Breaking Bad Season 2 TIER LIST Retrospective & Recap

hey guys kiwi here welcome to my Breaking Bad season 2 retrospective where I'll be breaking down every episode of season 2 and ranking them in a tier list warning spoilers for Breaking Bad and potentially some vague Better Call Saul spoilers as well with that being said let's first hear a word from today's sponsor this video is sponsored by Morgan and Morgan when you're injured you deserve compensation and the size of your Law Firm matters Morgan Morgan is America's largest injury Law Firm they have over 100 offices across the country more than 800 lawyers and 4 000 K staff ready to fight for you Morgan Morgan has recovered over 13 billion for their clients they fight hard to get full and fair compensation when you hire Morgan and Morgan you don't just get a lawyer signed to your case you get a dedicated legal team case investigators paralegals and customer case Specialists all focus on maximizing Your settlement this intense cares what gives your case the biggest chance of getting a 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feel obligated to at least mention it I'm most likely going to keep the recap of these cold opens to a minimum until I discuss the outcome during the season 2 finale but I will state that these flash forwards are the perfect combination of suspense mystery hype and calculated misdirection which is what makes them so memorable this first cold open teases Walt's backyard with an uneasy silence followed by sirens in the background we then get our first review of the iconic teddy bear eyeball in the pool followed by the pink teddy bear itself as we see more of these black and white flash forwards throughout the season we get more and more hints that's something potentially tragic has happened to the White household when in reality there's much more to it than that so back in the current timeline season 2 picks up Ray where season 1 left to offer even shows the final moments of the season 1 finale as we pretty much have to re-watch the meeting between Walt Jesse and tuko where tuko Beats nodos to a pulp oh damn man look at that look this works fine under its original intention when it first aired which is the fact that the show is catching you up to speed after potentially not seeing the show in a year's time but during future binge watches it's definitely unnecessary in hindsight considering it's just an exact copy of the final scene from season 1 without anything really added now while filming in order to seamlessly recreate this season 1 scene the creators had to completely reposition the cars in the junkyard to lick the exact same as as they had done so previously during season 1 to get the specific shots that they wanted so Walt and Jesse go back to Jesse's car after watching tuko violently beat one of his men as they're clearly in shock of what they just witnessed Walt instantly starts calculating how much money he needs to provide for his family after he's gone what they just witnessed clearly would make them want to quit what they're doing but Walt still wants to provide for his family so he calculates how much he needs in order to do so under the implication that as soon as that amount is met he'll quit with the idea that he just needs to hang in there the best he can until he gets his targeted amount 737 thousand dollars that's what I need that is what I need I love the subtext that this scene brings to the table as it becomes obvious what Walt is adding up and why especially after what they just saw while comes to the conclusion that he needs 737 thousand dollars to leave for his family which is where the name of the episode comes from negating the whole 737 down over Albuquerque secret double meaning as well this means that hypothetically all they need to do is 11 more drug deals in order to cash out for good if they can even survive that long with him reassuring Jesse that they'll do it in a public place like he initially suggested from now on however as they go to leave tuko drives back to them and drags nodos out of his vehicle as he's having a seizure tuko yells out Walt and Jesse to save his life but it's too little too late and won't realize is this holding Jesse back from having to do mouth to mouth do something he needs an ambulance he he needs a hospital no something you're smart right do not do that thing as tuko orders Gonzo to hide nodo's body Walton Jesse try slowly backing away to leave but tuko who's clearly trying to calm down and hide how affected it is over the fact that he just accidentally killed NoDoz takes it out on Walt and Jesse by giving them a hard time for wanting to leave even though he knows that Waltz is correct and stating that their business is concluded so due to seeing tuko lash out I realizing NoDoz was dead by disrespectfully kicking his dead body followed by intimidating Walt and Jesse having a long-formed arrangement with tuko now seems more unfeasible than it already did with Walt and Jesse becoming worried that tuko will a rationally one day kill them as well we then cut to Skylar back at home who notices the many pill bottles that Walt has this relates directly back to the pillow scene from episode 105 when Walt said that he didn't want to be cramming tons of pills down his throat every day which we then saw him doing in 106. this subtle connection of Skyler looking at the pills is a prime example of the high quality detail put into this show as it's just a quick and brief moment without any dialogue that can easily be missed if not paid close attention to this is why I'll always say that you can casually enjoy Better Call Saul and breaking bad but the the more that you pay close attention the more you will be rewarded as a viewer I don't want to choke down 30 or 40 pills every single day and lose my hair and lie around too tired to get up I'm dead man some artificially alive just marking time so Skyler here's Walt return home but he ignores her when she calls out to him causing her to go to the living room to see Walter Heisenberg rather zoning out while flipping through TV channels while it's clearly traumatized by the whole no-do situation it may be flipping through channels to see if there's any news reports about the body being discovered Skyler breaks him out of his trance and gives him a hard time for ignoring her usually Walt's Great at being able to turn on and off the Heisenberg Persona switch but here he struggles to revert back to his family man personality causing Skyler to realize that something's wrong this is also the first time that she ever sees him wearing the Heisenberg hat which he just brushes off we then get one of the most uncomfortable scenes of the whole show as Walt attempts to force himself onto Skyler Walt goes from crying on her shoulder to wanting to get frisky which is a total out of the blue and inappropriate 180 as we know from season 1 Walt's sex drive amplifies whenever he does or just did something illegal but here he may be doing it to also try to cope with what he just went through Walt's trying to grasp on onto any feeling of emotion that he can but clearly he chose the wrong one to the point that Skyler has to push him off of her after having her face bashed against the fridge Walt goes to sit outside to reflect on his inability to control himself and Skyler tries to level with him while stating that he can't take things out on her as Junior comes home he notices the aftermath of what just happened in the kitchen including some of Skyler's face masks so clearly on the fridge which is just icing on the cake of uncomfortableness meanwhile Jesse Wade sat at the doghouse to buy a gun as tuko has him scared for his life the song that plays during this is anyway the wind blows by J.J kale and to be honest it's not that memorable so moving on Walt goes over to Jesse's house where Jesse confronts him on this stating that they have to kill tuko before Tuka can kill them Jesse admits that Tico has been purposely trying to Spook him by calling him multiple times just to hang up along with cruising around his neighborhood texture this is conjecture yes and conjecture isn't helping all my conjectures my phone rang like eight times last night dead air Hang-Ups every time second fact like three in the morning I saw that black caddy that's cruising my neighborhood although Walt tries down playing the situation stating that if Tuka wanted to kill them he would have done so already when they were still at the junkyard Jesse emphasizes how tuko doesn't think rationally and that right now he may be weighing whether or not he can trust them and may consider them as Loose Ends who need to be snuffed out we Are Witnesses we are loose sins right now tuko is thinking yeah hey and I trust them what happens when he decides no Jesse takes out his gun giving Walt ultimatum of either him or us Walt initially argues against it but opens up to the possibility questioning Jesse on how he would do it since Walt is agreeing to the idea of premeditated murder he wants to make sure that they have it planned down to a science which Jesse clearly reveals that he doesn't bald focusing on every minute detail and variable is a huge show of his character as it implies how precise and calculated he is about making such a risky decision although Walt has killed crazy Aiden Emilio he's never premeditated murder like this before causing him to over analyze the hypothetical to give himself peace of mind that it will work with them coming out still alive you know giving it a snore just pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop so three shots yeah three shots or I don't know two is it two or is it three I mean two would probably work I guess yeah get two shots two shots in the chest two shots in the face man come on I'm just trying to understand how this works I just absolutely love this scene and consider it extremely underrated it not only emphasizes the characteristics of Walt and Jesse but also the chemistry between the two characters being on opposite ends of the spectrum while Jesse is frantic Walt is calm and collected after Jesse is unable to properly answer any of the hypotheticals Jesse shows that he can't even open the gun proving to watch just how inexperienced and unqualified Jesse is to accomplish what he's proposing now at this point how many shots have been fired I mean you've got to be running low right how many bullets does that gun even take how can you suggest that we kill a man and you can't even open the gun meanwhile we get another scene adding to the Marie klepto Arc which I guess I'll acknowledge as much as I want to skip over it we see Marie leaving Skyler a voicemail which implies that Marie does feel bad about the whole Tiara situation although she's unable to admit it instead just pretending that everything's okay in hopes that it'll just blow over Hank notices this and confronts her over going to her therapist that's supposed to be helping her with her klepto problem re-passive aggressively brushes Hank off and runs over in neighborhood kids RV car as she drives away causing Hank to have to pay the kid for it the Marie klepto Arc doesn't really go anywhere causing it to widely become one of the least favorite plot points for fans myself included as it just feels like a waste of time in retrospect clearly the creators wanted to flesh out her character so they Incorporated it with the potential of elaborating on it further in future Seasons which kind of happens but never really comes to fruition or connects to the main story in any truly meaningful way however for what it's worth it does flesh out Marie and her relationship with both Hank and Skyler about it creating inner conflict between the family due to how Marie decides to go about denying it at first we then catch up with Hank at work giving us a hilarious Hank moment as he flicks away a criminal asking for a phone call Hey where's my phone call it's a quick like two second moment following the establishing shot to set up the scene of Hank at work but it speaks volumes in regard to Hank's character so Gomez updates Hank on the fact that their security footage of Walt and Jesse stealing the barrel of chemicals used in their new method of cooking Hank obviously doesn't know that they're Walton Jesse but he realizes that these criminals switched up their formula due to being short on pseudo and acknowledges that they must know their chemistry considering the fact that a new formula is actually old school along with the fact that they were able to steal the barrel by breaking into the building using thermite this continues the cat and mouse Chase of Hank constantly one step behind Walden Jesse along with emphasizing how waltz's raid under Hank's nose without him even realizing it it's crazy how much Hank is able to accurately deduce while still being completely oblivious that Walt is the person he's after it's just so ironic seeing Hank and go me make fun of the barrel Thieves for carrying the barrel instead of thinking or rolling it unaware that Hank is actually making fun of Waltz himself and try rolling it morons it's a barrel it rolls Jesus ain't then accurately deduces that the two are book smarts but not Street smarts which is true although Jesse is supposed to be the street smarts to counteract while it's book smarts as we saw earlier in the episode Jesse doesn't have as much Street smarts as he would like to think considering he can't even open a gun and has no idea how to plan to kill tuko Hank also essentially describes and sets up the already ongoing events of episodes 201 and 202 as he realizes that with a barrel of ingredients that big these two will most likely alert the war as cartel which tuko is a part of Hank States how they better hope that the DEA catches up to them before the cartel can but as we'll soon see the latter ends up happening speaking of which as Walt gets home he notices what he thinks is tuko's vehicle down the street making him paranoid that Tuka was now trying to Spook him as well just like how he was with Jesse this causes Walt to stay up all night on the lookout for tuko with wall now terrified for his family however the creators actually revealed that the vehicle that Walt sees is slightly different than tukos and at this isn't actually tuko sticking out Walt's house and just coincidentally some random person so Skyler wakes up the following morning and she notices how Walt isn't in the bed beside her and confronts him on not coming to bed the previous night while gives some blatant excuse about not wanting to wake her due to nausea but Skyler doesn't buy it after Skyler leaves following her declining another phone call from Marie Walt secretly puts back a kitchen knife that he was hiding to use a self-defense in case tuko attacked his house which is a great cinematic shot that gets referenced with an amazing payoff in the final season but back to Jesse's house Walt is now completely on board with Jesse wanting to take out tuko due to now being as spooked as he is although Jesse never told tuko or his crew or Walt lives Walt accuses Jesse of having a big mouth which may be a reference to season one when Walt got mad at Jesse for telling Crazy 8 everything about him Walt realizes that if Tiko finds out how his brother-in-law is a DEA agent he'll go completely ballistic causing Jesse to bring out his gun explaining how he figured out how to open in it I finally figured out how to look I just finally I figured it out I say we get a second gun right for you double our chances I mean mathematically got a better idea thank God Jesse suggests that they should buy a second gun for Walter double their chances but becomes extremely relieved at Walt admitting that he has a better idea which is castor beans I love Jesse's initial reaction to this clearly unaware of how the beans are actually poisoned not only does Jesse work as a great comic relief character from time to time but he also acts confused in the same way that the audience might be which causes Walt to give natural exposition to explain his plan this is a recurring theme throughout the show whenever Walt uses his chemistry and overall book smarts to get them out of whatever situation they find themselves in and I think this Dynamic Works quite well and clearly do a lot of other people considering how popular this show is what are we gonna do with them we're just gonna grow a magic beanstalk huh climb it and Escape process them into ricin ricin means now Walt explains how he knows about ricin due the assassination of a Bulgarian journalist in the 70s again pulling from Walt's knowledge of History just like the Gustav gun in season one with the thermite meanwhile Skylander gets interrupted reminiscing over an old photo of her and Ted which is actually the first time we ever see Ted but she gets interrupted with Hank arriving to talk about Marie I love how Hank goes to sit down but stands right back up when Skyla can tell that this is about Marie again although I don't care for the Marie klepto Arc this is actually one of my favorite Skyler scenes in the whole show as she breaks down Hank over how although she's the one who truly needs support Marie always finds a way to be the center of attention so Hank admits that he already knew that Marie was a shoplifter which explains why he wanted to go outside to get some fresh air with Walt during Skyler's baby shower in the season one finale when she opened up Murray's TR present as the Hank felt guilty now from Skyler's reaction to realizing that Hank already knew to her disbelief that Marie's therapist is actually helping her like Hank says it all conglomerates into Skyler losing it once Hank states that they have to support Marie although many viewers who like and support Waltz like to give Skyler crap for being unlikable you gotta admit she makes some great points in this scene summarizing every thing going on in her life that we should be sympathetic towards the almost 40 year old pregnant woman with a surprise baby on the way and the husband with lung cancer who disappears for hours on end and I don't know where he goes and he barely even speaks to me anymore with the Moody son who does the same thing but oh see now I'm supposed to go Hank please what can I possibly do to further benefit my spoiled kleptomaniac sister who somehow always manages to be the center of attention Hank's awkwardly supportive hug at the end perfectly ties a bow on this entire scene and portrays how he must feel putting himself in the middle of these two sisters as he just wanted to help but was oblivious to how Skyler truly felt up until now but back to Walton Jesse we get a ryzen making Montage to the song They're gonna take my thumbs by holy at first I honestly thought that this was just part of the original score by Dave Porter but upon looking it up it's actually its own song this is what I mean by how the show chooses seemingly obscure songs for its soundtrack that just fits so well note with the soundtrack in mind I figured that now is as good of a time as any to take a moment to give some honorable mentions to the songs from season one that I neglected to mention in my tier list for season one and apologies in advance if I get the names of any of these