Peter Fenzel, Shana Mlawski, and John Perich recap Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 9, “Blood Money.”
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If there’s a Walt-Jesse-Other triangle shaping up in this season (a la Walt-Jesse-Gus and Walt-Jesse-Mike), it has to be Hank – he’s already figured out that Walt, not Jesse, made the phone call about Marie being in the hospital, so he clearly knows that Walt and Jesse were partners. At some point, he might realize that Jesse and Walt have fallen out – and Jesse’s allegiance in that battle is definitely in play.
All of that is to say that if anyone is Kirk in this scenario, it’s Hank – he’s the brash, haymaker-throwing protagonist of this Season. The Walt/Spock combination works, but I’m not sure where that leaves Jesse.
And my Star Trek knowledge is woefully inadequate for this discussion, but my sense is that while Spock’s cold logic usually gives him an advantage in the early going, Kirk’s more instinctual brashness usually meant he was the one “winning” at the end.
I would absolutely LOVE to see a season that’s an inversion of Season 4 – where Walt is the role of Gus Fring, seemingly always one step ahead of Hank, until Hank pulls out a brilliant last-minute save that Walt never sees coming (probably with the help of Jesse).
Don’t forget the Todd factor. Todd is still out there, Todd is still crazy and not very smart, and Todd is still linked to a prison gang, any of whom could snitch on a moment’s notice.
Also, I’m looking forward to seeing what happens with Lydia this season. Like the ricin, she’s a Chekov’s gun that hasn’t really fired yet. Like our introduction to her at the diner, the car-rental thing is a hallmark of her character – she’s not a very professional criminal, precisely because she’s so afraid of looking like a criminal. She’s perpetually Walt-setting-a-meeting-in-a-junkyard-with-Tuco.
And we haven’t really seen that come back to bite her or Walt in the ass – yet.
Lydia is easy to underestimate precisely because she doesn’t look like a criminal. But Lydia is involved in some very complex, very hardcore illegal stuff. If she turns out to have a Heisenberg side like Walt always had, and was just always searching for the right vocabulary, things could get ugl(y/ier) fast.
Yeah, I’d be surprised if Lydia didn’t end up killing someone this season, and soon. Probably Skyler. Lydia is the one who knocks.
Lydia ISN’T the one who knocks- she’s the one who hires hitmen to knock FOR her. And those hitmen can’t even tell that Mike is sneaking up behind them, using a toy to distract them.
So really, a stuffed pig is the one who knocks.
I finally was able to get around to the podcast, and just in time for the airing of episode two. I had a backlog of podcasts, and seemingly half of them were talking about Breaking Bad because, evidently, this show is quite popular in critical communities, so I try to mete them out so the Breaking Bad stuff was, well, broken up.
I was going to actually bring up what Ben brought up, whereas, if we presuppose Walt is Spock, that Hank is Kirk. However, in terms of where that leaves Jesse, maybe that leaves him as Chekov. If he wants to beat these two smarter, more dangerous, more powerful people, he has to try and pull one over on them, and it ends up backfiring.
I don’t think this will happen, mind you, and it relies upon putting more into the Star Trek story than is justified, particularly when you look at things big picture and feel like the show probably has to end with Jesse killing Walt for some sort of vengeance.
I am also curious as to what happens with Lydia, if only because I don’t see many chess pieces left standing when this show ends. I could see it being really Hamlet-like, where everybody is dead by the end. Maybe Lydia drowns herself, or gets thee to a nunnery.
Some have posited that, perhaps, Walt hasn’t returned to defend himself, but to save somebody else, presumably Jesse, because I don’t know who else he’d be saving. I imagine that, by that point, Skyler, Flynn, and Holly are long gone in some way, shape, or form.
I actually think teenagers would love to go smoke and drink at the Heisenberg House. I mean, the very fact it is the HEISENBERG HOUSE gives it that edge of rebellion and danger to it that stupid teenagers like. It is a place where like a couple dudes bring their girlfriends and then the girlfriends are scared so they all end up making out or something.
I wonder if the show will keep the breakneck pace of this episode, in terms of getting to things. It feels possible, because Vince Gilligan only has so much time left, and probably has stuff he wants to get to, and clearly doesn’t care about building tension over a long period of time.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, Breaking Bad is a great show.
A couple more things, actually. It is very unlikely Walt has picked up the ricin to commit suicide. The entire point of them wanting to use ricin in the first place is because it takes a few days to work and mimics getting the flu or what have you. That is a terribly inefficient, and unpleasant, way to kill yourself, especially when you are a scientist who could easily think of a better way to do it quickly and painlessly. Also, when you have a gun.
Here’s some of what I recall/know about the ricin cigarette stuff. Walt had Huell pull the cigarette off Jesse because he wanted Jesse to think Walt had poisoned Brock so that Jesse would come by the house to confront Walt, so that Walt could convince Jesse it was Fring. It was the only way to get a conversation with Jesse, even if part of it was with a gun to his head. He then proceeded to pretend like Jesse lost it and then he gets it back to “destroy” it, which of course he doesn’t.
We know that Walt used the Lily of the Valley, both because he had the plant and because he threw it away with all his bomb making stuff. We also know that Walt never met Brock when it went down, because when Walt is at Jesse’s house when Brock and his mom (Emily?) show up (or Walt shows up when they are there, I forget which way it went) Brock does not recognize Walt. I think that information is probably irrelevant and won’t be divulged.