the money from Gretchen and Elliot so even right now it could be considered a lie that he's telling himself anyways Walt responds by stating how all he ever managed to do was worry and disappoint his family along with admitting how he's lied to them over so many things that he can't even keep the lie straight anymore what I have it coming I deserve this Jesse decides that he's gonna walk back to civilization but Waltz deters him from doing so as he'll collapse and die before he can make it back Walt of course does this by explaining it in a sciency way by stating how their bodies are running low on electrolytes sodium and potassium and now within an hour their body will fail them and they will fall over and die although Walt has given up hope Jesse hasn't and he tries reeling Walt back in to think of something else to get them out of this situation Jesse tells Waltz that he needs to think of something scientific and that if he can make poison out of beans he can make something with what's available to them to get them out of there Jesse starts brainstorming nonsense such as making Rocket Fuel a single flare a robot a homing device but finally lands on something tangible a battery Walt catches on to this and Jesse notices him sitting up realizing that he's come up with an idea oh in the moment where Jesse asks Walt what his ideas and Walt responds by telling Jesse that he said it himself followed by Jesse asking if they're gonna make a robot is actually improv line that Aaron Paul thought of and he even asked them to reshoot that scene just so he could say it what are we building shut it yourself a battery so they spring into action with Waltz telling Jesse to bring him anything that's galvanized or solid zinc including nuts bolts screws and coins and also their brake pads for mercuric oxide as they start making the battery they unintentionally revert back into a teacher's student dynamic as Walt explains to Jesse how they're building the battery now not only do I love how Walt's chemistry teacher side is coming out of him with Jesse being the failing student but this is also a perfect excuse to give exposition to the audience on what they're even doing from thermite to ricin and now building a battery I just love moments like this where Walt uses his scientific knowledge to help them in whatever situation they find themselves in so with Jesse's seemingly starting to catch on to Walt's scientific lesson on how to build the battery or at least interested enough to listen Walt gives Jesse the question of what element they should use to conduct the current with which gives us the iconic meme moment of say it with me [Music] ah copper so Walt would still probably fail Jessie here but at least Jesse gets an a for effort so they fashion together the six cells that they've built into the same container that they originally kept their cooking and they attempt to give the RV a jump with it Jesse gives Walt the keys to turn the RV on and now for the moment of truth then after a few tries in anticipation it works although they're happy in this moment they're too drained to celebrate and the show simply Fades back to the airport where Jesse drops Walt off now of course there's a missing scene from El Camino that happens in this moment during the fourth day but I'll leave that breakdown for another day as I've already spent far too much time on this episode even though I am enjoying every moment of it so anyways as Jesse drops Walt off they imply to each other that if Walt dies before they can sell all the products that they cooked while can trust Jesse to give Walt's family every penny of Walt's share so even after all the bickering this near-death experience has truly bonded them in ways that they never could have imagined even surpassing the camaraderie that they felt two days in right before they realized that the RV battery was dead we then cut to Walt and his family out Walt's doctor where they're prepared to hear Walt's test results after some small talk about Skyler's baby the doctor jumps right to the Chase and tells Walt that he's showing signs of remission not only has his tumor knock on bigger it hasn't stayed the same size either as the size of Walt's tumor has been reduced by 80 percent now though this moment is heartwarming it is kind of of undercut with tragedy as the faces of Walt's entire family glow up with happiness mainly Junior in the background while Skyler's in disbelief for the good news however Walt is the one truly in disbelief to the point that he doesn't even allow himself to be happy considering what he expected from his quick glance at the reflection of his test at the beginning of the episode Walt even tells Skyler that she's right and that this is very good news calling back to the conversation that they had while in bed during the first half of the episode where Skyler believed that the test results would be good news as I hinted earlier looking back on that scene is really interesting to watch with the knowledge of Walt's test results as Skyler was correct in predicting the good news even though Walt was so sure of himself that it'd be bad news due to having the knowledge of seeing that reflection of his results now of course Walt puts a smile on his face as he feels that that's the appropriate response to celebrate the good news with his family and I do believe he is somewhat happy in this moment but that's not how he truly feels as his happiness is outweighed by him thinking about how wrong he was which we'll get into in just a moment but first we of course get clarification that the huge bought that wall saw and his lung isn't his tumor growing or is cancer spreading but is rather tissue inflammation from all the coughing that he's been doing Walt admits that he even coughed up blood recently leaving the doctor to almost shame him for not telling him sooner as he could have a tear in his esophagus from his coughing which could be extremely dangerous now it's interesting how the combination of Walt's horrible coughing to the point that he started coughing out blood on top of what he thought was a huge tumor growth from the reflection of his test results that he saw earlier confirmed to himself that his cancer was getting worse when in reality the huge spot that he saw in his lung was just inflammation from the coughing with the coughing being a common side effect for mistreatment explaining away both of those initially scary symptoms so the meaning concludes with the doctor stating that they'll have to take a look at Walt's potential tear before he leaves the hospital but bottom line they've got more options with the most important thing being more time it's ironic how the last thing that we hear the doctor say is that they'll talk in the coming weeks when Walt initially thought that he'd be dead in a few weeks the episode ends with a very important scene of Walt in the bathroom as we see how he truly feels about his diagnosis without any words even needing to be said now as Walt splashes water on his face he lets water from the sink run through his hands since at least at one point while out in the desert he must have thought that he'd never see clean water again and notice how Walt has his head down towards the sink not just because he was splashing water in his face but almost because he seems unable to look at himself in the mirror after everything he's been through but then as he grabs some paper towels from the dispenser he unintentionally notices his reflection in the dispenser but he can't stand to look at himself so he punches it over and over again until he tires himself out leaving a morphed reflection of himself in the dispenser as he regains composure and leaves with episode ending on the dented dispenser cut to black as I said this final scene of the episode is extremely important so let's break it down not only during this episode but throughout the entire series as a whole Walt has done horrible things with the idea that he'll be dead and long gone before he ever has to pay the consequences for them that's always been in the excuse that he's told himself in order to commit such heinous criminal acts however the blessing of being told that he has more time to live almost feels like a curse as now he has to deal with and live with the consequences of his actions since Walt thought that he was going to die so soon he thought he was justified to lie to Jesse to get him cooking out in the desert for four days however upon learning that he's going to live for much longer Walt is now mad at himself as everything he just went through was for naught Walt and Jesse almost died out in the desert due to dehydration and exhaustion and all of their pain and suffering could have been avoided if Walt wasn't so sure of himself that he was going to die so soon of course Walt wasn't just going off of a hunch as it was a combination of his coughing plus the quick glance at the reflection of his test that convinced him of it especially after Maria went on and on about how anyone could tell how Walt was doing after just looking at the results for a moment also Waltz morphed a reflection of himself after he takes his anger out on the paper towel dispenser speaks volumes in regards to Walt's Evolution or rather de-evolution from the mild manager chemistry teacher until what he's now become in a way Walt is now unrecognizable from the person that he used to be even though he's always had it bottled up inside him to do the kind of things that he now does now this actually isn't the last time that we see this paper towel dispenser in the show so put a pin in that conversation for now and we'll return to it in season 5 to discuss just truly how much Walt still has to change in the seasons to come but I will briefly mention how this morph reflection of Walt hits home so hard that the creators of Better Call Saul made multiple parallels and references to it in that show as well to imply how a character is changing and de-evolving now this episode gets a double s to your hands down that's right I'm bringing back the double s tier ranking from my Better Call Saul tearless specifically for episodes like this that are so amazingly top tier that they deserve even more praise than a regular s-tier ranking also note how this is the first episode of Breaking Bad so far that I've given a double s tier ranking too and yes it does mean what you might think it means I think that season 2 episode 9 of Breaking Bad four days out is hands down the best episode of Breaking Bad so far up to this point as much as I love episodes like 105 106 or even 202 or 206 I truly believe that episode's 208 and 209 are when this show really gets good even with all the amazing episodes to come episode 209 will go down as one of my favorite Breaking Bad episodes of all time and is easily my favorite episode out of the first two seasons not to spoil the rest of the video but yeah if you couldn't already tell by how much time I've spent on episode 208 and especially 209 I genuinely love these episodes as much as one can love a single episode of a TV show now for a few fun facts about the episode for Aaron Paul he's apparently gone on record saying how this is his favorite episode of Breaking Bad ever also while filming he refrained from drinking liquid for an entire day to authenticate his portrayal in it this episode was also intended to be a bottle episode to save money but it wound out being the most expensive episode that they've done since the pilot also apparently this episode is an homage to the 1965 film the Flight of the Phoenix or a plane crash left passengers stranded out in a desert and I just love the whole concept of this episode in regard to how they plan to go out to cook for four days but two days in they decide to get some r r and are unable to essentially stranding them out there for the two remaining days even though I think they technically save themselves at the end of day three with the El Camino scene happening during day four after they went to a motel or whatever also before we move on to the next episode I just wanted to quickly return to that domino effect of blame thing that I said to put a pin in earlier so it's Jesse's fault for putting out the generator fire with the remaining water supply instead of waiting for wall to use the fire extinguisher which wasted both their remaining water along with completely destroying the generator however it may have been Walt's fault that the generator blew up in the first place due to all the gas that he spilled all over it while sucking up the gas to get the flow of the siphon going now they wouldn't have been in this situation if Jesse wouldn't have put the keys in the ignition but Jesse wouldn't put the keys in the ignition if Walt didn't tell him to find another place for them also they wouldn't have even gone out into this mess of a four-day trip of Walton lied to Jesse about their chemicals going bad which you wouldn't have lied about if he didn't think he was going to die so soon due to misinterpreting the reflection that he saw in his test results so really even though this is Jesse's fault or that is Walt's fault the true person to blame here is clearly Marie for putting the idea in Walt's head of being able to diagnose his condition from a quick glance at his test results in the first place Jokes Aside though you can see what I mean by how you can follow the domino effect of blame of what's happened all the way up the chain to figure out who is to blame for what to the point that everything becomes a blurry mess when in reality the main point is the fact that everyone is at least somewhat to blame maybe some more than others but for the most part the show tries to blur the line with a gray area to keep the blame equal amongst all characters so that the viewers aren't able to just blame any one character for everything that's happened now if you've seen my Better Call Saul videos you'll know that I'm a huge fan of the ways that the writers of both shows create these long Domino effects of blame as you can go back and forth for forever this episode is a perfect example of one of those instances and I'll be sure to point out more as I continue going through the show season 2 episode 10 over this episode starts out with our third of four black and white flash forwards to the finale this time showing us two body bags in the driveway of Walt's house not much to say this time around but I do like how the creators evenly spread out these flash forwards throughout the season so we wouldn't forget about them first in the premiere then about a third through the season and now two-thirds through the season as well after the intro sequence we cut to Walt's observing his swollen Knuckles from punching the paper towel dispenser this episode is clearly acting as the aftermath episode to four days out and Walt dealing with the good news of his results this episode was even opened with Walt reflecting on his swollen Knuckles implying the theme of the entire episode in regard to wall to dealing with the fact that he'll be alive for much longer than he initially thought any normal person received the positive news that Walt did in regard to being in remission with their tumor shrunk by 80 they'd be ecstatic however this episode really explores why Walt takes the good news as bad bad news in his own way and how that affects him after being so sure that he was going to die soon just like without Hank is always bottling up his true emotions while keeping up a positive appearance due to that being expected of him here Walt goes through something similar as all episode long he's putting on appearances of being happy about the good news when in reality he feels the exact opposite we also get a glimpse of the gross water coming out of his tap reminding us of their faulty water heater to set up later on in the episode also it's kind of ironic how Walt is wanting to go into work while Skyler wants him to stay home and recover when later in the episode it'll become the exact opposite he's Skyler plans a celebration party that weekend for Walt's good news and Walt bites his lip and agrees even though he doesn't really want to celebrate it Walt also agrees to sit at home all day recovering but that doesn't last too long as he called Jesse after a few moments to meet up they meet at a random Diner and to be honest I always seem to forget about this scene even though it does hold great significance as their first time speaking since the whole four days out situation Jesse implies that he was worried that Waltz was already dead and Walt's response of no such luck may be more literal than Jesse realizes I thought maybe you might catch signed sign signed off I wasn't even checking the obits such luck it is because it's of course meant to be a morbidly sarcastic remark but with Walter now knowing that he'll live much longer than anticipated he's not looking forward to potentially having to deal with the consequences of his actions as he initially thought that he'd be long gone before that ever came to fruition Walt breaks the news that coughing up blood is a result of a common side effect that's easily treated and how he's actually in remission I love how Jesse reacts here as he's genuinely happy to hear the good news while on the other hand Walt keeps trying to downplay it Jesse gets so excited that he almost starts making a scene and I love this little moment where you can tell that Walt's about to tell him to quiet down but he instantly deflects that as this is cause for celebration dude no way no I'm not out of the woods yet that's awesome serious that's that's great man my aunt she never I mean you know at your stage I didn't think that could happen Mr White you kicked his ass yo no you must be so sight of course I am Jesse seems that Walt is psyched still unable to recognize how upset Walt actually is with this good news so Jesse gives Walt his share of what he's been able to sell so far and asks Walt how they should proceed Walt calmly explains how they should cautiously sell off what they have left and that once they're done Walt is out this shows that Walt is still okay with retiring from his criminal lifestyle once he has money to provide for his family even though it isn't quite the original 737k that he calculated at the beginning of the season I suppose that after all these crazy situations that always leave them one step forward two steps back Walt's just happy to get out ahead of where he started in fact it's almost seemingly Jesse who's interested in further continuing their work now that Walt will stay alive for the foreseeable future but Jesse respects Walt's decision to quit and so he doesn't push the matter so skipping forward to the weekend we see Walt celebration that Skyler organized Skyler gives a lighthearted toast followed by Waltz which almost completely ruins the mood due to The Morbid implications