songs or artists wrong it's bound to have so first up is dead fingers talking by working for a nuclear-free city which placed during Walt and Jesse's first cookout in the desert during episode 101 also from episode 101 is out of time man by Mick Harvey which plays as the episode ends with Walton Skyler getting frisky next up is didn't I by darondo which plays at the end of 104 when Waltz blows up Ken wins car then there's uh by fujia and Miyagi which plays during Jesse's first cook with Badger and 105 and there's Scooby-Doo Love by choir and Orchestra Charlie Steinman which plays during Jesse's dealer Montage from 106. there's also catch your own trained by the silver Seas which is from the end of 106 after Waltz blows up tuko's HQ then finally there's Who's Gonna Save My Soul by Gnarls Barkley which plays at the end of the season 1 finale episode 107 during the same ending scene that the season 2 premiere picks up on for the most part I'm only gonna include in-depth analysis of certain songs that really stick out to me personally such as DLC later on in this season but I'll be sure to give honorable mentions to most of the soundtrack from now on even if it's just a brief mention simply due to how fitting they all are for the show anyways back to the episode as Walt and Jesse brainstorm on how to trick tuko into taking the ryzen what gets a phone call from Hank and the show gives us a subtle detail about Walt now having two cell phones due to checking the wrong phone first I just love the initial misdirect that this scene provides from Walt thinking that his family is in danger due to Hank's initial question of Desperately asking Walt if he's been home yet but also the viewers as well since we see Hank at some sort of crime scene before realizing the context Hank's phone call is a roller coaster of emotions for Walt it starts out with him worried that Hank is calling him about something happening to his family followed by Walt's relief when Hank is only calling about Skyler and Marie's current Feud this however turns into a sheer panic when Hank sends Walt an image of Gonzo now dead alongside NoDoz unaware that Walt and Jesse have anything to do with them causing both Walt and Jesse to freak out thinking that tuko killed Gonzo and will come for them next especially after Hank States how they must have pissed off the wrong guy Walt frantically takes Jesse's gun and leaves in a rush to get home in firatuko going after his family although Walt does quickly give a reason for why he needs Jesse's gun more than Jesse does it's still selfish of Walt to do so Walt figures that since Jesse lives alone he can just skip town whereas Walt needs to stay put due not being able to just uproot his life and skip town himself due to having a family even with that in mind this shows that when it comes down to it Walt always puts himself in his own family first regardless of what kind of danger Jesse may also be in now as the show goes on Walt does begin to care more and more about Jesse which we'll be discussing near the end of season two but this scene still does a great job at showing how Jesse's safety isn't as important to Walt as his own Waltz returns home and starts carefully clearing his house with the gun thinking that something may have happened since it's completely silent and dark this however turns out to be another misdirect as Skyler is revealed to be taking a bath alone because Junior's at his friend's house Skyler's clearly passive aggressive towards Walt's absence and then she becomes more agitated due to while leaving her in the tub in order to go grab all of his money and put it in a diaper box with Jesse's gun Walt becomes distracted by Skyler calling out to him causing him to leave the box out in the open instead of hiding it more discreetly meanwhile Hank continues to inspect the crime scene scene of Gonzo and NoDoz and realizes that Gonzo died while trying to move nodoza's body apparently Gonzo felt so bad for notos that he returned to his body later on by himself to move it with the intention of giving him a proper burial but in the process of doing so Gonzo got pinched by the stack of cars the beginning of the episode foreshadowed This brilliantly by first having Gonzo speak out against tuko for just wanting him to abandon the body followed by the car stack shifting when Gonzo first hid NoDoz under it so now the viewers know that tuko didn't actually kill Gonzo and that Gonzo's death was a freak accident however even though tuko didn't kill Gonzo the end of the episode reveals that tuko is in fact still after Jesse and Walt as Gonzo's disappearance has spooked tuko well let's put a pin in that for a second as we first have to go back to Walton Skyler as Walt try speaking her most likely contemplating what excuse he's gonna use this time gets interrupted by first a phone call on his second cell phone followed by noticing headlights through one of the windows Walt mysteriously walks out of the bathroom without saying in other words of Skyler and from her perspective he just vanishes this is because he realizes that Jesse is in his car outside of his house so he goes to school Jesse over why he's there just for tuko to pop up in the back seat revealing that he has Jessie at gunpoint and has kidnapped him to lead him to Walt's house to kidnap him too the episode ends with Walt getting in the car followed by them driving away now just to rewind a bit how did this all go down from Jessie's perspective after Walt left Jesse's house we saw Jesse frantically grab his duffel bag of money in order to prepare to flee but I guess that tooko got to him before he could leave in his car I suppose it's neither here nor there just kind of arguing semantics but it is something that got me thinking tuko wasn't there to confront them as Walt left so his two car already hiding in Jesse's car at this point or did tuko confront Jesse right after Walt had left I don't know I guess it doesn't really matter regardless this episode gets a strong a tier it's a great season premiere that perfectly flows the season one finale right into the first season 2 story arc which is the conclusion and climax of tuko's character also since we didn't get an answer to the mysterious black and white called open it implies to viewers that this will be a season-long mystery instead this episode also had many memorable character moments from the multiple scenes of Walt and Jesse at Jesse's place to even Skyler venting to hate nothing absolutely crazy happens this episode but that's because it's perfectly setting up the next episode which is absolutely wild so let's get into it season 2 episode 2 grilled this episode also starts with a Flash Forward but not a black and white one as it's instead of Flash Forward that is to the end of the same episode we see Jesse's car out in the desert with the Hydraulics bouncing as it's filled with bullet holes with an unknown body laying on the ground next to it this is quite an ominous and mysterious cold open Perfectly hyping up what's about to happen next showing how good Breaking Bad can be at hyping you up with its opening teasers after the intro sequence Hank Recaps tuko to his co-workers such as the fact that he has cartel connections along with a few other missable details such as how he killed someone named dog Paulson in 98 along with him knifing a guy in 2003 I discussed this more in my Tuka retrospective but these are just a few examples of many throwaway lines from Breaking Bad that the creators elaborated on during Better Call Saul and I'll acknowledge more of them as we get to them anyways Hank hilariously Hypes up the DEA to catch tuko but admits to gomi that they'll never catch him once they leave the room this is possibly my favorite funny Hank moment as Hank tells gomi that it's all about appearances which is actually a huge character trait of Hank throughout this season as we'll soon see him struggle to keep up his own appearances after what he's about to go through do you want to find this guy yeah are we going to find this guy yeah [Applause] ain't gonna find him guys in Mexico by now appearance is going me it's all about appearances Hank informs gomi that he needs to take some personal time in the middle of this Manhunt due to the fact that Waltz is missing so Hank goes over to the white residence to help and support Skyler and Junior Hank arrives at the white residence and checks Walt's car before going inside where detective Tim Roberts is interviewing Skyler about Walt's disappearance even after everything that's been going on between Skyler and Walt you can see how much she still worries for him due to how much he's already done to try and find any trace of them I love the detail of how after giving Tim all the info that she can she passive aggressively Jabs at him for being the one who should be helping her find wallets not the other way around I let's see I checked with every hospital within 50 miles every police station every morgue so no I really don't I don't have anything else I was actually hoping that you had something else being that you're the expert Skyler does quickly apologize as she knows that she needs to First help them if they're gonna help her and that she kind of acted out of line now as Hank and Tim leave Hank admits to Tim that he ran a check on this supposed phone call that Skyler saw Will received shortly before going missing which implies to them that Walt has a second cell phone as there's no Trace that phone call happening Skyler and Marie go around town putting up missing posters of Waltz with his Montage accompanied by the song Red Moon by the Walkman after comforting Skyler Marie brings up the whole TR Fiasco between them but is shut down by Skyler telling her that now's not the time I feel like the creators just included this line to show how they didn't forget about it and that although Marie is helping Skyler it's not like everything's now magically okay between them as Junior prints out more missing posters he's completely unaware that one of the baby diaper boxes right beside him actually has a ton of dirty money and a gun inside with a camera focusing in on that fact as the scene ends Marie and Hank later visits Skyler and Junior at their house with Marie bringing up Walt having a potential second cell phone as a lead Hank clearly didn't want to mention it to Skyler as Walt having second cell phone implies that he's keeping a huge secret from her but Marie voids that as it's definitely worth looking into and as an aside since Betsy Brando was actually pregnant during the filming of season two they had to hide her baby bump in every scene that she's in due to this I can't help but notice all the tactics that the creators used to do so such as having Marie hold a pillow on her lap during this scene so Marie comes up with a theory that while it's still getting high and that he may owe Jesse money although Hank doesn't think that's the case where he pushes him to investigate the possibility anyways resulting in Hank going to question Jesse's mother she's initially forthcoming stating how Walt was one of the only teachers who ever cared about Jesse which is an interesting statement to make considering how harshwalt is on his students without us even seeing the way that he coldly graded one of Jesse's tests back in season one when Jesse was at his parents place going through his old stuff I suppose Walt's teaching practices are the definition of tough love something that Jesse never realized Jesse's mother becomes hesitant when she realizes that Hank because with the DEA causing her to think that Hank is tricking her which makes her want to lawyer up Hank admits that this interaction is off the books and that it's just a personal matter for him even so she admits that she hasn't seen Jesse in a while and doesn't expect to anytime soon Hank then brings up Jesse's vehicle with her mentioning its hydraulics again referencing the cold open Flash Forward I'll put a pin in that because that's actually how he ends up tracking them down by the end of the episode but we'll get there meanwhile tuko breaks and throws away Walton Jesse's phones while revealing that he has them in Jesse's trunk as the scene reveals that Jesse's car is in the exact spot is the cold open tensions rise as the show continues to create worry for Walt and Jesse as the pieces start getting put together now as tuko opens the trunk Walt actually gets a vision of Skyler saying I understand before Tuka pulls them out I understand Walt is clearly envisioning a dream scenario where Skyler accepts him for the criminal that he is even though that wish is completely unrealistic Jesse however tries attacking tuko which is shown to be unsuccessful followed by Jesse taunting to go to shoot him in the back of the trunk mocking tuko for being the one who will have to clean it up Jesse's clearly so worked out from the situation that he doesn't think about how this is actually his vehicle which tuko calls him out for so tuko brings them inside to the desert Shack where we get our very first introduction to Uncle Teo AKA Hector Salamanca and yes I know Teo means Uncle so I just said Uncle Uncle but Uncle Teo just kind of rolls off the tongue I don't know it's interesting how the creators originally just wanted Teo to be a bit part and were originally gonna have a random extra play him I'm glad that the great Mark mongolis got this role as he elevated teo's character to become much more than originally intended so tuko brings Walton Jesse a jug of water and Waltz selfishly reaches for it first once again showing how he always puts himself first before Jesse now as they empty their pockets for two go he notices a photo of Walt's family in his wallet saying how dealing with a family man is fun due to lots of collateral damage which may imply that this is the first time that tuko is actually learning about Walt's family which plays into the fact that it wasn't actually tuko staking out Walt's house in the last episode tuko then grabs Walt and asks him the question of if he can trust him referencing what Jesse was paranoid about in the last episode Walt gives an incredibly cold stare while stating yes and tuko actually believes him showing how Walt passed tuko's lie detector test which again I got more into during my to go retrospective and hey can I trust you yes yes absolutely tuko then admits that the DEA rated his HQ that morning that since Gonzo's missing Chico thinks that the two are connected well technically they are been on the way that he thinks this is why tuko gave Walt his lie detector test as he was clearly paranoid that Jesse and or Walt could have been working with the DEA as well thank god Tuka never found out that Walt's brother-in-law was Hank like Walt was worried about in the last episode because if he did that would have perfectly framed Walt for being an informant even though he's innocent resulting in the same misunderstanding as in episode 101 with crazy Aiden Amelia although Gonzo and the DEA technically are connected as I said it's not at all in the way that Tico thinks Tico thinks that Gonzo is a CI for the DEA and that Gonzo ratted him out causing the D.A to go after tuko in reality Gonzo of course died while trying to move nodoza's body and when the DEA discovered the bodies they found tuko's bloody fingerprint which is what actually caused the DEA to Zone in on him and raid his HQ so tuko accuses Gonzo being an informant due to Gonzo being upset about nodos which causes tuko to deflect any blame or guilt over nodoz's death tiku explaining that he has a gift to see the future says a lot in regard to the way his head works this is both nerve-wracking and telling as it makes tuko seem somewhat deranged while also being full of himself as he clearly thinks that he's more smart than he actually is as tuko lashes out over Gonzo repeatedly stabbing his table the camera focuses on Walt and Jesse's reaction to the sheer violence of Brewing inside of tuko which is a clear reference to Walton Jesse's reaction when tuko first beat up NoDoz in the season one finale season 2 premiere oh again repeating myself from the Tuka retrospective I love how many layers there are to the whole Gonzo death there's what Walt and Jesse thinks what tuko thinks and then there's the truth Walton Jesse thought that tuko killed Gonzo tuko thought that Gonzo snitched when in reality Gonzo's death was just a tragic accident as tuko reveals that he thinks that Gonzo snitch Walt and Jesse realized that tuko in fact did not kill Gonzo as tuko clearly thinks that Gonzo is still alive Jesse tries to not so subtly clarify this with Walt cleverly rewarding the question in such a way to avoid implying that they know that Gonzo is already dead to go reaches for drugs to cope with the situation but when he smells the rice and laced dime baggie he recoils confronting them on what it exactly is Jesse States how it's a killer which is obviously an on the nose literal double meaning Tigo then says how he wants Walt to come to Mexico with him to become a cartel cook and although he sees value in Walt he doesn't seem any value in Jesse but in order for Jesse to prove to tuko that he needs him alive Jesse tries selling the rice and laced drugs as a new batch of product that they've been working on just like Walt had originally planned however after convincing tuko to try it Jesse sells it a little too much stating how there's a secret ingredient to it this causes tuko to pause before taking it along with throwing it away after Jesse tries covering up his slip up by stating how there's chili powder in it this is a great reference back to episode 101 as Walt even told Jessie back then the you cook is no baby formula no chili powder oh no chili peas my signature not anymore he's got a secret ingredient ceiling powder should be powder already tell you how moronic that was as soon as Jesse said that to tuko wall could tell that he just ruined the opportunity to get to go to take the ryzen so tuko instead takes a hit of the Blue Sky causing him to get hyped up and wanting to go take Jesse out as he sees no use for him after Jesse fell to convince him to try his cook while it stands between them saving Jesse's Life by stating how he needs him as his partner this is the first of many times that Walt vouches for Jesse like this showing how although Walt is selfish he still does care about Jesse after everything that they've been through you know at least to the point that he doesn't want him killed tuko tells Walt that his cousins are driving up from Mexico to smuggle them across the border which is a line that gets elaborated on in both future seasons of Breaking Bad along with Even Better Call Saul as well and I like how early the cousins are referenced here considering we don't even really see them until season three so altuco Cooks them all up some food Walt and Jesse ponder over how to get tuko to take the rice in Walt gives Jesse a hard time for mentioning chili powder but Jesse bites back by giving Walter hard time for leaving his gun behind during their bickering Whispers they realize that there's a news report on TV about how both NoDoz and Gonzo are dead Walt quickly changes the channel before tuko can see since tuko