Peter Fenzel, Shana Mlawski, and John Perich recap Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 12, “Rabid Dog.”
Audio Version
[audio:http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/OtiRecapBreakingBadS05e12/oti-recap-breaking-bad-s05e12.mp3]→ Download The Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 9 Recap
Subscribe for The Latest Recaps
To watch recap videos live or save them for later, follow our Google+ page and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
For audio feeds, you can subscribe to the TV Recap Podcast:
I can’t help but wonder how much they’ll be able to cram in the last four episode considering they have to do a fast forward
and what is the place where walt live?
One of the good things about approaching the end of Breaking Bad is that, from where we are right now in the story, the ending doesn’t have to be that complicated. You could even have the “climactic events” that show which way the show is going to end, for most of the characters if not all of them, happen at the end of next week’s episode.
Everybody who’s still alive is involved directly in what is happening. They could just show up and do the stuff that ends the show.
In other words, it seems unlikely at this point that we’re going to meet Generalissimo Montado, the old commanding officer of Gus Fring, now a paramility drug trafficking enforcer, and watch him roll into ABQ with a dozen armored personnel carriers. All the pieces are on the board.
Probably. Of course Vince Gilligan loves misdirection, so maybe “Damn the torpedoes, Flynn’s a Cylon!”
Perhaps Jesse is going to take to the tubes and accuse Walt on the internet? It seems from the flashforwards that Walt’s secret identity is well and truly out, and I can’t imagine anything more horrific to him than a Heisenburg facebook page with 250,000 likes.
Also, Jesse’s ‘He’s the Devil!’ stood out to me as a reference to The Usual Suspects. Keyser Soze!
He could post it around the school, too. We haven’t gone back to the school in a long time.
The line reminded me — although this is certainly _not_ the reference — of Mike Meyers in the old “Phillip” sketches on Saturday Night Live, where Nicole Kidman taunted him with a candy bar that he couldn’t have because he was hypoglycemic.
“YOU’RE THE DEVIL!!!!”
Some things I noted while watching but that didn’t fit gracefully into the conversation when we recorded:
(1) While Hank sets up the camera, Jesse pokes around Hank’s bookshelf, coming away with a copy of “Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan.” I hesitated to ascribe too much director’s intentionality to this at first, as “Dutch” is a perfectly plausible book for a guy like Hank to own. But then (just this morning) I refreshed my memory on Wikipedia and hoo-boy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch:_A_Memoir_of_Ronald_Reagan
“After the unprecedented success of his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Morris was given the greenlight by the Reagan Administration to write the first authorized biography of a sitting president, granting him behind-the-scenes access never before given to a writer at The White House. Apparently these privileges were of little use: Morris claimed to learn little from his conversations with Reagan and White House staff, or even from the President’s own private diary.
[…]
The biography has caused confusion in that it contains a few characters who never existed and scenes in which they interact with real people. Morris goes so far as to include misleading endnotes about such imaginary characters to thoroughly confuse his reading audience. Elsewhere, scenes are dramatized or completely made up.”
So, this HAS to be relevant to the whole false truth / false reveal theme the show has explored recently. Not even a doubt in my mind. My question, though: did this put the idea in Jesse’s head? If so, what idea?
(2) The conversation between Marie and her therapist reminds me of a refrain the show has touched on in the past: the limits of conventional counseling when confronted with real evil. It’s come up at least twice before: when Skyler talks with a divorce attorney about not wanting Walt to go to prison (early S3; I forget which episodes) and when Jesse tells the 12-step group organizer that he used earlier sessions to recruit new customers (S4E7, “Problem Dog”). In both cases, the standard advice is sound, benevolent, and almost useless in the face of what the recipient is dealing with.
This episode was classic Breaking Bad table setting, and it also provided a nice break in the action, so to speak, after three really intense, propulsive episodes. I am curious now as to when the “end game” begins. Namely, when does Walt become Mr. Lambert? I expect that to encapsulate two episodes, but it may only be one, so, perhaps, we may only have two episodes left for everything to fall apart for Walt.
I’m just glad to see Jesse back in the action. I want to see Lydia again. They made her a cast member this season, but she has only shown up briefly. I presume they have big things planned for her, unless this was all some sort of misdirection.
Speaking of misdirection, kudos to the writer/first time director of this episode Sam Caitlin. I felt very confident that the big, bald gentle man was not there with Walt, but then, as Walt start walking in his direction, they even got me thinking for a second, “Oh man, maybe I was wrong.” Of course, I was not, but the fact the show made me think it was possible for a second was tremendous directing and writing.