Walt of course stops before becoming too much of a downer but what literally says implies a lot when I got my diagnosis cancer I said to myself you know why me and then the other day when I got the good news I said the same thing Waltz was first wondering why him of all people would get cancer seemingly out of nowhere however now that he's in remission he's potentially feeling survivor's guilt in regard to him being one of the lucky ones who was actually able to successfully fight his cancer While others aren't so lucky or fortunate this mini speech here almost implies that Walt wishes that he didn't get good news from his test just as badly as when he first wished that he never had cancer in the first place it's such a huge contrast that speaks volumes in regard to his mindset also oh no I forgot this was the episode to have the junior drinking scene in it prepare for another huge Breaking Bad cringe moment this scene isn't quite happy birthday Ted levels of cringe but definitely competes with being one of the top five Breaking Bad cringe moments of all time there's a video idea this scene essentially consists of Walt Hank and Junior sitting at a table near the pool where Walt actually allows Junior to drink with them Hank is clearly the voice of reason out of the three of them as he goes from being the cool Uncle that's okay with it just slowly realizing that Waltz is going overboard before eventually trying to take away the bottle while brushing it off before it escalates genius completely oblivious to the subtext going on here as he just wants to be cool like Walt and Hank and drink with them along with wanting to keep up with them although there usually comes a time where parents will allow their teenage kid to have a drink with them it's usually you know the parents job to teach their kid in moderation something that Walt does not do at All In This Moment first after Hank realizes that Juniors had enough he tries putting his hand over Junior's cup to which Walt pours a drink through his open fingers anyways then when Hank tries taking the bottle away before things escalate Walt makes a huge scene demanding Hank that he brings the bottle back creating the exact scene that Hank was trying to avoid bring the bottle back it's my son my bottle my house what are you waiting for bring it back even so Hank still tries being reluctant to Walt's Demand with a junior eventually drinking so much that he ends up embarrassingly throwing up in the pool forcing Walton Hank's argument to come to an end before they can butt heads about it more and make things even worse Walt then goes back to sit down drinking with a grin on his face that implies how he's almost seemingly satisfied with making his son drink until he throws up now I'm not entirely sure what enticed Walt to act this way is he projecting his negative emotions onto his son where he wants his son to drink so much that he throws up in such a way that since Walt's in pain he wants to make someone else feel horrible too let me know what you think in the comments but regardless of his reasoning genius completely innocent and does not deserve this form of treatment or rather abuse in any way whatsoever Walt essentially took his anger out on his family all while making a fool of himself and ruined the party that he didn't even want to have in the first place and then the next morning we cut to Jesse at his place as he prepares breakfast for Jane with another iconic Breaking Bad through the table shot up at the eggs that he's cooking we get a funny this is your brain on drugs reference followed by a not so funny potential foreshadowing to the penultimate episode of the Season Jesse was hoping that he could make breakfast for Jane before she woke up but she woke up early causing him to say I'm supposed to wake up ever potentially foreshadowing the way that she dies anyways even though Jesse struggles multitasking in the kitchen Jane still appreciates the effort that he's putting into it Jesse gives her what he thinks is the better plate which is totally customary whenever cooking for someone however she removes some eggshell from her plate while he's not looking as we even saw him drop one of the eggshells while originally cracking the eggs meanwhile we see Walt wake up hungover in his iconic tidy whities where he leaves Skyler an apologetic voicemail due to his actions from the party the day before due to Walt feeling bad about his actions he decides to make it up to his family by getting a new water heater which is very similar to his pathetic apology breakfast from earlier on in the season and as I said back then we'll continue to see him do this over and over again whenever he feels bad about his actions towards his family since Walt figures that action speak louder than words he still thinks that he can win his family back over by doing nice things for them now as Walt pays for the new water heater he quickly hides one of the bills due to seeing blood on it which really hits the nail on the head in regard to the literal meaning of the blood money that he's using to purchase the water heater with correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the blood mark on his bill from the money that Jesse gave him from the ATM from peek-a-boo now meanwhile Skyler starts listening to Walt's voicemail at work but ends up before she can hear his apology due to Ted walking into the break room here Skyler informs Ted of Walt's cancer and that they recently got good news I believe this is the first time that we see Skyler not so happy about the good news as she initially was as she doesn't seem as excited about it anymore we then get more bonding time between Jesse and Jane where Jesse shows her all the drawings of made-up superheroes that he drew as a kid which was referenced in a previous episode Jane gives him a hard time for basing all the superheroes off of himself which I'm not sure if he ever even consciously realized while drawing them this bonding experience is cut short however when Jane hears knocking on her door she quickly gets dressed as she cuts through their backyard and into her own side of the house seemingly wanting to keep Jesse a secret from whoever's knocking this person knocking turns out to be her dad with this being our first introduction to him Jesse overhears and so he walks out of his own door expecting an introduction as Jane's new boyfriend or whatever they are but Jane simply introduces him as their new tenant all while pretending that they don't have anything going on between them back to Walt Junior arrives home from school to see Walt finishing up setting up their new water heater and he gets Junior to give it the first test drive this seems to win Junior over but as we can see from their subsequent conversation Gina isn't even mad out Walt for what happened at the party the day before Walt tries bringing it all up while apologizing for his actions but junior is completely oblivious to how Walt acted out a line instead just hopeful that Walt is proud of him for keeping up with their drinks this goes to show how naively impressionable junior is as a teenager as he doesn't understand how Walt was in the wrong for pushing him to drink so much Walt tries to explain it to him but Junior still doesn't seem to get it which is honestly disheartening to Walt as Junior doesn't even understand why he should be mad at wall to let alone forgive him meanwhile Jesse sits at home contemplating James previous dismissal of him in front of her dad and while he does so you can see how he's now smoking cigarettes inside implying how his relationship with her is causing her to become more lenient about house rules sure he has an air purifier that's not going to do crap when you're smoking actual cigarettes and doors maybe Kush but not tobacco anyways Jane arrives at Jesse's and walks in as if nothing's wrong clearly trying to brush off what happened in such a way where she hopes to not have to deal with it just like Marie trying to pretend the whole Tiara situation didn't happen Jesse does confront her about it though causing her to become standoffish as she implies that there's nothing romantic going on between them this is partly due to Jane thinking that she's protecting Jesse from her dad did her dad being incredibly strict but it could come across as an insult to Jesse as it may imply that Jane is embarrassed to be with him publicly also this may be partly due to Jane's commitment issues which were implied ever since her first few scenes which caused her to act so standoffish instead of dealing with the issue that Jesse brings up clearly not only does Jane have commitment issues but she's bearing on unconfrontational since if she was she just honestly admit why she doesn't want her dad to know that they're together along with apologizing for potentially belittling him however if everyone just acted accordingly in every given situation we wouldn't have a show as there'd be no conflict so of course Jane has to act this way in order to create internal conflict between herself and Jesse as this not only acts as their first quote fight but also sets up how much of a hard ass Jane's dad truly is so although this may initially seem like an internal conflict just for the sake of it I do enjoy it as it is realistic for non-confrontational people to act the way that Jane does here instead of just being able to have an honest and open conversation anyways Jesse's had enough with her deflections so he leaves and while he does so we get a shot of Jane showing how she realizes that she messed up here so the next day we see Walt get a crap ton of materials from his local hardware store as he's decided to keep renovating the house due to finding wood Rod underneath the house from the new crawl space that he's made now it's never really said how much wood Rod is actually under her house which was done on purpose as the creators wanted to keep it vague as to how much Rod is actually there versus how much raw to Walt needs there to be so much Junior comes home from school once more Walt explains the wood rot situation to him but Junior's shown to be indifferent about it meanwhile we see Skyler staying late at work as she's noticed some discrepancies in the bookkeeping as Ted goes to leave she suddenly breaks out in tears and so Ted walks back in to confront her she opens up to Ted about how things don't feel different after Walt's good news as the inevitable will still eventually happen this shows how Skyler is realizing how her positivity will still end in sadness as Walt will still eventually die from cancer implied by her stating how there was supposed to be a light at the end of the tunnel but now she realizes how that's impossible and all she sees is more tunnel Ted relates to her by mentioning a similar situation that he went through with his dad before he died and how he was coincidentally so sick at the time that he wasn't able to spend time with his father like he wanted to he then explains how being the strong person of the family to hold everything together in hard times takes a lot and so he and Skyler Bond over it the next morning we get another breakfast scene as a clear parallel to the one at the beginning of the episode as Walt is so preoccupied with replacing the rotted wood under the house that he's neither resting or going into work when Skyler tries confronting him on this are you going to work today father there's rot and he gets back to it it's interesting how scholarly doesn't question how they could even afford the new expensive tankless water heater with her instead being ungrateful and focused on him doing renovations it seems like she can tell that he feels bad for what he did at the party but that he's using these Renovations in a similar manner to his apology breakfast along with as a distraction from going back to work this is all because it seems that Walt May no longer feel interest in returning to work as a chemistry teacher now that he's making so much money from the huge batch that he just cooked in the previous episode he doesn't really have a reason to go back into work if he already has all the money he needs meanwhile Jesse smokes up some Crystal at his house and he notices a drawing slipped under his door taking a look at it he notices how it's a drawing from Jane where she Drew herself as a superhero named apology girl clearly calling back to Jesse's childhood drawings of himself as a superhero this seemingly wins Jesse over as it is quite the original way to apologize while showing that she cares about him and appreciates him however it's also a way for Jane to appall apologize without having to do so in person again implying how non-confrontational she is with Skyler at work that day she's seemingly warming up to Ted in a similar manner to the way that Ted feels about her as she purposely knocks over a cup of pens in order to manipulatively lure Ted in to help pick them up for her I'm unsure if Skyler is actually starting to catch feelings for Ted at all but bottom line here is that she appreciates being able to use him as emotional support that night Walt realizes that he needs more supplies so he returns to the hardware store to grab some paint where he notices a junkie buying supplies to cook crystal with while it's seemingly just wanting to give genuine advice cook to cook does so politely in such a way where he's giving this junkie pointers on the proper supplies to buy along with how to be less suspicious while doing so also side note I don't know how old the actor playing this junkie was at the time of filming so apology in advance but it seriously looks like they hired a 40 year old skinny wrinkly man to play like a 20 year old junkie am I the only one who thinks this it just gives me the hello hello kids meme Vibe but maybe that's just me I don't know I just can't help but think that every time I see this scene now do the cliche of junkies being paranoid Walt's advice simply Spooks him and he runs off not thinking anything of it Walt goes to purchase his paint until he starts thinking about the interaction for a moment so he puts the paint down in order to confront the junkie outside this begins one of my favorite final scenes of an episode ever as dlz by TV on the radio plays quick side note about this song Choice it's got to be one of my favorite songs from the entire breaking badge soundtrack definitely top three right up there beside baby blue in Crystal Blue Persuasion or even potentially my favorite even above those two I'm Gonna Keep the analysis of the song here quick simply due to the fact that there's so much relatability between Walt and the lyrics of the song that I may do an entire video essay just on this one stay out of my territory scene but what I will say is that this song Perfectly fits the breaking bad vibes along with the fact that the more you listen to it the more you find connections with Walton is Criminal life that he chose to walk down so Walt walks out into the parking lot where he sees the junkie speaking to a much larger man who appears to be the muscle their operation along with potentially a superior Walt confidently walks up to them and says stay out of my territory and it's at this moment that Walter White became Heisenberg for real though this is one of the most badass moments out of the entire show especially considering it's floating off on an island by itself by this I mean that it's a scene that's completely separate from the main plot of the show and even the rest of the episode it's not affected by Any Given story arc this scene theoretically could be removed from the show or placed in a different episode and nothing major from the story would be missing however this scene speaks volumes in regard to Walt's character and how far he's come as a person since the pilot while standing up to these random criminals here seems like Walt utilizing the lessons that he's learned as a criminal throughout the season along with taking his own advice throughout season 2 Walt has wanted to expand his territory and inflate the prices in an effort to Corner the market in order to do so while to preach the idea of needing to obtain a tough reputation as someone that shouldn't be pushed around which is why I wanted Jesse to enact Vengeance on the people who robbed skinny Pete along with why in the near future he'll want revenge for the people that killed combo likewise Walter knows that his Alias Heisenberg has become well known and so flipping that switch and turning into Heisenberg is all he needs in order to intimidate others to stay out of his territory so I guess this scene does relate to the overall story of season 2 in regard to Walt wanting to create a tough guy reputation I know I've already shown tons of appreciation towards the song Choices for this show but I cannot emphasize how much I love this song how well it fits in this scene along with how well it fits with Breaking Bad in general it's almost like this song was wrote specifically for the show this scene is already badass enough on its own even without music but adding the music just gives it that 10 out of 10 closure to the episode that causes it to end off so strong I don't think it's a hot take to State the fact that this is one of the best endings to a Breaking Bad episode ever which speaks volumes considering how overall mid that episode actually is now speaking of talking about the episode as a whole I suppose I'll transition into my ranking of the episode whereas as much as I really want to give this episode an a tier I think I'm gonna have to stick with my guts and give it a strong beat here instead and I've gone back and forth while writing this script multiple times don't crucify me hear me out I beg of you the way that I create these tearless retrospectives is that I rank the entire episode as a whole not just based off of one singular moment from the episode that I may love or hate so even though this episode has one of my favorite endings to a Breaking Bad episode of all time the rest of the episode is very mid although this deals the ending on its own is top tier and if I was doing a tier list of just closing scenes it would get double s tier easy but I have to weigh with the rest of the episode in such a way where I balance out my rating for the episode as a whole I ran into this problem many times during my Better Call Saul tier list retrospectives and for those of you who have seen would remember for example without any spoilers I rated Better Call Saul 408 I believe pretty low even though the final scene is an incredibly memorable and awesome some introduction for one of the best characters out of the entire universe I had to balance out a spectacular ending with an overall mid episode and compromise my rating somewhere in the middle likewise just because Breaking Bad 210 has one of the best endings I've ever seen I have to balance