would blame them for being DEA informants if he found out that Gonzo was dead although Walt changes the channel before tuko sees he worries that Teo saw and will tell on them to tuko about it while checks to see if Tio is at all coherent but Teo doesn't react to while trying to alert him by waving his hand in front of his face or snapping his fingers so Walt figures that they're safe for now so as Walt and Jesse struggle trying to figure out how to handle tuko Walt gives Jessie a hard time for proposing that they crack him over the head with something as the only thing within Walt's reach is a fly swatter first gun cracking over the head with something although tuko could be considered a fly that they need to swat they're gonna need a much larger metaphorical swatter to do so Jesse brings up how since Walt has cancer he should be Fearless as he's gonna die soon anyways this understandably fends Walt who gets mad at Jesse for implying that since he has cancer his life isn't as important and in turn means less when Walt calls him out for this Chessie doubles down completely oblivious as to how rude that implication truly is with the burritos now made tuko gets Walt and Jesse to eat but Walt's laces tuko's burrito with the rice and as tuko gets teal although tuko's head is still turned when Walt does this Teo Witnesses Walt lacing tuko's food as his wheelchair is already turned around this causes Teo to ding his Bell before two go eats scaring Walt and Jesse as they realize that teo's mind is sharper than they originally thought and that he's on to them from getting too good to switch his burrito with Tios to Tio pushing the lace Burrito on the ground Tia does everything he can to save tuko's life even though tuko is completely oblivious to the fact instead getting mad at Teo for wasting the food since Teo can barely move his body the fact that he pushes himself forward to be able to push the laced burrito onto the ground says a lot plus although tuko is initially oblivious Teo tries pointing out Walt as the reason why he pushed the burrito off the table confirming to Walt that Teo knows that Waltz tried to poison tuko along with the fact that Teo knows that Gonzo is dead now just as a side note I wonder what would have hypothetically happened if Walt and Jesse Were Somehow successfully able to get tuko to have the rycin because I'm pretty sure that Walt said that it'd take a day or two for it to kick in anyway within the next 48 hours Maybe 72. it'll look like natural causes so would they have had to go down to Mexico with tuko and then tuko would have died then and then they'd have to find out a way to escape Mexico and this is of course under the implication that Tio would have never alerted tuko of Walton Jesse's nefarious acts so maybe this would have happened if he didn't see Waltz try to lace tuko's burrito or even if he didn't see the news report at all but speaking of Teo alerting tuko so as tuko uses some cows as target practice Teo Rings his Bell to alert tuko of Walt's betrayals and apparently Teo is actually using his Bell to say SOS and Morse code now I haven't confirmed this feel free to confirm it yourself but if true that is pretty interesting the only thing that makes that kind of far-fetched is the fact that Teo thought that Tuka would actually recognize that sos's Morse code if that's actually what he was doing so tuko realizes that Tio is mean mugging Walt and Jesse which Begins the nerve-wracking scene of Teo trying to communicate to tuko that they're not to be trusted while Walt and Jesse try deflecting any accusations I love this dynamic of Teo on one side Walton Jesse on the other and tuko in the middle of course if Teo could talk this would be over very quick but since all he can do is give a yes or no answer with his Bell it gives Walt and Jesse enough leeway to try and fool tuko as tuko isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer it could future you know it's the skip that I have deep inside my head coming across as a completely irrational and over emotional violent Menace this back and forth goes on for a while as Walt and Jesse try excusing Teo for disliking them due to them changing the TV channel on him when in reality it's not the fact that they changed the channel but it's what they changed the channel from this episode does a great job making Teo and his Bell extremely terrifying as the lives of Walt and Jesse are determined by whether or not Teo Rings his Bell the shot of Walt fearful in the background as he waits to see whether Tio Rings his Bell or not is a great example of this I just love that shot so after Teo acknowledges to Tuka that Walt and Jesse have been playing him like a fool he grabs Jesse and pushes him outside with Walt following not so fun facts during the filming in this episode Aaron Paul actually had to go to the hospital due to getting a concussion after throwing himself through the door due to hitting his head so hard that he broke the door off its hinges which was a real screen door not some flimsy prop door in The Insider podcast for this episode Vince Gilligan's stated that Aaron Paul threw himself through the door as the scene was shot from the outside so the camera wouldn't see that Raymond Cruz didn't actually push him however many fans jokingly blame Raymond for giving Aaron the concussion which may be a misunderstanding due to the fact that after Aaron threw himself through the door he pleaded for them to stop filming which Raymond initially interpreted as acting so he continued beating up Aaron momentarily before realizing that he was being serious and was actually injured anyways back to the actual scene Tuka holds Jesse at gunpoint while demanding that Walt tells him what he did and seeing Jesse on his knees pleading for his life is such an absolutely brutal and crushing thing to see and Aaron Paul definitely killed it with this scene this leaves Walt with no more excuses no more options so he's forced to tell tuko the truth in regard to poisoning him along with what he thinks of him as a whole we tried to poison you because you're an insane degenerate piece of Filth and you deserve to die this gives Jesse enough time to grab a rock off of the ground and hit to go with it causing tuko and Jesse to get in a scuffle while Walt lunges for the machine gun since Walt has never shot a gun before let alone one so big he's hesitant to take the shot due to being worried that he'd shoot Jesse too due to this Jesse has to save his own life by grabbing tuko's gun out of the back of his waistband shooting tuko in the gut with it instead of finishing him off Walt tells Jesse to let him bleed with them instead fleeing to Jesse's vehicle however once inside they realize that tuko still has the keys but in reality it doesn't matter regardless due to the fact that Hank is driving up the road so that's almost a blessing in disguise for them because if they were able to turn Jesse's car on and drive away Hank would have stopped them down the road and then he would have seen Walt with Jesse and also if he would have went up the road and saw Tico afterwards he would have connected the dots that they were involved with tuko Walt and Jesse think that Hank is tuko's cousins so they dart out of the car and flee into the desert as they leave the car we got a shot of the hydraulic controls paralleling the cold open implying that we're about to witness the gunfight that the cold opened will imply as tuko manages to limp his way to Jesse's car the camera reveals that the vehicle arriving is not driven by his cousins but instead actually Hank arriving at the scene I love how the seemingly Bland side plot of Walt's family trying to find him perfectly sets up and explains how Hank could arrive at the climax of the episode resulting in the very shootout that the cold opened foreshadowed it's just such a perfect subversion of expectations that puts Hank's life in danger as he surprisingly finds tuko at Jesse's car as everything is connected near the beginning of the episode Hank brought tuko to the dea's attention but believed that they'd never find him in their Manhunt however after dealing with personal Family Matters seemingly unrelated Hanks now wound up finding tuko after all when he wasn't even looking for him in the first place so tuko and Hank break out into a gunfight with tuko reaching for his machine gun being the cause of the high Hydraulics starting due to the harness of the gun getting caught on the controls with them both emptying their Clips Hank manages to reload faster when he pause to reload I was able to take an effective shot I left out during the gun fight with the car bouncing we realized that one of them is going to die with this being the first time that we've ever truly seen Hank's life in danger it's just such a great subversion how the cold open made you worry for Walton Jesse's lives when in reality it's Hank we should have been worried about all along when we had no way of knowing that as Hank approaches tuko's body Walt finally recognizes him causing him to freak out and blindly flee before he's seen the episode ends with Hank standing over tuko's body as the hydraulic stop and we hear teo's Bell dinging I love how the Hydraulics of the car represent a heart beating fast with adrenaline then dies down as the firefight's now over with tuko dead it could represent tuko's heart you know not beating anymore but also the adrenaline leaving Hank's Body now that the firefight is over foreign now before we get into the rankings I gotta acknowledge how this show and Better Call Saul brilliantly bleed audio from the end of certain episodes into the credits as I'm just an absolute sucker for this as if the ending wasn't crazy enough as the audio of the final moments bleed into the credits it creates this jaw-dropping feeling as you Ponder what you just saw and what's to come whether the audio is a sound like Hector's Bell or music or even sometimes complete silence I get shivers down my spine whenever I watch this effect take place in this instance episode 202 ends with teo's bell ringing and as the credits start playing the ding warps into something seemingly Sinister causing a sense of dread of what's to come thank you it's almost a shame that while streaming this show Netflix automatically starts playing the next episode instead of allowing you to soak in what you just saw along with dwell on the Sinister credit scene and what it may imply out of all the Breaking Bad credits which change frequently from episode episode in regard to the audio or the song playing this has to be one of my absolute favorites this should come as no surprise but this episode gets an S tier this is one of the best episodes of the show up to this point hands down tuko is an incredibly iconic antagonist of the show which makes it wild to think how he only appears in four episodes as you may know the creators intended on tuko being the main antagonist throughout the entirety of season 2 of Raymond Cruz two goes actor requested to be killed off early due to scheduling difficulties from currently filming a different show at the same time this episode's a complete Banger and will go down as one of my favorite episodes of the show still holding a special place in my heart even though there's so much more to come also in case you're wondering how Hank knew where to find Jesse's car it was through the LoJack GPS anti system built into the Hydraulics which is what Hank was calling about as he left the house of Jesse's mother as he used that to track down Jesse's car which led him straight to tuko season 2 episode 3 bit by a dead beat this episode essentially covers the aftermath of the last episode with Walt needing to come up with an elaborate excuse as to why he went missing along with Jesse needing to clear his name for why his vehicle was at the shack with tuko also as a fun fact the creators came up with episode titles for Breaking Bad from classic movies with this episode's title being a reference to the movie To Have and Have Not episode implies getting potential harm from a person even after they've died which in the context of the show pretty much implies that this is an aftermath episode of Walt and Jesse dealing with the ramifications of the whole tuko Arc so the episode starts with Walton Jesse burying Tico's gun out in the desert and I love it whenever the show films certain shots from seemingly through the ground of what's going on we saw it in 102 when Jesse tries dissolving Emilio in his bathtub then in 103 A1 Walt is cleaning up the mess and we see it again here when they're burying tuko's gun so Walt comes up with a plan to handle their situation and so they hitchhike but get picked up separately and go off to do so this is of course when Walt pretends to have had a Fugue State and solves the idea by undressing completely in a supermarket you can tell that he's dreading having to go through with it simply by the expression on his face right when he's discovered side note funny Easter egg Boo and Walt gets discovered by the grocery store isn't that a pink teddy bear right on the end of the aisle there we see the pink teddy bear pop up various times throughout the season not just during the black and white cold open but during the episodes as well which just continues to elaborate on the uneasy feeling that the black and white cold opens create whenever you notice one also another fun fact about the intro to the episode is that the creators initially intended on having a full scene of Walton Jesse out in the desert planning what to do next as they debate how much Hank and Walt's family knows the critters however completely cut all the dialogue of Walton Jesse debating their plans over the simple fact that they didn't know how much Hank knew or or what Skyler knew plus the creators enjoyed the idea of the cold open simply showing scenes of them walking through the desert without any dialogue to tell a story itself it was actually very difficult for the creators to figure out how Walt was going to come up with such an excuse to explain away's disappearance and they eventually landed on the idea that if a Walt acts crazy enough in regard to having some sort of Amnesia Skyler would simply have to believe it so is Skyler and Junior go to visit Walt in the hospital we get exposition of his Fugue state which includes the fact that he doesn't have permanent Amnesia as he only doesn't remember what happened the previous few days even allowing Walt to pretend to not remember when he came home when Skyler was in the bathtub this Fugue State excuse seems to work like a charm that is until Walt realizes that he won't be able to leave the hospital until the doctors get to the bottom of it he tries to blame all of his prescription pills again another call back to them but even though Skyler agrees with the idea trying to grasp at any explanation she can the doctors don't buy it also Junior informed Walt of how Hank was in a shootout and Walt does an impeccable job of pretending to not already know everything about it as he was there so Marie and Skyler talk over the phone about separate situations that their respective husbands are going through with Hank now being interviewed about the events of the shootout Marie calls Hank indestructible but as we'll soon see he is quite the opposite and is just as human as everyone else this brings us to the second part of Walt's cover-up plan which includes Jesse becoming free of Suspicion from the police since his car was at the crime scene the cops are looking for him so he Stakes out his house with Badger until the cops leave so he can move his lab from his basement into the RV and then have it towed away to safety Badger manages to get his cousin to tow the RV away and my God I hate this character it's nothing against the actor the writing for that matter and is actually the complete opposite the combination of both the great performance from the actor along with the way that the character is written just makes me completely despise him whenever I see him on screen which was purposeful this is why whenever I hate a character in a TV show I almost have to give that or praise for acting so just likable along with you know the creators writing the character that way whenever you hate a character in a TV show it's important to separate the character from the actor and a lot of people don't know how to do that anyways I'm getting sidetracked so since Jesse left his duffel bag of cash in his vehicle when Tico kidnapped him he only has half the payment for Badger's cousin but Badger vouches that Jesse will pay the rest later afterwards Badger breaks to Jesse about how he got him covered since he vouched for him but as we know through skinny Pete and tuko Jesse's friends vouching usually don't seem to go as well as initially expected fun dude tuko's good for it I don't need your punk ass to vote for me anyways Jesse continues to include badger in the cover-up plan which includes Badger purposely snitching on Jesse's location so the DEA can detain him for questioning so Jesse gets picked up at the Crossroad motel with Wendy but neither of them talk with Jesse claiming his car was stolen and Wendy just wants her iconic root beer so you got from a paltuko taco I don't know any taco and I damn sure didn't say anything about no Crystal where's my root beer come on now you want to go back to giving Wendy's Wendy it's you I know you I do find it funny how Wendy recognizes Hank but Hank doesn't even bother trying to explain to gomi why at least not on screen Hank reveals that he's confiscated the duffel bag full of money found in Jesse's car and flaunts the cash in front of Jesse to try to get him to talk under the false promise that he may be able to keep some of the money if he does and this isn't the last time that we'll see Hank try to flaunt confiscated money in front of a suspect to try to get them to talk under the false promise that they might be able to keep some of it but we'll get there when we get there with this being the first time that Jesse and Hank speak face to face some may not remember how significant of a scene this actually is in retrospect considering all the things that come between the two of them in the future also Hank continues the trend of being right right and wrong this time in regard to thinking that Jesse knew who tuko was that he was at the crime scene himself and that he knows who shot tuko except for the fact that Hank doesn't think Jessie had it in him to be the one to shoot tuko himself but back to Walt he tells his psychiatrist that the Fugue state was a alive and gives a handful of reasons as to why he would fake it which reminds me a lot of when Skyler lashed out and vented to Hank about her problems in 201 it's interesting how although the Fugue state was a lie and even though Walt's excuse to the psychiatrist about why he faked the feud state is a lie while it's reasoning to the psychiatrist about it is very much real my 15 year old son has cerebral palsy I am an extremely overqualified high school chemistry teacher I have watched all of my colleagues and Friends surpassed me in every way imaginable and within 18 months I will be dead and you ask why I ran meanwhile Hank brings Jesse