Since, last week, I correctly predicted it would be Hank who walked in on Jesse trying to burn Walt’s house down, so now I am above the law and feel confident in all my predictions. Jesse is going to steal a nuclear device and hold Albuquerque hostage! Seriously though, I have no idea what is going to happen, other than it will require Walt to have to flee the city and undertake a whole new identity.
Lastly, I was reading a review of the episode wherein Todd was referred to being Walt’s “third, and worst son.” This is with Jesse and Walter Jr. as his other two “sons.” Usually, when people talk about three sons, they usually turn to The Godfather, but for some reason this struck me as being like The Royal Tenenbaums, with Todd as Owen Wilson’s Eli Cash. He always wanted to be a Tenenbaum/White.
One “Well actually” based on some of the things you guys were saying – I don’t think Walt ever actually has to GO to New Hampshire. His ID is from the Granite State, but he’s definitely not there when the flash forward happens – he’s “a long way from home” and the waitress assumes he’s driving to CA from NH. So it’s probably just a fake ID.
But the foliage, Ben! The foliage!
This all serves to set up the new spin-off show, “Peeping Leaves.”
P.S. – “I love you, Johnny Cakes.” – Walter White Jr.
Also, this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX7nQrCgALM
OK, now for my theory.
1) There hasn’t been a whole lot of either science-Macguyvering this season OR elaborate feint-within-feint maneuvers by anyone yet this season. And based on Walt’s fallen status during the flash forward, that’s coming – and one suspects it’s coming from either Jesse or Hank. Based on Jesse’s cryptic “I have a better plan”, it’s probably him (plus, Gilligan clearly isn’t too impressed with Hank’s skills at this point – it would be a big shift if all of a sudden Hank started pulling Batman-level tricks on Walt)
2) Jesse was wrong about the leather-jacket wearing dude being a Nazi assassin – but he’s not going to STAY wrong about the leather-jacket-wearing-Nazy assassins for long. He has the advantage of knowing about Todd and the Nazis – and knows that that’s where Walt’s muscle comes from. So the guy in the square might have done more than just make him scared to meet Walt – it might have given him a plan.
When he tells Walt “I’m coming at you where you really live”, he KNOWS that that means Walt is coming for him now – and he knows who he’ll enlist to do it. My guess is Jesse’s plan accounts for the Nazi part of the equation. I’m assuming where Walt “really lives” is his family – particularly his children. Jesse is the one person that Vince Gilligan hasn’t compromised for the audience yet – so going after Walt’s children would be exactly the kind of revenge for Brock that Jesse might have in mind (though he probably doesn’t plan on actually hurting them – probably just the threat.)
Because the hardest thing about catching Walt at this point is that he’s out – other than Jesse’s word, they don’t have much. He’s not cooking meth, so they can catch him. The only way to get real evidence against Walt is if he’s back “in.” And that’s exactly what Jesse’s phone call guaranteed would happen.
My prediction: Jesse manages to maneuver Walt into overplaying his hand and exposing himself as Heisenberg, forcing him to go on the run. Walt’s not dumb though, and plans on BB never go according to plan – so in all likelihood, Walt has a chance to kill Jesse before going on the run (or, maybe more likely, has a chance to STOP his Nazi friends from killing Jesse). And Jesse’s bush-jacket that Walt is wearing at the diner suggests that he doesn’t make the right choice.
Hi guys,
Really enjoying the recap so far; I also had to pause and re-watch the “something called Babylon 5” moment.
So as a quick aside, on the topic of “Star Trek vs Babylon 5 solutions:” John, you pointed out that as the former tends to involve “techno-babble, daring-do, and improbably coincidence” the latter tends to involve cutting the Gordian Knot with nuclear weapons (while occasionally jumping into a bottomless abyss, snubbing your eldritch-horror possessed ex-wife, and proclaiming your true love for Rousseau from ‘Lost’ some many light years away, all in one fell swoop. Erm, spoiler alert!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xy-53Xjqxg
“If you go… to To’hajiilee… you will die.”
Hmm . . .
One possibility is that whatever happens to Walt’s house destroys his lottery numbers, and then he goes to the desert and digs around, but can’t find his money.
Since Jesse seems to want to be punished, he could let Hank arrest him and make a full confession that he, Jesse, is Heisenberg. He proves it by providing the full recipe and process for cooking the blue meth. Hank goes on TV and is hailed as a hero for bringing in The Great Heisenberg, the greatest criminal chemist ever!
Walt couldn’t even stand the idea that Gale got the credit. This would drive him nuts.