this final scene with the rest of the episode which I I'll now get into finally although episode 210 is a good episode overall it is a very tame aftermath episode to 4 days out I appreciate it for what it is as you've heard me break down all the nuances to how Walt is dealing with his good test results it's still very mid overall without the final scene I'd rank episode 210 as a high C tier episode maybe be however with the ending dlz scene it increases the overall ranking from a c or even a b to almost an a I've been trying to not let any single scene affect my rating of an overall episode but even so I almost still gave this episode a tier since I have just such a soft spot for the final scene also this goes without saying but I don't think there's a single Bad episode of Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul maybe whenever I start doing retrospectives of other show shows I'll end up giving some episodes like maybe date here or even F tier but I don't think there's a single episode of Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul that deserves anything less than a c tier and even a c rating is rare these two shows are so amazing that 99 of the episodes deserve B to S tier ratings and even episodes that I rate see tier are still good in comparison to other shows however it wouldn't be a very interesting tier list if I just rated every single episode a t or S tier and just called it a day so I do have to give somewhat of a critical ranking to certain episodes instead of just constantly gushing over them which is hard not to do in order for an episode to be 80 or above I have to recognize that the entire episode holds up to a tier standards not just one single scene all this to say that although I love to stay out of my territory ending as one of my favorite endings of an episode of all time and not on its own it'd be rated s tier is one of my favorite standout scenes of the show I still stand by my b-tier rating for episode 210 for the entire episode and I hope you understand why I came to that conclusion season 2 episode 11 Mandela is up episode starts with one of the most tragic cold opens to the show at least out of the first two seasons or so it features the surprising death of combo we see a seemingly random kid riding on his bike while combo deals on a new Street Corner this is of course due to Walt's previously convincing Jesse that they need to expand their territory not realizing the potential consequences of doing so a vehicle rolls up with combo initially thinking that their customers but when he approaches the window of the vehicle these thugs just eye him up combo flashes his gun in a taunting manner as if to keep up a tough guy act potentially influenced by Jesse's Blowfish tactics but he's sadly about to regret doing so as combo returns to his corner he notices the same car pull up across the street continuing to mean muggam so we call skinny Pete requesting backup skinny doesn't answer so combo leaves a voicemail which in retrospect eerily became the final recorded message of his voice as combo begins to panic the random kid on a bike keeps circling him seemingly unrelated to the whole situation that is until combo hears the vehicle hogging its horn resulting in the kid pulling out a gun and shooting him how suddenly this all happens really adds to the shock value of the situation especially since it's the kid who shoots him instead of the thugs like the show was leading you to anticipate having a kid do your killing for you is not only incredibly messed up but also incredibly surprising as he turns out to be the murderer when he was just originally seemingly unrelated now this clearly answers why the beginning of the cold open first focused on the kid rolling up on his bike and I like how they filmed the scene of the shooting with us first seeing combo get shot as soon as he turns around before the camera then showing how it's the kid who's doing the shooting what makes this so much more tragic is the fact that combo tries running away but he gets gunned down in the middle of the street as a final shot hits him right in the neck there's almost a glimmer of hope that he'll be able to escape and that's sudden in frantic Panic of him trying to escape really hits me hard every time I watch this scene the scene ends with the vehicle and the kid going their separate ways we're all intro credits this episode really makes a bold statement by starting out with a kid shooting one of the side characters as it cuts right to the Chase and setting up the rest of the episode along with a huge story arc that will continue up until even the end of season three after the intro sequence we cut to Walton Skyler meeting with Walt's doctor to discuss getting a lobectomy which is a very serious procedure Skyler's hesitant but Walt is instantly willing to jump on board without even needing to take time to discuss it with her first the surgeon suggests having the operation in a few weeks after the inflammation and Waltz alongs have healed more but the timing that clashes with when they're expecting the baby so they delay the operation by another two weeks essentially booking it a month from now we then see Walt back at work where he calls Jesse back on his second cell phone after class Jesse's been calling him to inform him how combo's been killed but Jesse becomes offended of Walt's remark in regard to not being able to remember which one of Jesse's friends combo even is implying that Walt has little attachment to them and that there just pawns to him combo's dead which one is he not just say that to me Jesse yeah Figures it's revealed that Skinny Pete's at Jesse's with him as he informs Jessie of combo's voicemail when Jesse's unsure of what action they should take next skinny backs out of working for him with combo dead skinny quitting and Badger apparently quote laying low and Cali Jesse's operation is now completely bust also I find it interesting how skinny seems to be more afraid of getting arrested due to being on probation as opposed to being you know scared for his life or something great excuse skinny also informs Jesse on how everyone in town now knows that it wasn't him who killed spooge with the ATM as pooja's girl has confessed to it which was foreshadowed in episode 208 when Saul informed Walt of this as I said before since Jesse's reputation was built on this line it was only a matter of time until it came crashing down around them once the truth came to light which may have been the reason why their competitors even had the guts to take out combo for being in their territory apparently everyone found out the truth around episode 208 but skinny withheld this information from Jesse until now due to the fact that he didn't want Jesse being mad at him or are upset or something just like how skinny and combo we're covering for Badger being arrested in 208 also Waltz known about the truth being out ever since Saul told him in 208 but I guess he selfishly never told Jesse this either as he most likely didn't want to discourage Jesse and his friends from making him money skinny blames Jesse for pushing combo into new territory even though it was wall to initially convinced Jesse to do so in the first place even Jesse takes full responsibility for the decision being his call and throughout the episode and the rest of the season we see him feel extreme guilt over it we then cut to Walton Jesse meet with Saul as they discussed the situation where Walt undermines it by calling it a setback ear Jesse actually does blame Walt for combo's death but even so Jesse still feels guilt as he was the person who made the call at the end of the day even if it was only due to Walt's influence I had a bit of a setback I'm sorry but that's an accurate description what else do you want me to call it how about your faults how about no no no don't lay that on me you are in charge of distribution you should expand the territory takes up the bickering before they get more into it but I do like how the show acknowledges how both Walt and Jesse are somewhat to blame in their own ways again continuing the idea that they're usually both somewhat to blame for their constant setbacks so Walt admits to Saul that the rest of their dealers quit on them due to combo being killed leaving them with a crap ton of drugs but no way to distribute it Saul approaches this with a glass half full mindset by first making sure that the police won't Trace combo's death back to them along with being updated on Walt's good news in regard to his health side note I love the detail of Walt getting agitated at Jesse smoking a cigarette right beside him as some of the secondhand smoke gets into Walt's face kind of contradicts how Walt smoked a cigar at the end of season one but there is a difference between Walt choosing to smoke himself and having someone inconsiderately smoke rape beside him also Jesse simply doesn't care in this moment due to being mad at Waltz for influencing him to send combo to his death along with the fact that Jesse is clearly smoking to attempt to relieve some stress from the situation as he even ashes in the scale of Justice anyways I also love Saul's Double Take reaction to hearing that they have 38.5 pounds of Crystal he cheerfully States how they're sitting on a gold mine but Walt complains how it's a gold mine that they can't sell bringing them back to their problem Walt explains how he thinks that they essentially need a tree structure diagram of people working beneath them including dealers and heavy muscle that can get payback for combo implying that Walt wants them to take care of the situation and get Vengeance to hold up their reputation in a similar manner to when he told Jesse to handle the junkies that robbed skinny Walt finally admits how their entire Endeavor throughout the show has always been one step forward two steps back which I do appreciate as I've been a broken record about it throughout all these videos God entire process has just been so it's always been one step forward and two steps back this all states how they should quit trying to sell their product themselves as they're clearly not good at it Walt catches on to where Saul's going and initially refuses to handle another high level distributor after their dealings with tuko however Saul recommends a distributor that he knows of who is the exact opposite of tuko and that's the whole point of Gus's character the creators wrote Gus to be a polar opposite of tuko essentially Saul convinces them by stating how this person is a businessman who ships out of town deals in Balkan has been doing so for 20 years without getting caught this is where we get the famous I know a guy who knows a guy line which is frequently used as a selling point to convince people to watch the show as it's usually followed by fans stating how you actually get to meet the guy in the middle however Saul says that he knows a guy who knows a guy who knows another guy as if there's two middlemen which makes me think that Saul goes through Mike who goes through Victor then to Gus let's just say I know a guy who knows a guy who knows another guy first of all I never called him all right I called the guy who called the guy who called a guy also Saul is actually the first person to compare Gus to Walt which will become more relevant later as Saul calls him low profile and careful also keep in mind that Saul doesn't even know Gus's name I'm just saying it already for the sake of clarity now later that night Jesse and Jane are watching TV where Jesse wants Jane to leave so he can grieve over combo Jane admits how she already assumed that Jesse was a dealer to which Jesse explains how he's feeling extremely guilty over a friend being killed who worked for him and that he wants Jane to leave as he's going to smoke some Crystal to cope and doesn't want to influence her to join him as she's in recovery she first tries to help Jesse to not smoke at all by inviting him to one of her meetings or suggesting that they should go out somewhere to get their mind off things along with the fact that getting high won't help make him feel better Jesse stays stubborn in his ways so Jane initially goes to leave but right as she goes to step out the door she turns around and walks into his bedroom implying that she's willingly making the decision to break her clean streak I love how no words need to be saved to convey this message as seeing her turn around and walk back is enough implication Jesse didn't offer it to her and try to pressure her into it but he also doesn't stop her when she joins him allowing her to make her own bad decisions also even though he didn't intentionally enable her to do so just being around her with drugs and giving her the option if she wanted to was enough for her to become weak in cave we then got our first shot of Los Pollos Hermanos as we cut to an established shot outside before jumping inside or Walt and Jesse away to meet their new potential distributor absolutely love how well the show plays off Gus's ability to hide in plain sight as the show even tricks the viewers by having Gus be one of the seemingly insignificant employees on screen as soon as the scene starts Jesse arrives late and Hein becomes irritated by the whole situation due to being moody on the account of him being high over combo's death Gus approaches them with his managerial mask on to ask them if they're enjoying their stay or they just brush him off completely unaware that he's the person that they're supposed to meet with Gus can clearly tell that Jesse's High which causes him to not want to meet with them ruining their potential partnership before it even has a chance to begin Jesse begins to call Walt out over how he'll probably still continue to cook and sell even after he makes his Target amount for his family stating how he'll just make up excuses to establish a new amount Jesse's also clearly still mad at walls for being the person who influenced him to send combo to his death on top of the fact that Waltz seemingly doesn't feel bad about it or even care more than it being an inconvenience Jesse then Stomps out due to becoming impatient leaving Walt alone to me with the distributor himself but he's left hanging as Gus never approaches him again since Walt has stood up by Gus it made him late to Skyler's ultrasound appointment which may be foreshadowing on how the episode ends when Walt's given the photo of the ultrasound he shows genuine joy and excitement towards his daughter being born which again may be set up to make the difficult ultimatum that Walt is given by the end of the episode just that much more convincing anyways they scheduled Skyler to have a C-section in just over a week's time as they go to leave Skyler mentions how she'll be going back to the office to celebrate Ted's birthday and it's at this point during my rewatch that I started rolling my eyes and groaning as I started to dread what I was about to sit through seems that I've forgotten what episode certain cringe moments take place in so when they finally pop up during my re-watch I just kind of face palm a little bit while it seems to take up issue with Skyler being the one to have to go get Ted's cake although it seems more so him wanting her to take it easy due to her pregnancy opposed to being suspicious of her and Ted meanwhile Jesse returns home to wake up Jane to leave the house and go do something but instead she just wakes up and instantly starts coldly doing more drugs it's from this point onward now that Jane has relapsed that she becomes more rational with clouded judgment as the junky side of her takes over the show creators clearly wanted to portray how different she is while using drugs so they started writing her and portraying how she looks on screen differently to further the point she continues to look and act like this for the rest of her screen time on the show anyways Jesse suggesting that they should leave as a clear callback to her trying to convince Jesse not to smoke crystal in a previous scene as he now feels bad for enabling her and wants to get her out of the house and away from the drugs before she did any more meanwhile we cut to Ted's famous birthday party as he coaxes Skyler into singing Happy Birthday Mr President Forum like she once did in the past she gets way too into the Heat of the Moment as she starts flirting with Ted while singing to him only snapping out of it once it's over now most of you think that's Skyler's singing is a crime however the True Crime here is the pure candle abuse on the account of how long it finally takes Ted to blow them out the candles were already half melted by the time he arrived and after his odd birthday wish they're all completely melted all over the cake by the time it finally gets cut I do however get a kick out of the one employee expressing her pain by gritting her teeth with an unhinged impatient smile while pointing out the melted candles Guys these candles are getting waxed all over the place after work the next day Walt called Saul about how the mysterious distributor stood him up Walt argues that he sat there for two hours and no one came but Saul assures him that the guy was there and that he probably profiled up Walt and Jesse and decided not to work with them as Mike apparently told Saul that it was a no Saul explains how cautious this guy is with who he does business with but Walt extremely offended that this distributor made up his mind without even meeting him stubbornly goes back to Los Pollos and sits there determined to figure out who the mysterious man truly is as Walt grabs Emil and sits there the camera teases both Walt and the viewers once more about casually showing Gus working behind the Tilt Walt continues to sit there until it becomes dark and near closing when the manager gives him an odd look while wiping down a nearby table wal to realize how he must be the contact as he's the only one who approached Walton Jesse while they were sitting there the day before even though it was incredibly brief so Walt asks them for a refill of his drink and five minutes of his time causing Gus to go sit down with him semi-privately where Walt acknowledges how he thinks that Gus is the contact he was supposed to meet up with the previous day I love how well Gus keeps up his manager Persona as he still pretends not to know who Walt is or what he's talking about there's even a moment where Gus looks around almost to see if anyone's with an earshot of him so he can turn around and be honest with Walt but when he turns around he just refers Walt to the Los Pollos website to submit an email if he has a complaint however gusa eventually cuts the charade only when Walt Compares Gus to himself this of course references earlier in the episode when Saul said how Walt reminds him of the contact in regard to being cautious causing wall to want to bring this up to