what he thinks is his Ace in the Hole Hector who was found in the shack where Hank killed tuko which is what the whole dinging at the end of the last episode was implying although Hector could totally sell Jesse down the river his cartel mentality causes him to refuse to talk to the DEA even if doing so would help bring Justice to tuko's death speaking of which Hector may not consider getting Jesse arrested as true Justice since the salamancas truly believe in Blood for Blood absolutely love how Jesse says how Hector didn't even know what planet he's on but gomi proves that Hector does I mean look at this dude all right he doesn't even know what plan he's living on are we on the planet Mars are we on the planet Saturn are we on the planet Earth anyways this results in a huge Breaking Bad cringe moment as Hector craps his pants while staring at Hank and gomi as an unspoken Fu response to Hank asking him if he wants to help them out as Hector has old cartel roots and will never help the DEA what makes this so funny is the fact that Hector only does this after he proves that he's in a right State of Mind implying that he could talk but that he won't which is just insult to injury so Jesse gets released and asks his dad over the phone if he can pick him up but not only does his dad not want to give him a ride he implies that he doesn't even want to see him anytime in the near future so instead Jesse and Wendy head over to a waffle house so with Jesse released from the DEA and Walt soon to be released from the hospital it appears that Walt's plan worked but it comes with its own problems since Jesse's now broke due to Hank confiscating his money he wants Walt to help him financially but Walt doesn't seem to care instead just selfishly thinking of himself worried if Hank mentioned him at all or not Jesse assures Walt that the DEA doesn't know anything causing Walt to tell Jesse that they need to cook even after everything that's happened so we can cook you still want to cook seriously what's changed Jesse well rhetorically asked Jesse what's changed before hanging up as Walt still needs that 737k to provide for his family and the creators make sure that we realize that this is still Walt's motives as he calculates in the hospital bed how much drugs they have to cook in order for him to acquire that dollar amount now while doing so Walt has an epiphany and remembers that he left all of his cash and Jesse's gun in that diaper box at his house so he somehow sneaks out of the hospital and into his house in order to secure it before his family finds it if they haven't yet already after all the effort that Walt is going through to make this Fugue State excuse it would be all for nothing if Skyler or Junior came across what was truly inside that diaper box after successfully securing it as Walt returns to the hospital we get a quick Montage of him doing so to the cover song Waiting Around to die by the be good tanyas as he Ponders his current Life Choices side note probably pronounced that wrong sorry I absolutely love this song and it's extremely fitting for Walt situation as he'd rather do something with his final days than just wait around to die even if it's something negative being a criminal fun fact this song was actually used during the intros to the fourth and final season at telltale's The Walking Dead games which is why this rang such a hard Bell for me when I re-watched this episode because like wait did I know this song from somewhere and sure enough yeah even though obviously it was in this show first also when Walt gets back to his hospital room he stares at the painting on the wall that depicts a man in a boat paddling away towards a ship while his family waves goodbye this isn't the only time that we see this painting in the show and it implies how Walt is alienating himself from his family which is the emotion that he felt on his way back to the hospital after spying on Skyler and Junior in the kitchen without him side note the way that Walt puts his IV back into his hand is not only incredibly difficult to watch to the point that I don't even think I can show it on YouTube but it's also extremely unrealistic as the needle would have just went straight through his vein oh oh my mother of God back at the DEA office hankery watches footage of the barrel Heist as gomi and him discuss the crystal that they found at the desert Shack where tuko died with this being the first time that they've ever gotten their hands on Blue Sky Hank says how it's the purest their lab has ever seen with the original cook from episode 101 back during the Crazy Eight Arc of being the close second Hank realizes that it's all connected with a simple explanation that he can't figure out to the point that it's making his head hurt again Hank is correct in his assumptions but as the connective tissue here is Walt and Jesse it continues the theme of them being right under Hank's nose especially now more than ever since Hank just questioned Jesse gomi then tricks Hank to leave the office to a surprise party thrown by the whole office as Hank is celebrated for finding and taking out tuko even if it was by wild coincidence they joke about how the custom cake has his big gut right and gomi gives him a present of tuko's Grill encased in a lucite Cube which is a rather morbid trophy as a present and then we see Walt released from the Haas hospital with Junior insisting that he drinks his apple juice showing how much he does care for his father's well-being Hank shows up and Junior instantly asks about the shootout but Hank downplays it instead concerned about Walt's Health Walt apologizes for going missing you due to Hank putting himself in Danger trying to find him but Hank just brushes it off and downplays it focusing on the positives instead of the negatives Hank mentions how his entire office is treating him like some hero and he shows Walton Jr to ghost Grill in case of lucide which clearly bothers Walt All Things Considered but he doesn't say anything and just you know pretends to act oblivious back at home a Walt feels happy to be there but Skyler comes across as cold clearly offended that Waltz is hiding something from him Waltz later tries making light of his whole Fugue state but he puts on his Heisenberg hat while he does so which is odd to me is him joking about going to 7-Eleven naked with the Heisenberg had an implication of how he faked his Fugue state in order to cover up his criminal Heisenberg related activities or am I just overthinking It Anyways as they get into bed the realization of what's truly happened is starting to catch up to Skyler after Walt was found she was initially relieved or ready to believe anything just happy that he's safe and sound but now that some time has passed she's starting to ponder if the Fugue state was real along with the idea of a Walt having a second cell phone if he's lying about having a second cell phone and he has this huge secret then you know maybe you could be lying about the Fugue State as well she confronts him on having a second cell phone but Walt denies it along with deflecting ever remembering the phone call that he got before he disappeared due to his view State whenever Walt lies to his family and or gives them excuses he always acts in a certain naively innocent and oblivious way that could be considered his poker tell in a way he definitely plays that up here in this moment whether Skyler has known him for long enough to notice whenever he acts like it I'm not sure but regardless she doesn't buy his ignorant excuses and the episode ends with her going to sleep without kissing Walt with that being enough for Walter realize that she in fact does not believe him we'll Circle back to this by the Seas season finale and even just a few episodes from now but this is notably one of the first breadcrumbs to set up Skyler learning the truth of all of Walt's lies this episode gets a strong beat here it's a great episode for what it's worth with many subtle moments that I enjoy but nothing crazy outlandish happened like the last episode as 203 is the aftermath of sorts from 202 but even though no one gets shot or killed that's completely okay as this show is a character study down to its core with this episode being a prime example of that which I really enjoy season 2 episode 4 down this episode features Walt and Jesse respectively going through incredibly bad times as we jump back and forth between Jessie struggling being broke with no home while Skyler repeatedly gives Walt the cold shoulder due to him being unable to tell her the truth of what's been going on before we get into any of that though we first get our second cold open black and white Flash Forward this time elaborating on and cementing the fact that it is Walt's pool that the pink teddy bear and it's disconnected eyeball are in without then see the teddy bear get fished out and placed in one of a long line of evidence bags with the final item being glasses that look exactly like Waltz as you may know the black and white season 2 cold opens a drip fetus hints towards the mystery with us getting more clues drip fed to us each time implying that some tragedy has happened at Walt's house and to his family fun fact while starting out the season the creators knew that the teddy bear fell from the sky but it wasn't until down the road while working in season 2 that they cemented the true reasoning so after the intro sequence Walt and Jesse meet up at a convenience store where they plan their next move which in this case is to not move at all after their last phone call where Waltz told Jesse that they'd cook again Jesse's impatient to do so as he's broke after Hank confiscated all of his money Walt convinced Jesse to continue being cook Partners but now that Jessie's ready to Walt's holding back as he needs time for his family to settle down after the whole Fugue state or deal as to now he's not even able to leave the house for more than 20 minutes without them worrying this shows how Walt sees the aftermath of how his family feels and cares about him as an inconvenience implying his potential lack of sympathy for how he made them feel now while not wanting to cook frustrates Jesse's he thought that Walt would straight away considering that he had previously said so over the phone as Jesse needs income to pay for the expenses that he's dealing with since Jesse lost his half share of the money he expects Walt to give him half of his own share effectively leaving them both with a quarter the original amount although Waltz gives Jesse an envelope with 600 to tide him over Walt refuses to have to pay for Jesse's carelessness as he puts it as the money that Walt still has is rightfully his half now as a cop walks into the store Walt stalls Jesse by telling him that they'll settle things later the scene gives multiple examples of Walt still selfishly putting himself first before caring for Jesse as not only will he not help Jesse out by giving him half of his share but we also see Walt's selfishness in the form of Walt quietly demanding that he gets to leave the store first while Jesse has to wait around to leave second with the cop there now as the show goes on we'll see Walt learn to control his selfish urges and instead treat Jesse as it's equal with this episode being somewhat of a big step towards that both Circle back to that by the final scene so we then see Skyler wake up the next morning worried that Walt isn't in bed beside him when reality he's cooking breakfast in the kitchen this further shows what Walt try telling Jesse about in the previous scene in regard to his family constantly worried about him due to being affected by his disappearance with Skyler clearly having formed some sort of Trauma from it as Junior shows up for his obligatory breakfast scene of the episode Walt tries winning them over with breakfast which is one of his quality traits whenever he's in trouble with his family as we tend to see throughout the show Waltz only makes his family meals when he's trying to win them back from upsetting them in some way which seems to be his way of saying sorry without actually being honest about whatever he did to upset them although Skyler is initially impressed with this being one of the first times that he's done so at least on screen the more and more times that he does this throughout the show and especially this episode The more jaded Skyler be Kanza she eventually sees right through the charade here in this scene Skyler is both impressed but slightly suspicious of Walt's caring generosity since while he does the dishes for her he shows interest in her fictional short stories which is one of the only times that we really ever hear about it at this point but he does this to the point that he even offers to go with her to a seminar about how to get her book published as Walt casually brings up an excuse about Skyler previously questioning him over having a second cell phone it becomes clear to her that he's just buttering her up all morning to score some gravy points before throwing this disingenuous excuse at her it's very manipulative of Walt and Skyler realizes this for multiple reasons implied by the camera zooming in on her reaction resulting in her leaving the house by the time Walt finally turns around to look at her since Walt could tell that Skylight didn't previously believe him denying having a second cell phone in bed at the end of the last episode he's clearly anxious about it and so he brings it up as he wants to bury the hatchet by convincing Skyler that he doesn't have a second cell phone when we know that he actually Walt seemingly impatient for Skyler to trust him on this so he tries forcing that on her as he probably thinks that facing the conflict head on by bringing it up himself in order to try and convince her to believe this excuse will solve the problem trying to almost disarm her of the fact but it just makes it worse and makes what he's doing more obvious if Walt didn't have a second cell phone you probably wouldn't have brought it up again so the fact that he is bringing it up while trying to excuse it as a misunderstanding actually further scholar to believe that he is in fact hiding something if Walt would have just made them breakfast and took Skyler to the seminar and left it at that maybe this all would have worked but by bringing up the second cell phone directly he effectively just undid all the gravy points that he just won over whether he thinks that bringing up the second cell phone while acting innocent about it is some sort of reverse psychology I'm not sure but regardless it clearly doesn't work this is because she can tell that Walt is worried about her not believing him and the only reason why he would be so worried about that is if he was actually guilty plus buttering her up first before bringing it up implying is that all this kindness that morning was premeditated as a trick to put her in a good mood leading up to his excuse as I said earlier whenever Waltz lying to Skyler or hiding something from her he always acts in an innocently polite caring and naive way that he wouldn't normally he did this when he lied about so working at the car wash in season one he did so while creating the lie about the Fugue State he does so here with the second cell phone and he will continue to do so time and time again throughout the rest of the show as I'll be sure to point out meanwhile Jessie's brought to a meeting with his parents and their lawyer as they reveal to him that they're selling his aunt's house due to finding his lab in the basement after Hank went and saw his mom while he was still kidnapped by tuko since his parents technically owned the property they're using the threat of his lap to kick him out of the house so they can sell it before the government finds out about it and seizes the entire property fun fact this plot line of Jessie losing his aunt's house was only created because the show creators actually lost the house as a filming location in real life due to the house owner selling it which is why Jesse eventually gets the apartment beside Jane although the creators don't like creating certain plot lines due to in real life conflicts or influences I think it worked out well considering it jump started Jesse's depressing Arc this episode made him more strapped for cash and it also helped Blossom the whole chain Arc along with what happens in season 3 episode 2 in regard to Jesse using Saul against his parents but I'll put a pin in that for now as well of course get more into that in the season 3 tier list anyways Walt's been waiting for Skyler to come home to confront her all day due to his charade that morning clearly not working and we see him contemplating how to do so by first pretending to be casually reading a magazine as if he wasn't waiting for all day before deciding to just stand up and confront her head on as she walks in the door this is undercut by her not giving him the time of day she passive aggressively dismisses him by not telling him where she was to elaborate on what I just said a few moments ago Walt clearly does nice things that he thinks Skyler would want when he feels guilty such as in this scene where he tells her how he fixed the bouncing garage door or telling her that he's going to continue you going to the cancer support group but Skyler isn't fooled by it anymore Walt's advances of kindness fall flat as Skyler gives him Hollow and fake positive responses as she doesn't want to call him out for hiding something just like how he can't admit that he's hiding something himself we then see Jesse's mom wake him out of bed as it's revealed that all of his possessions in the house are being confiscated and taken to storage as Jesse hides his paraphernalia pathetically he tries giving his mom a ton of empty promises to convince her that he's turning his life around but considering her reaction you can tell that she's heard this one too many times and doesn't believe him as much as she wishes that she could Jesse then explains how he earned his aunt's house due to how much he took care of her before she died and even though his mom calls him out for exaggerating Jesse still implies that he did more for his aunt than his mom ever did as her sister of course assuming that Aunt is on the mom's side and not the dad and then the next morning as Walt Cooks another one of his makeup breakfasts he greets Junior's friend Lewis at the door while he strives Lewis to school Lewis politely declines coming in for breakfast when while it gives them the invitation along with revealing that Junior would rather be called by his new nickname Flynn Walt questions Skyler about this with Skyler implying Walt's suspicions to be true that Lewis knows about his view State and how he was found naked in a supermarket which made them bearish Junior to the point that he's now trying to distance his association with Walt by giving himself this new Flynn nickname which obviously insults Walt although Junior now going by Flynn may be a result of the whole Fugue state it doesn't necessarily mean that he doesn't love or respect his father anymore as Skyler says Junior does want his own identity which is part of him growing up fun fact Vince Gilligan is actually a junior himself with his full name being George Vincent Gilligan Jr as a kid his friends called him by his middle name Vince to differentiate himself from his father George senior anyways Skyler's passive aggressiveness continues as she undermines the whole Flynn thing while stating how she already knew about it ignoring the fact that she never informed Walt this may be her implying that if Walt's not going to tell her about stuff then she's not gonna bother telling him stuff either then as Walt invites her for breakfast she states that she's going out without telling him where once again then in order to get him to leave her alone she passive aggressively hints that he should go answer the phone which is hilariously Jesse calling him again which honestly completely validates why Skyler's acting this way towards him as much as Skyler's passive aggressiveness rubbed me the wrong way I do understand how this is really the only way she can think of to get back at Walt for what he's done although Skyler is being petty what Walt has done and still does to her is infinitely worse it's wild how even though Skyler's technically the victim in this since we follow Waltz as the protagonist we're naturally inclined to take his side of the situation even when he's the one in the wrong anyways this marks yet another instance where Jesse tries contacting Walt by calling his house phone even though the very second episode of the show made it clear how that's a bad idea my name is Skyler white yo so Walt freaks out at Jesse over this especially since he told Jesse that they should have no contact while at the convenience store earlier in the episode from Walt's perspective he told Jesse not to contact attacked him at least trying to demand things with his family now not only is Walt failing to do so but Jesse's bothering him by going against what he said and calling him right in the middle of it from Jesse's perspective he's broke being kicked out of his house has no way to acquire any income so he needs to turn to Walt to help as he has no other option although it was wrong for Jesse to call Walt's house directly again to be fair I don't think Walt has gotten a new cell phone yet and his selfishness shines here once more as this results in him having an argument to the point that he hangs up on Jesse as Jesse tries to call back Walt becomes so enraged that he rips his phone out of the wall with Jesse's phone being taken away from him by the movers right after as a parallel which also acts as insult to injury of the whole situation also this scene is where we get yet another memorable and iconic line from Jessie where he says yeah and thanks Daddy Warbucks but that was before my housing situation went completely testicular on me so Jesse tries crashing on an old's friend's house who he used to be in a bandwidth during High School the friend's wife quickly forces him to kick Jesse Out Show who really wears the pants in the family we then see him using a pay phone at the same convenience store as earlier where he's unable to couch surf at any other friend's houses even including Badger skinny Peter combo after taking his anger out on the Payphone he turns the corner to reveal that his bike's been stolen with his hobo friend that we saw from earlier clearly not doing anything to prevent it while acting completely oblivious to the fact that he just watched someone steal it hey someone took your bike man not cool not cool like screw you drunk don't act like you care when he just sat there and let it happen now Grant is not like I expect a random hobo to do something about it but just the way that he's like ah someone stole your bike man not cool while he clearly watched it happen it's just insult to injury also Jesse's bike is the same one that we saw in his garage during season one and the broken bike lock that's left behind is the same bike lock that was used on crazy eight so with nowhere to go Jesse decides to sneak into the private lot we're Badgers cousins keeping the RV however while climbing the fence he ends up falling into the Outhouse on the other side side note what I mentioned in my season one tier list how I was honestly surprised that the guard trapped in the Outhouse during the barrel Heist didn't somehow get knocked over while inside it and that didn't mean that I wanted that Trope to happen but rather I was just surprised that it didn't here however this Trope does happen but in a slightly original way as instead of the Outhouse being knocked over while Jesse's inside it he literally falls through the roof also as Jesse rolls out of the Outhouse I get that he's already covered and he's sad and depressed so he doesn't care but it still bothers me just how long he lays in it and rolls around in it before getting up so just imagine just to Waddle his way over to the RV where he's pretty much completely hit rock bottom circling back to the name of the episode Down as it is a huge Downer to see him like this it just breaks my heart honestly he's so smelly from the Outhouse that he literally needs to put on a gas mask in order to tolerate his own stench which is incredibly depressing and to be honest I'm also surprised that he didn't bother removing his Outhouse covered clothes before entering the RV to sleep for the night but the fact that he doesn't just makes it all that much more sad as I just mentioned he's completely broken by this point that he simply doesn't even care anymore but as kind of a fun fact the creators were initially going to have a German Shepherd find Jesse in the junkyard and essentially trap him inside the RV but they decided against it because it would have been too difficult and expensive to fly out a trained dog to fill the role anyways the next morning we see Walt clearly bothered by how Skyler is going quote out yet again without telling him where to the point that he's now given up trying to make apologetic breakfast Junior's completely oblivious to what's going on as he just wonders where Skyler is along with breakfast of course instead of trying to explain the situation or come up with an excuse Walt decides to take his mind off of things by taking Junior out to do something fun to bond over however Walt's idea of something fun is trying to teach Junior how to drive which turns out to be kind of the exact opposite granted it's probably different for everyone but if you've ever had a parent try to teach you how to drive it's a a Trope that you may find it relatable as sometimes it can be anything but fun so Walt tries to politely correct Junior from using both feet on the pedals both Junior's naivete he doesn't understand how that's improper which is something that new drivers ask when they first try to learn Walt tries forcing Junior to only use one foot which ends badly as he almost crashes the car resulting him hitting over a traffic barrier while it once again bites his lip and instead just gets out of the vehicle to move the berry back which is kind of a comedic scene in itself as we get that long shot of it meanwhile Badger's cousin wakes up and notices the mess that Jesse left behind while breaking in and so he confronts Jesse with a shotgun Assuming he's some thief or random hobo I've said it before and I'll say it again I really don't like this guy and I tread every single scene with him anyways Jesse comes across as a broke junkie with false promises even though we the audience believe him Jesse begs for a break but of course this white trash won't give it to him resulting in Jessie finally reaching his Breaking Point resulting in him sneaking back in in sealing the RV while driving through the gates in order to do so there's a lot of horrible things that have happened to Jesse that's led him to this point in this season so let's have a quick recap by just reading down the list he got kidnapped by tuko almost killed multiple times all of his money was confiscated by the DEA he lost his car he got kicked out of his house by his parents his bike was stolen and none of his friends give him a place to crash he falls into an outhouse and he almost gets his RV taken from him after having a shotgun shoved in his face this is the definition of the hole it can't get any worse cliche as it seems to no matter what things can definitely get much worse for him and they do over and over again meanwhile Skyler's passive aggressiveness has seemingly come to a head as it's worn down wall to the point that he requests to have a talk with her Walt vaguely apologizes for everything but he's still unable to tell her the truth of what's been going on which results in his apology ringing Hollow although Skyler agrees with Walt's sentiment she's still standoffish due to Walt not being entirely truthful here here in the scene we see both of them are at first unable to speak the truth Skyler aches Walton to confess what she's suspicious of without directly accusing him while Walt acts completely oblivious and ignorant to what she's mad about when in reality they both know exactly what's caused this conflict Walt admits that he's not having an affair but still pretends to be oblivious of any wrongdoing which is kind of ironic if he's not having an affair then the alternative must be much worse and it seems that Skyler can tell Walt isn't looking for a way to tell her the truth but is rather essentially looking for a way to trick her into believing that he's not up to something Skyler can tell and is done being so gullible this is where Skyler finally calls Walt out for his desperate breakfast and Hollow apologies demanding to know what's really going on but when he can't tell her she storms out of the house in this show there's four main moments where Walt has the chance to finally come clean to Skyler about everything it is the second instance of this happening paralleling the first instance which was at the end of episode 103 I believe where he told her about his cancer Instead This is an incredibly important scene for the relationship between Walton Skyler and I will be circling back to this by the season 2 finale you don't want to lose contact with me Walt good then tell me now tell you what so as Walt chases Skyler out to her car he notices that Jesse is pulled up to his house with the RV from Walt's perspective he's incredibly angry at Jesse's attempts to reach out after Walt explicitly said no contact First the phone calls to his house and now this literally parking their rolling lab in front of his house as Walt freaks out over Jesse being so stupid Jesse once again brings up how he wants Walt to give him half of his share why are you blue you actually this stupid no look I know this is an optimal come to my house and park on my street driving this vehicle I mean what the hell is wrong with you I'm I'm really asking this results in while it's clarifying how although Jesse had all of his money taken Walt's share is just that his and he isn't obligated to give Jesse half of his share just because Jesse lost his your help there is no your half of the money there is only my all of it do you understand this results in them getting in a hilarious little scuffle due to Jesse snapping from being yelled at by Walt after everything he's been struggling with the past few days this results in Jesse easily overpowering Walt where Walt eggs Jesse on to continue but Jesse stops as he realizes that beating up Walt won't solve his problems or make him feel any better so as Jesse lets Walt go they both lie there showing that they both hit their own respective lowest points of the series so far Jesse has nothing and nowhere to go well Walt has effectively alienated himself from Skyler which is exactly what he was trying to prevent so it is Jesse's fault that he had all of his money in his car for the DEA to confiscate but he couldn't have known that tuko was going to kidnap him right as he was about to skip town with it which Walt recommended you could follow the domino effect of blame all the way back to the very first episode in regard to who is to blame for what but at the end of the day they are partners and should look out for each other so helping out Jesse financially is the least that Walt can do and he eventually realizes this although Walt isn't obligated to give Jesse any of his money this conflict of Jesse requesting it is meant to help Walter learn to care for Jesse and to not be so selfish up to this point in time Walters always put himself in his own problems first as a priority over Jessie or any problems that Jesse may also be dealing with Walt has also been so caught up in his own family drama that he hasn't considered the hardships that Jesse's been going through but finally Walt acknowledges Jesse's situation and decides to give in and help him in his time of need for the third time now I find it interesting how Jesse continues to stay covered in the blue discussing us from the Outhouse for some surprise they didn't crawl the goop quicker than I was surprised that he fell asleep in it and now I'm surprised that Walt even lets him walk around in his house while in it he does say don't touch anything but still now although this may just be done for dramatic effect it still works well in my eyes regardless of my nitpicks as keeping Jesse in that disgusting clothing symbolizes the terrible situation that he's in along with showing how he's in such a horrible place right now that he doesn't even care about his horrible hygiene granted Jesse does wash his hands in the sink but that's just like the tip of the iceberg of the problem after Walt gives Jessie his money Walt asks him if he wants breakfast paralleling his desperate breakfast for Skyler this is a small subtle moment but it speaks volumes in regard to Walt now starting to care more about Jesse along with him genuinely wanting to make Jesse breakfast as a gesture or kindness opposed how Walt was making Skyler breakfast with an ulterior motive due to this although Skyler's unable to appreciate his breakfast at least Jesse will meanwhile the episode ends with a random woman in a parking lot gas station judging Skyler for buying and smoking a cigarette considering she's pregnant but Skyler's so distraught over her conflict with Walt that she doesn't even care and lights the cigarette anyways as the song it's such a pretty world today performed by Nancy Sinatra plays and this also shows how during Skyler's time going out while not telling Walt where she's going she's not actually really doing anything she's just purposely doing this to piss him off while still thinking about it the whole time so she's not even really doing anything to get her mind off of it this episode gets an a tier and I feel like this episode is incredibly underrated this internal conflict between Skyler and Walt is perfectly executed as it's been set up and built throughout the entire series of the show and it's just a major story beat of what will continue to happen for the rest of the show that builds off of this it's a completely natural progression of the wall that gets built up to separate Walt from his family due to his criminal actions with this being just one breaking point of many still to come also Jesse hitting rock bottom is incredibly depressing and it makes you really feel bad bad for him after everything he's been through Jesse wanting Walt to help him financially is also a great inner conflict that helps build their bond by the end of the episode as Walt finally decides to help Jesse even though he technically isn't obligated to Jesse getting his money taken in the first place is also one of many examples of Walt and Jesse taking one step forward but two steps back any time in the show where they make a lot of money or product they always lose it in one way or another and are essentially reset back to step one there's a few more instances even in this season that I can think of this happening so just keep that in mind for now as this show is trying to get across the idea that although it may seem fruitful in the Moment In the End crime doesn't pay season 2 episode 5 breakage this episode starts with a mysterious Flash Forward that'll be answered by the end of the same episode which includes the paperweight of tuko's Grill encased in lucite being found in the lake how'd it end up there stay tuned to find out after the intro sequence we get a very unsettling Montage of wall to add his treatments followed by him talking to his doctor alone without Skyler there as she's still mad at him over well everything his doctor notices Skyler's absence and Walter lies about their relationship being all good even though he can tell that something's up as Walt gets his bill first treatment printed out I like this little detail of Waltz throwing out the Hope pin that the receptionist gives him implying how he doesn't expect to live much longer anyways which we will be discussing more in depth in a few episodes as Walt arrives home he greets Skyler who's stressing out over the hospital bill of Walt's three-day stay from his Fugue state with the bill being at least thirteen thousand dollars as if the treatments weren't enough now there's this bill on top of it too Walt notices the smell of cigarettes on her but she brushes it off while it states how he'll get Gretchen and Elliot to handle it causing Skyler to give him the bill while still purposely feeling distant from him that night Walt counts up his remaining drug money to pay the bills which is quickly running thin after giving Jesse half of it Walt then finds that Skyler flushed a pack of cigarettes down the toilet after unclogging it giving him something to now confront her over meanwhile Hank he gets a promotion to be transferred to El Paso due to his accomplishment of taking out tuko but as we know he's secretly not the total badass that he's shocked up to be he keeps up appearances by pretending to be excited over it just like how he pretended to be hyped over taking down tuko when in reality there's a lot more going on in his head that he's trying to cope with Hank is already suffering from PTSD over his gunfight with tuko and now this promotion is just amplifying it as we can see his panic attack and elevator Hank fears not going to El Paso means that something similar will happen again if not worse due to El Paso having so much cartel activity you can even hear the sound of Jesse's low rider bouncing up and down while Hank has his panic attack I love how this show continues to elaborate on the lasting effects of the whole tuko Arc even episodes after his death unlike other shows though just simply move on Breaking Bad not only emphasizes action scenes and life or death situations due to them being so few and far between but the show also elaborates heavily on how those crazy situations impact the involved characters usually you'd think that maybe one aftermath episode would be enough but events surrounding tuko practically Ripple out throughout the rest of the season whether in regard to Walt Jesse or even Hank with his PTSD causing him to struggle over his new promotion which everyone expects him to be excited about meanwhile now that Jesse has money from Walt he returns to Badger's cousin to pay him back what he owes plus extra for the fence in outhouse Jesse doesn't do this out of just