Gus in hopes of finding common ground to break the ice between them and create mutual respect but Gus becomes almost slightly insulted by this causing him to quit the act and speak honestly as he does not see Walt as someone at his level doing Gus first addresses him as Mr White I love the demeanor switching Gus's expression as we can almost see the moment where he flips the switch to turn off his manager Persona and turn on his true personality it's interesting how Gus's ego may have been his downfall here to give himself up as he was quick to deny Walt's comparison of each other almost offended at the idea of them being at all a light I was told that the man I would be very careful the cautious man I believe we're alike in that way I don't think we're alike at all Mr White you are not a cautious man at all so Gus calls out Walt for having poor judgment as he docks him points on the account of his partner Jesse being an unreliable junkie Waltz then tries convincing Gus to still work with him through a multitude of points mainly consisting of how his product is so impeccable that it's worth giving him a chance along with the fact that he'll keep Jesse away from Gus so he won't have to deal with him whatsoever then when Gus wants to know why Walt still decides to work with Jesse instead of Walter opening up about how they formed a camaraderie together he States how it's because he can trust Jesse to do what he says implying that Jesse is just a Lackey of his to use as he sees Finn I have to ask why why him because he does what I say because I can trust him although it's true that Walt uses a manipulates Jesse for his own selfish needs with this being one of the first times if the first time that Walt has ever openly acknowledged this aspect of it Jesse has grown on Waltz to the point that Walt does care about him as well which will be elaborated on and proven by the end of the next episode the conversation ends as Gus gets up to leave implying how he needs to think it over before deciding to purchase Walt's 38 pounds as Walt asks if he'll hear from him Gus states that he has their numbers but Parts Walt with one final piece of advice you can never trust a drug addict now although this is common sense the way that Gus says this line implies that he's been personally burnt by trusting an addict before you'd think that the Better Call Saul spin-off show would have elaborated on this but I can't think of a specific instance that relates to this advice in that show either so what do you think do you think Gus is just giving a general statement considering its obvious advice that anyone could come to the conclusion of or do you think that Gus learned this lesson the hard way due to there being a point in Gus's past where he hired and or worked with a drug addict only for that to backfire on him meanwhile we see Skyler at work essentially confronting Ted over the fact that she's discovered him committing tax fraud over the past few years in order to keep the business afloat both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul have a trend of explaining how characters are motivated to do crime for almost Noble reasons and here is no different as Ted is doing what he thinks is necessary out of his consideration for his employees along with not wanting to ruin his father's Legacy in this company Ted initially tries pleading ignorance and acts 9 towards it all but once Skyler reveals the amount of digging that she's done on the subject it gets him to the point where she's essentially checkmated him causing him to admit to his wrongdoings bottom line Ted baked Skyler not to report his fraud with Skyler stating how she won't but that she can't sign off on the paperwork in good conscience to address the elephant in the room I'm not a fan of the Ted fraud Arc just as much as I'm not a fan of the Marie klepto Arc with these two plot points respectively being my least favorite ones out of the entire show however I will still acknowledge the fact that they hold some importance to the show especially the Ted fraud Arc as it's built up ever since season 2 all the way through season 3 and even to season 4 to Aid in the reasoning for possibly the best in my favorite scene out of the whole show at the end of crawl space Also even though these Side Stories aren't my favorite since they're written by the brilliant writers who make this show they're still pulled off better than other arcs and most other shows my point is that Breaking Bad sets the bar so high that it puts itself in its own League to the point that even the weaker moments in Breaking Bad are still better better than the best moments of other shows if that makes sense meanwhile we see Jesse moping in his own sorrow at home as he ignores a phone call from skinny Pete revealing that Jesse missed combo's funeral even though all of combo's other friends and family were there to pay respects even including Badger who flew back into town specifically for it I love how this minor moment implies so much as Jesse most likely feels so guilty over combo's death that he can't even make it to the funeral as facing the death head-on would only make him feel worse so instead he hides alone at home Jane then arrives with a fixed kit of H and the look they give each other May imply that they have already previously talked about doing something stronger than Crystal so with this being Jesse's first time doing age Jane helps him while explaining to him how to do it and what it feels like which she does in almost a messed up but romantic kind of way this of course leads into the famous scene of Jessie floating up out of his bed which appears to be filmed in a similar manner to the crawl space scene in season 4 in regard to the camera slowly panning up through the roof of the room except here Jesse stays in the foreground staying equally close to the camera as it raises up to make it seem like he's floating High although this is a great practical effect it sadly doesn't hold up as well as it used to as the test of time has made this scene feel that it was all done with some sort of green screen effect at least to me even though it wasn't even though this scene was all done practically with a board placed under Jesse to be raised by the crane along with the camera so it really is all the same shot and not done by editing Jesse in afterward something about this shot just feels incredibly dated to me even so it's still a great scene to symbolically represent what Jesse's experience of doing age for the first time is like all while it's set to the song Enchanted by The Platters this song fits perfectly due to Jesse essentially feeling Enchanted by the H the song's almost mystical yet positive uncanny mood and lyrics of being in a dream world where everything's magically better complements Jesse's first time doing age in regard to how H apparently makes life overall feel happier and better as any stress or worry escapes you and is replaced with Euphoria now though though I obviously don't condone doing drugs this scene does a great job at showing how someone could get hooked on it the next day we get a quick scene of Skyler returning to work at Beneke potentially implying that she wants to somehow work things out or that at the very least she still wants to work there while hoping that Ted will clean up his act regardless of why she chooses to do so going back to Ted to help him instead of abandoning him will return to bite her down the road meanwhile as Walt teaches his class we get an awkward moment of Walt's second cell phone ringing in the roof where he's hidden at first he thinks it's a student's phone but after they all turn their phones off the ringing continues causing Walt to realize that it's his as the whole class looks up at the roof he tries covering it up with the horrible excuse of it being noises from the pipes which is honestly so cringe it almost gave me secondhand embarrassment watching it I assume that Waltz usually turns his second cell phone to silent or turns it off during class but I guess he just must have forgotten this time so after class Waltz checks his phone where he sees a single text reading polos Walt then rushes to Los poyos to speak together us but is told by an employee that Gus isn't there and that he's not the manager but actually the owner of the entire business and that he could be at any one of the Los Pollos restaurants across the country disappointed Walt goes to leave but he stopped by Victor to give him the opportunity of a lifetime fun fact to keep up with continuity you can even see Victor sitting at the table blending in as a random civilian during the beginning of the scene when Walt first walks in as Victor seemingly taking a page out of Gus's books in regard to hiding in plain sight so Victor tells him that Gus will purchase all of his Crystal but that he has a one hour time limit and that if he doesn't make it to never show his face at Los Pollos again I'm not sure why Gus gave Walt such a short time frame as it initially just feels like the show creators writing it this way to create an artificial timer for Waltz to work against however due to Gus's initial disdain for Jesse he may have purposely planned it in such a way to further drive home his point from earlier to not trust a drug addict as we'll discuss in a moment Walt almost misses the deal due to Jesse being so high off age that he's become practically incapacitated which proves Gus's point Waltz in regard to how unreliable Jesse is however Gus could have only planned this if he knew that Jesse was the one with the crystal which leads me to doubt that Gus was able to orchestrate this entire thing by including the time limit of one hour just to prove to Walt that Jesse is unreliable so why do you think that Gus gave Walt this one hour time limit do you think it has to do with his disdain for Jesse or is he testing Walt in general to somehow see how invested dedicated or punctual he is by putting him in a state of panic or maybe the short time frame is to mitigate any risk of a sting operation or is this just contrived Conflict by the writers in order to create the classic protagonist has to work against a timer before it hits zero climax of a story cliche anyways with Walt now in his state of panic he rushes to Jesse's place to grab the product but Jesse isn't answering meanwhile we get another quick scene of Skyler at work where she starts feeling contractions implying that the baby may be coming early as Walt arrives at Jesse's Jesse still won't answer the door forcing Walt to break in through the back as Walt does this he gets continuous calls from Skyler but ignores them due to being preoccupied died while being completely oblivious that's Skyler's going into the labor at this exact moment side note I love the realism of the show having Walt cough whenever he does anything physical such as the scene where he's running up to Jesse's front door or running around the side of the house to the back door so as Walt manages to break into Jesse's house he notices Jesse and Jane passed out on the bed not that walls is focusing on Jane at all but this was Walt's first introduction to Jesse's mysterious girlfriend that he's been alluding to multiple times this season Walt did meet Jane earlier but he didn't know for sure if that was Jesse's new girlfriend or not and now that he can see that she is considering Jane enabling Jesse to do age is the reason why Walt almost missed his first big deal with Gus needless to say this wasn't a good first impression or second impression but first impression as Jesse's girlfriend whatever you know what I mean so Walt frantically tries waking up Jesse but is barely able to get him conscious enough to tell him where their product is also not that Walt knows this or was too In the Heat of the Moment to realize but him pushing Jesse to lay back down on his bad on his back was actually incredibly dangerous as Jesse could have thrown up in his sleep and died maybe I'm over analyzing it due to thinking in retrospect in regard to what happens at the end of The Next Episode but I do feel like this was intentional when Walt first broke in Jesse and Jane were actually cuddling in such a way where they were on their sides to prevent choking in their sleep but after Walt grabbed and smacked Jesse around this left Jesse laying on his back to fall back to sleep anyways after learning that Jesse was keeping the product under his sink Walt goes to grab it as Skyler tries calling him again Walt eventually finds the product and empties Jesse's garbage in order to use the bag to grab it all but right before he leaves he looks at his phone again and notices a text from Skyler informing him that the baby is coming this is yet another moment where we see the Brilliance of Bryan cranston's acting in this show truly shine as he's just such an expressive actor as he reads the text we see a slight hint of A Smile as his instant reaction but that quickly Fades as he realizes the situation he's in and the ultimatum that this gives him does he go do the deal with Gus or does he go witness his daughter being born he can only choose is one or the other but with the crystal all in front of them along with how much effort he's put into making this important deal happen he instantly chooses the former this causes his mini fit of complaining to himself about how upset he is that his baby is coincidentally being born right in this moment as he's already made up his mind this is obviously the ultimatum that I was referring to earlier which is why setting up Skyler's C-section appointment earlier along with showing genuine happiness on Walt's face when he saw the ultrasound photo was so important as cold as it is to say if we never got a hint of Walt caring about or being excited for his daughter being born it would have made this ultimatum at the end of the episode less impactful or meaningful as it could have just made us infer that Walt simply didn't care about his family however by showing his anticipation for Holly's birth earlier followed by his frustration that he's going to miss it further drives home the point of how painful it is for Walt to miss his daughter's birth bottom line Waltz has always been a family man and he's always made his life decisions to be in their best interest even if it meant giving up his dreams and potential future happiness the whole reason why walty became a criminal was to provide for his family but by doing so he is alienating himself further and further from his family with him now having to miss his daughter's birth just being icing on the cake at that point also although this moment is a great meme to use out of context it still completely sells me as a really great serious and dramatic moment as it is a brilliant ultimatum to be presented to Walt as the climax of the episode foreign speaking of which the episode ends as Walt finalizes his decision to miss the birth of his daughter to make the deal with Gus and so the final shot consists of Walt finishing up by putting all the bags of Crystal into the garbage bag followed by him goofily rushing out at Jesse's house with 1.2 million dollars worth of Crystal thrown over his shoulder as if he's the Santa Claus of drugs or something now fun fact that once I saw pointed out to me online distracted me from ever being able to watch this scene the same again that raida's Waltz leaves Jessie's kitchen to run down the hall in the final shot you can actually see a member of the crew hide in the side door frame in the hallway now there's a lot of moments in many TV shows including Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul where you can barely see a crew member in or out of frame so I don't know why this moment sticks out to me so much but it does it's just one of those things that you can never unsee once you see it so this episode gets an a tier we of course get the introduction to Gus frame which is completely brilliant due to his ability to hide in plain sight for so long throughout the episode before Walt finally figures out that he's the contact causing him to reveal himself combo being killed is an incredibly shocking and strong cold open and I love the Jesse Enchanted scene and also the final climax of the episode is one of my favorite moments of the show where Waltz chooses to make the deal with Gus overseeing Holly being born also I don't know why but I find the idea of Walt doing his first deal with Gus off screen so intriguing sadly because of the Ted's birthday scene I simply could not give this episode I'm sorry even though I love so many moments of this episode Skyler singing to Ted is just so cringe-inducing that I simply could not live with myself if I put the episode that had that scene in s tier I know I just said at the end of the last episode I won't rate an entire episode based off of a single scene but when you think about it the horribleness of Skyler singing to Ted technically balances out the amazing way this episode ended which is why the episode landed in a tier for me instead of s tier B tier also the title episode can imply many things but here's just a few of them Mandela is in reference to the universe and Buddhist and Hindu symbolism but also means Circle in reference to The Wheel of Life which can relate to the episode starting with the death of combo and ending with Skylar going into labor and giving birth to Holly season 2 to episode 12 Phoenix this episode starts out with Walt frantically driving to an abandoned Motel parking lot just after successfully making the deal with Gus he gets out to move the duffel bag full of money into the spare tire compartment in his trunk while calling Skyler to get updated on the birth of his daughter he's informed by Marie that the baby is born and healthy and he gives her the excuse of being stuck in traffic which is the same excuse that he gave to Skyler last episode when he was late to the ultrasound appointment also as Walt first drives into the parking lot here at the beginning of the episode we get another pink teddy bear Easter egg as we can actually see one laying face down in one of the quick shots we then see Walt rush into the hospital to find Skyler with Holly where we get a genuine moment of relief and happiness as Waltz gets to hold his daughter for the first time however this moment is ultimately cut short as the camera pans over to show Ted awkwardly standing in the background as it's revealed that Ted had to drive Skyler to the hospital due to Walt not answering his phone at the end of the last episode so even though this moment is undercut by Ted he quickly leaves the room to give them space as family but as he does so he gives Skyler a cheek kiss which is respectable but also kind of weird in Walt notices so Skyler tells Walt that she's all right and that she just wishes he could have been there as Walt took so long that they even apparently