the kindness of his heart however as he uses this good faith to convince the dude to charge him to store the RV in his yard after negotiating that Jesse buys a used ride from the guy which turns out to be his second pick after the first car that he looked at was too expensive a blue El Camino so with Jesse's cheap new ride he goes to check out an apartment to rent which looks like the last option out of all the ones that he thought of where we get the introduction to Jessica Jones or I mean Jane Jesse manages to convince her to rent the place to him even though he can't give any documentation of his income she quickly deduces that he's a drug dealer of some kind and that he's giving her a fake last name but still gives in as she relates to him in regard to being a screw-up disappointment in the eyes of his parents meanwhile we see that Hank has been purposely procrastinating and delaying the inevitable that is his job promotion to El Paso he doesn't want to go so badly that he's fake calling in sick while instead Brewing up a batch of his homemade Schrader brow Hank's fear of going to El Paso has seemingly gone to the point that he doesn't even want to go into work in general as there he'll just be constantly reminded of it while having to pretend to be happy about it and push to go do so when in reality he feels the exact opposite Marie confronts him on this to which he brushes her off during the scene I love the subtle moments that include Hank singing a jingle to his own drink which is actually based off of a legitimate jingle for a drink that Hank clearly took inspiration from along with the anti-climactic Cinematic shots of Marie standing in front of the garage door as it opens and closes also as much as Marie hates her therapist Dave who's supposed to be helping her with her klepto Tendencies she only seems to bring them up here to use Dave's advice against Hank in a passive aggressive manner please don't tell me to relax you know I hate that you said I should Express as Murray leaves Hank's frustration in her confronting him over the reality of this current situation gets to him to the point that he seals a bottle with too much force causing it to break in his hand injuring himself this isn't the only instance of this happening where we see an example of how Hank is improperly doing his hobby showing how even using it as a distraction isn't enough to keep his mind off things which we'll see more of later on we then see Jesse bring the RV out to the desert to meet up with Waltz where they plan to cook for the first time since the whole tuko Fiasco as Jesse arrives Walt appears to be zoned out rubbing his wedding ring which is clearly symbolic of him thinking over his current conflicts with Skyler although working as a criminal has already created a barrier between himself and his family he still continues to do so regardless of the potential isolation it'll cause him to have from his family after completing my first round of treatment and financing the world's most expensive Alibi huh zero zip nothing I've got nothing to show for all of this nothing for my family which as you might remember was the whole damn point even though he's getting positive results from his doctor he's still in the mindset that he'll die soon meaning that he doesn't plan on dealing with any consequences of his actions long term and after everything he's already been through he may be feeling a sort of sunk cost fallacy in order to try and get ahead again after everything that he's lost while it's clearly still plans to cook to provide for his family under the hopes that they won't completely hate him by the end of it so as they begin their cook Jesse wonders why they're even cooking if they have no means to sell what they make whilst naively plans to go back to Jesse's slinging Crystal every night by himself even though he was initially displeased with the amount that Jesse was able to sell by himself in near the end of season one Waltz is willing to cut his losses and deal with a slower income but Jesse refuses to do it himself now due to being profiled by the DEA meaning that he'll be watched closely from now on and can't act as a solo dealer Walt also finds Jesse's stress of paying bills amusing considering while its medical bills are far more expensive however Jesse implies that he's trying to grow up and with that comes responsibilities that he's never had to deal with before here we get another instance of Jesse admitting how they always take one step forward and two steps back in regard to Jesse complaining about how he spent more money than he's made no matter how successful they may feel in a certain instance the new lows always seem to outweigh the old highs in regard to the success of their criminal business Waltz continues to pile onto this idea by lashing out over how after all of his medical bills from treatment and his Fuchs State he has absolutely nothing to show for everything that's happened so far in the series no matter how much Walt is cooked sold and even killed it's been in vain so far as he feels like he's back to square one Walt however refuses to call it quit so since he doesn't want to work with another tuko he assumes that the only way to move forward is to get Jesse to sell dimebaggies one by one Jesse suggests becoming their own tuko which means setting up a structure where they can create a network of Street dealers beneath them to sell their product for them while it feels uncomfortable over bringing more people on board who he doesn't know and therefore may not be able to trust but Jesse uses Walt's own motto against him of being an equal partnership as Jesse reminds Walt that he wanted to handle production while allowing Jesse to handle distribution this is a partnership remember I remember oh I remember that you cook I sell that was the vision of Labor when we started all this and that's exactly how we should have kept it they want to be able to distribute what they produce Walt is gonna have to let Jesse do it his own way which includes hiring foot soldiers for themselves not only does this keep them out of potential danger by putting their dealers on the street instead of themselves if Jesse hires multiple dealers they'll be able to sell way more than Jesse ever could on his own I love how Jesse acknowledges how he was never kidnapped or held at gunpoint before he ever partnered up with Walt recognizing how crazy the events that they've gone through together have been so as we know Walt is incredibly stubborn and egotistical to the point that he has trouble genuinely admitting any wrongdoing at all ever as his apologies are usually only a manipulative tactics with an angle that he's working towards with that in mind Walt actually reluctantly admits to having a difficult learning curve in regard to him previously not having any Street smarts resulting into him being overly ambitious I will admit to a bit of a learning curve oh and perhaps I was overly ambitious now both of these admissions along with the entire scene in general constantly makes me think back to the scene of wall tailing at Jesse to grow some balls in season one which is of course the same scene where Walt gave Jesse a hard time for not making enough money as a solo Street dealer as I've said Walt was clearly uneducated in how criminals operate resulting in him thinking that they can just easily work out a deal with tuko and live happily ever after due to all the horrible experiences that they've dealt with by doing things on Walt's command Jesse puts his foot down by giving Walt the ultimatum of either doing things his way this time or he'll quit this is also one of the only times in the entire Series where Jesse calls Walt by his first name instead of Mr White which has the same energy as a student in a school calling their teacher by their first name or even a kid or teenager calling their parents by their first name for the first time when mad at them instead of just Mom or Dad in any case it's not going to happen that way anymore yeah damn straight no why because we do things my way this time or I walk you need me more than I need watch so Jesse has this plan to introduce a network of Street dealers to work under them but where are they going to find people they can trust this answer of course comes in the form of Jesse's existing friends that we've been slowly introduced to on the side being skinny Pete Badger and combo so as Jesse invites them all over to talk business he first gives them a quick tour of his new apartment in retrospect it's honestly kind of depressing to hear all of Jesse's aspirations to furnish the place considering how he never ends up doing so due to the tragedy of the conclusion of the Jain Arc speaking of which there is one thing that Jesse talks about here that he does end up getting being a big wall-mounted TV as we'll come to see in episodes 207 and 208 Jesse does a convincing job selling his friends on the idea of working for them as a big opportunity with the promise of making fat stacks due to having high quality product along with their being apparently an opening in the market as there is not much competition around Jesse sets out ground rules to never cut or short the product and excites them over the potential of being able to move up the chain the more they sell and the better they do stating how there's always more to sell even plays it safe by organizing blind drops AKA dead drops for them to pick up the product from separating the transaction in a safer way Jesse concludes the meeting by stating dbaa showing how he's already incorporating interactions from Jane into his life as dbaa don't be an a-hole is what Jane had previously said to him in the earlier scene when they first met and in addition to first and last I went two more months dbaa fee non-refundable yeah of course no problem dbaa obviously yeah okay so uh what's what's dbaa don't be an okay dbaa mofos all right apply yourselves Jesse also tells them to apply themselves which may be a callback to Walter writing apply yourself to Jesse's failed chemistry test from back when he was still in high school meanwhile we see another family barbecue at Hank and Marie's as if that wasn't already obvious enough considering all the purple at the table Marie follows Skyler into the kitchen where she's finally able to reluctantly apologize for the whole baby Tiara situation Marie seemed to hope that it'd just go away but Skyler confronts her over the fact that things will never be the same between the two of them like Maria wants them to be unless she confesses what she did out loud and actually apologizes for it although this is a genuinely good scene between the two as you may know I have a bias towards disliking the whole Marie shoplifting Side Stories it doesn't really go anywhere and was mainly created to elaborate on Marie's character by giving her something to do to cause internal conflict it's still good internal conflict especially in the moment but in hindsight it's widely regarded by fans is potentially the least like story arc out of the whole show plus this scene just feels like the Creator's shoehorned it into the episode in order to finally conclude this conflict between Marie and Skyler but it's kind of fun to compare Marie and Skyler's conflict here to the creators wanting to move on from it as a whole in a way the creators just wanted the extended family Dynamic to go back to normal just like Marie wants but if the show were to just totally drop and forget about the TR situation and have things return to normal while as if acting like nothing ever happened it wouldn't feel right just like Maurice failed attempt to deal with it so in order for the show to finally move on from what they created and put the pieces back in their original positions they need to have the resolution that's Skyler so badly wanted anyways even though it's probably my least favorite Side Story out of the entire show aside from maybe Ted Beneke they can still be really important as they're surprisingly a lot to say about them which just goes to show how well Breaking Bad accomplishes being a successful character study with that in mind I'll be saving any further elaborations of this for a potential Marie Skyler full story of retrospective sometime in the undetermined future meanwhile with just the boys still outside of the barbecue Junior continues to hassle Hank about the shootout that he had with tuko which Hank is clearly reluctant to speak about I love how multi-layered the situation is due to the many different angles between these three characters towards the shootout Junior naively wants to learn more about it as he thinks it's cool not understanding the serious ramifications of how it could have potentially affected Hank's mental health negatively Hank reluctant to express how he truly feels just brushes off Junior asking questions then there's Walt who was actually at the shootout and majorly a part of what put all the dominoes in place to fall that caused the situation of course Hank has no idea of Walt's involvement so he just has to uncomfortably stand there while Hank and Junior talk about it similar to the scene a few episodes ago when Waltz was getting released from the hospital however unlike the hospital scene here Walter actually does say something to Hank as he asks a leading question by wondering where criminals like Tico come from in regard to what makes them who they are this is in response to Hank pairing Tuco to a cockroach implying how drug dealers are just Vermin along with stating how you just stomp down on them instinctively as if they are beneath him instead of being equal human beings Walt may have indirectly been offended by this which is what caused him to speak up as he doesn't like Hank implying that all criminals are the same since Walt is a criminal he doesn't think of himself to be at all like tuko and may not like Hank putting all criminals in the same bracket as we followed Walt's story up to this point we've learned of his clear motives and aspirations to do any means necessary to provide for his family which makes me think of Better Call Saul in season three spoilers here in regard to Chuck stating how Jimmy has a way doing the worst things for reasons that seem almost Noble now it's interesting to consider the exact opposite life path that Walt has had compared to tuko as a Salamanca yet they're completely separate paths still eventually LED them to the same point and even intersected to put it lightly this leading question that Walt asked Hank is yet another example of while trying to project his criminal lifestyle into the conversation with Hank to learn his opinions on the matter or potentially even change them to what Waltz believes in regard to being a criminal himself the first main example of this happening is when Walt and Hank shared a cigar in Walt's backyard while speaking of substances being legal or illegal which coincidentally was during Skyler's baby shower when she first opened the Tiara gift so in a way the barbecue at Hanks here in this episode is a direct continuation of both plot threads that we saw during Skyler's baby shower in the season one finale Skyler and Marie talk about the Tiara and then there's Hank and Walt with waltrana sway Hank's opinions on drugs and dealers next up we get a montage of skinny Pete Badger and combo dealing on the street set to the song peanut Fender by Alvin red Tyler which is a very funny song title to compare to the Montage as Jesse's friends are definitely vendors but are selling something a lot worse than peanuts however they're selling in such small amounts at a time that their teeth baggies could be compared to peanuts now continuing the one step forward but two steps back theme although things seem to going well at first they ultimately go south fast with skinny Pete getting mugged at knife Point by a couple of junkies for his drugs also wow I absolutely hate the cackling that comes out of the female junkie's mouth as she celebrates over leading skinny into a trap laughs but even so with the next episode in mind I know better than to call her a skank so Walt meets out with Jesse in the desert once more to split their profits where Walt notices that some is missing Jesse informs Walt of bad news in regard to skinny Pete being mugged brushing it off his breakage which is where the name of the episode comes from this is of course another jesseism kind of like rickyisms and Trailer Park Boys as Jesse's using the word breakage incorrectly with the word that he's truly looking for being shrinkage of course you wouldn't know these terms so it's just another comedic moment of Jesse and misusing turns Jesse explains it as the cost of business and Compares it to having inventory damaged at a store whereas although it's an expense the store still gets a net profit due to the many other successful transactions that they have likewise although Walt and Jesse are only getting 15 KH instead of 16k that's still 15 000 more than they previously had so Jesse thinks they should just cut their losses and accept that they still made a net profit however if we know one thing about Walt it's that he's a stickler for my new details like this and holds a high bar in regard to what's acceptable and what's not the character trait is for for example why Walt only ever wanted to make the purest product possible back when he first started cooking with Jesse at the beginning of the show as he holds what he does to the highest standard Walt always has a way of grasping seemingly insignificant details and making the biggest deal out of them and he does it in such a way where he constantly makes his opinions seem objectively right while belittling anyone who opposes them so due to Walt's pride and his ego he stubbornly oversteps by demanding that Jesse should get retribution for skinny Pete being robbed while it defends this idea over the fact that if Jesse just lets skinny being robbed go word will get out that his crew is ripe for the picking resulting in this happening again and again and it's open season on these clowns you've hired once everyone knows that Jesse Pinkman drug lord can be robbed with impunity Walt doesn't want them to seem like some pushovers and so he even brings up tuko comparing themselves to him which calls back to earlier when Jesse stated how they could become their own tuko we got to be to go you think tuko had breakage I guess it's true he did he broke bones he broke the skull of anybody who tried to rip him off Walt acknowledges how people never messed with tuko due to the violent consequences that would come as a result and so he wants to set the same standards for themselves as well as Walt gets home he finally confronts Skyler over how she's been secretly smoking while pregnant this conversation starts in the form of them using Skyler eating frozen paninis as a metaphor for her smoking apparently they stopped buying them due to it being bad for the baby but Skyler downplays it by reluctantly stating how she gets Cravings once in a while and that's not a big deal we continue to see them throw passive aggressive remarks back and forth at each other in the form of wondering where junior is as Skyler simply States out calling back to how she would leave the house all day without telling Walt where Skyler knows that Junior is out with Lewis but doesn't know exactly what they're doing although Skyler should be more adamant about knowing where their son is going when he goes out she's right about it being equally Walt's responsibility as they're both his parents this could be argued back and forth considering the fact that Walt was out while Junior left meaning that since Skyler was the one home when he left she should have been the one to ask where he was going how however Walt is always out and seemingly always absent so you know it's not an even distribution as far as parenting goes Walt was only out due to meeting up with Jesse so it's Walt's own fault that he was seemingly neglecting his family as he's never home when he should be to help look after Junior so this is another scene where although Skyler is objectively right just such a way of coming across as the nagging passive aggressive wife causing casual audiences to take Walt's side in any argument that they have even though Walt is truly the monster out of the two of them as I said in a recent response to a tweet that compared Skyler from Breaking Bad took him from Better Call Saul it seems like the creators purposely made Kim more likable as they potentially learn from their mistakes of making Skyler so unlikable even though she's usually in the right later that night Hank wakes up in the middle of the night due to hearing what sounds like gunshots going off somewhere in his house so due to a mix of his PTSD from the shootout with tuko along with his instincts as a DEA agent he starts searching his house with a flashlight and a pistol worried that there's an intruder as it turns out all his homemade drinks are just popping due to him previously sealing them too tight earlier in the episode once again showing how unhinged she truly is from tuko to the point that he can't even do his hobby correctly which he was only doing to try and ignore his current life problems also due to this whole situation Hank almost accidentally shoots Marie due to her coming in through the other engines to the garage this false alarm could be compared to episode 201 when Walt searched his house afraid that tuko did something to his family after Walt's confrontation with Skyler about the cigarettes he then goes to Jesse's late the same night to give him back his gun telling him to handle the situation with the implication obviously being violent Walt wants to be known as a crew that shouldn't be messed with but in order to get that message across he wants Jesse to take care of the skinny Pete situation by enacting Vengeance on the junkies who robbed him while insisting that they get revenge slowly edges him one step closer to becoming a tuko figure as he's now okay with ordering violence upon another in order to defend his territory and create a reputation as someone you shouldn't mess with the following morning the episode ends as Hank throws 2 goes Grill into the river once again symbolizing how he doesn't want to be reminded of the shootout after he's clearly been negatively affected by it Hank doesn't feel pride in killing tuko like the appearance that he puts on would suggest and he seemingly hates how that is what's expected of him this episode gets a strong beat here and again feels pretty underrated when it comes to season 2 fans always remember grilled in four days out but episodes like this seem to be forgotten or slept on however while going through episodes like down or breakage and analyzing each scene and how the characters react within them there's many good character-driven moments that really do a good job going in depth on their separate perspectives of each situation all this to say that season 2 gets more hate than it deserves and as I said earlier Breaking Bad is an amazing character study and even though Better Call Saul takes that to the extreme Breaking Bad is still a masterpiece in that regard too also I almost wanted to put this episode in the a tier as well since even some of the weaker episodes of the show are so incredibly strong in comparison to other TV shows as a whole kind of hilarious how I even have a d tier for my Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad retrospective of considering I never put a single Better Call Saul episode in D tier and I honestly I'm unsure if I ever will for Breaking Bad either season 2 episode 6 peekaboo this episode is heavily focused on Jesse as he deals with the junkies that Rob skinny Pete so with that in mind it's kind of fitting how the first scene now retroactively makes me think of El Camino every time I see it due to the fact that I love the El Camino reference of Jesse in this cold open sparing the life of a beetle Jesse is widely regarded as the innocence of the series which gets slowly Stripped Away From Him from episode to episode the further the show goes on in this cold open we see him curiously observing a beetle on the sidewalk to the point that he just lets it Go instead of killing it potentially symbolizing how Jesse's not a killer nor does he want to be after Jesse lets the beetle go skinny Pete walks up and purposely steps on it without a thought clearly unaware of Jessie just sparing it and skinny Pete doing this is similar to the way that Hank compared killing tuko to stomping on a cockroach in the last episode skinny Pete stepping on the beetle could also represent the innocent lost within Jesse due to what's to come in regard to the climax of the episode involving spooge having a close encounter with his precious ATM with spooge potentially being represented as the beetle itself which I guess would make skinny Pete the ATM but enough Beetle talk Jesse's there on the corner of the street to meet up with skinny Pete to get the address of the people who mugged him enough skinny Pete squashing the beetle didn't get a laugh out of you this a lack of ability to spell even the simplest words of Might hey man I'm slinging mad volume and fat stacking benjies you know what I'm saying I can't be all about like spelling and hey here we learned that skinny Pete was actually on probation as he uses this as an excuse to not confront the junkies himself instead asking Jesse if he's up for the task while trying to put on a tough guy act that he still would now in order to Hype himself up Jesse smokes some crystal in his car before approaching the house when he does we get some funny moments from him first including him practicing holding them at gunpoint up now you want to play this huh you know your calls your funeral jacks yet so worked up doing it that he completely forgets that he's in broad daylight that is until a male woman approaches the house just he hides the gun behind his back worried that she saw him with it but in reality she just asked him to move as he's blocking the mailbox they make some awkward small talk until she leaves at which point Jesse realizes that he can't just stand outside in broad daylight waving a gun all day go figure so he instead breaks into the house and enters side note I do really like this interaction between Jesse and the mailwoman comedy aside as it acknowledges the fact that if criminals are doing something illegal in broad daylight someone is bound to notice them usually shows their movies for some reason ignore this fact which makes them seem kind of unrealistic but here Breaking Bad actually acknowledges it even though it's kind of a joke and Jesse just barely doesn't actually get caught so as Jesse enters the house he starts searching it while looking for the junky couple but all he finds is their kid giving us a huge juxtaposition towards the entire situation and altercation that Jesse is about to cause Jesse's High out of his mind and plans on holding two junkies at gunpoint so having a kid thrown into the mix is a huge surprise and is partly what makes this episode so intriguing to watch and memorable as we were hinted at when Jesse was at an old friend's house Jesse has a soft spot for kids and that theme continues here with spooja's kid due to Jesse being the tragic character who loses his innocence throughout the series he seems to be good with kids and has a soft spot for them potentially due to being able to relate to their innocence as well showing how he is a caring person so if no one else home but the seemingly random kid Jesse sits there with him waiting for the kids parents so he can do what he went there for due to this Jesse's High ends up wearing off by the time that they finally do arrive defeating the whole purpose of smoking up in the first place in the meantime Jesse wonders why this kid is watching infomercials on a TV that's old for even 2008 standards so he goes to change the channel quickly realizing how there is only one channel as spooge most likely doesn't pay for cable he then makes the kids some food while probably wondering when the last time he even ate was to State the obvious this kid seems extremely neglected as he looks like he hasn't even had a bath or shower in months considering his living conditions and who he has as parents he's probably been through some horrible things which is most likely why he barely even speaks at all now sometimes it can be difficult to get a good child actor especially for a bit part in a TV show or if they have a lot of dialogue so I think the creators choosing to write this kid to have as little dialogue as possible actually works in their favor in that regard which must have been done on purpose to fit into the episode in such a way where it seems natural due to the kids surroundings meanwhile we see that although Marie apologized to Skyler in the last episode Skyler's still ignoring her calls at least somewhat implying how it'll most likely take time to heal the wound between them Skyler does however pick up for the next phone call immediately after as it's revealed to be Gretchen Schwartz she's apparently calling the house due to not being able to reach Walt on his cell phone as it's been disconnected due to tuko destroying it at the beginning of the season it's interesting how Gretchen calling the house phone due to just now realizing that she can't contact Walt through his cell phone didn't set off any red flags for Skyler as this implies that Gretchen hasn't spoken to wall to all season long longer at least since he was released from the hospital for his Fugue State when Walt had just told Skylight at the beginning of the last episode that he talked to Gretchen and Elliot about covering the hospital bills from his stay there I suppose she can just chalk it up to Walt not having gone around to it yet since it was only a day or two ago but Walt has been getting weekly payments for his treatment so you'd assume how Skyler would think that Walter would have been in contact with them at some point within the last few months anyways although Skyler has had recent problems with Walton regard to trust she currently has no reason to believe that Walt has been lying about Gretchen and Elliot paying his medical expenses so instead of questioning Gretchen or noticing any red flags she instead outpours her gratitude towards her this obviously sets off a red flag for Gretchen herself however as the whole significance of this scene is that she's now realizing that Walt has been lying to his family about her paying for his treatments when reality she hasn't as he denied her offer multiple times so Gretchen innocently asked to come visit Skyler in person as she secretly wants clarification about Walt's lie Walt of course isn't home as this is his first day back working as a chemistry teacher after his Fuchs state where he gets visited by principal Carmen who asks him how he's feeling after class fun fact did you know that even the principal of Walt's School actually has more appearances in the show than tuko I haven't added up the total screen time or anything but five episodes later I still can't get over the fact of how little screen time tuko actually had in the show especially after doing my full story of tuko retrospective recently which you should totally check out I'll have it linked at the end of the video but I digress as we can see in the scene with principal Carmen we're getting hints of Walt potentially being infatuated with her while also getting unintentional mixed signals of her feeling the same towards him when in reality she's just innocently checking in on him as she is a genuinely good person that cares about him but has a friend and fellow employee partly the reason why she may be so concerned for him is due to the fact that she probably knows how he was found naked in a supermarket which we realized has been a rumor spreading around school due to Waltzing a vandalized missing poster of him on his windshield when he goes to drive Junior and himself home I'm unsure if Junior and his friend Lewis told other students or if the information of Walt's disappearance spread some other way I don't know if you know there were any news reports about it or anything but regardless his reputation has now been permanently damaged Walt didn't seem to let it bother him at first but this shows how his criminal life and excuses for it are bleeding into his regular life adding on to the side effects of his Fugue State Alibi but back to Jesse after making the kids some food Jesse tries playing peek-a-boo with him which is obviously with episodes named after but for a bigger reason then this scene initially leads on as we'll Circle back to this by the end of the episode with a much greater significance Jesse then hears the junkies arriving home from quite a ways away due to their constant arguing and bickering which again gives them Insight on what their kid must be dealing with on a daily basis speaking of which Jesse quickly rushes the kid to his room and tells him to stay put as he wants to avoid the kid becoming involved in what's about to happen so as the junkies enter their home they don't even realize that their house has been broken into probably due to how messy it is until Jesse suddenly points a gun at their faces that was another side note as if the woman's cackling in the last episode wasn't bad enough this is 10 times worse as here she starts obnoxiously yelling as some sort of junky human self-alarm system shut up shut up both of you which hits the nail on the head in regard to being extremely annoying meanwhile back to Walt as he drives Junior and himself home it seems that the vandalized missing poster of himself has somewhat pinched a nerve as he tells Junior a hypothetical of them kidnapping the culprits and dragging them out to the desert which I just realized may actually be foreshadowing to episode 208 although Walt is purposely coming across as joking about it to Junior it's interesting to see Gina's reaction to it playing along with it not realizing that Walt is actually capable of such a thing which gives the conversation a dark spin to it as they arrive home Walt notices Gretchen's vehicle in his driveway giving himself a sudden Panic moment as he worries that The Jig Is up viewers may think the same as that's what the previous scene of Gretchen speaking to Skyler over the phone may have implied however as Walt enters the home it's revealed that Gretchen is actually keeping Walt's secret as she never told Skyler the truth about how she has nothing to do with paying for Walt's treatments now though we miss whatever Skyler and Gretchen talked about while alone we get a moment of Junior thinking Gretchen for support supposedly providing for walls treatments which is where Walt realizes that he hasn't been made and that Gretchen is seemingly going along with his lie even though she's pretty uncomfortable so she leaves quickly and even after Walt confronts her outside she says nothing of significance to him implying how she's not impressed with him including her in his lies we then cut back to Jesse interrogating the junkies about where his money and drugs are but spooge instantly tries diverting the conversation into a way out by coming up with the excuse that he might have a concussion from Jessie hitting him over the head when he got home and that he needs to go to the hospital Jesse clearly isn't playing any games as he just hits spooge in the head again demanding that they shut up then after getting them to empty their pockets something that tuko made him do when the roles were reversed since the junkies didn't cough up what they stole they literally pulled drugs out of their asses as they both apparently had hooped a baggy each as if that wasn't gross enough Jess even Picks Them Up granted with his sleeve but still not worth it all can't believe he did that even to check how much was there I mean you can eyeball it right so they clearly didn't do all the drugs that they stole like they claim as they both would have OD'd with that amount spooge blames the woman for having lost it which is pretty ridiculous it's a lot of money and drugs but to be honest I wouldn't put it past them as that just adds to their whole junky person it's it is believable so Jesse continues to threaten them and their kid comes out of his room or his mother shows him more love than she probably has his whole life it's absolutely disgusting how she clearly neglects her child but then pretends to care about him in order to use him as a shield from Jessie actually putting him In Harm's Way a normal caring mother would have told their kid to run away to safety go back to their room leave the house but she does the exact opposite in this clear manipulation tactic to try and save herself by painting herself as a loving mother with a kid plus just the way that she does this while giving the look that she gives Jessie is it just infuriates me smooch then admits that they have all the money that they own plus interest but there's a catch the money is stored inside an ATM that they stole but they need Jesse's help cracking it open as they're unable to figure out how how to do so themselves spooge preaches how stealing the ATM was a victimless crime but as he explains the theft we see a cutaway revealing how they actually murdered a witness at the store that they took it from where do I even begin with this first off apparently the guy that spooge killed for the ATM is the same guy that towed the RV out of the ditch for Walton Jesse at the beginning of episode 102 and I can't tell if spooge is so delusioned that he thinks that stealing the ATM and murdering the civilian in order to do so are two separate crimes who are unrelated or if he truly knows what he did but he's just saying anything he can to get Jesse to not be mad at him and help him regardless this goes to show his lack of remorse for his actions along with General disregard to any harm that he causes others which may have been set up for the audience to not feel so bad for him when the inevitable happens later in this episode with the ATM spooge also says fidc instead of FDIC and also look at what his freaking shirt says I guess he was the true skank after all so they transport the ATM back inside where Jesse becomes increasingly mad at spoon for not being able to open it with his woman even mocking him for stealing multiple in the past but never being