had time for junior to change his first diaper before Hank and Marie took him downstairs for dinner Walt then goes back home to grab an overnight bag for them as he agreed to stay there at the hospital with Skyler but once he gets home the first thing he does is open his duffel bag full of money to bask in the glow before putting it away the next morning Jane wakes up beside Jesse late to meet with her dad this is also yet another rule of three-story beat Jane then casually tells Jesse that someone broke in but he doesn't fully process what she said until after she leaves Jesse wakes up in a panic realizing that all the Crystal's been taken and due not having any recollection of Walt breaking in he thinks that it was all stolen we then see jaina one of her recovery meetings with her dad and she feels guilty while listening to one of the fellow members celebrate their recovery as they say that they stayed strong but all it would have took is one friend for them to cave and relapse and that's exactly what Jane did through Jesse Jane's father notices Jane's demeanor and then when they're out at a coffee shop he notices how tired she looks he then asks her she's seeing Jesse as Jesse seemed to expect an introduction of sorts when they first met but Jane downplays it and denies it this just goes to show how well he knows his daughter as he's able to easily read what's going on in her life even though she's quick to deny it side note it's interesting how Donald mentions in passing how scary it is that his job is hiring people without any experience implying that they could tragically mess something up when in reality he the one with experience is about to make the biggest mistake of his career next episode then cut to Walton Skyler back home as the quote Holly into her crib for the first time I believe this is the same crib that Junior had which also means that this links back to Crazy 8 as this is the same crib that was purchased at his family store Tampico Furniture this moment is interrupted by Jesse calling Walt's house phone for the millionth time followed by a Walt of course yelling at him under his breath for it Jesse tries to tell Walt that he was robbed and that their product was stolen but Walt realizing how Jesse was too zonked out to remember that it was him just hangs up on Jessie and lets him linger in thinking that he was robbed since Jesse left him hanging at the end of the last episode due to being too high on age to function Walt is now leaving Jesse hanging as a form of petty payback you [Music] they knew exactly where to look I mean say something man all right yell at me or something come on God that night Walt's family is joined by Hank and Marie for dinner where Hank coincidentally has brought them Los Hoyos the topic of their financial situation comes up with Skyler so worried about it that she even wants to go back to work soon Walt tries assuring them that they'll be able to handle themselves financially but of course he can't tell them that it's because he just made a drug deal for over a million dollars that night wall gets up due to Holly crying and as he cradles her he gets the idea of showing her his huge stash of money due to Walt's frustration over not being able to tell his family how he just acquired over a million dollars he shows Holly instead as she's obviously just a baby and will have no recollection of it meaning Walt won't be punished for showing her this moment is equally wholesome as it is kind of sinister as Walt is proudly showing it to Holly while stating how he did it all for her this implies that Walt still truly believes that everything he's done as a criminal he's done for his family with his first drug deal for Gus being what he needed to essentially retire from the criminal World while knowing that he's able to successfully provide for them after his death like he originally wanted this also means that moving forward no matter what Walt tries to tell himself or others he can no longer use his family as an excuse as everything after this moment he does for himself the next day after work Jesse goes to speak to Walt in his classroom to confront him over how after listening to all of Walt's voicemails he now finally realized that it was Walt who took all their product Jesse begins to give Walt a hard time for making him think that he messed up but Walt lays into him about how he did mess up as he was high out of his mind while they were quote we're on call you junkie on call for the biggest deal of our lives and I just managed to pull it off by the skin of my teeth no thanks to you and you made me miss the birth of my daughter while it states how he was barely able to make the deal but by doing so he missed the birth of his daughter which he blames Jesse for now is it really fair to blame Jesse for this let's say that hypothetically Jesse was sober and able to get the product to Walt there's three options here what jessea brought it to him somehow by meeting him halfway to the meat spot would Jesse have gone to the deal with him or would Jesse have done the deal instead of Walt so Walt could have been there to watch his daughter be born since Walt told Gus that he'd never see Jesse unless Walt was willing to go back on his word he still would have had to make the deal himself correct sure Jesse being I made the situation worse due to increasing Walt's Panic to the point that he had to break into Jesse's house to get the product himself but unless Walt was willing for Jesse to go to the deal instead of him Walt still would have missed Holly being born Jesse being high of course gave Walt no choice but to go to the deal himself but even if he had the choice would he have told Jesse to go make the deal instead could he have trusted Jesse like he told Gus he could if so would Jesse showing up and being capable of making the deal allow Jesse to prove himself to Gus or would Gus have been mad at Walt's first sending Jesse in his place now on the other hand if Jesse was able to somehow bring the product to Walt while on the way to the deal would Walt have been able to make both the deal with Gus and then somehow make it to the hospital in time to watch Holly be born granted I'm unsure how long the drive took for a wall to get from Los Pollos to Jesse's house then from Jesse's house to the meat spot a pose from going straight from Los Pollos to the meat spot directly while having Jesse meet up with him either along the way or at the meat spot itself with the product if Jesse could have met Walt with the product cutting out the trip of Walt even having you go to Jesse's would Waltz have been able to make it to Holly's birth in time I guess I could technically look up the in real life location of the restaurant that they filmed as Los poyos along with where Jesse's Season 2 House was in real life and look at the travel time but who say that those buildings are even canonically in the same spots in Universe plus the directions that Victor gave Walt aren't real as the exit that Victor told Walt to take off the highway to the meat spot doesn't exist and if it did it would have been too distant for Walt to make it there within an hour regardless however considering Skyler texted Walt that the baby was coming while Walt was still in Jesse's kitchen grabbing the product along with how she mentioned that she didn't even think Ted would get to the hospital in time himself plus considering how late Walt was getting to the hospital afterwards to the point that Junior could change a diaper and go down for dinner I doubt that Walt would have been able to do both even if Jesse was sober unless again he was willing to allow Jesse to go do the Deal completely in his place as I just mentioned so do you think that Jesse Being Sober would have allowed Walt to do both would Jesse bringing him the product have sped up the deal enough that Walt could have made it to the hospital in time or do you think that Walter would have told Jesse to go meet Gus in his place regardless of all these hypotheticals bottom line with the circumstances the way that they are it is Walt's fault that he missed Holly's birth since even though Jesse wasn't able to help Walt still could have chosen to go to the hospital instead of the drug deal although both are important one-time opportunities Gus's deals still outweighed the birth of his own daughter when he had to choose one or the other but also just to make one more point to make this aside even longer if we follow the domino effect to what even created this situation it was Jesse arriving high at Los poyos that caused Gus not to want to work with them in the first place so maybe if Jesse would have went to Los poyos sober then Gus would have wanted to work with them from the beginning and they wouldn't have had this contrived time limit the next day anyways let's get back to the scene instead of apologizing for being high and almost having them miss the deal or apologizing to Walt for missing the birth of his daughter Jesse's still angry at Walter leaving him hanging so we go straight to asking about money Jesse asks Walt how much he got from the deal and then he instantly jumps into asking where his share is potentially being a call back to episode 204 when Jesse wanted money from Walt however unlike before where Jesse wanted half a Walt share due to losing his own here Jesse share that he's asking for is rightfully his however Walt states that he won't give Jesse his money until he's clean out of fear that he'd just go buy a bunch of drugs and OD on it also I don't know if Walt truly cares about Jesse getting clean Waltz always felt a disdain for Jesse using drugs ever since the very first episode when he didn't want Jesse to use their own product Walt is making this argument with the idea of caring for Jesse's well-being when in reality this is just an excuse for Walt to not give Jesse the money as he's still mad at Jesse for being so high that he couldn't help with the drug deal along with how he's blaming Jesse for missing Holly's birth Jesse tries convincing Waltz that he is clean and that he can't stop doing drugs as he apparently didn't even like doing age however if the enchanted scene from the last episode tells me anything so that Jesse did enjoy it and he's clearly lying here just to get his money Walt doubles down on his assertion that he'll give Jesse his money once he can prove he's clean through a piss test but when he insults Jain as Jesse is a junky girlfriend Jesse throws the file at Walton rage and leaves now granted Walt should have known better than to insult Jane after how offended Jesse was in episode 209 would Walt assume that she was a prostitute but then again as I said at the end of the last episode Wall's first real impression of her as Jesse's girlfriend was both of them high out of their minds on H in Jessie's bed which is why Walt called her a junkie as well because she's partly the reason why Jesse almost screwed him over maybe if Jesse would have just apologized to Walt Walt would have instantly given him his money but since Waltz didn't initially apologize to Jesse for leaving him hanging all day thinking he was robbed Jesse and turn won't apologize to Walt either so really this whole conflict of Waltz not giving Jesse his money is all because they're angry at each other and instead of kissing and making up simply by apologizing to each other they're both incapable of keeping a level head in this moment so instead they both Double Down creating this unnecessary internal conflict in a perfect world when Jesse came into yellow Walt for making him think that he was robbed Walt could have said sorry but and then explained why you was mad at him then Jesse could have apologized by stating he was sorry for being high when Walt needed him then asked for a share of the money and Walt probably would have just given it to him however if that happened and everything all worked out fine and dandy we wouldn't have more of a show now would we as they say conflict is King and hear the conflict between Walt and Jesse due to both of them being mad at each other while neither apologize pushes the story forward towards Jane's death at the end of the episode along with the plane crash in the next episode during the season 2 finale but moving on though in the next scene we see Walt and Marie rolling Holly on her side in her crib as you shouldn't lay a baby on his stomach and Walt also doesn't want to layer on her back in case she spits up in retrospect this may be clear foreshadowing at Jane's death so put a pin in this for now and we'll Circle back to it Skyler walks into the bedroom to inform Walt and Marie of Junior's new website savewalterwhite.com which is still a real website that you can check out being one of the many in real life tie-ins to the show similar to how you can call him any phone numbers from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul and hear a voicemail by one of the characters Junior wanting to help the family any way he can genuinely does this out of the kindness of his heart however Walt clearly hates the idea for the same reason why he didn't accept Gretchen Elliot's offer to pay for his cancer treatment his huge ego and pride won't allow himself to accept charity even if he needs it Skyla can tell that Walt isn't happy with the website but she takes him aside to tell him that he can't tell Junior to take it down as it'll absolutely crush him I do love how Skyler calls out waldfer when he says charity like it's some dirty word circling back to what I just said about Walt's ego it's charity why do you say that like it's some sort of dirty word you'll commit crimes including drug manufacturing drug distribution kidnapping torture murder all the above to provide for his family but God forbid it if someone offers to provide for him his ego is the sole root of Walt's problem that stems out into multiple other issues but my point here is that it's why he didn't accept the offer from the shorts and he won't accept Hank or Marie's offer to chip in financially and he doesn't approve of Junior's website asking for donations either also as we see in the next scene of a wall to visiting Saul in his office Walt is frustrated over how he's sitting on nearly half a million dollars of his own money but he has no way to spend it or explain it to his family while they all think he's on the brink of bankruptcy I have so much cash on hand that I actually counted by weighing it on my bathroom scale and yet I can't spend it I can't tell my family about it all of whom think that I am right on the edge of bankruptcy I mean it's insane so Junior's website is just salt in the wound in Walt's eyes considering he even now has the money to provide for his family that he's been working so hard towards but he can't use it after Walt puts his foot down in regard to not being able to tell Skyler the truth about where he got his money from Saul starts pitching various comedic excuses to explain away the money there's always uh hey I found a big bag of money down by the railroad track but Waltz doesn't go for that either it's not until Waltz brings up Junior's website about him that's all gets the idea to launder Walter money through the website via multiple small donations from hacked computers around America and Canada ironically the website that Walt initially wanted Junior to shut down is now coming in handy as a method for him to receive his money meanwhile Jesse events to Jane about Walt as Jane trains Jesse while they do more H Jane Comforts Jesse but it's only when Jesse tells her how much money Walt truly owes him that she takes a real interest we then get another rule of three-story beat in the form of Jane telling Jesse to not lay on his back in case he throws up again foreshadowing her own we also see the second time that Jane wakes up late for her father to go to a meeting this time she slept in and completely missed the meeting causing her father to come in and check on her this also calls back to the first time that she went Jesse's bed with her father knocking on the door before she relapsed except this time her father is on her doorstep without her knowing causing him to catch her when she leaves Jessie's Jane should have just went around back and been safe like she did last time but since she didn't know that her dad was right outside along with the fact that her brain now has clouded judgment due to her relapse those factors plus her frantic panicking from sleeping in causes her to walk out the front door to get to her own house but right in front of her dad although I assume this is a surprise to her father he could have purposely not called her until he got there to see which door she came out of and also to see if she was doing drugs regardless if Donald did this intentionally or not Jane walking out of Jesse's home proves to him that she lied about not seeing him plus the only reason why she'd lie about seeing him is if he enabled her to relapse causing him to storm into Jesse's house and into the bedroom where again his suspicions are correct as he notices the drugs that they were doing on the end table Donald throws Jesse out of bed and into the living room where he goes to further assault him as Jesse grabs a bat in defense after Jesse Dodges him a few times Donald turns his attention towards Jane where he demands that she has to go back to rehab immediately here we see the true father-daughter dynamic between them that was hinted at over and over again finally come to a head as Jane reverts back to a childlike state of a kid who's being punished after caught doing something that they shouldn't Dad no it's ongoing to illegal activity I'd like to talk to somebody I know would you connect me please fine we'll go to rehab Jane lies that her and Jesse were already talking about going back to rehab and Jane manages to convince her father that they will the following day instead of immediately like you want you're going back to rehab today now look as it so happens we were just we were just talking about that now yeah yeah as let me and you don't know the first thing about him we talk about rehab every night it's his idea this scene is written and acted out brilliantly as you can tell the years are struggling between Jane and her father just through the way that they speak and act towards each other you talk about rehab well geez in that wonderful thank you for not being judgmental 24 hours a day because that's exactly what I need to be judged all the time it's potentially implied that Jane originally gone into drugs due to her father being so controlling and judgmental and that even though he means well and cares about her more than anything else in the world the way that he treats her further pushes her away from him and down this path of self-destruction in the form of her drug addiction throughout most of season 2 when Jane was clean she was putting on the front that she was a mature person managing to take care of herself just fine in early adulthood but the further into the season you get you can tell that she's just an immature child struggling to clean up her act which is why she originally related to Jesse so much now since this video is already so long whenever I get around to doing a full story of Jane retrospective I'll get more into her character traits personality past her relationship with her father and how it's caused them to wind up where they are plus how her relationship with her father compares to Jesse's relationship with his parents and I just thought it was at least worth briefly mentioning some of it at this point in time since this is where it really comes to a head in the series so after Donald leaves under the agreements that Jane will go to rehab the next day Jane practically admits to Jesse that she didn't mean anything that she just said to her father and that she just said those things to temporarily get him off her back Jane instead plans on using Jesse for his money that Walt owes him in order to get out of this situation where she's controlled by her father so Jane calls Walt's house phone under the rules of being a former student wanting his letter of recommendation when Walt takes the phone Jane starts off with an incredibly sassy attitude as Jesse must have told her the negative things that Walt has said about her which gives somewhat of a parallel in her mind as she must think that Walt thinks the same of her as her own father does towards Jesse now since Waltz won't give Jesse his money due to the excuse that he wants him to get clean first Jane must be comparing Walt to her own father in that regard as well which causes her to become incredibly rude towards him as she blackmails him to give Jesse his money or else she'll snitch on him if you both get clean you know what I take that back this is blackmail because what I know about you hi teacher turned drug dealer with a brother-in-law in the DEA I think one hell of a story now news do right by Jesse tonight or I will burn you to the ground so although I'm a big fan of Jane's actor Kristen Ritter and never really liked Jane's character in this show especially due to the way that she blackmails Walter the way that she speaks to waltz with the intention of blackmailing him in order to use Jesse for his money really rubs me the wrong way but at the same time I understand how it's supposed to during this most recent re-watch I've really grown to respect the portrayal of Jane's character in ways that I never did before just like with any other fictional character if you hate a certain character you gotta respect the actor portraying said character for doing such a great job to be able to make the audience have such strong opinions and emotions towards them regardless of if it's positive or negative plus the contrast of how Jane was before her relapse compared to after along with the way that she acts in scenes with just Jesse compared to her father due to the different Dynamics Kristen Ritter absolutely killed it in this role and I'm genuinely impressed as there's so much to unpack when it comes to her character even though she's only given a handful of scenes for just a single season plus the way that she almost turns into an antagonist during her final episode here is really well done Jesse starts having second thoughts about blackmailing Walt as he joins Jane outside for a smoke although Jesse wants his money he's not willing to snitch on Walt and clearly feels bad for doing this after everything they've been through together up until this point Walt and Jesse have usually always had each other's backs although they constantly bicker them being able to trust and rely on each other is the core of what's gone them this far and in some instances even kept them alive however Jesse is so love struck towards Jane that he's almost willing to ditch Walt for her which seems to be Jane's intentions as showed by her response to Jesse saying I mean he's my partner I'm your partner so as Walt contemplates what to do Skyler asks him to make a diaper run gives him the perfect excuse to leave the house to bring Jesse's money so Walt arrives at Jesse's but when Jane opens the door she eyes up walled and instantly makes a grab at the duffel bag of money which Walt avoids Jesse not you again the way she stares at him here really rubs me the wrong way along with trying to just childishly grab the money Walt states that he wants to give the money to Jesse directly not her so Jesse steps up from behind her and as he grabs the bag Walt insults him by giving him props for wearing the pants in the relationship which may be a call back to season one when Jesse said the same thing to him after Skyler white yo first confronted him good job I'm wearing the pants in the family nice job wearing the pants by the way that Jesse stays silent in this moment while avoiding eye contact with Walt really shows that he's ashamed of blackmailing him but that he's reluctantly going along with it regardless again Kristen Ritter does a great job switching into an antagonist in this episode shown by her demeanor during this conversation Jesse tells Walt that he'll never hear from them again but as Walt tries getting him to listen to reason Jane closes the door in his face now that she has what she wants and before Walt can change Jesse's mind you're not seeing straight Jesse you are making a mistake as Jane opens up the duffel bag and grabs a few stacks of cash she further shows how money hungry she is by getting all excited about being able to do anything she wants with it as if the money's her own James become progressively more and more unhinged ever since her relapse with this being her Peak moment of being just completely neurotic as she excitingly brainstorms with Jesse where in the world they want to move Jesse joins in on her excitement but her saying I guess I'm in the mood to go anywhere as long as it's the two of us really implies to me that she wants Jesse around not because she loves him as much as he loves her but because if he's with her that means that his money will be with her as well this is saying I can go anywhere I want I can be anybody I guess I'm good anyway as long as it's the two of us Jane then frantically goes off about how they're gonna get clean and not spend all their money on drugs but as they go into the bedroom to throw their drugs away they take one long look at the drugs and decide to get on age at least one final time just one more time right just one more hit what harm could it do meanwhile with Walt upset about how he thinks things have ended between himself and Jesse he randomly does something he never does and he goes to a bar alone to grab a drink he coincidentally sits down beside Donald Jane's Father which causes one of my favorite interactions out of the whole season and maybe even the whole show the setup for this interaction between Walton Donald is absolutely genius Donald's upset and disappointed in his daughter Jane while Walt is upset and disappointed in Jessie who has somewhat become a surrogate son of sorts himself Donald and Walt both had negative interactions with Jesse and Jane respectively in the same day which has resulted in them somehow winding up sitting beside each other as total strangers at a bar this causes them to vent to each other about Jane and Jesse over their parallel situation with them without having the knowledge of how closely their Venn diagram is intertwined Donald has no idea that he almost beat up the guy that Walt is talking to him about and likewise Walt has no idea that it was actually Donald's daughter who just blackmailed him to give Jesse his money so their conversation starts with Donald overhearing a conversation wall tabs with Skyler over the phone in regard to lying to her about how he's supposed to be out looking for diapers and Donald gives him props for playing it off so smoothly this leads them into some small talk about the news report on TV about water found on Mars for Donald reader actually the conversation back to Walt's newborn child he tells Donald that he has a daughter with Donald's relating and saying he has one as well Donald mentioned how Jane's old enough to know better being his first implication that he's currently disappointed in her he also mentions how she would be 27 in a month which kind of gives me a weird vibe in regard to Jane practically joining the 27 Club but I digress I'm not sure if that was intentional or not Walt mentions how he has an almost 16 year old boy but that he's helpful even changing Holly's diapers which is a call back to what Skyler said near the beginning of the episode Walt asked Donald for advice on how to raise a daughter but since Donald seemed to have been struggling with that aspect of his life for the past decade he doesn't offer much to Walt only to love them as you can't change who they are seems like Donald is finally realizing that he can't change his daughter or mold her into what he wants her to be but he's tragically realizing this too late as he'll never see Jane again it's also tragic hearing him tell Walt to love his daughter as his daughter is about to die with Walt choosing not to prevent it Walt then brings up Jesse to Donald but not by name of course instead calling him his nephew Walt may just be doing this in order to more easily explain away his friendship as a 50 year old to a 25 year old or maybe to more easily relate to Donald since they're talking about family but this also May imply how Walt sees Jesse's family after everything they've been through up to this point Walt admits how he realizes that he can't treat Jesse like a child or live his life for him but even so he has frustration in regard to Jesse not being able to see how Walton knows what's best for him this is of course a very relatable thing that can be applied to almost any human connection even beyond the struggles of being a parental figure or Guardian whether you feel this way about your family member a friend or whoever there's just some people who you can't convince to make decisions that are in their own best interest that's just life some people aren't willing to listen until one day they finally decide to change themselves either through maturity or by Having learned things the hard way the same is especially true for people with an addiction problem it's very difficult to help someone who doesn't want to help themselves which is most likely what Donald is thinking about Jane In This Moment Donald responds to Walt by implying how although family can be difficult to deal with you can't give up on them this causes wall to change his tone towards Jesse as he decides to go back to Jesse's house to apologize for everything and attempt to talk and smooth things over what are the odds that Walt sits down next to Donald who ends up indirectly convincing them all to go back to speak to Jesse which winds up resulting in the death of Donald's daughter who they were just vaguely talking about as well it's incredibly interesting to think about the ramifications of Waltz sitting down beside Donald at that bar because although the creators obviously wrote this to happen it isn't out of the realm of possibilities for this to be a realistic interaction as the universe works in strange ways I'm unsure if I believe it was Vader Destiny for Walton Donald to speak during this particular moment in time but it seems too coincidental to just be chalked up to chance Walt even admits something along the lines of this during the fly episode as even he realizes it too in retrospect in this episode Walt gains a daughter well Donald loses one and having them speak to each other in between both events while unaware the significance is incredibly interesting to say the least so as Walt arrives back at Jesse's house possible that Walt wants to apologize for calling Jesse and Jane both junkies trying to control him or make his life decisions for him or maybe even apologize to Jesse for leaving him alone for an entire day thinking that he was robbed regardless of what reconciliation Walt has in mind it's too little too late at least for the night as Jesse and Jane are both High out of their minds again just like at the end of the last episode Walt quickly assumes this and so he goes around back where his suspicions are confirmed as Jesse and Jane are both passed out in the bed beside a bunch of needles while it sits down next to Jesse and tries to shake him awake but by doing so he accidentally causes Jane to roll onto her back completing the rule of three the show is going for this episode in regard to laying on your side in case you throw up in your sleep now you've probably heard this before but fun fact Walt was originally supposed to roll Jane onto her back himself intentionally but the creators thought that that was too much so they changed it in the script to be indirect and accidental so Walt technically caused her death but by doing it this way it was unintentional instead of intentional so as Walt sits there kind of depressed over how Jesse's still doing H Jane starts throwing up in her sleep and choking on her vomit due to how she was just rolled over Walt instinctively runs over to help her but he pauses and starts to quickly weigh his options the fact that he even weighs options here instead of just helping her raid away speaks volumes he wants to help Jane not choke to death but due to his only previous interactions with her he contemplates whether or not he should save her sure Jane's been a pain in his ass but that's no excuse to just sit there and let someone die you know throw them the life raft in Walt's eyes a Jane got Jesse into age blackmailed him for Jesse's money and is essentially pushing Jesse away from him Jane is his current major problem in his relationship or partnership with Jesse so he starts to consider that he should let nature take its course and not save her in order to potentially save Jesse along with his relationship with him as Walt pauses himself from saving her and starts weighing his options I love how you can see Walt make rapid eye movements as he's essentially making a list of pros and cons in his head just like the pros and cons list that he made in season 1 in regard to killing Crazy 8 or not then with Walt's mind made up that he's not gonna do anything he makes one final eye movement towards Jane as he watches her die as her choking stops and her eyes slowly open while it realizes that she's dead and starts almost choking up himself due to what he just witnessed and refused to prevent Walt sheds a single tier of horror over what he just allowed to happen as he regains as a composure and makes a big swallow he looks up with an incredibly cold and unsettling Express question that just screams Sinister to me and the episode ends with a dead silence this episode gets an S tier hands down I love so many things about this episode I don't even know where to begin I mean I guess I kind of just talked about all of it but this episode perfectly sets up its own contained story with an insane climax to the episode along the entire season due to it being the penultimate episode from Walt being frustrated over being criminally rich but legally broke the internal conflict between Walt and Jesse due to neither of them being able to apologize all the foreshadowing and setup leading to Jane's death including Walt's seemingly destined conversation with Donald along with Christian Ritter absolutely killing a role as a completely unhinged Jane for her final episode followed by Walt unintentionally causing her death but intentionally not saving her this episode's insane and Incredibly memorable for so many reasons focusing mainly on Jane's death Tad longer though it's definitely one of those huge moments that viewers go on to remember even years after watching the show such as the exploding Turtle the crawl space ending the climax to one minute or face off Etc it's just one of those iconic breaking bad moments that usually gets brought up whenever a casual conversation about breaking bad is started also in regard to Jane's death scene this is what I mean by Brian Cranston is such an expressive actor from his quick eye movements to wide range of emotions that he can make depending on whether his mouth is open shut or covered by his hand his ability to shed genuine tears along with how he can seemingly flip a switch from being a normal and caring person to just straight up evil his emotion and expressional range is extremely impressive and captivating to watch not so fun fact about this scene I'm sure everyone's heard a million times already but I feel obligated to mention anyways apparently this was Brian cranston's most difficult scene to film out of the entire show as he pictured his own daughter dying right in front of him in place of Jane in order to complete the scene which really hit him hard emotionally now in regard to Walt's decision to let Jane die I wonder if he still would have allowed Jane to die if he knew that Jane was Donald's daughter since Walt's essentially just unknowingly allowed Donald to die right after speaking to him about her if he hypothetically knew that Jane was his daughter it would have been a lot more difficult for Walt to not save her if he knew it would directly affect the man that he just spoke to granted Walt had one conversation with the man so it's not like he was really at all attached to Donald's family or Donald himself however hypothetically learning that Jane was his daughter could have changed a lot about Walt's decision to go over to Jesse's house to try and make amends or what he would have done once he got there now on to the significance of the name of the episode which is Phoenix it's actually indirectly in reference to the name of the Phoenix Lander that found water on Mars in 2008 which is what Walton Donald saw on TV at the bar Jane was also apparently born in Phoenix Arizona and in episode 210 Jane wore a shirt with a phoenix on it a phoenix is also symbolic for immortality resurrection and life after death the name of the episode may also refer to Al Holly's life is brought into the world during the beginning of the episode while Jane's life leaves this world at the end this connects the episode in a full circle Type of Way in regard to the circle of life also potentially paralleling even the previous episode Mandela due to combo dying at the beginning while Holly's born at the End season 2 episode 13 ABQ this episode starts with our final black and white cold open where we see everything we've previously been shown and more Sinister music plays as we see the eyeball being sucked into the pool filter the pink teddy bear and the pool itself it being fished out and put into an Evidence bag being brought out past Walt's car with all of its Windows destroyed and the