able to open any of them as spooge and his woman start bickering again Jesse breaks it up and I love the detail of spooge seemingly winding up a swing with his Sledgehammer to hit Jesse from behind but he's never able to do so as Jesse doesn't keep his back turned to him for long enough Jesse then wonders where their kid is to which the woman responds what are you asking me for again proving how she doesn't give a crap about her kid to the point that she's so oblivious to the fact that uh she's the kid's mother she should know where her son is oh how's that how's their kid not sent to a foster home ages ago Jesse finds the kid back in his room and starts shaking his head in regard to what he must have to put up with this episode is genuinely disturbing and dark for that very reason which makes me incredibly sad to think about how for a lot of kids this probably is a reality so Jesse returns to the mother to reamer out for not taking care of the kid which is a good thing to see I mean it was finally someone said it but instead of smartening up or defending herself she instead tries twisting Jesse's words to possibly seduce him him in order to potentially get herself out of the situation I'm honestly at a loss for words at this point but I'll still throw some at the wall disgusting disgraceful trashy all the above take your pick at this moment Jesse's had enough and I don't blame him so he resorts to trying to break open the ATM by brute force himself meanwhile Walt meets gretching at a restaurant to talk where she admits how she hasn't yet decided whether she's gonna tell Elliot about how Walt has included them in his lies although Waltz tries to sincerely apologize he still doesn't tell her why he lied to his family about where his medical bills are getting paid from this implies to me that Walt isn't sorry for including her in his lies whatsoever and he only apologized in the proper way that he thinks that he should in order to get her off his back and convince her to keep this secret from Elliot and his family Walt then makes this clear as he even states that he doesn't owe her an explanation but only an apology which he's already done and then proceeds to do so two more times while counting them each time as if that makes it any better I don't know you explanation I owe you an apology and I have apologized I am very sorry Gretchen there apologize twice now sorry as it's so insincere and it's a clear sign of someone not actually being sorry but instead just telling someone what they think they want to hear in order to get out of the situation as Gretchen confronts Walt on why he did it he pretty much tells her it's none of her business as he states that he's not obligated to tell her Gretchen argued that she unknowingly became involved with Walt's Lies when he used her in them and that she does deserve an answer I can only imagine how bizarre this must be for Gretchen to offer to pay for Walt's treatment multiple times have her offer denied while Walter lies about how his insurance covers it find out that Walt's been secretly paying for his treatment somehow while lying to his family about how she is and then have Walt deny giving her an explanation for any of it to the point that he essentially tells her to f off yeah pretty much the size of it Gretchen has treated Walt way better than he deserves and even continues to do so after finding out about including her in his lies as she states how her offer to pay for his treatment still stands Gretchen is clearly realizing that the Walt that she knew was dead as she wonders what could have happened to him she says how this isn't Tam and this isn't the way that she remembers him but in reality this is truly Walt Walt's evil side has laid dormant within himself his whole life and is just now starting to come out after his cancer diagnosis with this being the first time that Gretchen has ever seen it she even tried bringing up the past wondering if that's what this is all about but he refuses to admit anything instead accusing her of his slanted opinion that's fueled his resentment towards her for years he then seemingly turns into his Heisenberg Persona as he lets out his rage towards her showing how his criminal Persona and regular life Persona are now bleeding together Walt stares at her with a cold dead expression that she's never seen on his face before and gives her a brutal Fu which understandably causes her to leave as I stated during my Breaking Bad season one tier list retrospective I do plan on eventually getting around to making a full story retrospective of Gretchen and Elliot themselves where I will be getting into their somewhat vague past with Walt but needless to say I am a hundred percent on Gretchen's side of this situation and I wholeheartedly agree with her when she says to Walt I don't even know what to say to you I don't even know where to begin as Walt is absolutely appalling in this scene Walt can't stand being told the honest truth of the situation and he specially hates getting caught in his lies to the point that he's being pushed to reveal the truth without having another excuse to pull out of his ass plus Gretchen stating how she feels sorry for Walt may have also offended him as he takes it as pity and doesn't want it at least that's how he sees it so those two points on topic combining his lifelong resentment towards her causes Walt to snap in this way that's just absolutely disgusting Gretchen is just about the nicest person that Walt has ever met and he still has the audacity to treat her this way I guess she dodged to bullets so to speak kind of wild that I almost feel equal disgust towards Walt in this moment as I have felt towards spooge and his junkie woman all episode long speaking of which returning to Jesse's situation Jesse and spooge have seemingly tired themselves out after swinging at the ATM with a sledgehammer for so long the kid comes into the room again where Jesse wonders if he's hungry he implies that he wants to play peek-a-boo again as Jesse's is most likely given him more attention in one day or really a few hours and his parents have in years but the mother uses this moment to her advantage to knock Jesse out clearly indifferent about committing such violence in front of her own kid or using him as a distraction contrasting how Jesse originally wanted to Shield the kid from the violence earlier we then cut to Jesse waking up as the woman steals his gun and yells at spooge to wake up now that she's gotten the upper hand on him as Jesse passes out again we then cut to Walt back home where Skyler tells him that Gretchen informed her that she's cutting them off and no longer going to provide for Walt's treatment after Skyler told Walt that Gretchen called and that they need to talk about it he assumed that he totally screwed things up and that Gretchen told Skye the truth but to Walt's surprise and to mine she didn't this implies to Walt that even after the horrible way he treated her while completely failing to convince her to keep his secret she still cares about him enough to not spill the beans about the truth to Skyler and cause any more drama however her stating that she's cutting them off is her way of absolving herself from being included in his lies any longer so in a way by telling Skyler that she's cutting them off she's in turn cutting herself off from the current situation as a whole Walt uses this to his advantage and takes the out by using it to spin his own excuse about how Gretchen Elliot won't pay for his treatments any longer he continues to lie about them telling Skyler that they're cutting them off because they're secretly going broke this shows how Walt hasn't learned his lesson whatsoever as he didn't have to face any consequences so he instead decides to dig himself deeper into this Web of Lies in order to talk himself out of it Skyler is initially suspicious of while Walt and Gretchen's suspicious Behavior after Walt came home while Gretchen was visiting her but after Walt explains away how they're broke she mostly believes him this explains Gretchen's odd behavior especially after Skyler showed such gratitude as Skyler now believes that they were most likely already planning to cut them off however she starts instantly chipping away holes in Walt's story in regard to how Gretchen could have just told her that herself and Walt has the audacity to imply that Gretchen's Pride got in the way when in reality we all know that while the one with the huge pride and ego problem how ironic then after Skyler is seemingly convinced she brings up how Gretchen still drives a Bentley but Walt simply chalks it up two appearances as Kyler already almost had him check and made this whole scene shows that regardless of Skyler's current Feud against Walden regard to all the lies in Conflict she still cares deeply about him as we see this moment of her truly worried about how they're gonna handle things together in regard to Walt's treatments from now on however as she realizes the cracks in Walt's explanation she's right back to suspecting that he's lying to her clearly the strength of Walt's excuses rely on how much time he has to create them when it comes to the Fugue State Alibi or visiting his mother as an excuse a few episodes from now whenever Walt has time to premeditate them they're usually almost bulletproof however when he's put on the spot he's still able to come up with somewhat believable excuses even though they prove to be less solid than if he had time to think about them at first as you would expect and regardless it seems that eventually he'll always be caught in his lies so it's just a matter of how long he can prevent that from happening so Jesse wakes up on the floor once more and overhears twiddle Dean twiddledum talking about how instead of doing something with Jesse they just let him lie there while they did some H and then went right back to trying to crack open the safe kind of incredibly stupid but then again why am I not surprised Jesse uses the fact that they don't know he's awake to his advantage to try and grab a weapon but he's unable to move without them noticing so as he lies there pretending to still be asleep he overhears them bickering once more as fuge calls her a skank one too many times whether due to the H running through her veins or if she's just had enough of the domestic abuse or both she's had enough clearly and literally murdered spooge by tipping the ATM machine onto his head killing him jump Jesse tries to stop it but it's too late speaking of her being on H she doesn't even seem to acknowledge what she did or care as she just totally goes to grab the crystal out of spooge's pocket that he had previously denied her and then she goes on the couch to smoke it I suppose the death by ATM could be seen as poetic justice of sorts since spooge murdered someone for the ATM in the first place Jesse does what any rational person would do and starts wiping his fingerprints off of anything he may have touched as he realizes that he's standing in an active crime scene as he wipes the ATM down it suddenly pops open revealing all the money inside now as a side note I guess this is unrealistic because apparently ATMs have like a die pack system in them so if they get broken into or stolen the money gets sprayed so it becomes unusable but I digress so Jesse pockets as much of the cash that he can and continues wiping off his fingerprints from anywhere else that he can think of such as the kitchen where he made the kid food and then he goes to leave however right before he does so he thinks about the kid and decides to enact one more moment of kindness towards him by shielding him from his dad's death in order to do so he goes to the kid in his room and convinces him to play peekaboo one more time this time in order to trick the kid to keep his eyes closed so when Jesse carries him outside he won't see his dead father on the ground under the ATM this is why this episode is truly named peek-a-boo with the rule of thirds coming into play here as this is the third time that the peek-a-boo game is brought up between Jesse and the kid which makes it work so well especially since Jesse is able to convince the kid to keep his eyes covered due to the kid previously wanting to play peek-a-boo again for the second time that it was brought up right before Jesse was knocked out so Jesse brings the kid outside gives him a blanket calls 9-1-1 so the cops will show up and then goes to leave but doubles back wanting to still tell the kid one final farewell and hopefully that he can have a good rest of his life you have a good rest of your life kid this makes the ending just that much more moving and emotional since by averting the kids eyes from spooge's gruesome death he essentially just potentially saved the kid from having an even worse amount of trauma than he probably already does also apparently it's considered unrealistic for cops to arrive to A 9-1-1 call when nothing is actually said but maybe they're already watching this house so when they saw the address they just came instantly this episode gets an S tier it was absolutely jaw-dropping when I first saw it and it still holds up perfectly even after countless re-watches I always get excited when this episode pops up in a binge watch but also dread watching it at the same time the Jessie's story this episode was brilliantly crafted as it takes a deeper look into a soft spot for innocence as I've said at the beginning of the episode breakdown also I really do like how they chose to have the Hulk Gretchen finding out about Walt's lies be the Side Story for the episode too they clearly needed to show Walter doing something on his own while Jesse handled spooge and his woman since Walt and Jesse don't actually meet up this episode and the creators must have known that Gretchen and or Elliot would have found out about Walt's eyes eventually so it was a perfect excuse for them to conclude that plot thread as the B plot also I love the twist of how you think Gretchen's gonna tell Skyler the truth multiple times throughout the episode if not when they first meet in person that after Walt tells her Fu but in both cases she doesn't which just makes the situation that much more tragic on its own due to her reasons why so here's my full rankings for every episode of Breaking Bad up to episode 206 which is about halfway through season 2 which consists of 13 episodes now depending on if you're watching this video attentively you're letting it play as background noise in another tab you may or may not have noticed that although we're nearing the end of the video I've only gone through six out of 13 episodes of the Season you can probably see where I'm headed with this but let me explain myself regardless I'm actually writing this part of the script after finishing the entire script for all 13 episodes but looking at the word count along with how long it's taken me to record my commentary for just the first six episodes I've come to the realization that I'll sadly have to split my season 2 retrospective into two parts just like I did with my Better Call Saul season 6 Retro I originally thought I'd only have to potentially break up the future Breaking Bad season 5 retrospective in half due to the final season having 16 episodes but apparently 13 is still far too much granted season 6 of Better Call Saul had 13 episodes as well with that being the final season and all I figured I just had a lot to talk about as it was the series finale however as it turns out I have a lot to say about breaking bad as well even just for season two this is not only due to the episode count for the season being 13 instead of 10 but also I haven't yet covered Breaking Bad extensively on the channel like I have for Better Call Saul since I covered Better Call Saul since season three started airing I've essentially made hundreds of videos talking up and down about every possible character and plot thread however since this is my first time truly breaking down Breaking Bad in depth on the channel there's a lot I have to say about the show that I never have in a video before so with that said I'm assuming that not only will my Breaking Bad season 2 tier list be split into two parts I also assume that my season's three to five retrospectives will be as well now I know that my season 2 tier list has taken longer than expected to come out output that's probably due to the fact that I scripted out all 13 episodes before I just now decided to split it in half I even created a poll as a community post on my channel asking you well if I should split the season 2 tier list retrospective in half due to the extreme length and at the time recording this about 70 of you who voted seem to agree that making into two parts is the right move for multiple reasons now don't get too disappointed because due to the fact that I already have episodes 207 and 213 scripted out as I've said multiple times now I'll be able to produce and upload part 2 of this season 2 retrospective a lot quicker than it took to release part one for those watching the video down the road I suppose a lot of this doesn't apply to you anymore by the time I have all my future tier lists completed but I felt like it was still worth explaining exactly why I'm splitting the season 2 tier list along with probably future seasons in half so I will be giving my original final thoughts about Breaking Bad season 2 at the end of part two but for now I will say that season 2 is a lot stronger than I remember and I think it gets more Flack than it deserves although each season the show gets better the further it goes seasons one and two are still absolutely brilliant and deserve more recognition I'm a huge fan of the character study aspect of watching these characters evolve or devolve within the Breaking Bad universe and there's a lot here that's worth talking about as you can tell by the length of the video only six episodes in so in the meantime if you require more Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul content to pass the time until part 2 is uploaded I recommend checking out my full story at tuko retrospective that I released not too long ago as that was an extremely fun video to create even if you're viewing this video in the distant future feel free to also check out my full story of retrospective playlist where I plan to create a full retrospective on pretty much every single character in The Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul Universe I currently have one for Mike one for nacho and now one for tuko I have a lot planned in the future for that Series so look out for that too anyways 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 the video and until next time I'll talk to you all later peace out [Laughter] thank you [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: TheVividKiWi

Views: 232,952

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, better call saul, walter white, jesse pinkman, walt and jesse, breaking bad memes, hank, tuco, walt fugue state, breaking bad pink teddy bear, breaking bad grilled, breaking bad peekaboo, breaking bad video essay

Id: I3WEgfTOIog

Length: 135min 48sec (8148 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 14 2023