two body bags in the driveway what we see that's new is more random belongings everywhere as the Hazmat suit workers load everything into a van as the camera pans up from the van and color begins to return to the show we see that this incident isn't just how Walt's house or even just his neighborhood but a city-wide event as we see smoke clouds in the background with helicopters surrounding them throughout the entire season the show's been hinting at the fact that something tragic or sinsters happen to Walt and or his family being maybe a home break-in gone wrong or a terrible gang hit with implications such as the two body bags hinting at the fact that sky Junior could have been killed and the show could have hinted at that teddy bear being Holly's herself while seeing glasses that look like Waltz being put into an Evidence bag as well potentially implying that something happened to him too however this cold open reveals the true misdirect in which this isn't something solely affecting Walt's family but rather a tragedy affecting the entirety of Albuquerque with that Revelation now revealed it's up to the rest of the episode to fill in the gaps of what exactly happened why it happened along with how it relates back to our characters and why it's relevant to the current story now after the intro sequence we pick up with giving answers to the huge Cliffhanger at the end of the last episode that is Jane's death as this entire episode is essentially an aftermath episode of Jane's death to show what happens as a result of it first we see Jesse giving Jane's body CPR right after he wakes up do not knowing how long she's been dead for and Aaron Paul really sells what Jesse's going through having to wake up next to his dead partner although Walt watched Jane die he never woke Jesse up to tell him but instead left him lying they're sleeping next to Jane's dead body to discover himself once he woke up as we just saw so when we cut to Walt at his home with Holly in his arms he's seemingly almost waiting for Jesse to calm about Jane to tell him what he already knows during their phone call Walter does somewhat act surprised as if Jane's death is news to him but he instantly tells Jesse that everything's gonna be okay that he knows who to call as if he's already preemptively thought of a solution already before Jesse had even called him I also like how although we don't hear Jesse's side of the phone call it's easy to infer how he's acting just by Walt's responses such as telling Jesse to slow down take a deep breath and listen to him slow down and just just take a deep breath all right all right now listen listen to me are you listening everything he's gonna be okay I plan have to listen calm down also when Walt tells Jesse that everything will be okay he presumably gets backlash from Jessie as Walt means this within the context of Legally everything will be okay well Jesse thinks that things will never be okay due to Jane now being dead as it's impossible to bring her back to life we then get our first on-screen appearance of my favorite character Mike ehrmintrout as he arrives at Jesse's to help clean up the crime scene around Jane's dead body fun fact you'll probably know but Mike's character was only originally created as a stand-in for Saul in this episode as Bob odenker could not film during this episode as he was busy doing a How I Met Your Mother Cameo Saul was originally supposed to be the guy to help clean up Jane's crime scene but since Bob can make it for the episode it got the creators thinking about how Sal's a comedic relief and having him be the one to clean up the crime scene would give him this dark aspect that would have seemed out of character so it makes perfect sense that he'd instead have a guy to hire to do this dirty work for him so due to this Mike's character was born and they wound up liking the character so much that they made him a series regular and eventually made main character by the final season so here in this episode we can see them still working out the Kinks with the character as is the first and only time that we see Mike wearing his sunglasses in an episode of Breaking Bad which always feels weird to see in retrospect after having watched all of both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul however Better Call Saul did do a subtle nod at Mike's sunglasses that I found entertaining so Jesse Waits outside for Mike due to not wanting to be inside the same building as Jane's dead body and Jesse's body language says it all as Mike makes him go back inside to direct him towards the body as Mike goes to clean up the bedroom Jesse just leans against the wall by the door and slides down until he's sitting clearly wanting to close himself off from the world and the Grim reality that's befallen upon Him Mike essentially just cleans up any paraphernalia that he can find for any and all drugs and puts them inside the duffel bag of Jesse's drug money that Walt gave him along with snapping Jesse out of it in order to give him a short and simple cover story to tell the cops many joke about how Mike got a permanent spot on the show by slapping Jesse which is both hilarious and kinda true as Mike short time on screen during the season 2 finale definitely made quite the impression say it I woke up I found her that's all I know I woke up I found her that's all I know although Mike appears to be a Stern hard ass he still gives Jessie some very Sound Advice in regard to how to handle the police along with already hinting at potentially caring about Jesse or at least feeling bad for him due to telling him to hang in there and that he's in the home stretch as he leaves as The Show Goes On Jesse and Mike grow on each other and create a certain camaraderie between themselves so it's interesting to observe some of their earlier interactions on the show and notice potential hints that start to form so back at Walt's house we get another obligatory breakfast scene which of course wouldn't be complete without Junior there so Walt calls him to join them however Genie doesn't respond until Waltz reluctantly calls him Flynn which is hilariously childish but also feels like the creators just threw it in there to remind us of the Flynn nickname since it hasn't really been mentioned much since it was originally created near the beginning of the Season Skyla can tell that something's off with Walt as he's preoccupied thinking about the death of Jane while Walt brushes off Skyler's concerns then they get called Over by Junior who shows them how the website is gone around 500 in donations for Walt since Walt knows that this is secretly soft funneling his money through Junior's website yamo shows the expression a shame on his face while pretending to show gratitude towards Junior we then cut to Donald who leaves Jane a passive aggressive voicemail while on his way to pick her up for Rehab however once he arrives and sees the paramedics there he realizes how his biggest fear has become a reality this completes the rule of three in regard to Jane waking up late to meet her father as Donald sees the paramedics bringing in a Stretcher he follows them into the house where he Witnesses them putting Jane into a body bag one of the paramedics calmly tells Donald that he may not want to be there for that which no [ __ ] good job even allowing him to get that far in the first place as Donald walks back into the living room we overhear Jesse reciting what Mike told him to say followed by Donald helping him answer some questions about Jane including her date of birth along with where she was born Donald leaves without saying a word to Jesse which I kind of like since although you'd think that Donald would freak out at Jesse over Jane's death the damage is already done so what good would that bring plus they're both in such disbelief that they can can't bring themselves to even say anything to each other at all which really says a lot back at Walt's house as Skyler and Junior freak out over all the donations coming in Walt tries phoning Jesse on his second cell phone to check in on him but he gets no answer we then cut to a hilarious misdirect including Hank holding up Walt's photo when his office in front of a wanted board when it turns out that Hank is actually just asking his co-workers for donations for Walt's upcoming surgery although this misdirect is quick and obvious I still remember how it startled me and Gotta Wait what out of me the first time I saw it that photo walled in the donation jar that was passed around it's almost seemingly mocking Hank once again implying the whole idea of Walt being right under Hank's nose while being completely undetected so Hank updates his crew on combo's death as he was found to be dealing blue crystal when he died Hank also mentions a throwaway line about combo that gets elaborated on during Better Call Saul similar to Hank's throwaway lines about tuko early in the season that Better Call Saul elaborated on as well so Hank explains how after combo's death blue skies vanished from Albuquerque gomi brings up how they thought they arrested Heisenberg from the whole Jimmy in and out situation in episode 208 but Hank doesn't buy it he's been calling up other police departments and has found that blue skies vanished from New Mexico but is now showing up in surrounding states implying that Heisenberg has smartened up and decided to quit selling in his own backyard and instead go Regional meanwhile as Skyler and Junior continue watching donations roll in Walt calls Saul where they found Jessie at a trap house getting high to cope with Jane's death Jessie's still dealing with combo's death so now dealing with Jane's death too must be hitting him really hard as you can see especially since he's unintentionally responsible for both of them so Walt meets Mike at the trap house where Mike warns wall to the dangers that going in there can have but while it takes his chances and goes in to grab Jesse anyways as Jesse recognizes Walt it brings him back to reality enough to start breaking into tears as he's reminded of his sorrows and he openly says how he's the one that killed Jane although that's not technically true he was the one that enabled Jane to relapse even if it was unintentional plus Jane only relapsed due to Jesse wanting to smoke up after feeling guilty about combo's death so feeling guilty about combo's death essentially caused Jane's death which he now feels guilty about as well Walt making the effort to find and retrieve Jesse shows how Walt does care about him especially after his conversation with Donald last episode that made him want to reconcile with him also Waltz may be feeling guilty due to allowing Jane to die as is inaction of not Saving Jane is what caused Jesse all of this pain now he could make the case that Walt's only giving Jesse emotional support here in order to further use him as his Pawn but I do feel like this is genuine when Jesse's crying to Walt about how he killed Jane Walt denies Jesse being at fault to make him feel better but also because Walt is partly to blame as well so he's to blame for Jane's death it's Jesse to blame due to enabling her to relapse is Walt to blame due to unintentionally causing her to roll over to her back followed by not saving her life when she started to choke in her sleep is Donald to blame due to caving in on James request to wait 24 hours before going to rehab instead of forcing her to do so when he caught her relapsing or is it all Jane's fault for choosing to relapse in general after all she was her own person capable of making her own decisions is yet again another great example the way the show spreads the blame of certain tragedies across multiple characters creating the possibility for debate as no single one character is entirely to blame but rather the tragedy is a result of multiple decisions made by multiple different people so we then see Donald go to Jane's house in order to try and pick out clothes that she's gonna wear for her funeral as he observes Jane's house we get a few Easter eggs in the form of her art we first see a drawing of an aura Boris a snake eating its own tail which references the title of episode 211 Mandela as both implying The Circle of Life rebirth Etc we then see a huge mural of Jane on her walls seemingly floating up into space which in itself symbolizes how she feels when she gets high along with her death in the corner we can see an alarm clock that she's ignoring potentially either symbolizing the times that she was late to wake up to meet her father and or her never waking up that final time in the other Corner we can see what appears to be a pink teddy bear reference as well the teddy bear looks like it's falling from the sky or floating in water foreshadowing its arrival at the end of the episode although my original interpretation of Jane and mural is her floating up into space as a symbolism of her drugged out State death it can also be a depiction of her falling from the sky again foreshadowing victims of the plane crash at the end of the episode also the photograph on Jane's bedroom wall is a photograph of poet Elizabeth Bishop Bishop is Vince Gilligan's favorite poet and also Jane's mother's maiden name as we heard Donald State earlier in the episode as Donald looks at her clothes he struggles to pick out something that isn't black the only thing he manages to find is a dress that's dark blue because it blue kinda looks purple to me not to bring that purple blue dress meme back but with Jane's wardrobe being black and blue could potentially also be a reference to the town of episode 207 negrue Azul which of course is Spanish for black and blue meanwhile as Walt changes Holly's diaper he becomes annoyed at genius loud excitement over their donations along with a loud dinging noise that occurs every time one rolls in since Walt knows where the money's truly coming from he's clearly not excited as Junior who thinks that the donations are real Waltz tells Junior to turn it down under the excuse that it's disturbing the baby when in real he's the one being disturbed by it also fun fact the ding sound effect from the donations on Junior's website is actually the same ding noise used for Hector's Bell oh Skyler then walks down the hall to inform both of them that Marie's gotten them a spot in the newspaper for Junior's website again Walt is less than excited over this as he doesn't want to bring attention to the website due to the fact that the donations are actually fake as he's using it to launder his money plus his old ego thing he doesn't want to get charity and obviously being in the newspaper or even on TV about it will attract more donations that are actually real back at the DEA office Hank is greeted by multiple benefactors with the third person being revealed to be Gus it's always interesting to see Gus using his ability to hide in plain sight as he uses this fake mask to blend in with his community and act like a friend and benefactor the DEA in order to hide right under their nose as they say keep your friends close and enemies closer right Gus stays behind to speak to Hank about Walt as Gus notices the donation jar that Hank has for Walt here Hank explains that Walt is his brother-in-law and that he's currently battling cancer but shouldn't Gus already know this now I do really love the idea of this twist that Gus's learning of Walt's health conditions in relation to Hank through Hank himself but the more you think about it the more you realize that Gus should have already known all this information as someone who's extremely careful with who they work with you'd think that Gus's assumed background check of Walt would have uncovered the information that Walt has cancer and a brother-in-law in the DEA since Gus already instinctively called Walt Mr White when they first talked that implies that Gus you know did a background check on Walt and if Saul was able to find out who Walt was and that he had cancer and where he worked from hiring Mike as a pi you'd think that Gus would also know all that information and more is this one of your agents oh yeah no no that's it's my brother-in-law you know he's got a health issue we're we're trying to oh I'm very sorry what what sort of health issue so I potentially consider this a plot hole of sorts either Gus already knew all of this which makes this scene feel redundant and misleading as it makes it seem like Gus is just learning this for the first time or Gus really is just learning this information which makes him seem less careful and thorough than he was initially built up to be so do you think Gus already knew about Walt's cancer in his relation to Hank as a member of the DEA or maybe just one or the other or did Gus really just learn all of this in this scene I choose to believe that Gus was already aware which as I just said makes this scene feel redundant and potentially misleading as the scene is implying that Gus is just now learning this information for the first time however the purpose of this scene could be to just reveal that Gus already knows about this so the audience while pretending that he's just now learning of it how Gus realizes that Hank is oblivious to Walt's true actions along with showing how Gus is an active member of the community to the point that he's financially supporting the DEA in order to absolve any suspicion of himself meanwhile we see that Walt has brought Jesse to rehab where waltonforms Jesse that he has his surgery coming up on Friday and that if things don't go well Saul will handle things as he's holding Jesse's money for him while he tries to tell Jesse to focus on getting better but all that Jesse says in response is that he deserves this at going back to what Waltz originally said to him in episode 209 this implies that due to the deaths of both combo and Jane Jesse's now at a low Point similar to how Walt was in episode 209 Jesse even acknowledges the parallel and States how he now understands what Walt meant back then when he previously did not I have this coming what I deserve this you snap out of it I serve this what you said in the desert I get it what you meant I deserve whatever happens Jesse feels like he deserves the terrible things that happened to him and it's kind of the start of him now accepting how he's a bad guy which is a theme that continues next season and throughout the rest of the show as Walt gets home he notices a TV van outside his house as the newspaper story has now evolved into a TV feature although Walt is reluctant to do the interview he goes along with it anyways is not wanting to create a scene or race suspicion we get an update that they've raised six thousand three hundred sixty dollars so far along with hearing how much Junior looks up to his dad Walt is seemingly uncomfortable with Junior putting him up on such a pedestal and fun fact they originally filmed this scene to end with Walt throwing up on the interviewer's shoes but they cut that in so it's not in the actual episode now Walt may feel uncomfortable due to not enjoying having a spotlight on him it could be due to him feeling guilty over how all the donations are fake or it could be due to Walter not liking how much Juniors trying to call him a good person due to knowing that he's not a good person after everything he's done throughout the entire series we then jump forward to Walt being prepared for his surgery where he's doped up on some painkillers both Skyler and Junior show great care and love towards Walt as they hope that the surgery goes well however when Skyler asks Walt where his phone is a responds to asking which one raises suspicion as well as essentially just admitted to Skyler that he has two cell phones something that he fought tooth and nail to deny where's your phone huh your cell phone did you bring it which one I I'm I'm PR I'm I'm pretty sure he didn't he didn't bring it Mom this essentially reopens Old Wounds from after the Fugue State throughout most of the seasons Scholars put her suspicions of Walt's lies on the back burner due to being so worried about him and his health conditions from worrying about how they're going to pay for their medical bills after Gretchen and Elliot seemingly cut them off or the initial results of Walt's test in episode 209 to her recent pregnancy along with them worrying about the outcome of Walt's surgery Skyler involved caring for each other did bring them close together once more as it Rose above all their previous disagreements however with Walt unintentionally admitting the scholar that he does have a second cell phone all the Care that Skyler has towards Walt Fades away as she's now once again concerned with his lies as he pretty much just confirmed her previous suspicions of him to be true but then get a brief Montage of Walt's surgery set to the song Life by chocolate genius which includes lyrics that could relate to Walt's life and current situation from the secrets of where he gets his money from to where it all goes and what it's for such as his medical bills there's even a lyric that could relate to the teddy bear a lyric that could relate to Walt not being able to live to see holly grow up along with what came first in regard to Walt's change from within did Walt become the man that he is now due to his cancer diagnosis or was that always deep down inside of him the overall meaning of the song is the cliche that money can't buy you happiness or more life with time being the most precious and Priceless thing that we all take for granted however as this song plays over Walt's surgery it ironically contradicts itself as Walt being able to pay for the surgery in turn is giving him more time to live his life even if it's only limited we then have around at least a month time skip after the surgery to Skyler and Walt meeting with Walt's doctor Insurgent where they update each other on how Walt feels this dialogue even plays into the idea of the song I just broke down as Walt surgeon literally says to him that he's quote bought himself more time while everyone in the room is concerned with Walt's recovery Skyler seems to be motivated to learn when he'll be well enough to become independent which foreshadows her wanting to leave Walt which we'll discuss in just a moment meanwhile Donald goes back to work and he gets condolences from a fellow co-worker and States how after a certain point having time off from work doesn't help so we'd rather just be back at work it's possible that Donald thinks that keeping himself busy by going back to work will help keep his mind off of things however that appears to be more difficult than he had initially thought but again more on that in a moment too coming back to Walt he brings up wanting to keep his new goatee opposed to the mustache that he's had previously with this being the first episode that he gets his iconic goatee skyly doesn't respond to him though as she's preoccupied with packing up to leave for Walt this seems like a total 180 as Skyler was still caring for him and seemingly happy with him right up until his surgery and she said nothing suspicious since however for Skyler she's been bottling all this up during Walt's entire recovery and is just now able to confront him on it now that he's well enough to be left alone it shows how she kinda still does care for him as she doesn't want to just abandon him in his time of need so she waits for him to be in good health so that she can leave him Skyler informs Walt that she's taking Holly and Junior to stay at Hank and Marie's for the weekend and that she wants walled out of the house by Monday while doesn't argue but at least asks why causing Skyler to once again accuse him of being a liar this is yet another moment where their relationship comes to a head as Skyler now knows for a fact that Walt has lied to her time and time again opposed to earlier in the season when she was suspicious of it but couldn't necessarily prove it or get him to admit it in this moment Walt stays silent as he's lied to her so many times he doesn't even know which lie she's caught him in as it turns out Scholars pretty much caught him in all of his lies as she begins to explain she first starts out with how he let it slip how he implied how he had two cell phones after all which Walt tries to brush off with the excuse of being on drugs while he said it I love how Skyler calls him out for accidentally telling the truth as she's completely correct right before your surgery I asked if you had packed your cell phone and you said which one I mean I I could have said the world was flat you know what I think I think you accidentally told the truth I also love how Skyler admits how she practically needed to believe the Fugue State as something to grasp onto in order to answer why Walt disappeared as Skyler was so wound up and worried from thinking that he could be dead that she was willing to accept anything once he was found alive I called the credit card providers I checked with every hospital within 50 miles every police station every morgue then it got me thinking again about all the strange Behavior not the least of which was The Disappearance out of my mind with where I am calling hospitals checking the morgue your Fugue State I had to believe that didn't I so this reverted scholar back into thinking about Waltz was having an affair which caused her to call Gretchen over and over until she finally left a message that caused Gretchen to respond to her and tell her the truth about how neither her nor Elliot ever gave Walt a dime I am not having an affair with Gretchen oh I know I know you're not because I asked her and she finally told me the money for your treatment Gretchen and Elliot didn't give you a dime they paid for nothing now calling back to I said earlier this season about how if Walt wasn't having an affair whatever his secret is must be much much worse and here Skyler finally realizes that as Walt was somehow able to pay for all of his medical bills without the help of the Schwartz but that didn't make sense because I checked with Del Cavalli in the hospital and we're nearly paid up over a hundred thousand dollars out of thin air but wait there's more Skyler also reveals that she called Walt's mother and found out that not only did Walt lie about going to see her for four days that his mother still didn't even know that he had cancer and a gun absolutely kills it in the scene as Skyler calls out Walt for all of his lies all while walled silently and coldly stares at her unable to say anything as he knows The Jig Is Up my culture culture yeah but I thought you know maybe she has some money that I don't know about maybe she contributed it turns out that not only is the money not from your mother she didn't even know that you have cancer you never went to see her I love how bad a season 2 finale all the cards are now on the table I do love the early Vibes of the show in regard to Walt constantly lying to and manipulating Skyler throughout the first two seasons in order to try and hide the truth from her but it all had to blow up in his face eventually he can only get away with this for so long the Mind Games between Walt and Skyler in the earlier seasons were incredibly interesting to watch but the writers knew how that couldn't last forever and so it all comes to a head in the season 2 finale before it gets too drawn out or overdone I also love how as Skyler leaves she asks Walt to at least give her the courtesy of not denying it yet again to which Walt silently nods his head implying how it's all true and that he won't deny it this causes Schuyler to go out to her car and leave where Walt follows her begging for her to stay so from lying about the Fugue State having second cell phone lying about Gretchen Elliot paying for his bills while magically being able to pay over a hundred thousand dollars in medical bills himself to lying about going and seeing his mother Skyler has Walt caught completely red-handed to the point that she's scared to even learn the truth whatever that may be to again give another rule 3 this marks the third time in the series where Walt is given the ultimatum on whether or not to tell Skyler the truth he had this ultimatum in season 1 where he decided to tell her about his cancer to excuse his odd behavior he had this ultimatum earlier this season when Schauer became suspicious of him during episode two of four down and now he's given the ultimatum again however even though he's now willing to tell her the truth it's too little too late as she's scared to even learn what that truth is Skyler there's something I have to tell you you don't want to lose contact with me Walt good then tell me now if I tell you the truth will you stay stay and I will tell you everything Waltz probably should have just told her back when he had the chance even though it still probably would have resulted in her leaving him both Skyler and Saul Goodman wanted Walt to tell her the truth all season long but now that he's finally willing to she doesn't want to hear it meanwhile cutting back to Donald at work we see how he's having difficulty staying focused on the current task at hand as thoughts of Jane starts seeping into his mind distracting him and clouding his judgment as Donald continues to give incorrect directions to the planes that he's coordinating his dialogue and all the background noise gets drowned out by a loud ringing implying that Donald may be having a panic attack here due to the trauma from Jane's death and how it's overwhelming him to the point that he makes a fatal mistake Jane Mike 2-1 turn heading disregard Wayfair 515 to send a one zero thousand Juliet Mike two one do you have that traffic at your nine o'clock cutting back to Walt he sits calmly in his backyard near his pool reflecting on how he's now completely alienated himself from Skyler when he startled due to hearing a loud explosion coming from above he looks up to see a mid-flight collision that the entire season has been leading up to which consists of the two planes that Dawn was speaking to a charter plane called jm-21 and a Boeing 737 commercial airliner by the name of Wayfair 515 we then get an absolutely amazing POV shot from the pink teddy bear falling out of the sky as it spins around showing both of the ground below and the mid-air Collision that it's falling from until it eventually lands in Walt's pool as the camera focuses on the pink teddy bear the color of the screen turns into black and white with the pink teddy bear being the only thing to retain its color just like all the mysterious black and white cold opens throughout the season as if it wasn't already obvious enough this Nails home the fact that the plane crash in the final moments of this episode is the answer to the season-long mystery bringing the season to a close in a perfect full circle moment also the fact that the teddy bear keeps his pink color while the rest of the screen goes black and white may be a reference to the little girl in the red dress from the movie Schindler's List as the pink teddy bear implies that it was owned by a little girl who died from the mid-air Collision also Walt's sweater is the same shade of pink as the teddy bear which was also potentially foreshadowing to the reveal at the end of the episode having the final shot go black and white wasn't necessary but it was a nice effect that completes this full circle aha moment feeling also I absolutely love this Sinister score playing by Dave Porter that plays while the teddy bear is falling from the sky it's just incredibly foreboding and Insidious in such a way that I get chills down my spine every time I watch it thank you to stay the obvious the mysterious black and white cold opens have been foreshadowing this plane crash all season long as the misdirect while we were initially led to believe that something terrible had happened to Walt and or his family directly as it turns out the pink teddy bear was obviously not Holly's the glasses found in Walt's backyard weren't his the window to Walt's vehicle were destroyed due to brief falling on it and the two body bags on Walt's driveway were actually victims of the plane crash I just love how the show initially makes you think that something personal happened to Walt only for our expectations to be subverted as the opening to the season 2 finale revealed that it was a city-wide event then throughout the season 2 finale we learned exactly why it happened along with how it relates to and was indirectly caused by our main characters it's definitely one of the best foreshadowed mysteries in a show that's completely unpredictable yet makes complete sense leaving viewers incredibly surprised and shocked upon realizing the truth the plane crash is a city-wide tragedy that is indirectly the result of Walt's actions and you can follow the domino effect back through the entire season Donald was so torn up over James death that he accidentally caused the planes to collide Jane died because Walter accidentally nudged her over to her back and then refused to save her Jane OD'd over her excitement to Jesse's money which she only got because Walt tricked him into cooking so much etc etc could potentially lead all the way back through the tugo situation to the beginning of the Season without realizing it at first everything is seemingly connected all while the 737 down over Albuquerque Easter egg laughed at our faces the whole time until the answer is finally given to us in the final few moments of the entire season this should count as no surprise but this episode gets an S tier it's one of the best conclusions to a season of Television ever it's grandiose unpredictable yet makes complete sense in retrospect as it was brilliantly crafted and perfectly set up and executed so here's all season 2 ranked in a tier list and here's both seasons 1 and 2 combined this leads us into my closing thoughts for the season which I'll honestly keep brief considering how long this video already is that being said I think season 2 of Breaking Bad is extremely underrated and deserves more credit now granted Breaking Bad that is a show that starts strong and gets better every season until its conclusion so even though Seasons three to five may it be objectively better than one to two seasons one to two are still incredibly good in their own right some people complain that seasons one to two are too slow or that the show doesn't really get good until season three in reality the show's amazing from the start season two is the First full 13 episode season of the show and it doesn't drag at all season two starts strong with 201 and 202 it has some incredibly strong episodes in the middle such as 206 208 and 209 and then ends incredibly strong with episodes 211 through 213 leading up to Jane's death in the mid-air plane Collision so although Seasons three to five to the show may be considered better overall season 2 still holds a special place in my heart as it includes some of my favorite scenes and moments throughout the entire show from the conclusion of the tuko arc Jesse's whole story in 206 peekaboo the introduction to Saul Goodman the entirety of four days out for episode 209 the stay out of my territory final scene into 10 over followed by the three episode Banger of a conclusion between Mandela Phoenix and Albuquerque including Walter rush to make Gus's deal Jane's death in the mid-air Collision there's a lot of great stuff in this season to gush over and as you've heard in great detail I definitely have so thank you all for sticking with me throughout this monstrosity of a video I already knew that my season 2 retrospective would be incredibly long which is why I broke it into two parts that being said I'm surprised how part two is over three hours long I knew I'd have a lot to say for episodes 208 and 209 but still combining both parts together my season 2 retrospective is technically over five hours long which is absolutely ridiculous due to this I hope you can all understand why I broke season two into two parts and why I'll most likely be doing the same for Seasons three to five as well as I said at the end of part one of my season 2 retrospective although I covered Better Call Saul extensively ever since season three leading all the way up through season six in the finale of that show for breaking bad I've never really covered it this in depth on the channel so there's a lot that I have to say about this show that I never have before at least on YouTube which is why these videos are seemingly so long I guess again I can't thank you enough for all the love and support you've given me in the comments towards this series and that even though these videos take a very long time to produce it's incredibly fun to do so I hope you enjoy these retrospectives as much as I enjoy making them with that being said I'd appreciate a like on the video if you've enjoyed anything I've said today subscribe for more Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul retrospectives in the near future but most importantly I thank you all so much for watching especially to the end of these really long videos and until next time I'll talk to you all later peace out I'm not the street guy yo

Channel: TheVividKiWi

Views: 573,446

Keywords: breaking bad, breaking bad ranking, breaking bad retrospective, breaking bad tier list, breaking bad season 2 retrospective, breaking bad season 2 review, breaking bad recap, breaking bad ending, breaking bad season 2, breaking bad reaction, Breaking Bad review, breaking bad video essay, better call saul, 4 days out, walter white, jesse pinkman, walt and jesse, gus fring, hank, gus and mike, saul goodman, pink teddy bear, walt meets gus

Id: j-1d_RT0bP4

Length: 212min 28sec (12748 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 22 2023